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The beginning of April can be a wonderful time of year. Daytime temperatures finally crawl up to lurk around the freezing point and the short, dark days of winter are fading into memory. The realization that warmer weather lies just around the corner can be likened to awakening from the hibernation incurred by a long and cold winter. Spring is a happy time, a time of renewed activity and new life, a time where green pushes back the white cover of winter to rule the land.

I'd lived all of my life in a climate where cold weather and snow were a general rule for at least six months out of every year. It seemed to be no different here and I smiled when I realized that for the first time in three weeks, I actually felt happy. It was easy to be happy under cloudless skies and the renewed warmth of the sun, especially since matters of food had been solved for the foreseeable future. Sweat was breaking out on my brow and I had shed my jacket and tied it about my waist. Sharra had no such way to rid herself of extra insulation as I did and beside me she was panting up a storm as we toiled to drag the carcass of the deer up the trail that would eventually lead us back to the cabin. Dead weight is a term I've heard used before on many occasions, and I must say that it fit well in this case. Even with the two of us, getting our food back to the cabin was proving to be no easy task.

When you take into account all of the weirdness that had transpired over the last few weeks, I couldn't be completely sure that it actually was the beginning of April. The weather did seem to fit though, and for some strange reason my watch told me that it was the third day of April. Why I would find myself deposited in this world at roughly the same time of year that it was when I left was one of many unanswered questions. I doubted that I'd ever know why things had happened the way they did. I had plenty of time to dwell on such things back in those days, but I was finding that such questions didn't bother me as much as they did during that first difficult week.

Sharra was happy as well, but for different reasons than I. She had happily gobbled down the liver of the deer.

Raw.

How she could stomach something that my imagination told me must taste like a mouthful of warm and soggy iron filings is beyond me. I may have mentioned somewhere before that I'm not exactly the squeamish type but watching someone munch so happily on raw, blood filled liver was enough to turn even my stomach. I can only imagine the look on my face when she offered a chunk of the liver to me in a blood soaked hand. I've never liked liver, even when it's cooked, never mind raw, warm and still dripping. Internal organs are no delicacy to me but apparently they are to Sharra's species.

That brought another thought to mind. I still had that damned deer heart to deal with. Sharra had tucked it back into the chest cavity of the carcass to keep it clean and fresh despite my objections. Apparently there are ancient and important traditions surrounding a person's first kill, and eating of the heart is one of those. Why Sharra thought that any of that should apply to me is a mystery. It's hard to notice that I'm not one of her kind. I shook my head. Maybe she's insane. Maybe I was the one who'd gone over the edge, I just didn't know anymore. I'd heard stories about people having a few screws come loose after spending too much time isolated in the wilderness, but those stories had dealt with humans. I had no idea how a member of Sharra's species would deal with a situation like that. I suspected that it could be something akin to the human experience but I couldn't be sure. After all, as far as I knew, most canine species were social critters. The species that Sharra resembled the most, wolves for example, lived in large social groups and tended to not be all that happy when isolated from social contact for prolonged periods of time. Two years she told me that she'd been out here all by herself; time enough perhaps to erode her sanity. She still wouldn't tell me why she was out here all by herself, but I could see that something bothered her on an emotional level. I heard it in her cries of despair when the nightmares wrenched her to wakefulness in the middle of the night. I saw it in the way she just sat on the porch of the cabin for hours on end, staring out into the trees with vacant eyes. I heard it in her voice whenever I tried to dig into her past. I didn't like to see her suffer like that and I hoped that someday she would feel comfortable enough with me to tell me what had happened in her past that brought her so much pain.

