Chapter 84 - CH 83 -The First Thaw

The great snowstorm became a memory, a story told over coffee in the shop. The city, scrubbed clean and bright, emerged from its white cocoon. The thaw was not a single event, but a slow, dripping revelation. Icicles lengthened from the shop's eaves before shattering on the concrete below. Patches of gritty, grey earth appeared in the industrial park, and the air lost its knife-edge bite, carrying instead the damp, fertile smell of waking earth.