I returned to life with dull senses. I felt moist cool air to my exposed skin. My eyes fluttered open to the inside of a rickety cabin. A cozy blanket kept my body warm. Rope coils, weird shaped tools and hunting traps garnished walls of moist-stained wood. A small window framed a subdue outline of a misty vista near the foot of the bed I laid on.

Questions churned through my mind. Where was I? Didn’t I die? Was I in hell? Did it rain in hell?

My head began to ache; stirring nausea in my belly. I groaned and snuggled further beneath the blankets.

A curt bam jolted my senses. I turned my head. Before the cabin's entrance stood an old man wrapped in a fur coat and camouflage green pants. He stomped his heavy boots at the threshold. Stepped inside then slammed the door behind him.

“Huh? Good, yah be awake,” he grunted my way.

My eyes followed his hobble to a practical table at the center of the room. He dumped a grubby sack on it and went about gathering cooking tools and instruments off the walls.

I laid unmovable as I watched him potter around the cabin. He assumed a silent routine. Intensely focusing on cooking a meal of roast rabbit and vegetables at a small hearth at the back of the room.

A rich, meaty aroma tickled my nose and made my mouth water with a desire to devour the cooked beast.

“Yah get up?” He asked me as he poked at the smoldering cauldron in the hearth.

I opened my mouth to speak, but my words croaked in my throat.

The old man faced me with a knowing look. He grabbed a cup and fished out water from a barrel near the window, then pulled up a chair next to me. My eyes watched his wrinkly, calloused hands carefully feed water into my mouth. An unavoidable stink of fish and iron wafted up my nose, which saw my first taste of the drink enter as a gag reflex. I was able to take more when I became accustomed to his smell and the art of being able to swallow again.

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“Here,” he said as he assisted me to sit up.

He shuffled off the chair and returned to the cauldron in the hearth. I frowned, wondering if I knew this grizzly bearded man. He certainly had the roughest crop of aged gray tufts of hair. My frown deepened with a question if he knew who I was.

“Um, hello,” I uttered a sound from my throat and almost gasped at its alien tones. Was my voice always that young and girly?

He returned to me with a plate of roast rabbit and assumed a position of spoon-feeding me by the bedside.

“Ssh. Eat slowly. Don’t yah choke,” he ordered with a curt bedside manner.

I relaxed with a sigh and followed his orders. Carefully chewing each morsel to be familiar with the contours of my mouth. The time it took to chew down my food felt long. I wasn't used to my small teeth. Unable to resist the urge, I fingered the shape of my lips and inside my mouth with a bony finger.

“Stop dat!” the old man grumbled as he slapped my hand away. He continued to spoon-feed me until the plate was clear and my stomach bulging.

He shuffled out of the chair and went about cleaning up the mess. I relaxed back on to the pillow and found an interest in my own hands.

“Pale skin, small hands, slender fingers,” I muttered.

The skin was still supple and free from many knots and scratchy lines that came with age.

“So I’m young?” I questioned in my head.

I glanced about for the old man’s whereabouts and saw his attention on the hearth. I shoved my hand underneath the blanket and squirmed as I gingerly felt around my body.

“Bony waist, skinny legs. Breasts?! Hellbore!” I groaned at the thought.

Why was I bothered by this? Too many questions kept surging through my mind. All I could do was sigh them away, as none landed on answers.

The old man started unpacking a sleeping mat from a chest against the wall with the traps. He laid out the mat and made a bed for himself before the hearth.

No more words were said between us as he laid down underneath a blanket. I watched his back heave into a gentle rhythm as he lulled himself to sleep.

Moonlight streamed through the window. A gentle light was cast over everyday objects. Transforming them into figures for imagination.

I was alive, wasn’t I? A gust of night air stroked my skin to answer my question.

“Let the new day come. I’ll be ready,” I declared and allowed sleep to reclaim me.