I paused for a moment before sitting down heavily on a convenient log. I could tell by the rubbery feeling in my legs that tomorrow was going to be a painful experience to say the least. There was nothing like having to fight for survival to get a guy back in shape. Never before did I have to work so hard just to get my meals. Sharra keeled over and sprawled on her side in the snow, tongue lolling and looking for all the world like a wolf in need of a cold drink and a nap. In between spurts of panting, she munched on a couple of handfuls of snow in an attempt to cool down. I watched her out of the corner of my eyes for a moment. She was a constant source of mystery to me. There were times when I nearly forgot that she wasn't human. Other times, I was forcefully reminded of the fact that she was unquestionably canine. Neither fully human nor completely canine, she was instead an intriguing blend of the two, something that should have been impossible. It came as quite a surprise to me when I suddenly realized that no longer did she instil fear in me, at least not the mind numbing, muscle paralyzing sort that I experienced during my first few days here. I was still a bit wary of her and her actions, but she was becoming familiar enough that even that wariness was fading into the background. I thought about that for a moment as I watched the high clouds drift slowly overhead. Sometime over the last few weeks, an invisible line had been crossed. Gone now were those early days of fear and uncertainty. What had taken their place I was not quite certain of yet. Curiosity perhaps, there was plenty of that, but maybe also ... Acceptance? I didn't know. It was too early to tell for sure. There was a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, and with any luck, it wouldn't be a train. Hopefully some measure of acceptance of my new life had taken root, but as for what it may grow into, I hadn't a clue.

It took a surprising amount of effort to force myself back to my feet. I could hardly wait to get back to the cabin and collapse into a chair. Sharra was loath to leave the welcome cool of the snow and I didn't blame her. There had to be serious disadvantages to having a thick fur coat once the weather began to warm up. Having you're body cool itself by means of its tongue couldn't be much fun either. I smiled as I reached into the melting snow and formed a loose snowball. I was about to throw it at Sharra when something caught my eye up the trail, something I'd never thought I'd see again. My brow furrowed and the snowball dropped from my fingers, forgotten. Something just barely visible through the tight knit branches of the trees had sparked against the flint of memory.

I moved up the gentle slope towards it. There was a cliff face some distance away, perhaps thirty metres, and the familiarity of what I was seeing there tickled something deep in the back of my brain. I paused for a moment where the ground levelled out somewhat. The trees had thinned out a bit there and the rock wall was only ten metres away. I could clearly see what had triggered my memory now. It was written as plain as day on the face of the cliff for all to see. I shook my head in disbelief. After everything that had happened over the past few weeks, I just couldn't believe what my eyes were revealing to me. This had to be a natural formation, a freak chance of erosion or something like that. The alternative was frankly too disturbing for me to contemplate.

"Hey! Where are you going?" I barely heard Sharra's questioning voice behind me. I was too shocked to reply.

In a haze of disbelief, I stumbled over the jumble of lichen encrusted boulders that lay at the base of the cliff. When at last I stood before the object of my disbelief, my hand went out to the rough surface of the stone. The granite was cool and solid under my fingers, threatening with unquestionable veracity that all was not as it would seem. There was the barest sound of crunching snow from behind me as Sharra moved to stand beside me.

"Is something wrong?" Her voice was quiet, almost worried.

When I finally did answer, my voice was distant and hollow in my ears. "I..., I don't know." I turned my head to meet her eyes. She must have seen something there. Her ears went back and her eyes were wide.

Considering the events that had occurred over the past few weeks of my life, I was getting used to strange stuff happening, but what was laid out before my eyes in infallible stone was very nearly the strangest and most unsettling thing yet.

The stone in front of me was weathered and cracked. Moss and lichen had gained a foothold on the primordial rock and had crawled across the face of the cliff, adding a touch of colour to bland granite. Seemingly as ancient as the eroded stone itself, what had grabbed my attention so completely was something that should be familiar to anyone who has travelled through the mountainous area of the world. My numb fingers traced the outline of a concave depression roughly four centimetres across in the limestone before me. It ran vertically up the cliff for perhaps three metres, a concave groove that looked as if it was once half of a hole that had been bored into the cliff. There was an identical groove in the stone a metre to my right. Another one was a metre to my left, almost overtaken with encroaching lichen. My eyes found others as well and they were spaced out in an even geometric pattern. My fingers moved slowly over the old and pitted scar in the rock. These were the remnants of blasting holes, holes drilled into stone, filled with explosives and then detonated to clear the way for the construction of roads and railways. That was the only thing they could be. I had seen them many times before, albeit as fresh scars in the rock, not as ancient and weathered contusions that seemed almost as old as the stone itself. My hand dropped to my side. This just couldn't be. Roads meant cars. Cars meant civilization and industry, but who's? Human civilization or one forged by Sharra's people? One look at her, she armed with a spear, thick of fur and sharp of teeth, told me that it was a remote possibility at best that her kind was responsible for what I saw written in stone before me. That left only one highly disturbing possibility ...

