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What can I say about the aftermath of our horrifying encounter with the grizzly? Even now, when such things are years in the past, it's very hard for me to find a place to begin. I could start by saying that in the weeks afterwards there were times that I fervently wished that the bear had killed Sharra and I, such were the difficulties that we faced. Yet despite the times that we came perilously close to "Walking the Twilight Trail" as Sharra's people, the Tokran, say about the journey that takes place between this life and the next one, it was also a time of learning and discovery as the link between us strengthened and deepened.

When I finally regained consciousness, it was dark inside the cabin and my world was a fractured kaleidoscope of pain and disorientation. It took me a few moments to figure out why I was lying face down on the floor and why I hurt so much. I recall that there was a distinctly chilly bite to the air; the fire in the stove having long since gone extinct. Though the interior of the cabin was clothed in darkness I was barely able to discern the still form of Sharra lying beside me. The sound of her slow and regular breathing reached my ears and I felt some of my confusion wash away. I forced myself into a sitting position, a manoeuvre that brought with it no small amount of pain. I shivered as I felt the cold air bite into my exposed flesh and I wondered how long I had been asleep. I wrapped my arms around my chest and looked around for my jacket. I didn't see it anywhere and I couldn't remember where I had last seen it. I sat quietly for a minute, thinking, shivering, and trying to ignore my aches and pains. I had to get up and revive the fire and I really did not want to. Eventually I sighed and clambered stiffly to my feet.

The transition from sitting to standing made the previous effort of sitting up seem effortless. Everything hurt. Literally every single body part I had complained in one way or another. Even my hair seemed to hurt. Any motion, no matter how small, brought with it pain ranging from mild discomfort all the way to jaw clenching agony. I soon began to think that remaining in a prone position for another day or two would have been a good idea.

It didn't take long for me to discover that my right hand was nearly useless. It ached abominably and each beat of my heart sent a spike of white hot pain racing up my arm. I could barely move my fingers without screaming. My leg was little better. It was unbelievably stiff and kept wanting to buckle as I stumbled towards the stove. It took the assistance of the table and a handy chair to prevent myself from collapsing into a heap from which I would probably not have gotten up from anytime soon. At length, I dragged the chair with me towards the stove and pushed it right in front of the old cast iron behemoth.

I knew something was wrong as soon as my hand made contact with the door of the stove. It was stone cold. My heart jumped up in my throat and I swung the door wide open. I thrust my hand inside the cavernous interior and held it over the ashes. There wasn't even one iota of heat left. I leaned back in the chair and regarded the old stove sullenly. How long had I been asleep anyways? I muttered a curse and ground my teeth for a moment. Murphy's Law still appeared to rule, even in this world. Bringing the fire back to life wasn't going to be an easy task. I knew that Sharra had a flint and steel around here somewhere but the energy to get up and search for it was severely lacking. I stared morosely at the stove for several minutes, trying to figure out what I should do. My brain wanted more sleep and my body wanted warmth. The rest of me settled for not moving around much. Sharra slept quietly behind me as I contemplated the dead stove. Good thing it was May and not January otherwise I would probably have frozen to death sitting there, staring at the stove.

My pain kept me company.

I eventually did force myself back to my feet and I can say that it wasn't a very enjoyable experience. Pain has never really been a friend of mine. I stumbled around in the gloom, looking for my sweatshirt and my jacket. The jacket I found lying behind the woodpile and I gratefully picked it from the floor and threw it around my shoulders. I didn't see my sweatshirt around anywhere. I shrugged and made my way to the door of the cabin. I'd find it when the sun came up.

It was just as cool outside as it had been inside. A smattering of stars dusted the sky above and the mountains stood out in sharp relief against a faint glow that still lingered on the horizon. Such was my state of mind that it took me a moment to realize that the twilight glow was on the wrong horizon. I must have slept right through night and the whole day too. I raised an eyebrow. I must have really needed the rest. The crazy thing was that at the moment I felt like I could do with more. I collapsed at the edge of the porch and stared emptily at the dying sunset for a couple of minutes.

