Don't ask me what I'm doing here, because I don't know. One day, I woke up in the middle of a forest, covered in snow, devoid of all memory and sense of identity. Why? I have no clue. It almost doesn't matter.
I spent the first couple of hours calling for help, wandering around, hoping I'd find someone nearby. After a while, I came to the reluctant conclusion that I was well and truly isolated: no sound of human voices, no hum of tires on distant roadways; nothing but the trill of far off birds and rustling branches in the wind. There might have been a cow nearby from all the mooing, but I couldn't find it.
I might not have known who I am, or why I woke up in this snowy forest, but that didn't mean I was going to sit down and let depression take me along with the wolves. I needed a plan of action, needed to find a way to survive! But first, a man needs to know himself before he can trust himself, and because my old name was lost to my departed memory, I have decided to call myself Steve.
It's a good name.
I spent some time searching the area, looking for anything that might be useful to me. Tools and weapons would be my first priority--don't ask me how I knew, but I could tell the forest would be dangerous at night, something in my blood maybe. There wasn't much, not even a single fallen branch on the ground, just smooth snow and straight pine trees. I tried to grab hold of a few rocks peeking up from the soil, but they were firmly stuck. I'd need something to pry them free, or maybe break them away. I spotted a tree nearby and went to it, running my hands over the dark brown bark. It was a good tree, strong and healthy.
So I punched it.
Pulp and bark flew as my hard fists broke chunk after chunk away from the tree. I gritted my teeth against the jarring in my arms and kept going until the whole thing broke through and crashed to the ground. Chest heaving from the exertion, I gathered the wood and sat down, examining the pieces. I broke some of the longer chunks into thick sticks, then stabbed one of them into a flat piece of wood shaped like a blade.
I grinned as I hefted the wooden axe I'd made, then swung it around experimentally. It felt good. I used the axe to fell several more trees until I had enough wood to make all the tools I needed: a shovel, sword, and pickax--the latter of which I used to break those stubborn stones from the ground. I stowed the rocks away for later use and strapped the tools to my back. I kept the sword out though, the feeling of danger in the woods tickling the back of my mind. Thus armed, I set off in search of food and shelter.
I won't bore you with the details of my struggle against starvation and wolves. Suffice it to say, it was a struggle. I fought, bled, and conquered. I stumbled over hills and down into water-filled valleys, climbing trees to see the path ahead. I slew cows and ate their flesh to stay alive. I fell off cliffs and broke bones, spending days waiting for them to heal. I briefly marveled at how quickly the wounds mended, but wasted no time in pressing on once they did. At night times, I was attacked by monsters, proving my intuition about the forest to be correct. I hid from the darkness, lighting the small mud huts I'd built along the way with torches until the sun rose once again.
I never knew why the world I'd woken up in was filled with skeletons and zombies, but it didn't really matter, I bashed their heads in with stone swords nonetheless. There were more questions to be had than answers, and I knew I would never know the half of them.
I had to survive!
Weeks later, exhausted, clothes ripped and torn, blood from numerous cuts on my legs trailing into my socks, I finally found mountains. Majestic. I climbed them each, looking for the ideal spot to build a home, far away from the oppressive trees and monster-filled shadows of the forest.