"You have seen these strange marks in stone before?" Sharra asked quietly. I wondered how much I should tell her. I didn't know if she would understand what I might tell her, and I sincerely doubted that she would believe it. Perhaps it was best to keep my theories to myself for the time being.

"Yes ... I have seen these markings before, but it was a long time ago." More than a lifetime away if I was right ...

Sharra's eyes flicked back and forth between the stone and I. When I didn't volunteer any more information, she sighed and her shoulders sagged just the slightest bit. "We should go retrieve our food. We are not the only hungry creatures in these woods."

With that, she turned and headed back down to where we left the deer. I lingered for a moment longer in front of the unsettling evidence carved in stone before me. I didn't hear the wind that whooshed through the trees or Sharra's footsteps as they receded into the background. There was an amazing clarity to my thoughts at that moment. Was I really standing at the edge of an ancient road allowance, one that was to my eyes so old that it should be impossible? Were I to dig down through the snow at my feet, through the moss and soil beneath, would I find fractured chunks of asphalt or perhaps the iron rails from a long forgotten railway rusted now into ruin and out of memory? I shook my head sadly. Such questions would go unanswered for now. There was heaviness in my heart as I turned away and returned to Sharra. She was waiting patiently for me by the carcass of the deer and didn't question me further about what I had seen on the face of the cliff.

We once again took up our burden and resumed our slow progress back towards the cabin. Not a single word passed between us for the duration of the trip, for we were both lost deep within our thoughts. I remember having to fight the urge to keep looking over my shoulder. My thoughts were troubled as the cliff disappeared behind a wall of trees. For some reason I couldn't shake the feeling that I had just visited some long forgotten monument to past greatness. Sharra's thoughts were her own as we trudged through the melting snow under the warmth of an early April sun.

---

"Are you going to stare at that thing all day or are you going to eat it?" I glanced up to where Sharra was standing in the doorway. "I'm not staring at it, and yes I will eat it, I just have to figure out how. I sure as hell ain't eating this thing raw."

She snickered. "Why not? Heart is best when raw and still warm."

"To you maybe," I looked down at the abomination that sat in the center of the old frying pan on the table in front of me. I poked it with the point of my knife. It skittered wetly across the corroded surface. Yuck. "But I don't eat raw meat, especially the variety that makes up internal organs."

"You are not going to burn it again are you?" Claws clicked on the wooden floor as Sharra walked over to sit down across the table from me.

I smiled at that remark. "The word is 'cook' Sharra. And yes, I'm going to cook it. If I ate this thing raw it would probably make me sick." Just thinking of the texture of raw heart sliding down my throat was enough to make an involuntary shudder run through my body.

Sharra shook her head in disgust and muttered under her breath. "Humans." "Canines." I countered with a smirk. "It's not my fault that you'll eat damn near anything. Do I look like the type that would eat raw internal organs?" I gave her a toothy grin.

Her ears went back so fast that I almost heard them and she was silent for a moment. A vaguely fearful expression flickered briefly across her face. "Not with teeth like that. You would be better off eating plants."

"Plants? Yeah, those can be good too, but not as good as meat that's cooked right."

Sharra looked at me oddly for a moment. "You are strange, furless one."

I leaned back and laughed. "You're just as strange to me furball. I gotta admit, I'm used to dealing with canine types, but those that walk on two legs and talk back to me are a new experience."

Sharra looked at me, curiosity evident in her amber eyes. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but the question went unasked. She pushed her chair back and stood up. "I am going to go and finish cutting up the deer. I could use some help in a few minutes to hang the quarters in the shed."

"Sure, I'll be out in a bit. I want to get this thing cooking before I do anything else. You want me to save you a chunk of this thing?"

She perked up. "Are you sure?"

I laughed. "Trust me Sharra, I'm sure. There is more than enough here for me." Without waiting for her to reply, I took hold of my knife and attempted to saw off a chunk for her. I might as well have been trying to use a plastic knife. The tough meat resisted my attempts to cut it and instead tried to escape. It squirted out from under my fingers, caught the lip of the frying pan and shot up in the air. The frying pan hit the floor with a resounding clang and I scrambled to catch the errant organ. Only by sheer luck did I manage to intercept its flight. Only after a precarious moment of juggling it around hand to hand did I finally manage to get hold on it.