I couldn't think of what I was going to do. There were so many things that needed to be done but I had so little energy to do them. I had to get the fire going again, I had to make sure that Sharra was going to live through the day, and I had to something about the two big piles of hide wrapped meat that lay in the grass a few paces away from the edge of the porch.

I forced my protesting body into a vertical position and limped back into the cabin. I would check on Sharra first and then get the fire going. I was very hungry and I didn't feel like eating raw meat.

Sharra was still sleeping quietly when I painfully knelt down beside her. Her bandages were dry and I couldn't see any fresh blood on the cloth in the dim light or much of anything else for that matter. She still lay in the same place and in the same position. Had she not even woken up once during the time when I was asleep? I frowned at that and wondered if there was something wrong with her. I reached out for her wrist and checked her pulse. The thrum of her heart was strong and steady, if a little slow. I briefly thought about waking her up but I decided that I'd let her sleep some more. She needed to rest to help her body regain its strength so that she would have a chance at fighting the infections that even now I was worried were growing in her wounds. I gave her a quick scratch about the ears and let her rest. Chances were that I'd be making enough noise to rouse her soon enough as it was.

It took an unbelievable amount of effort to pry myself off of the floor and set about the task of starting a fire. In my battered condition the search for Sharra's flint and steel may as well have been a marathon. I eventually did find those welcome tools half hidden behind a large pot on the shelf by the door and was able to breathe a sigh of relief. I set them on the table and began to pick through the woodpile. I chose the driest piece of wood that I could find and clumsily hacked away at it with my knife for several minutes in an attempt to get some nice dry shavings. Not a fun job in the dark, let me tell you. After I nearly took off the tip of a finger I gave up and stumbled outside, hoping that I'd be able to find some dry grass or birch bark before the night completely closed in.

I managed to get a handful of dry grass and a few dry twigs from a spruce tree before it got dark enough that I couldn't see what I was doing. Hopefully it would be what I needed to catch a spark and transform it into welcome flame. Fumbling blindly in the dark, I managed to make a small nest out of the grass and twigs. Ever mindful of my fingers, I spent a few more minutes carefully carving a chunk of wood into the smallest shavings I could manage with my knife clenched in my horribly clumsy left hand. It was agonizing work.

When at last I thought I had a suitable fire bundle, I picked up the chunk of flint and piece of steel and took a deep breath. I'd watched Sharra start fires in this manner several times but I'd never attempted it myself. I really hoped it would work for me. If it didn't, I had no idea how I would get the fire going. I clenched the chunk of flint in my left hand and the piece of steel I held awkwardly poised in my right. I clenched my teeth. There was no doubt in my mind that this was going to hurt.

I swung the steel and the darkness around me exploded in a flash of light. Sparks flew, leaving purple streaks dancing before my eyes in the darkness. Pain flashed up my arm and I almost screamed. Bright spots invaded my vision for a moment and I swore as the pain slowly receded. I dropped the flint and steel and groped for my fire bundle. I eyed it carefully. There was nothing, no embers, no smoke, nothing. I sighed and put it back on the floor. I picked up the flint and steel again. This was not going to be fun.

Every blow of steel upon flint felt like the stroke of a hammer against the back of my right hand. It was not long before that right hand cramped up in agony and I could hardly grip the steel. Tears of pain and frustration grew in the corners of my eyes with every swing of the steel that produced nothing but sparks.

I don't remember how long it took, but it seemed like an hour before the first signs of dull, red life grew in the tinder pile. I threw down the flint and steel and hurriedly picked up the bundle. I blew on it gently, hoping beyond hope that the tiny wisp of smoke that rose to sting my eyes from the nest of grass, twigs, and wood shavings would erupt into flame. When it finally did start burning in earnest, I let out a whoop of joy and did a bit of a gimped up happy dance around the stove while holding a bundle of burning tinder in my hands. I'm surprised I didn't burn the cabin down. The tinder began burning real fast and I almost added burns to my list of injuries before I managed to throw the fire bundle into the stove. From there it was a simple matter of adding wood until the fire was crackling away merrily. I sat back and relaxed for a few minutes once the fire was burning steadily. As blissful heat began to radiate off that old lump of cast iron and washed over my battered frame, my aches and pains faded somewhat and the future suddenly seemed a little less bleak.

