Frozen Hearts

Frozen Hearts

Tanya is suddenly awoken to the sound of the now howling wind as one of the tarps began to whip back and forth like a loose flag. She looks at her surroundings, remembering kicking in a window to find shelter in last night’s storm. Now she sees it is an attic of a house buried deep in the snow. As she reaches for her bag, she hears a crash which grabs her full attention and quickly grabs the rifle propped nearby and aims it towards the noise. A few moments pass as she waits, but only the wind was present. She moves toward the sound, cautiously peeking around the corner into a dark area she clicks on her flashlight and flinches as she sees a human figure. She aims the gun and as the light crosses the figure, she sees an all too familiar sight, a cold lifeless face frozen in place. Only then does she see a rat come from inside his chest ass she looks away in disgust. Only the does she relax, returning to her pack and opening it.

From the backpack she pulls a small bag with strips of dried meat, a map, her journal, and a small heart shaped locket. She grabs some meat and thinks to herself how scarce the animals have gotten, and that soon she would probably starve to death. She needed food soon. Next, she looks over the map of the northern united states and thinks that she should be getting close to the coastline soon and from there, north… to home. This leads her to stare at the locket as she reaches for her locket she pulls back and instead goes for the journal. she figured she had not made an entry in a while.

She opens and decides to take a quick read through, flipping trough several pages at a time. Entry no.12, “Still no sign of the sun, its growing colder now even in mid-July”. People are panicking, rioting, looting… I need to get out of the city”. Entry no.15 all flight travel is down, and cities are starting to lose power now ill need to drive across the country if I want to get back home, I never should have taken this trip. Please stay safe kids”. Entry no.21 lost contact with Sarah I have to hurry; snow has started to fall and it’s growing even colder”. As she sees mention of her kids she skips to the end and writes, entry no.92. “Yesterday I saw some tracks in the snow, hard to tell but it looked like deer. Haven’t seen one in weeks I should try to hunt it to resupply on food, and another pelt would definitely help with the cold”. I think in getting close to the domed city in Virginia, I should steer clear of that place, don’t want any trouble like last time”. She closes the journal and packs her things.

As she grabs the rifle the tarp flies off and she climbs out the window into the harsh unending winter. From what she could guess it was probably late morning, so she had to hurry, shed spent to much time and there was a lot to be done today. The winds howled and slung snow into her face. She pulled the several layers of jackets and animal pelts tighter its was easily well below freezing. She sighs and pulls the goggles over her eyes and marches forward into the forest, which was now just the tops of the trees, the thought to herself the snow was at least 10 to 15 feet deep, so she had to be careful not to hit a soft spot and sink below like quicksand.

A few hours later she finds what she is looking for, tracks, so she pulls the rifle and follows the path.it was hard to follow put she needed to keep pace, or the tracks would quickly disappear with the falling snow. A little while later, she sees movement through the snow. She crouches behind a tree and looks through the scope a lone deer with a limp was walking upwind of her the re seemed to be a gash on its leg which meant it had probably been attacked by wolves, so she had to act fast. She took aim, and with a deep breath pulled the trigger and dropped the wounded creature. She waited a few moments to see if there were any other disturbances, but there was none so she rushed over pulling a knife and in a hurry guts and skins the deer with precision. She knew the wolves would be close by so she left a large portion of the deer so they would hopefully not follow her. She strips hunks of flesh and ties them in a sack an takes the most important part, the pelt and rolled it up and stuffed it into her sack and rushed off. Not long after she heard the familiar sounds of wolves howling in the distance and she dared not look back.

Later that evening she spotted a large windmill and next to it a mound of snow which usually indicates a building just underneath. The temperature was dropping fast, and she could barely feel her hands she pulls out a folding shovel and digs where she saw where an opening might be. As she dug, she reminisced of when she got the shovel. He car had died and there were no people on the road and snow had been falling for days. She had decided to walk but she was not prepared for the cold and as she was walking, she felt herself fading into unconsciousness. As she laid there, she heard t large truck pull up. As she awoke, she was wrapped up and in the back of a truck surrounded by others all packed in the back. She had asked what was going on and a young man said that they had found her on the side of the road and that they were headed to a city that was preparing for this “endless winter”. As they grew closer to the city, she saw giant wall being built. She remembered how she had spent weeks here because as soon as they had arrived, they were forced to work by the authorities of the city saying that if they wanted to stay, they had to pull their own weight. Just then Tanya broke through the snow and slid the doors open.

