'Cold, so very cold'.
Cold and wet is all I comprehend. A damp putrid scent fills my lungs as my deep, staggered gasps take in the icy air. It's a stale air, heavy with moisture and spores. I open my eyes and am blinded; light filtering through tall shadows pierces the darkness and blinds me. Choking on the stale, icy breath; I cough violently. Lungs' demanding clean, fresh oxygen as the moisture is driven out of me.
All I know is this thick cold air and icy dampness.
Opening my eyes in a squint, I glance across my form. I am naked, shivering in damp mulch and decomposed vegetation. Icy moisture covers my body in frozen, glistening droplets.
So cold.
As if in realising my situation, the bitter intensity of this winter dew overwhelms me and I bury myself deeper into the sludgy mass of festering woodland debris. It seems the only warmth I can muster lies within this dense mire of mildew and decay. This mass creates no rustling as I weakly dig in to it but rather a soft plopping as I push inside the bog and as I settle a startling thought crosses me. There is no sound.
This forest of darkness houses no sounds within its density. But as I listen I hear the distant trickling of water. A body of water must be nearby.
That necessity is too far from me though as warmth and dryness push through to high priority. Around me I see only darkness and fractured light casting down over a stale fog. Within my immediate surroundings I see trees, mushroom growth and rotting vegetation. There is a twisted, hollow tree not far from me that looks to have been eaten away by insects a long time ago; though it won't provide warmth, it might provide shelter.
There is nothing else around me, no sign of life other than the low beating in my chest, the dense growth and the distant sounds of insects meshing with the sound of water flow. I see nothing to explain how I got here or where here is. No explanation of anything and as I think I become aware that all I know is this bog of putrid death, this cold air and those tall dark shadowed trees surrounding myself.
This place holds no beauty beyond the soft light falling upon sprouting trees, lightly dusted with glistening snow and ice streamed down their weak stems.
In search of some kind of clarity I lift myself from the bog. I feel no pain and a futile fact comforts me, I am not injured.
In the cold air I push on to the hollow trunk, stumbling towards it in a weak sleepy confusion. My eyes try to adjust wildly and my vision blurs as I struggle in the darkness. The closer I draw towards the dead, broken trunk, the more I am repelled by a fowl stench. A definite stench of death. Somehow I know that this stench can only come from a large creature and in curiosity, I seek out the odour.
To my disgust the trunk is occupied by a large creature. It is a half moulted husk. Once a fierce creature baring a thick winter coat and now a corpse eaten like the trunk and undisturbed in its final rest.
In desperation I consider utilising the warmth the coat would provide but a sense of better judgement repels me from the disease ridden carcass.
In hopelessness I slump against the trunk, hugging my legs to my chest to preserve warmth. My lips are quivering in desperation, goose bumps cover my skin and I know I need to find warmth quickly. The carcass doesn't seem worth it but no other choice seems present. My eyes are heavy with exhaustion and my breath laboured with the air. I can feel myself drifting in to sleep but just as I begin to slip I hear an unnatural sound that seems familiar. A humming in the distance but coming closer. I can hear it over head and it excites me, somehow I know not to fear it.
I need to find it.
I follow the sound, heading towards the humming. Rushing towards the sound as fast as my tired legs will take me. Ignoring the confusion that overwhelms me, I seek out this sound. As I run the fog begins to clear, I can see light ahead, I can hear the sound, my heart is beating wildly. I push on to the opening in the darkness. The light amongst the trees offers my salvation as I run towards the clearing. Slipping on the moss and slime and tripping on the dense roots and vegetation slows me. I can not stop.
As I near the clearing, my foot punctures soft ground. My footing is lost and I fall, rolling through the thick vegetation, down a slope. I now feel sharp pain as I tumble through heavy brush and rocky winter ground. The clearing is filled with snow and I fall straight into it. A shooting pain fills my leg and I don't move anymore. I know to stop. I lay in pain in the cold frozen white, waiting for the approaching hum but I don't know if it sees me as I finally drift into that sleep.
---
"It's cold" Vala cried out again as SG1 hiked up through the muddy snow side of one of P4x 783's steeper slopes.
