Second Sun

>Check your map and comms.

You tap the side of your suit's helmet, engaging the built-in walkie. "Theseus, come in," you say, hailing the quadcopter you're meant to rendezvous with. No response. "Theseus?" They had mentioned that communications could be difficult here, but now is a bad time for things to stop working.

You pull out a small map of Durham Region, Ontario. You should be north-east of Beaverton. At least, what used to be Beaverton. It's not much immediate help, given that you're in the middle of the woods now, but maybe if you can head west towards the highway you'll be able to get your bearings.

One of the burnt trees still stands, a naked pine whitened by an ashen skin; when you pass the tree, the landscape changes around you. It's still the forest, still winter, but the trees are no longer burnt and collapsed. The pines are verdant now, though snow-covered. Ice bends the branches of distant pines, vague through the haze of snow.

How did I get here? You look behind you. No tracks, not even your own. I'm lost. You push through branches, needles, exhausted from the effort of forcing your feet through the drifts. You pass another torched white tree, identical to the first: Dead, its charred limbs skeletal. Or is it the same tree? I'm turned around, you think. Pulling yourself over roots and stones, sliding down snow, trying to latch onto something familiar, some feature of the landscape that you recognize, you push through a gap between pines and come to a clearing. Before you stretches a black river. You scream when you see the crucified woman.

The woman has been crucified upside down, but there is no cross. She hangs suspended in midair, hovering over the rushing black water below. Fire crackles at her wrists and ankles. Her rib cage is protruding, her body emaciated, thinned to starvation; her legs marbled black with gangrene. Her face is lurid, purple, blood pooling, and her hair, platinum blonde, dangles low enough to brush the surface of the water.

You recognize this woman. It's you. You fall to your knees at the black river's shore.