A frozen in time

The air was thick with silence, the kind that presses down on you like an invisible weight. Snowflakes drifted lazily from the sky, untouched by wind, falling in a rhythmic dance that felt almost intentional. Beneath them, the town of Everwinter lay frozen in time.

It had been exactly fifty years since the world had changed. The date was December 12, 1975. One moment, life bustled through Everwinter as it always had—children laughing, storekeepers calling out deals, cars honking impatiently. The next moment, everything stopped. Not just paused, not just slowed—stopped. People were caught mid-step, conversations were frozen on lips, and birds hung in mid-air, their wings locked in place.

Time had ceased to exist in Everwinter.

Outside the town’s borders, the world moved on. Scientists, historians, and theorists flocked to the frozen town, staring at its unmoving citizens through the invisible barrier that separated Everwinter from the rest of reality. Governments tried everything—experiments, machines, even supernatural inquiries—but nothing could penetrate the time-locked town. The world learned to accept Everwinter as an enigma, a mystery that would never be solved.

Then, fifty years later, the unthinkable happened.

James Carter opened his eyes.

For James, it had been just another winter day. He had been walking to the general store when he blinked—and suddenly, it was dark. His first thought was that he had gone blind, but as his eyes adjusted, he realized the town was still there, illuminated by the glow of a massive moon. But something was different. The air smelled… stale. The snow beneath his boots felt untouched, as if he were the first person to step on it in ages. He turned his head and gasped.

The street was lined with people, frozen in mid-motion. A woman balanced on one foot, slipping on a patch of ice. A man leaned out of his car window, mouth open in mid-yell. A boy stood by the candy store, his face frozen in delight, his hand reaching toward a dropped lollipop that never touched the ground.

“What…?” James whispered, his voice cracking in the silence.

His breath came out in clouds, and with it, movement returned. It started small—the lollipop hit the ground with a soft thud, breaking the eternal stillness. The woman gasped as she finally lost her balance, tumbling onto the ice. The man in the car finished his yell, now one of sheer confusion. The entire town inhaled in unison, as if waking from a long, dreamless sleep.

Panic erupted.

People screamed as they realized something was wrong. The town’s clock tower still read 3:42 PM, but the sun had long since set. Cars that had once idled now sputtered to life and immediately died, their engines long drained of fuel. Store windows were still adorned with Christmas decorations from 1975, untouched by time. But beyond the town’s borders, the world had changed.

James stumbled backward, heart hammering. He had no idea why he had woken first, why he alone had been aware of the stillness. The answers, he feared, lay beyond Everwinter’s limits.

With tentative steps, he approached the town’s border. For fifty years, no one had been able to pass through, as if an invisible wall had kept the citizens locked in. James reached out, half-expecting to be repelled—but his fingers passed through the unseen barrier. His breath hitched. He took a step forward.

The world outside was unrecognizable. Skyscrapers pierced the sky in the distance, their neon lights flickering like digital fireflies. Strange, silent cars zipped down the highway, their drivers staring in wide-eyed horror at the town that had, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist half a century ago. People—strangers in futuristic clothing—gathered in groups, watching from afar.

James turned back to Everwinter, his town, where families now held one another, crying in confusion. He had awoken them, but for what future? Their world was gone. They had no money, no records, no identities. They were relics of a past age, artifacts in a world that had moved on without them.

The realization settled in James’s bones like the frost in the air.

They had been frozen in time, but now, they would have to start anew.