It didn't take long for the cabin to begin to warm up. I used a burning twig to light the oil lamp so I could see what I was doing. The first thing I did was make a closer inspection of Sharra. I found it strange that she was still sleeping. I thought for sure that all of the noise that I had made while starting the fire would have woken her up. Her breathing was slow and regular and her pulse was still slow and steady and I really began to wonder. Was she in some sort of coma? Or did her species have some kind of weird reaction to being injured that made them go into some sort of hibernation while their injuries healed? I didn't have a clue. All I could do was check her injuries now that I had some light to see by. What I saw looked fairly good. There was no new bleeding and no signs of infection yet, but then again it had been barely more than a day since the attack by the bear. I sat back and thought for a moment. I hoped she'd wake up soon. She needed to get some fluids into her to replace the blood that she had lost or she was going to risk getting dehydrated. There was nothing I could do until she woke up so I painfully limped my way back out onto the porch, quietly closing the door behind me.

It was completely dark out, and the stars were out in unreal brilliance. The moon had yet to rise above the horizon and there was hardly a breath of wind stirring the night air. The silence that surrounded me was of unbelievable depth and I stared up at the stars for a long, long time, wondering if they were the same ones that I used to look at back in my old life. I didn't see any recognizable constellations, something that didn't really surprise me after everything else that had happened over the last weeks, but the familiar swath of the Milky Way still arched overhead. Yet another piece of the puzzle. I knew that it would take a very long time for stellar drift to distort the constellations into unrecognizable shapes. Being on a planet many light years away from my home was another possibility that could account for the alien sky, but that explanation didn't feel right. This world that I found myself stranded on was far too earth-like to be anything but Earth. The plants and animals were the same as the ones I remembered from before I arrived here and the moon even looked the same. The only things different were the total and complete lack of humans and the rather unsettling existence of Sharra. I shook my head and sighed. Why I had ended up here on this world was just as much of a mystery as ever. I tilted my head back up to the stars and wondered if I would ever know the reasons why I had been dumped here.

The temperature had dropped considerably in the short time I had sat out on the porch and I felt the cold begin to seep through my clothes. I stood up with a groan and stumbled slightly as my leg complained about the sudden change of position. I was about to go back inside the cabin when I remembered that I had to do something about all the meat I had dragged back the day before. I thought about that for a minute. The night felt like it was going to be fairly cool which hopefully would keep the meat from going bad for at least another day or two. I knew that I really should have dragged the two hide wrapped piles of meat into the shed but I doubted that I had the necessary strength and energy required to do that. I didn't really want to leave the meat outside for another night either. I had already been fortunate that no hungry scavengers had found our precious stores of food and I doubted that my luck would hold out for another night. I pondered for several minutes what I should do. As much as I didn't want to leave Sharra alone in the cabin it would have been an absolute disaster if scavengers spoiled our hard earned food while we slept in the cabin.

There was only one option, it seemed. I ended up bringing the fire outside.

I brought the oil lamp out to the edge of the porch to give me a little light to see by. I picked a spot a beside the two hide wrapped piles of meat and cleared the grass and twigs away until I hit bare dirt. I intended to keep the fire small. Although the forest was green and fairly wet this time of year, there was less chance of me starting the scenery on fire that way. Besides, every trip into the cabin to get dry wood was going to cost me a considerable amount in pain and I wanted to keep any strenuous efforts to a minimum. Four arduous, borderline traumatic trips later I figured that I had enough wood to last me for at least a few hours. I stacked it up against the edged of the porch. Sharra still hadn't woken up even though I had made a considerable amount of noise digging through the woodpile inside. I was beginning to wonder if she would ever wake up but I pushed that thought away and set about making a pile of dry tinder in the center of my small fire pit. The old lamp provided barely enough light for me to see what I was doing. When the tinder was ready to be lit I returned to the cabin and opened the door of the stove. I lit the end of a small, dry branch and hurried outside. The flame went out just as I got through the door of the cabin. I swore and went back inside. I lit the twig again and this time made sure it was burning really well before I went back outside. It almost went out again but I managed to get the pile of tinder lit before the twig burned out. The fire crackled to life and soon cast a small yet welcome circle of light and warmth around me. I stiffly shifted positions on the ground and leaned back, trying to relax.

