Wheeling Gull Isle we're speaking with brand new tongues

It was overcast and grim as he hobbled each step along the sand bar. Threatening rain maybe, or snow. He didn't know, wasn't wise like others his age, wasn't all that aware of anything really; he'd forgotten why he'd started this way.
He'd forgotten to be afraid of the blackness everywhere, or the nip of the cold against his threadbare coat, and sometimes walked without any stress at all, as if the tangle that scarred his legs had never happened.
That pain would return and he would be briefly stupefied, then carry on.
And on, and on and on, until,
A forest loomed before him — icy, imposing, with empty fingers reaching skyward at the sad sky.
Familiar — but he couldn't place why.