Sharra was standing in the doorway, an expression of shocked amusement written plainly on her features. It took her a moment to find her voice, during which she was doing her damnedest not to break out laughing.

"Do all humans play with their food before they cook it?"

I levelled the point of my knife at her. "Hey! None of that." She froze. Despite my best efforts to hold it off, I couldn't keep a smile from my face. We stared at each other for a few seconds before we both simultaneously broke out laughing.

"Go on Sharra, get the hell out of here before I make any more of a fool of myself. I'll bring you out a piece once I get this thing cooking."

Her exit was abrupt, and despite the now closed door and my woefully inadequate (so Sharra tells me) human hearing, I could hear her laughing almost all the way down to the old shed.

"Way to go John," I mutter to the empty cabin, "Always good at making yourself look like a fool." I shook my head as I tried to pick up where I left off.

I was chuckling as I picked the frying pan from the floor and threw the heart back onto it. Only by dint of extreme effort and another attempted escape by the recalcitrant organ did I manage to saw off a piece to save for Sharra.

I figured that heart wouldn't have been too bad if I'd had some onions, some salt and pepper and maybe even a few mushrooms. I set the pan on the stove. No such luck I thought as I looked at my humble surroundings. This cabin apparently wasn't stocked with a supply of condiments. That was okay if you don't mind bland food, but I was accustomed to a little more flavour in the stuff I ate, and also a little more variety. The meat only diet I'd been on the last few weeks was starting to play some serious hell with my digestive system and I had a ravenous craving for a salad to go with my rather unconventional dinner.

The stove wasn't very warm, not yet anyways, and I'd discovered over the last few weeks that getting the heat just right and keeping it there was a real pain. I dumped the pan with its gory cargo on the top of the stove and bent down to swing the door open. I added a few small pieces of wood. Too much and my dinner will be nothing short of a carbon crisp. I grimaced as I straightened up. There was an amazing lack of strength in my legs now that most of the work was said and done with. I decided that tomorrow would be a good day to stay in bed.

I staggered over to the table and sat down with a thump. I leaned back in my chair and stared at the wall in the manner of those with much on their minds. The heart began to sizzle in the frying pan.

My mind wandered back to the cliff. I'll be damned if those weren't scars from blasting, but they looked so ancient! A frown grew on my face. More pieces of the puzzle. I had no shortage of those, as more seemed to turn up everyday. The small corner of the puzzle that I'd managed to piece together so far was painting a very disquieting picture. I shook off the thoughts that followed that one. Nah... It couldn't be. The laws of physics were supposed to prevent things like that from happening...

My eyes were drawn down to the bloody strip of meat sitting on a tin plate near my elbow. It looked like something I might give to the dog. In this case that was fairly true, but usually the dog wouldn't be trying to convince me to have a bite of it with her.

With a muffled groan I forced myself to my feet. Grabbing my dull, rusty, and nearly useless knife from the table, I made my way over to the slowly cooking heart. I flipped the thing over in the pan and sawed it into irregular chunks. I was going to have to sharpen that damned knife soon, before I inadvertently sawed off a finger or two. I wandered back to the table and stabbed the offending implement point first into the wood. I didn't want to do anything but sit down and rest, but I did promise Sharra that I would help her hang up the rest of the deer. My dinner would be some time in cooking anyways, so now was as good of a time as any. I took Sharra's portion of the heart in my hand and wandered out of the cabin and down towards the old shed, leaving my dinner to simmer on the stove. Hopefully I wouldn't end up burning down the cabin by doing so.

It was an amazingly warm day out for what time of year that I thought it was. The afternoon sun beat down with a welcome warmth and the wind had stilled to barely a whisper. If this kept up, the snow wouldn't be long in melting. However, if this place had weather anything like where I used to live, we could just as easily get a half metre of snow dumped on us tomorrow. I smiled thinly. Got to love living in a climate where snow was not completely out of the question even in July.

