There were many weeks where I trudged almost continuously through the desolate but beautiful white landscape.

It was peaceful, and I felt my soul invigorated by it. And in turn my body felt that it could endure so much more. But also because of the gift that would keep me alive far after a normal man would have died of exhaustion or lack of food. I was gratefully surprised when the land started showing far northern woods of pines.

At least plant life still endured in this world. And in those woods I would find sustenance to my surprise. Wildlife. Animals still existed more or less of what I remembered them to be, for the most part.

But it was to be to my utter astonishment that I would find recent signs of civilization. Of the wrong kind. I would be having flashbacks once again. It was a seizable village that I first found. Desolate, partly burnt down and abandoned. But the bodies... I gazed upon them and I was utterly stupefied.

There was a mound of corpses in the middle of the village. They were people... with animal features. They were the spitting image of what the geneticists of my time wanted to create! How could this exist in this day and age? The world was cleansed, but slowly it sank to me that life, somehow, found a way to survive. Yet it would not explain all this.

These people were never achieved! They were never perfected in the laboratories of old! All that the research of old created were monsters. Along the innumerable bodies in the pile I noticed many completely furry ones that still retained a human form at least. These as far as I could tell were of a bear people.

All this looked like a classical purge by a ruthless authority in power. The bodies were shot and slashed, but every skull had at least a bullet hole in them. I searched the houses and found some much-needed food and drink. I perused the few books that I found, and I realized that they were in the old language of Russian. Or at least some version of it. In my time I learned too little of this language and thus the books were useless to me. Except for a few phrases that shed very little light. ''Ursus'', this was mentioned in many books. Was this a religion? A national tale? The name of these strange people? Maybe it was none, or maybe it was a bit of everything.

I did not dare start a fire in the normal fire pits. Less I caught the attention of the makers of this deed upon the village. Instead, I went to the basement of one of the houses and started a flame just enough to warm some food and a pot of hot water. I could finally ingest something warm into my body and wash some off the grime off.

So, civilization still existed. Or something of it. What I've seen so far made me think the circle of the past was running around again, with or without humanity. I didn't doubt that my kind was no more in this world. For some reason I felt it. Whenever I spoke to Joshua I felt it. This was just a new kind taking its place.

''It's a brave new fucked up world and I should see what I can make of it.'' I thought to myself.

Leaving that bleak village the next day I followed what seemed like a large mass of footprints. It lead to another settlement only after a few hours of walking. Only this wasn't a settlement I realized as I came closer. It was an abandoned prisoner camp. This, the same as the village, looked run down and partly burnt. Unlike the first place this one had nothing to offer. All that wasn't nailed down was taken. The corpses here were all clad in an unknown type of uniform.

The difference being that these were all males of good conscription age. All of them of the same bear race. They were not neatly piled as the ones in the village, but they laid everywhere. They were more gruesomely butchered. Hacked to pieces, pummelled to a pulp or seemingly burnt, though all was frozen now. In stark contrast there were several bodies who seemed to have been ritually set ablaze, just outside the opposite side of the camp to the entrance.

There in the ashes I noticed what were strange rock formations. Possibly some sort of volcanic glass like obsidian though it felt strange to the touch. However, it was certainly as sharp as obsidian as I mistakenly cut myself into one of it's sharper edges. I threw it to the ground and continued my investigation.

The more I discovered, the fewer expectations I was starting to have of this world. There were too many questions that it might as well have been irrelevant. There was nothing to be found out. And I knew nothing to make any sort of conclusion that wouldn't have been more than wild speculation that might as well have been fantasies. And I needed none of those. I believed I came of an age where some things were not worth bothering to give more thought than they deserved. Either way my journey would continue south. The more temperate the weather the more chances I would have to find civilization.

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At that point I had travelled for two months, each of thirty days. The camp I had discovered on the sixty-first day. And two days later I would find yet again something peculiar.

Track marks in the soil, of immense proportions. I couldn't phantom what kind of landship this large would exist, nor what use such things would have. While they ran west I decided to pursue my course south. This area was trouble, I realized that much. Better continue to find milder civilizations down in the warmer lands.

A week later I would discover the first living people. People, if I could call them that, though none were human. And in historical fashion, they tried to kill me. It was on the outskirts of a valley on top of a forested hill that I perused the land through my sniper's scope and found a well hidden camp on the lower plane.