She begins to prep for her stay by pulling a mini-stove and some kindling and starts a small fire and sets up several hanging lights lighting the barn. She starts cooking some of the meat and hanging some strips she cut to dry them out for later she then preps the hide she had and dries it out for another layer and maybe another layer for her hands. Now it was so cold that any bare skin was likely to get frostbite. She them pulls the map out and looks at a compass she had pulled out, unfortunately it was the same as always, spinning wildly. She sighed and put it away and studied the map. Several towns and cities had been crossed out across the map headed east but without any true way of navigation it was mostly luck that had gotten her this far. All she knew was that if she could make it to the coast, she would have an easier time finding he way back home, so the next landmark was to be another domed city and from there the coast.

Once again, she thinks back to the city, and how she had been put on furnace duty. The city had not only been building walls but was modifying the city in a way that would better hold up to the cold such as digging tunnels under street level and building giant furnaces. On that day, an incident occurred that she’d rather forget but due to this the authorities deemed her a murderer and kicked her out of the city, but this was fine by her as that place was just a prison and she needed to get home.

While she cooked, she hears a growl as she recognized the sound, she whips around to see a lone wolf. It was staring at her and was approaching cautiously. She looked for her rifle, but it was towards the wolf. So, in a bold leap she lunges for the gun, but the wolf was faster, leaping and pinned her to the ground, Digging into her arm. Thankfully, there were several layers if hide wrapped around her arm buying her time. she reached down pulling a knife from be waist digging it deep into the wolfs eye. It leaps back in pain but was ready to pounce again but Tanya was already at the rifle. She whipped around and in mid pounce, she fires dropping it instantly. Out of breath she scrabbles to the door pulling it shut. She then slumps next to her fire and bandaged herself up. She fell asleep not long after.

As she awoke, her body was sore but was sure there was no serious damage done. She picked herself up and went to the wolf, pulled the knife from its eye, repeating the prosses of skinning the pelt and drying it out. She hoped that this was enough to keep her warm enough in the coming months. She packed up and climbed from her hole into the outside however there was no snow falling and she could see clearly, and, in the distance, she saw the domed city. She was getting close. With newfound resolve she began her trek east. Her plan was to just bypass the city all together and avoid any complications. An hour later, snow had begun to fall. Her visibility had been reduced but she was confident she knew the right direction, however the snow quickly worsened and soon, it was a full-on blizzard. Tanya knew it was a risk in such weather, but she did not want to be caught by anyone in the city. By the end of the day, she had walked without stopping and that's when she saw it through the sleet, giant waves crashed upon broken sheets of ice. She thought "almost there" and headed north.

******

A few weeks later, after following the coastline, she began to see familiar landmarks, the jagged cliffs, the narrow beaches and yet, now so foreign. She walked until she recognized a familiar outcropping along the cliff that she and her kids used to use to get to the beach. A year had passed since she had seen or heard from her kids and now, she was terrified of what she might find. From atop the cliff, she knew exactly were to go to find he old house and she saw mounds of where houses should be. Half a mile inland she stood in front of where her house would be, and she began to dig. She was hoping, praying that she would find it long abandoned and that they would have escaped t other south or to a city, hell anywhere, so long as there were alive. She revealed the upper balcony door and pried it open she slowly checked the upper floor but there were no signs of them. Then she came to the stairs and crept down them. As she came to the bottom she looked to the living room, and by the fireplace 2 people sat huddled together. As she grew closer, she grew weak and fell to her knees as she sat before her children perfectly preserved from the cold. And for three days she sat motionless drowned in sorrow. On the third night as she hugged her kids, she saw her daughter holding a note. She wiped her tears and opened it. “Mom, I know you’ll make it home and I’m sorry we won’t be able to see you again its growing so cold and we’ve burned the last of the wood and we’re trapped but, please don’t give up. Survive this hell and help anyone you can just like you always did keep moving forward, love Sarah”.

As she finished packing her things and wiped away tears, she heads to the door taking one last look at her now covered children now with her heart shaped locket now opened revealing a photo of her holding her kids laughing placed in front of them and walked back into the endless winter.