"Ogh…" Mitchell scowled, rubbing away a migraine.
"It's dark, it smells of death and there is no chance any 'villagers' would ever try to support an economy here let alone a missionary for the Ori" she bitched as she nearly lost balance climbing over a wide, moss coated log.
"Well they do and one probably has" Mitchell snapped "Carter said the UAV detected a life sign in these woods and there was a village seen near the forest…"
"A life sign?" Daniel asked turning towards Mitchell in questioning
"Yep, Carter says human. I say we pick up the lost native and take them to the village, might help get on the good side of the people here." Mitchell shrugged as he kicked a large pile of mud off the toe of his shoe as though it was the waste product of one of the native wildlife.
"That's assuming we ever find the village, you're lost and you know it" Vala groaned as she ducked under an overgrown branch.
"We're not lost Vala" Carter called from ahead in reassurance as she fiddled with a machine in her hand that seemed to be tracing the heat signature of the lost villager.
"How far away are they?" Daniel asked as he absentmindedly placed a hand on Vala's hip to direct her away from a tree she was about to knock into.
"I can't see a thing in these woods!" Vala cried stomping over another rotted tree trunk
"we should be coming up to the location shortly" Sam responded glancing through the thick darkness and seeing the light being cast off by a clearing in the woodland "they should be over there in that clearing" she waved their attention in it's direction.
"Uh how strong is that heat signal?" Daniel asked catching up to Sam "I'm just wondering because well… it's very cold Sam"
"I was just thinking the same thing and to tell you the truth I'm finding it hard to get a lock on the heat signature. I'm mostly going by the coordinates we got from the UAV." She sighed stepping over a small bush.
"Ogh! What is that smell!" Mitchell called from behind them, cringing in disgust.
"it's a dead animal, over in that hollowed out tree" Carter pointed at the tree just to the side of where Mitchell was as he looked he saw a shard of light highlighting an area where the thick decay had been disturbed and in curiosity he approached it.
"Hey Sam!" he called squatting beside the cavern in the mud and she followed "check out this" he pointed
"They were here" she agreed, "the thick pile up of dead plants and leaves probably acted as some insulation against this cold"
"not that, check out the footprints" he told her and she followed the indentations in the sludgy ground, they led up to the tree trunk and at the base of it there were sliding impressions fro where the person had collapsed against the tree and then more, wider, heaver impressions came away from the tree.
"The native we are in search of ran from here, their impressions indicate someone of small size, approximately 5'2 and weighing roughly 100 lbs, perhaps an adolescent or a small woman" Teal'c described from the footprints.
"That's not what I'm looking at" Mitchell stated "there are no footprints leading up to here"
"Ok that's strange" Daniel remarked "but uh shouldn't we be looking for this person before they freeze to death" Daniel implored as he started towards the clearing, following the footprints. The others followed.
The footprints led them to the slope before the clearing; a long sliding impression followed the slope and at the base of the slope was the definite form of a naked woman, balled up in the snow.
Sam was the first to head down the slope, taking a blanket out of her pack as she made her way down.
She reached the base and shuffled through the snow, unfolding the blanket to wrap around the woman. The petite woman was clutching herself for warmth and had her face buried in her chest and arms. She was shivering and breathing but the deepness of her breaths indicated she was asleep. Sam briefly took in her bruised form before laying the blanket over her and gently shaking her to wake her.
"Can you here me" Sam asked the woman as she stirred "we're here to help you, you need to get up, and we need to get you warm" Sam assured the woman and at this she lifted her head and looked up at Sam.
Sam took one step backwards.
Daniel was now close by, almost at her side. The woman looked startled, her eyes darted between Sam and Daniel as Sam's darted between Daniel and her.
"What's wrong? Is she alright?" Daniel asked as he reached Sam. He looked down at the woman now clinging to the warmth of the blanket and staring up at him.
"Oh my god" was all he said to her and she furrowed her brow in confusion showing fear. By this time Vala, Teal'c and Mitchell had joined them.
"Well are we going to help her up" Vala asked looking at the woman with out a second glance.
"Is that..?" Mitchell muttered in brief recognition, to which Teal'c replied
"Janet Frasier"