That brought to mind another question that had been bugging me. If I really was still on planet Earth, (something I was starting to believe) where exactly was I? I'd like to think that the mountain range I saw in the distance was the Rockies. I'd like to believe that I was near one of the many spots where I used to go camping on the weekends. I'd have really liked to believe such things for they would have been islands of familiarity in an ocean of uncertainty, but I knew it wasn't that simple. All mountain ranges can look remarkably alike. For all I knew I could be somewhere in the Himalayas.

Sharra was sitting down by the shed, her back against the wall. Her grey fur made her blend in against the aged wood remarkably well. Her eyes were closed and she was apparently taking a break and enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun. Her pointed ears tracked my progress. The carcass of the deer lay in the snow nearby. She had been busy. The carcass had been neatly skinned and quartered and all that remained was for the two of us to try and hang the slabs of meat in the shed, a task that I was not looking forward to. I had enough sore muscles already, thank you very much.

Sharra hadn't moved, but for her ears, during my approach. Was she asleep? Maybe all of the work that she'd done today had made her want to take a nap. I doubted it, but still, this was an opportunity for me to have a little fun. I slowed my pace and tried to walk as quietly as I could. That wasn't as easy as it sounded. The wet snow squeaked under the soles of my boots despite my best attempts at silence. Suppressing a large grin I moved in a slow, wide arc that brought me up behind the shed. I moved as slowly as I could, creeping across the sunlit snow and finally entering the cool shade of the tall trees at the edge of the clearing. I crept up to the open door of the shed and paused there for a moment. I gently set the plate down on the snow. Carefully, soundlessly, I eased my head around the corner ...

And saw that Sharra was gone.

Uh oh ...

I could see her footprints leading around the other side of the shed. I didn't even have time to turn around. Something very cold and wet landed on the back of my neck and slid down the back of my shirt.

"Yeeeaaagh!" I jumped forward violently and corkscrewed around. Sharra was a few short paces behind me, laughing openly.

"Got you." She said, a big grin plastered on her muzzle and her tail wagging furiously.

"Do you have any idea how cold that is!?" I exclaimed as I tried to shake the offending snow out of my clothes. I jumped from foot to foot, going through contortions that threatened to crack my spine in an effort to keep the snow as far away from my skin as possible. "Aagg! Wooh! Shit, that's really cold!" Sharra started laughing again.

"Now we are even." She said with a big grin and a wag of her tail.

I grinned back. "Bad wolf. No treat for you." In one fluid motion, I grabbed the plate from the snow and held it out of Sharra's reach.

"Hey!"

"Doesn't that smell good?" I waved the plate in front of her nose. Her eyes narrowed and her ears went back a bit. A part of me was sorely tempted to say: "Sit, lie down ... Stay. Good girl!" But I didn't think that that would be such a good idea. Besides, I doubted that she would understand.

Sharra was quiet. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the plate and me. I could see her black nose working overtime.

I was starting to wonder if I should have been teasing her like that. I may have had the advantage over her when it came to size and strength, but she could run a whole lot faster than I could and she had a rather sharp looking set of teeth. I was just about to back down when her annoyed expression turned thoughtful, and a mischievous grin slowly spread across her muzzle. She took a slow step towards me, head bent down, ears up and tail straight out behind her. I took a hurried step back. She took another slow and careful step in my direction.

She was ... Stalking ... Me. Boy oh boy, what had I gotten myself into? I sure hoped she was just kidding around!

I took another couple of quick steps backwards. Sharra froze. So did I. Just when I was starting to get really worried, I noticed that the tip of her tail was wagging gently from side to side. There was a playful sparkle in her eyes that told me that I was in for it. I swallowed nervously. We held each other's gaze for a few short seconds, me standing rigid as a statue and Sharra looking not unlike a hunting dog frozen in a point. I saw her eyes flick over to the plate perched in my hand. I grinned toothily. So it was playtime was it? Aw hell, I might as well make this game a little more interesting even though I knew I'd lost the game before it had even begun.

I tossed the plate at Sharra and went from zero to flat out as fast as my aching legs could propel me. I knew I wasn't anywhere near fast enough to outrun Sharra, but perhaps if I could make it back up to the cabin ... Wait, who was I kidding? I knew I wouldn't make it, but I had to try at the very least. Running full throttle through nearly a foot of melting snow was not an easy task.