I spent the rest of the night out there, trying to make myself as comfortable as possible on the hard ground. The hours seemed to barely trickle by and the night became a monotony of tending the small fire. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't move without some part of me complaining and giving me pain. I listened to the nighttime sounds of the forest as the stars slowly turned an endless circle overhead. I heard what I thought was an owl hooting somewhere deep in the forest and for a brief moment a pack of wolves broke the monotony of the night with an eerily beautiful chorus of howling from somewhere in the depths of the valley. A smile came to my face when I heard them and my thoughts drifted to Sharra. I wondered if her kind howled like that, be it in some ancient rituals or perhaps just for the joy of it. If her species had really evolved from wolves, they probably did sing to the skies on some occasions. I leaned back and stared up at the stars. That would be something I'd love to hear. I had no doubt that Sharra's people would be wonderful singers.

Time slowly dragged on and I found myself almost hypnotized by the fire. There is a mesmerizing quality to the constantly shifting flames and glowing embers that can capture one's mind and hold it in suspended animation for long minutes. I don't know how long I just sat there and stared at the dancing flames but a strange sensation suddenly invaded my minds and pushed the cobwebs away. I blinked rapidly and glanced around. Nothing appeared to have changed. The stars still glittered overhead and the forest still enveloped the clearing in a cocoon of silence. Bushes and tall grass flickered in and out of the depths of the night at the edges of the circle light cast by the fire. Smoke obscured a few of the twinkling stars. I shook the feeling away and added more wood to the fire.

I awkwardly stretched out on my back on the soft ground, put my good hand behind my head and stared upwards into the night sky. A bright meteor flashed among the stars, leaving a trail that lingered in my vision for a second or two. I let my eyes rove around the alien star patterns and blinked lazily a few times. I was just on the verge of sleep when I saw something that brought me fully awake.

At first I thought it was another meteor, but I soon realized it was something else entirely. It was a hard pinpoint of light, and it moved slowly and steadily across the sky. Its path was arrow straight as it passed directly overhead and it wavered slightly in intensity as it crawled across the sky. It was more familiar to me than all of those alien stars combined. I felt a frown grow on my face as I watched that pinprick of light suddenly fade out of existence as it sank towards the western horizon. What was it up there in orbit that had reflected the sun's light with metallic efficiency before falling into the shadow of the planet below it? A piece of space junk? Or perhaps the corpse of an ancient satellite condemned to orbit the planet for eternity in a delicate dance of orbital velocity against gravitational forces, a relic from a time when things were much different on the world below. I doubted that I'd ever know for sure what the object was and I did my best to try and ignore what I had just seen. Sure, it was another clue as to where I had ended up, but I was pretty sure I had already figured that out. I was starting to realize that I had more important things to do than worry about what had happened to me on that day nearly three months ago. The why of my whole situation still irked me but there was little I could do to shed light on that subject. I had begun to concentrate on that problem less and less and more on adapting to the new life I found myself having to live. I figured that the answers to my questions, if there were any to be found on this world, would show themselves at one time or another without me constantly worrying over them. Even if they didn't, it wasn't like not knowing the circumstances behind my appearance on this world would be overly troubling to me. Sometimes I thought that it might be for the better if I didn't know the reasons, if any, that were behind my relocation. Knowing would probably only have confused me further and added to my already considerable number of problems. I had more than enough of those already.

For a long, long, time I stared emptily into the depths of the universe, contemplating the wonders that lay out there. The stars slowly turned above me as the night wore on. A quarter moon crawled above the trees to the east and bathed the forest in a ghostly light. Something rustled in the bushes at the edge of the clearing, the muffled crackling of branches and rustling of leaves fading into stillness after an anxious moment. I must have drifted off to sleep shortly after that.

I had the strangest dream out there in the clearing that night.

