Disclaimer: I do not own ACIII. All rights belong to Ubisoft. (Except some characters I made up, but we'll get to that later)

Chapter One

Here's something you should probably know about me: I'm going to be dead in a month.

Well, okay. I may not be telling the entire truth. It could be two months, or three, or four. You never know! I have no real clue about the exact date. I do know that the doctors concluded that there was nothing they could do to fix the lump of useless cells crowding my brain, even after months of chemo and radiation and clinical trials, ergo labeling me as "terminal," so the date's gotta be coming up pretty soon.

Which is depressing. How can it not be? There really are no bright sides to terminal cancer, maybe except the fact that I no longer have to endure puking my guts out, but in the long run, that doesn't really count. You know. Because I'm not really ready to die yet.

I had money saved up for college. I had a job. I had a family (ish?). I had a plan. But then the monster had to come and start chomping around upstairs, and my life up and went, and here I am, a seventeen-year-old with a nice little death sentence squatting alone in the woods, trying and failing to make fried eggs over a very lame fire.

Living the life.

A small sigh slips out of my lips and tangles into the breeze. It's gorgeous out for an October morning, the sun just starting to burn off the thin mist that had laced the ground a while ago. All around my pitiful campsite is wilderness—to my right is a little stream, my left a small clearing. I gnaw on the inside of my cheek and glance upwards. The trees, shivering in the wind, are at their peak right now. If Kane were here he'd be going berserk.

Oh my God, look at those elms. We could pick a couple leaves and check out the abscission cells on some of them, if only I brought my microscope, I told you I could've fit it . . .

Just thinking about it makes a small smile spread over my face. But then that smile turns into a frown, and I mentally scold myself for thinking about it at all.

Kane is a fellow foster kid. He's nothing but a big ball of pudge and worry, and he's hardcore botany, but trees suit him just fine as well. He's also my best friend. Has been for about as long as I can remember.

We met about three years after the Home became my new home, when I was seven and he was six. His dad was a drunk, his mother too busy not being a mother, and one day social services decided to take him in after Daddy Dearest decided to see if his only son could bounce down the stairs as well as his favorite basketball (uh, the answer would be no). Kane was quiet and reserved, two traits that nearly every kid in the Home shared, but there was some aspect about him, some blissful carefree sense that he had that made me like him. He apparently thought I wasn't half bad, either.

Kane and I were close enough before, but when they found the monster he was the one who stuck by my side. All my other friends from the Home suddenly didn't know how to act around me. Was it okay to laugh? Should they smile? Would they offend me if they smiled? It was so ridiculous. They ended up deciding that it was best if they just let me be, only talking when it was necessary, and every time we did talk there had to be a "I'm so sorry" thrown in there somewhere.

Kane, on the other hand, stuck by me the entire time. When I first told him about the diagnosis, I was sure he was going to start treating me like everyone else. Woah, boy, better be careful around that Connor kid. He's got cancer so make sure you smother him with sympathy and don't make eye contact. But instead, he said "Well, that explains why you're so stupid all the time."

Seriously. That still makes me laugh.

He sat by me through every round of chemo. Every doctor's appointment. Every clinical trial. When school became a no-go, he brought me homework and kept me updated. He still treated me like me, which was such a relief sometimes I almost forgot about my death sentence. Almost.

I shake myself out of the memory, and even though the smile has worked its way back onto my face, my stomach twists uncomfortably. I take a sip from my thermos of hot chocolate, but the brown slush doesn't really act as a reassurance.

When he realizes I'm out here, that probably wouldn't sit well with him.

Sharp pops from the fire call for my attention. I set my thermos down next to me and grab my spatula, poking at my eggs. Another hiss from the fire sends sparks flying, and I wince a little.

I've never really been okay around fires since my mom died. But lo and behold, here I am in the wilderness, camping, which does indeed require fire! Because that makes sense. But really, it's not like I start screaming when somebody decides to roast a marshmallow, or something. I just prefer to keep my fires as limited as possible. Not a big deal.

Unless, of course, they get a little too big. Last year, the week before school started, a couple guys in the Home held this huge bonfire in the backyard. (We had just torn down the old shed in the back, so we had wood pouring out of our ears.) I didn't think it would be terrible, but by the end of the night, I was huddled up beneath my sheets with my earbuds screwed in, playing music so loud I'm surprised I didn't burst an eardrum.

