Drip …

Drip …

He hurts.

Drip …

Drip …

His eyes open slowly, annoyed by the dripping sound. It's cold and …

He hurts.

Eyes blink weakly and scan – momentarily uncaring as to where he is or what has happened to make him hurt. He is laying face down - head and one arm dangle over an icy ledge. Everything is blurry and it makes him nauseous to look, but he wants to find the source of the annoying sound.

A drop of blood drips from his forehead and falls … falls … falls into a small pool of ice melt water. The water is pink with his blood in the sunlight. His eyes close again. The annoyance satisfyingly identified.

But, he … hurrrrts ... .

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Cold. Pain.

It hurts to open his eyes. Too bright! He gasps. The pounding in his head is almost overwhelmingly too much. Weak sunlight has sent a shaft of light over his back. Huge slivers of ice glisten like pale blue and aqua diamonds … . Beautiful. His mind has difficulty in finding the word. But, yes: beautiful.

He blinks. The place seems familiar. He is confused. Should he know this place? He looks around and sees the pool of pink water. Now it is mostly red and there is something small in the water. Something … his glasses. He frowns at them, trying to remember why they are important and why he feels pain. There is a white shape that moves; something that instinct tells him he should be alarmed about – but the pain is all-encompassing and his eyes close and he is gone.

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They have gated to a world coming into an ice age. Ice has half destroyed the gold capped pyramid that sits on the edge of a blue spruce like forest. The world has obviously been abandoned for centuries.

They travel towards the pyramid for almost half a day. But then Teal'c begins to feel that they are being watched. He finds the tracks of large animals and Jack asks his team to be on the lookout.

It is then that Daniel stumbles and nearly falls for the first time. His vision has – twisted. Sam raises her eyebrow at him enquiringly. But Daniel grins and kicks sheepishly at a large pebble on the ancient trail. He remembers vividly how overly protective his team mates have been of him of late. Ever since Nem. He longs for the relaxed camaraderie again – to feel like an equal. He dislikes being treated as the weakest link. As if he didn't really belong.

Daniel focuses on the ancient trail – but his mind flitters from thought to thought, memory to memory chaotically. Twice he wonders if he should mention what is happening to Jack and each time his mouth clamps over the words and he remembers how much he wants to be treated normally again.

Again and again he is distracted by memories of other worlds, of languages and peoples and then he remembers dying and ascending … Again he stumbles. Something is very wrong. It is years since the encounter with Nem! He has long been treated as an able part of the team. Again he tries to speak, but the words will not come and he begins to feel afraid. But his mind is not his own now. Soothing thoughts invade him and soon he has forgotten that there is anything to be concerned about. The pyramid is closer now and the gold cap of it glistens in the weak sunlight. He sees that it is bigger than the pyramid of Khufu and he pulls his camera from his pack. He reaches for some Tylenol as well for the nagging headache that he has developed for some reason.

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It is cold. He tries to move but there is too much pain and his body has stiffened.

Whiteness. A blur.

His breath catches in his body for a moment. He tries to focus and cannot. But he can identify the wolf that sits beside him. It lifts a massive paw and there is nothing he can do but close his eyes and wait for the killing blow.

It does not come and he struggles to open his eyes again. But instead he sinks back into unconsciousness.

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Wolves. A huge pack of them, maybe thirty or so, grey and white pelted and as quiet as ghosts. They crept up on him as he worked on translating the wall glyphs. They moved without a sound and before he knew it, he was surrounded. Wolves larger than bears and with strange yellow eyes that remind him of the Goa'uld. But there is something odd about some of the wolves. He can see the breath swirling out of the jaws of only some of the wolves. The others – the pure white ones – don't seem to be breathing. One lifts its head and looks at him with strange intensity and utterly alien eyes and Daniel suddenly feels unreasonably frightened beyond belief or sense.

Running!

Breath whistling in and out. He runs on the edge of the forest, over frozen ground and tree roots, trying not to fall – trying to move faster. He fumbles belatedly at his thigh for his Beretta. There is snarling and something rips at him, flinging him forward. He nearly loses his footing - has lost his weapon. But instinct tells him that to fall is to die. He feels warmth running down his side and risks a glance over his shoulder. They are close - so close.

He realises too late that he is being herded. Too late! They have steered him away from the rest of his team. They waited until Jacks' perimeter walk took him to the opposite side of the pyramid. They have deliberately separated him from his team, and they had done it silently. Perfectly. Daniel knows better than to run when animals such as these are around. He should have yelled for help, he should have realised sooner, but it is too late now. He has been running for nearly an hour.

He fumbles suddenly for his radio – confused momentarily as to how he could have forgotten about it. But just as he begins to key it, a blur of white flashes by and the radio is snatched from his hand.

