Everything was a mess. The whole damn island wasn't what it was supposed to be, the streets rubble and most buildings shells of what they used to be. Aaron spent his days watching over people and scavenging what he could from the safer places, giving most of it away to the survivors. He had no family, really, only Marta and she was too good for him as he was anyway.
His memory had been getting strange; Aaron could remember things but didn't know how he felt when he remembered them, as if he was looking at a photograph of a moment in someone else's life. If his life was coming back to him, he wasn't sure he wanted to know what it had been because it was gone now, ruined like the damn dojo.
In fact, Jake was the first person he'd heard in a week who actually came looking for him. Aaron was suited up in some heavy duty plastic plating he'd made for himself while trying to pull what he could from wrecked buildings. His weird body chemistry meant he didn't feel cold much, not until the snow was thicker than it had been in Alaska.
"Kid?" he called, hauling two duffel bags on his shoulders through a hole in a side wall. "What are you doing out here?" he called back.