I hazarded a look over my shoulder. Sharra was coming up behind me fast, a determined, but happy expression on her wolfish face and I wasn't even halfway back to the cabin yet. Time for evasive manoeuvres. I cut a sharp right turn, slipping and sliding in the greasy snow. With her greater speed she didn't follow my turn so easily and fell to one knee and skidded through the snow behind me. In a flash, she was back on her feet and running hard again. The short amount of distance that I had gained was eaten up in a hurry. I swerved back towards the cabin again. I could hear Sharra close behind me. My legs felt like lead and my heart was pounding. I didn't think I could keep running for much longer. With little else to do, I tried a desperate move, throwing myself on my side in the snow and trying to roll out of Sharra's path. Surprisingly it worked. She must not have expected me to do something like that. She overshot me, tripped, and went sliding on her chin through the snow.

"Some hunter you are!" I said, choking on laughter. "You can't even chase down a tired and slow human!" I forced my aching body to a sitting position. I could feel the wet snow seeping its way through my jeans.

Sharra pushed herself up from the snow and glared at me. Snow clung to her face. I started laughing again. "You were lucky." She said with a grin. "If I were not so tired myself I would have caught you for sure." She pushed herself into a crouch. "I still can you know."

In a flash she was upon me and before I realized what had happened, I found myself flat on my back, with Sharra sitting on my chest. She was panting heavily. "Got you." She said with a laugh. I opened my mouth to say something but I couldn't find any words. Looking up at Sharra, her furry face framed by the cobalt sky, the afternoon sun throwing a soft golden light against the tall trees, something stirred deep within me. My vision went all fuzzy and I felt like I was falling. Despite the fact that I was lying flat on my back in the snow with nothing but a sweatshirt and jeans to protect me from the cold, I found myself enveloped in a comfortable warmth. All of my thoughts and troubles receded into the distance, and my mind relaxed and drifted aimlessly in a sea of warm light. Slowly I became aware of another presence sharing this same ocean of contentment, a familiar presence, one that I felt I've always known ...

A roaring and ringing built in my ears, and the world reappeared with a 'pop'. Sharra was staring down at me, confusion readily apparent on her face. We held each others gaze for a moment. I opened my mouth to say something but she put gentle fingers against my lips and shook her head. The look of confusion disappeared and warmth grew in her amber eyes. A gentle smile sprung to life on her muzzle. I could feel her tail swishing gently against my legs. She bent down and gave me a quick lick on the cheek.

I was momentarily stunned. My hand went to my cheek. "What was that for?" I asked quietly.

She smiled. "For being a friend, and for bringing some fun back into my life." I was about to ask her what the hell had just happened but her head snapped up and she started sniffing intently. She looked back down at me after a moment with a sort of half smile on her face. "I think your dinner is burning again."

"Aw crap! I forgot about that." I tried to get up, but Sharra didn't seem to want to get off of my chest.

"You know, it would make things a lot easier if you would let me up."

"Do I have to? You are nice and warm."

"Maybe so, but the snow that's melting through my clothes isn't." With a brief snicker, she slid off of me and stood up to stretch.

"I do not know how you can live without fur." She shook her head.

For some reason I hardly had the energy to get back up on my feet. "I don't know how you can live with that coat of fur you have. Seems to me like it needs a lot of maintenance." With a grunt of effort I finally managed a standing position. I was going to sleep very well tonight.

"It is better than freezing to death."

"Is it? Just wait until summer and we'll see who has the advantage." I grinned at her. The faint smell of burning meat reached my nose. "Uh... I better go and grab that before the cabin burns down." I jogged back to the cabin, doing my best to ignore the chill from my soaked clothes and my nearly overwhelming fatigue. Behind me, I completely missed the look of concerned thoughtfulness on Sharra's face. She took a couple of steps towards the shed, stopped and turned to stare back at the cabin. Her ears were perked and her head was cocked to the side. She shook her head a few times and then returned to the shed. By the time I rescued my dinner, it was a little too well done. Still edible certainly, but tough, chewy and coated with a crunchy layer of carbon on one side. Surprisingly, it tasted just like any other burnt meat I've ever eaten.

Burnt.