Star Soldier Zackarack SIDE TRACK: [I-XI-I-III]

[PROLOGUE]

It's cold.

Pretty unbearably cold, too. My eyes are almost frozen shut, my ears are hurting in this damned wind, and I'm pretty sure that somehow I don't have clothes on. I must be perfectly well-dressed for the weather, eh? I lie in the snow, somehow regaining consciousness while wondering why the Hell did I not freeze over yet. If I was out here for a while in this tundra, then truly I wouldn't be able to take at least one breath out here. And yet, here I am. Naked and alone, yet somehow still alive.

As I start to regain movement in my arms and try to gently shake them with whatever strength that I have reserved in this body of mine, another question ponders itself inside my mind. A rather good question to ask myself, actually. How the Hell did I even get here?

I wish I knew the answer. I dunno if the cold has to do something with memory loss, but I can't piece together anything about what happened and how did I get here? In the middle of some icy crap chute with nothing bundling me up.

So far, my efforts on trying to get my body to function again are at least slightly successful. My arms are moving. Fingers are a little frostbitten, but at least they ain't snapping from my hands. After that test run, I tried moving my arms around. It's not really a... Pleasant feeling. Not really something I remember having to deal with in my past--if I can find a way to remember any of it--, but still a pain in the ass to work with.

I've spent a few good minutes stretching my arms around. Spreading my fingers about and cracking my own knuckles. Now that I have some functionality with these rather... Small, yet oddly built pythons of mine, I attempt to push myself up to sit and look forwards. Hopefully testing to see if my spine hasn't frozen over. And as I push myself off the ground with my red, tortured by this white fluff from Hell lands, I do manage to keep myself balanced as I sit up. Planting my fingers deep into the snow as possible as to insure some sort of stability. Probably as a way to insure that my spine doesn't suddenly give out, or whatever worse case scenario could present itself. My eyes were shut the whole time, but I knew that I had a lot of space to work with. I was also on some sort of flat, stable land too, so now incline would have me roll down into an early death or some other form of misfortune.

Time to try to open these boys up.

After some time trying to rub my hands together to clean off the snow on them, I've pressed them onto my eyes to at least give them some form of warmth. After a good minute of that, I've finally opened up to see my surroundings. And hot damn, it was brighter than me and my chances of knowing how I even got here. The sun stared down upon me, emerging from the cover of the clouds that rain down those pale white bullets at me while I wallowed about below, coating the land with snow, frigid temperatures, and gusts of wind to freeze one's soul in place.

Oh, this could be a form of beautiful scenery for someone. You know, if they weren't naked. Or if Hell knows how long they've been sleeping out in the cold for too long. My torso is decent enough to at least have me sit up, but my legs appear to be buried under a thick coffin of snow. And now, I'm questioning how many toes I'll probably have left when I'll get out of here. I begin sweeping off the snow, desperately trying to get my bare legs out of that pile and to somehow warm them up. Of course, this is gonna be a temporary solution. I'll need some sort of bonfire to cuddle up with so I can fully warm myself up with. That is, if I didn't decide to take a godforsaken nap somewhere in the middle of God Knows Where without any damned clothes to use as a source of heat.

I don't wanna be stranded here. I've only just woken up, yet here I am. Probably gonna die in the middle of this shithole with no form of protection or warmth whatsoever. Truly, I must've angered some easily flustered god to have this nonsense happen to me.

And then, something grabbed me from behind. Something grabbed me from beneath my arms and lifted me up into the air and on my staggering feet without me knowing about them. The hands that I felt were warm, and it just happened so suddenly that I even got startled for a few brief seconds. But hey, at least my toes are intact. But as I staggered to my feet, trying to hold my balance while occasionally shambling about like some zombie, I attempted to turn to my somewhat random savior.

I don't know the standards for people here, but this guy is probably some sort of traveling man of good fortune if he just decided to help me out. And so he appeared to be. As the man who helped me appeared to be of some sort of Eastern authenticity. He appeared to be rather large, too. Having some sort of stylish, historical beard on him too as he found himself clad in some fancy robes with four colors that I can recall by heart almost instantly: Blue, Yellow, Red, and Brown. I tried to open my mouth to speak with the man. Trying to test out if my vocal chords survived the freeze. And then, the man suddenly stepped forth and punched me. Square in the jaw, too. As I was sent down onto the floor. And that... That was some shot. Striking me with a right hand so quickly that I didn't have time to react to it. But of course, reaction wasn't something that could work too well for sub zero temperatures. The cold hampered my consciousness. And before I went out for the second time, I could only hear a few more words. Just one sentence:

"I've finally found you."