Which is weird. I know that there are situations that traumatize the brain in a way that they trigger responses even after the situation is over, but I don't even really remember that night very well. Just smoke and fire and . . . well, my mom. Only her face. I mean, I was only four. But still. You'd think that I'd be able to remember something that, well, traumatizing.

Not that I'm complaining. Between you and me, I'm perfectly fine with that. I'd rather not remember my mother burning to death.

The monster is a big part of it too. After munching around for a while, it decided to take a little nibble on my hippocampus, but considering everything, it didn't cause that much damage. No severe memory issues, so that's good. I can just say I've got a really, really selective forgetfulness.

But maybe it's also because I remember the foster home process more than anything. Those memories are still fresh in my mind. Bouncing around like some useless thing that no one knew what to do with, social security workers scrambling to try and find any relatives to take me in . . . Unsurprisingly, they never managed to contact my dad, wherever the hell he is, so I was put up for adoption and was told to just sit quietly until someone decided to call me theirs.

Quite the childhood.

I start scooping my eggs into one metal mug when, suddenly, there's a melodic chirp from one of my bag's pockets. I bring a hand back, unzip it, and fish out my phone, which is ablaze with the name "Kane" in big, blocky letters.

Oh crap. Speak of the devil.

White Mountain Forest has a decent amount of cell coverage in the beginning, but where I'm planning on going there's not enough for a single tweet. I shouldn't've even brought my phone, I think.

I'm really not in the mood for a lecture right now, so I stare at the screen, uncertain. My finger hovers over the red "ignore" button for two whole rings. It'd be so easy. But then again, I would never hear the end of it. So I smash my thumb against the green and bring the phone up to my ear.

"Hello?"

"Connor, what the hell?" Oh boy. "A note? Really? That's it?"

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek again. "I wanted to go hiking—"

"In another state? So you just went? And you thought a note would clear everything up?"

I roll my eyes. "It's not like I haven't done this before. It's not some huge deal."

Through the crackle of the phone's static, I can practically hear the steam shooting out of his ears. "This is a big deal, and you know it."

"I told you exactly where I was," I snap into the mouthpiece.

"Yeah, that's not exactly the problem," he hisses back. I bite so hard into my cheek the taste of old pennies floods into my mouth.

"Well, what do you want me to do? Come home? In case you didn't know, terminal illness is the same in Vermont as it is in Massachusetts."

Kane sighs. "I know, but—"

"Why shouldn't I be out here? If I drop dead in the woods, how would it be different if I dropped dead by you?" Jeez. As soon as I get the words out, I flinch. The hot anger that rushed through me is gone now, replaced with thick guilt. What am I doing? Kane's just being Kane. Concerned, worried Kane. "Sorry. I didn't mean that."

He doesn't skip a beat. "I know, you retard. I just wish you'd stop being so rebellious all of a sudden. Your teen angst is making me exhausted."

I grin, then shove some eggs into my mouth, relieved. "I promise I'll call after I set up camp tonight, okay? My teen angst will be under control by then."

He laughs. "K. But maybe you should call Ella instead of me. She nearly shit herself when she read your note."

Oh man. Ella's one of our foster parents, a thin forty-six-year-old who worries more than Kane. She's nice enough, but half the time her pessimism is a little too depressing. "I'll make sure that happens," I tell him.

I can practically see him nodding. "Please do. She almost made us band together and create a search party for you. Since you're in Vermont, I'm glad she didn't go through with that." We laugh together, a sound that comes surprisingly easily right now. After a moment, Kane grows serious. "Connor?"

"Yeah?"

"Promise me you'll be careful, okay?"

For a moment, I'm silent. I feel like I should tell him, but I know right now isn't the right moment. There'll be others. There will be others. "I promise," I say into the mouthpiece. "I'll be home in three days, okay?" The last part feels wrong, saying it. The words are like razors against my throat.

"Okay. Chat later," he responds.

"Bye." I take the phone away from my ear and click off the chat, then slide it back into my bag. My appetite is gone, the eggs tasting like nothing but ash in my mouth. I set the metal cup down by my thermos. Then I listen to the breeze for a while, pressing my palms against my eyes. I can feel one of my headaches coming on. Great.