Oh God.

Run! Run faster!

A part of him realises that he is behaving uncharacteristically, unnaturally, but the realisation fades away before he can grasp it properly.

A wolf suddenly moves so fast that it easily overtakes him. It runs in huge joyful bounds that stretch its body out into a vision of perfection. It is incredibly beautiful to see. Insanely, he almost wishes he had a camera. But then it stops and sits, panting lazily and watches him veer around it with its strange eyes. Despair fills him. They are playing with him.

He knows they will take him down when they bore of the game. He has to get to the Gate; has to take risks. He veers suddenly onto the ice with his spiked boots. He can feel the surprise in them at his change of direction and he feels a sudden surge of satisfaction. Then he remembers that they have long claws that will give them traction on ice. Long, long claws.

One lets out a new sound, one that has the rest of the pack stopping in their tracks.

He runs onward for a minute, but the sudden silence has him looking over his shoulder and then slowing and stopping in sheer amazement. He pants heavily; swirls of his own breath make it difficult to see. His legs shake with exhaustion. There is a painful stitch in his side and his jacket is sticky with blood.

The wolves have stopped. All of them have stopped. One lets out a strange yipping sound. They look at him and scent the air, some prowl closer, and he can almost feel their frustration. He blinks at them, watching them through the swirls of white breath panting out of his own body. He sees that some of the wolves are very different. They seem … more frightening that the others. Their eyes are so strange. Terrifying. And he can't help thinking that they are communicating somehow with each other.

His vision blurs and he is dizzy – nauseatingly so. He stumbles again and remembers that they have been in his mind before. The wolves stare at him with that intensity again.

Again, that commanding yipe from the biggest wolf – the white one. The leader of the pack. But the grey wolves separate from the white ones and Daniel could swear that one of them steps right through the body of one of the white ones. Yet another yipe from the leader of the pack, but hunger seems more powerful today – at least for some of the grey wolves. One, then two and three grey wolves start running toward him again, and this time there is nothing playful about their gait. Daniel turns, and once again he is running.

He wonders in despair if they have finally tired of their game. A white blur sends Daniel sprawling to the ice and one of the grey wolves snarls and snaps at where Daniel had been.

Daniel stumbles to his feet again. Running …. He can hear the panting breath of a wolf. And then the ice cracks beneath them … .

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The sunlight has moved when he again opens his eyes. Now the ice is a deeper blue/green, and the light has lit some of it into diamonds that stab at his eyes. So beautiful. He wants to touch it - shifts his body slightly to do so. He screams, agony slicing up his left leg and sending hot spikes into his brain. He nearly passes out and makes another harsh sound that echoes back at him and fills his head with more pounding pain.

He moves inch by inch until he is propped up against something. That small distance tells him how badly he is hurt. Broken ribs, dislocated knee and his head. He has fallen into a crevace or an ice cavern of some kind. Far below he can hear the sounds of running water. He can already see that there is no way for him to climb out. He is in deep trouble.

Growling – deep, menacing growling - very close by.

Make that 'deeper' trouble.

Daniel fights back nausea and the desire to vomit. He moves very slowly and carefully turns. There is a white wolf – as big as a large bear on the ice shelf with him. And it is sitting between him and a grey wolf as placidly as a puppy. The grey wolf eyes him with hunger; saliva drips from its mouth. It bends closer with a definite stalking move and Daniel is certain that he is about to die. The white wolf growls a rebuke and the grey one instantly drops into a submissive crouch.

Daniel watches and waits, barely daring to breathe. He can feel the edge of darkness pressing at him but he doesn't want to pass out again now. What is he doing down here anyway? Where's Jack?

From somewhere there is a question asked. Daniel turns his head and tries to focus. But there is no one nearby. Just himself and the two wolves. Above him at the edge of the crevace there are more wolves. They are scratching at the ice pushing chunks of ice down beside the wolves. Daniel tries to see why they are doing this but the white wolf blocks him. It locks eyes with his and the question flares again. "What are you?"

Daniel's vision blurs and shifts and he sees double. He lifts his hand and feels the gash above his ear stretching up and half way over his head. His hair is matted with blood. His head throbs painfully in time with his heartbeat. He vomits over the edge, and his head pounds harder. His side hurts too but he cannot remember why. He doesn't understand what he is doing here. He knows he has a serious head injury, but he doesn't think he can remain conscious for long no matter how much he wants to….

"What are you?"

Daniel blinks trying to find the owner of the voice. "Jaaack?"

Grey wolf lifts its head and gazes at him as the echoes die away. There is no reply from Jack and Daniel frowns at the wolves. He doesn't know why he sitting here with them for company. It seems to him a very stupid thing to do.

Daniel finds himself fading away again …

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