...Huge, fluffy, flakes of snow drifted silently down through a forest of mature poplar trees. A layer of white three fingers deep had already accumulated on the forest floor and I was thankful that the snow muffled the sound of the autumn leaves crunching under my feet. I looked up to the sky and at the spiralling snowflakes and grinned a happy grin. Autumn, my favourite time of year. The hot, dry, days of summer seemed to be far behind me now and the world was slowing down under the weight of another approaching winter. It was a time for animals to store food and fatten up for the winter, and it was finally time for me to take part in the Hunt and bring home meat for the Clan...

...I was tremendously excited but terribly nervous at the same time. I had waited eagerly for this day for so long but now that it was here I wasn't sure if I would live up to the expectations of my fellow clan members. A nervous tremble ran through my body and I clenched my spear tightly in my hands and closed my eyes. I offered up a prayer to the Gods above, I prayed for strength and for guidance in this endeavour, my long awaited initiation into adulthood...

...When I opened my eyes again I raised my spear up to the sky with both hands and held it there for a moment, hoping that the Watcher Above, the Creator and Guardian of the world below would bless my weapon and see to it that my skills would not falter when the time for the kill drew near...

...Through the haze of the dream, I realized that my arms were different. They were covered with light grey fur, not bare pink skin tanned light brown under the warmth of a late spring sun. My hands weren't as I remembered them either. My fingers were shorter, my nails thicker and darker. Short, off-white fur covered the backs of my hands and my palms were dark and leathery pads. I began to notice other differences too. My vision didn't seem to be that sharp anymore, but I couldn't believe the wealth of scents that surrounded me! I could smell the trees, the rotting leaves beneath the snow, traces of the animals that had passed through here recently and I could smell the moisture on the wind that told me that the snow would likely continue for the rest of the day. My hearing was much sharper than I ever remember experiencing, not only that, it was directional. I could feel my ears swivel this way and that as they tracked the sounds of the forest. Something in the vicinity of my lower back felt a little strange and it took me a moment to figure out that I had a tail back there. Was I surprised at all of this? Strangely, no. I understood that I wasn't human and it did not bother me in the slightest. This body felt as natural to me as the human one I had been born in...

I awoke for a moment then and stared silently at the night sky above me, feeling slightly strange but not really caring or understanding why. I blinked lazily a few times and rolled over onto my side. The fire had burned low and the bed of red coals glowed with surreal brightness in the dark. I reached over and cast a couple of pieces of wood into the fire before rolling stiffly on to my back. The scents of smoke, damp earth and evergreen trees wrapped themselves around me like a warm blanket and the night time sounds of the forest tickled my ears as I drifted off to sleep again. The dream began again almost as soon as I closed my eyes.

...Tall trees and snow surrounded me on all sides and I cast about for any signs of game that might be found. The sun came out through a solitary crack in the clouds for a moment and the forest lit up in brilliant contrast against the stark white snow. I knelt down beside some tracks in the snow and sniffed intently. Deer tracks, but they were at least a day old. I got to my feet and kept moving...

...I soon realized that I was not really a participant in this dream, I was merely observing a memory through someone else's eyes. I thought I knew who this person was and my suspicions were confirmed when I paused at the bank of small stream. Thin fingers of ice reached out from the bank into a still pool and I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the cold, clear waters before I jumped nimbly over the stream. I was in Sharra's body, seeing things through her eyes...

...There were several others in the forest with me, close friends and family, for it was not the way of the Clan to hunt alone. They were Tokran - The People of the Forest, and I knew their names. Mallek, Sorlin, Daurie, and Anair. For some reason, one individual in loomed large in my thoughts. Mallek. I felt a smile spread along my muzzle and my tail began to wag on its own accord. I could sense his reassuring encouragement in a special part of my mind and I sent a surge of warm gratitude to him through the Link that we shared. I felt his echoing sentiment flood back to me and I finally began to understand something of what had been happening to me over the last few weeks. Sharra had been through this once before. Mallek had been the one to whom she had been joined...