Dread twists my stomach over and furs on my tongue, but I force myself to swallow it. This is right. Right? Am I making the right choice?

One of my hands goes to my neck and tugs on the pendant there. It's nothing super special, really, just a battered wooden circle with two rings of bronze and fake gold. There are weird symbols carved into the wood on the inner circle, and the fake gold part is molded into a little snake looking thing. It all hangs on a thin strip of leather. Mom gave it to me . . . I dunno, a long time ago.

The back of my eyes pounds with the headache, but the pain is nothing more than a dull throb. I glance at my watch. Better get going, if I want to make it to camp by nightfall.

I force myself to polish off the hot chocolate, and I'm just starting on the eggs when I see the dog bound out of the woods.

I freeze, my fork halfway to my mouth. It's a German Shepard, no doubt, with brown eyes so dark they're almost black. It stares at me through the bushes with such an intensity the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. What was that thing with dogs? You really shouldn't make eye contact if they're acting aggressive? Well, too late for that.

I'm just thinking about how screwed I am when the man comes jogging out of nowhere.

He looks like he's in his thirties or so, with black hair that's thin towards the front but thick towards the back, and a creepy-ass moustache. Seriously. That thing is worthy of a pedophilic status. He's got on a pair of jeans, hiking boots, and a North Face jacket, which is a look that doesn't really match him. He seems like one of the guys whose casual clothing is a suit. I don't know why, but he just has that air around him. He whistles, and without hesitation the dog settles down onto its belly and starts panting.

The man continues walking over to me. For some reason, I feel my muscles tense more. He's smiling, but I feel like something's off. "Sorry about that," he laughs once he's close enough. He crouches down by his dog—obviously it must be his—and scratches it behind the ears. "I guess Daisy smelled the eggs and couldn't resist."

I don't know how to react. The eggs that had been on my fork had splattered onto the ground long ago, so now I'm just sitting here, staring at the man, holding an empty fork an inch from my mouth. I set down my eggs and get to my feet.

It's not uncommon to meet fellow hikers out here. But maybe the whole dog thing really freaked me out, because something feels really, really wrong here.

The man still smiles at me, the expression making the skin around his eyes crinkle. His eyes, I notice, are a weird color. They're grey, but it's not like a normal grey. It's like they were once a color but something sucked all of the pigment out of them. "Really, I'm sorry about that. She's normally pretty good about food." He laughs again, so I force myself to swallow and smile at him.

"No worries," I say.

He rises from his crouch and walks towards me, then holds out an arm. "Charles Lee. And you've already met Daisy here."

I grab his hand. We shake. "Connor."

"Nice to meet you, Connor."

I nod back at him, not really sure what else I should say. Thank you for calling your dog off so it wouldn't attack me for eggs? I scratch the back of my neck.

"I-uh. . . I have some more eggs if you'd like?"

He makes a face and rubs his chin. "You know, that would be wonderful, if that's okay with you. I've got a long way to hike today and some protein would be greatly appreciated."

I nod again. I don't know why I feel so uncomfortable around him, but I'm glad I have something to do instead of stand here awkwardly. Shooting his dog a glance, I go back over to my pack and get the last of the eggs from the carton, then crack them over the pan.

"So," Charles grunts as he sits down on the opposite side of the fire. "What's a kid like you doing out here?"

I weigh my options for an answer. Lying is the obvious choice, but what lie? "I had a day off from school," I say over the sizzling. I glance up to meet his gaze over the fire. "So my parents let me go—"

I stop mid sentence.

Because that's when I spot it, right underneath his jacket.

A gun.

Hello all! So. This is my very first fanfiction, and I'll try not to bore you all too much with an entire novel of authors notes, but I must say . . . this is nice . . . Okay, but fo realsies peeps. For one, this story will be VERY different from the original ACIII story line, in case you couldn't already tell. So just a warning for those of you that want a more traditional kinda thing. For two, if you even read one word of my story, even just the title, THANK YOU. I appreciate you! But really. Thank you for reading this, and I really do hope you like it. Comment, like, follow, whatever, but I hope I can provide you guys with a new take on a great game :)

Stay awesome!

-TWS