They were well camouflaged I will give them that, yet my sharp eyes caught many details to make an educated guess of their characteristics. Mostly bear people, but this time there were people with bunny ears and a few with horns. They were all wearing white uniforms with many wearing masks as well. On their clothes were woven orange patches with a sign that I could best describe as the symbol of the DNA. They were all armed with some assortments of guns, melee weapons and... staffs? Strange choice if a useless one but in this day and age I couldn't be certain of what new ways of killing might have been invented.

All in all it looked like some sort of fighting unit. A company or two at most. Guerilla characteristics. Probably not part of the authority ruling these lands. Best course of option, give it a wide berth and continue south. Done as decided yet to my surprise I was nearly ambushed after leaving the southern outskirts of the base. My HK45 barked sure rapid shots. I heard a yell and knew one was down.

Another came from my back and slashed hard, my backpack taking the brunt of it and somehow being burst aflame! I rolled just in time to see another assailant wielding one of those seemingly useless staffs. I swiped behind a tree and then to another. A burst of flames exploded out of nowhere engulfing the tree I was taking cover behind. I jumped onto a slope and rolled down the hill. Thankfully the fires that were on me were extinguished that way.

I picked myself up and ran, stopping only to hide myself in a thick line of stunted trees and bushes. There I pulled the old reliable M40A1 and waited unmoving. They came, first the caster but nowhere the strange flame sword wielding man. But my ears picked him up, going somewhere around and behind me. They were encircling me.

Taking my chance I took the target that I could see. A clean shot went through his mask that splattered his brain on the bark of the tree behind him. Before the dead staff wielding horned figure hit the cold ground I was already dashing out of my hiding spot. And just in time as a wing of burning flames cut through my hiding space! He was close, too close for comfort as I realized I was facing a seasoned hunter if not something more. I would stand no chance to face him this up close. Just as well as he wouldn't have had a chance against me had I spotted him in the distance.

I parried his next blow with my rifle, God bless her, hoping it would hold the sharp melting strike, and she proved true. I looked into the eyes that the mask's holes revealed and saw terror as he realized the HK45 handgun I had quickly drawn under his chin. I fired, and his face was destroyed.

His hood now bloodied was blown back, and he fell in the snow. Amazingly he was still alive though his whole face was a mess of broken flesh and bone. But after such a devastating shot it wouldn't be long until he bled to death if anything else. I couldn't linger long, my shots having been surely heard far away as echoes. Yet I stayed my feet as I heard the dying warrior speak.

-''Rhodes Island scum!'' He wheezed out.

-''I am not from this Rhodes Island you tell off.'' I responded coldly.

-Ursian scout? I thought I dealt with the last of you in this area.

-I am neither.

I paused a second to think my next response. Calculating the best choice of words that would pull him into spilling willingly as much as he knew.

-''I am a survivor from up north. I am leaving this cursed land to find a new life. You just attacked me for no reason.'' I said.

-Then your home village deserved what it got. Even if not by our hand but by your precious Ursus government!

-''You are quick to judge one that you do not know. Yet why would you presume I would be of this Rhodes Island? What is it that your people have so much against them?'' I asked.

-Hypocrite scum that they are! A pharmaceutical company pledged on curing oripathy yet fighting the very people afflicted by it! They drown in their profit and see to their own well-being as all privileged do! Nobody cares for our plight.

-''And is there any hope in what your people, whatever you are called, are doing?'' I asked him.

-There is in that we will burn all those who have wronged us and our loved ones. And you. You're no ordinary survivor, Rhodes spy. None could defeat Patriot's chief scout so quickly.

-Run. Run back to your little landship, we are already tracking down your main group. You may live, but you won't see them ever again!

Saying that he finally chocked on his own blood and soon expired from life. I realized I tarried too long, yet that conversation opened my eyes to another problem. My backpack was ruined, most of its contents destroyed, and my jacket was cut and burned. Barely more useful than rags at this point. Looking at the dead man in front of me I assessed his attire and found it suitable.

The only blood on it being around the hood. It proved adequate, but it was all I could spare to take in such a short time besides his sword. Which seamed of an incredible quality and which had unique markings reminiscent of the Land of the Rising Sun. Before finally leaving I would notice black stones on the man's shoulder and neck. What kind of disease or even symbolic meaning this might have been I could not yet decipher.

Taking my leave I quickly paced southward as the sun was setting.