...The dream changed instantly, the forest melting away into a dark and dense fog. I smelt ash and smoke, burnt fur and old blood. A feeble light grew around me and the burnt stumps of trees jutted up from the scorched earth like shattered teeth. I knew then that the Clan was gone from this world. All of them but one had started walking the trail that began in the twilight forest and led up and through the mountains and into the sunset, seeking the warmth of rebirth and new life that lay at the end of that journey. I felt an anguished howl build up in my throat and I sang a song of mourning for those who had gone from me and left me with only a shattered forest for company...

I jerked awake to an early morning sky, the empty sadness of the dream melting away into my surroundings. The stars were gone, hidden away in a sky of washed out blue. A wisp of smoke rose up from the blackened firepit. All was still and quiet around me and I sat up and stretched painfully. Trees stood as still as shadows against an eastern horizon painted in brilliant hues of yellow and orange. Mist lingered down in the valley, hiding the river from view. Droplets of dew clung to my clothes and laced every stem of grass and twig of tree with a string of diamonds. It was cool out and as I felt the morning air brush chilly fingers across my skin I wondered why I hadn't been cold during the night. The fire had helped but all I had been wearing was my jacket and my ripped blue jeans. The temperature felt like it was close to the freezing point. I should have been cold during the night, even with the fire. I had no shirt on under my jacket and I hadn't even zipped the thing up. I scratched my head in wonder and a fleeting memory from the dream suddenly came back to me. I remembered how warm I had been in that dream, covered with a thick coat of living fur. Was that what had kept me warm during the night, a memory of something that wasn't even mine? As strange as that sounded, it felt like the right answer. I shook my head and sighed, my breath condensing into a cloud of vapour that hung around my head for a brief second before dissipating. Increasingly, there were things happening to me that were just too strange for words. I pushed myself stiffly to my feet and ground my teeth until the pain subsided to a tolerable level. I didn't seem to hurt as much as I did the night before. The wound on the back of my hand had scabbed over and there were no signs of infection so far. I flexed my fingers. Through the agony they actually moved a bit. I unconsciously nodded my head. So far so good.

I slowly made my way back up to the cabin, taking my time and enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of a spring morning in the mountains. I wanted to check on Sharra but I was in no hurry. I knew that for the time being she was all right and that she was still sleeping. I stopped for a moment and raised an eyebrow. It was still very strange to have part of someone else inside my head but apparently I was getting used to it. I wondered how Sharra was dealing with it. Probably better than I was.

I opened the door of the cabin as quietly as I could and slowly made my way over to where Sharra was sleeping. The hollow clonk of my footsteps echoed through the timbers of the ancient structure. The stove radiated a feeble warmth and I paused next to it for a moment to warm up my stiff and cold fingers. All was quiet except for the sound of Sharra's regular breathing. I knelt down beside her and winced as my wounded leg flared in momentary pain. She was lying on her back and had one arm crossed over her chest. She breathed easily in deep sleep and I could see her eyes darting around under closed eyelids. One hand twitched and then the other. One of her ears flicked and her black nose began twitching as if she was scenting the breeze. I smiled and wondered what she dreamt of. I was pretty sure I had seen some of her memories in my dreams during the night and I wondered if she was seeing some of what lay inside my head. Whatever it was that she was dreaming, it was a good dream, I could feel that she was at ease with whatever it was that she was seeing. For a moment I let my fingers trace through the fur around her ears before I stiffly pushed myself to my feet and went outside to get some meat for breakfast. Somehow, I knew that Sharra would be awake soon and would no doubt be quite hungry after sleeping for nearly three days. I cut away a large piece of meat from the one of the hindquarters of the deer. As I wrapped the rest of the meat back up in the hide, I realized that I had a lot of work to do to make sure that the meat we had paid for so dearly would not spoil. I wasn't looking forward to that. Taking care of all of that meat wasn't going to be fun, but it sure as hell beat having to crawl out of bed just to endure a ten hour workday like I used to have to do six days a week. Work takes on a different perspective when it's extremely vital to one's survival.

I stifled a huge yawn and went back inside the cabin and began to cook breakfast, all the while yearning desperately for a cup of hot coffee.