The biting wind was a physical entity, a relentless predator tearing at Ethan's ragged clothes as it tunneled through the frozen canyons of Manhattan. His breath plumed white, a desperate flag against the unrelenting blizzard. Around him, the skeletal remains of the Empire State Building pierced a sky choked with perpetual grey. Not a single bird dared to fly over the Hudson; the river was nothing but a jagged highway of black ice. Only the wind howled its mournful song over a frozen world.
He felt the cold deep in his bones, a slow, agonizing embrace that had been claiming him for weeks. His stomach cramped, a hollow ache that was now a constant companion, worse than any frostbite. For three days, he hadn't eaten. His group—no, not family, he corrected himself with a bitter, internal sneer—his unit had shared their last meager rations yesterday: a single, moldy protein bar split among seven in the ruins of a basement in Hell's Kitchen.
He shivered, not just from the cold, but from the memory of their eyes, sharp and calculating, when he'd offered to go scout for more. He was the strongest, the one who'd protected them for the past two years since the Global Freeze turned the world into a death trap. He was the shield. And now, he was simply… expendable.
A faint glow flickered in the distance, near the remains of a subway entrance. Hope, cold and fragile, sparked in his chest. Maybe… maybe they had found something. A trap. A stash. Anything.
He stumbled, his frozen boot catching on a rusted taxi door buried in a snowdrift. He hit the ground hard, the impact jarring his already aching body. But he didn't feel pain as much as he felt a sudden, strange warmth spreading through his chest. It was a dizzying sensation, like falling into a warm bath after being submerged in ice. His eyelids felt heavy. Too heavy.
He dragged himself forward, crawling now, the light growing brighter. He could almost smell the faint scent of smoke, imagine the warmth of a fire. Just a few more yards.
Then, the glint of metal. A familiar face, shadowed by the hood of a thick parka. It was his teammate, Sarah. Her eyes, usually so timid, were hard as flint. Behind her stood Marcus, his face a mask of grim determination, and two others he had called brothers.
"Ethan," Sarah's voice was barely a whisper above the wind. "You found nothing, did you?"
He tried to shake his head, tried to tell her he was just returning. But his tongue felt thick. He could only manage a choked gasp.
Marcus stepped forward, holding something small and white. A loaf of bread. Freshly baked, judging by the steam still rising from it. "We found this. Enough for us to last another few days."
Ethan's eyes widened. A loaf of bread. A miracle in the middle of a dead city. He pushed himself up, extending a hand. "Give it to me. We'll share. We always share."
The four of them exchanged glances. A silent conversation, colder than the blizzard itself. Then, Sarah slowly, deliberately, pulled a combat knife from her belt. Marcus raised a heavy iron pipe.
"Ethan," Marcus said, his voice devoid of emotion. "You're too much of a burden now. We can't afford to feed a protector who can't find food."
The realization hit Ethan harder than any blizzard. Betrayal. For a loaf of bread. All the sacrifices, all the protection, all the loyalty… it meant nothing. He was a resource consumed, a tool discarded.
He wanted to fight. To scream. To demand answers. But his body refused to obey. The strange warmth inside him was intensifying, consuming him. His vision blurred, the faces of his betrayers twisting into monstrous caricatures.
The knife swung. The pipe descended.
Pain. A searing, blinding agony that eclipsed the cold, the hunger, and the betrayal. He felt his blood, strangely hot, spill onto the frozen asphalt of 42nd Street. His last conscious thought was a searing hatred, a promise whispered only to the howling wind.
I will make you regret this. Every single one of you.
Then, the world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of ice and black.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Ethan's eyes snapped open. Sweat, cold and clammy, plastered his hair to his forehead. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum against the sudden, jarring noise. He sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for air, his hands flying to his chest, searching for the wound that wasn't there.
The searing pain, the bitter cold, the faces of his betrayers… all of it was just a dream. A vivid, terrifying nightmare.
He looked around. The room was familiar. Too familiar. His cramped, overpriced apartment in Queens. Sunlight streamed through the windows, showing a clear blue New York sky, not the perpetual grey gloom of the apocalypse. The air was warm, smelling of city exhaust and morning coffee. Not -100°C.
His alarm clock blared impatiently from his bedside table. July 15, 2030. 7:00 AM.
July 15, 2030.
His breath hitched. He knew that date. He knew it with a chilling certainty that made the blood drain from his face. The Global Freeze, the one that turned Earth into a permanent winter wasteland, began exactly one month from today.
August 15th. That was the day.
He scrambled out of bed, grabbing his phone. The date glared back at him. July 15th. He wasn't dreaming. He wasn't dead. He had gone back. Thirty days before the end of the world. Thirty days before the betrayal.
A strange sensation bloomed in his gut, not hunger, but a peculiar emptiness. He looked at his hand, flexing his fingers. Then, he focused, a thought forming, a desperate, irrational hope. Subspace. Inventory. Something.
And just like that, a shimmering, translucent blue panel flickered into existence before him. It was small, no bigger than a paperback book, and utterly empty.
He focused on the cheap plastic pen on his desk. Move.
The pen vanished from the desk and reappeared inside the blue panel. Then, with another thought, it was back on his desk.
His heart hammered again, but this time, it was with a terrifying, exhilarating mixture of dread and euphoria. The cold hatred he felt moments before, the promise he made to the howling wind… it was no longer just a dying man's wish.
He stared at his phone, then at the empty Subspace.
Thirty days.
Thirty days to hoard everything. Thirty days to prepare. Thirty days to become something more than just a victim in the city that never sleeps.
And then, 10,000 days, or however long it took, to collect on every single debt.
[End of Chapter 1]