The cold hits first. A sharp, biting numbness that creeps into your fingers and seeps through your clothes. Then pain. Dull, scattered. Your ribs ache, your head pounds, and something warm and wet trails from your temple. You blink slowly, flakes of snow melting on your lashes. The sky above is a dull, overcast gray, quiet, too quiet. No hum of engines. No distant rotors. Just wind.

You’re alive. Somehow.

Your body feels like a sack of bruises and splinters, but nothing seems broken. You shift with a groan, dragging yourself upright, steadying against the crooked trunk of a pine tree. Your boots sink into the snow, knees trembling under your weight. The wreckage lies scattered across the clearing like metal bones, shredded fuselage, torn cables, smoke curling from twisted parts of what used to be your only escape. The city had fallen too fast. The evacuation orders came late. You barely made it on the last flight out, a shaky, overcrowded transport plane with a mixed crew. You remember noise. Screams. Then fire. And then—

A flicker of movement.

Your breath catches as your gaze sweeps across the shattered remnants of the crash. Not far off, half-buried under a heap of scorched metal and torn paneling, lies a figure.

The pilot.

No, the co-pilot. You remember him now. Woshe. An anthropomorphic wolf in a flight suit. Professional. Focused. His sharp voice over the intercom had been the only thing keeping passengers calm before it all went to hell. Now, he’s slumped in the snow, one arm pinned awkwardly beneath a torn engine panel, blood trailing from a gash at his temple. His fur is matted with ice, his breath shallow, if present at all.

You stumble toward him, adrenaline numbing your own pain.

Then you ask, voice hoarse from smoke and cold. Are you awake?

No response. You kneel beside him, your hands shaking as you check his pulse, then gently brush snow from his face. Still warm. Still breathing. A miracle. You look around, no one survived but you two apparently, you don't see any corpse, nor body. Perhaps the snow had already took them.. the wolf on the other hand.. But you don’t have long. The forest stretches around you in all directions, silent and white. The infected won’t stay in the city forever. And if that fire in the wreckage spreads…

You look down at Woshe’s face again. He needs help. And you? You’re the only one left to give it.