The long winter began with snow falling in the midst of summer… And the world froze over with it.
The frigid air burst alive with the fiery breath of life. The only heat Dean had felt in days was his own.
That and the makeshift fire in the middle of his living room kept alive by an increasingly dwindling amount of books and furniture.
He breathed once more into his gloved hands, rubbing them together before placing them in front of the embers that grew dimmer by the minute. He couldn't see, not fully, as his lashes had frosted with the world around him.
It had been nearly six weeks since the world froze over; suddenly and violently civilization came to an end.
Nobody could have possibly known this was coming, and fewer still prepared when the snow began to fall.
His stomach churned in agony, feasting upon itself, as he had long since run out of cup noodles and potato chips to keep his belly satiated.
With each passing second, he could feel it calling to him, the ever-beckoning and gnawing desire to simply fall asleep and never wake up.
His eyes began to shutter, and his vision faded when a knock resounded on his door. Not once, not twice, but ceaselessly.
It was ultimately the voice on the other side that drove him from his near-eternal slumber.
"Goddamn it Dean! I'm freezing my ass off out here! Open up already!"
The name muttered itself within his foggy mind.
'Avery…'
The very idea that she was outside his door freezing, while he nearly fell asleep next to the embers of his last book, forced Dean to his feet.
Each step taken pumped the blood through his veins, increasing the warmth in his body, before he finally stumbled over to the latched door.
He tried to open it, but it had frozen in place. His strength had long since left his body, as food became more and more scarce.
And yet, as the screaming on the other end continued, he somehow managed to find the power within himself to wrench the doorframe open, revealing the dark and frozen outside world beyond.
A cold lash of air assaulted his exposed face. Whipping past his flesh like knives made of ice.
Compared to his own home, which was kept dimly lit by candlelight and kept livable by an ever-waning fire. The world beyond was more unforgiving.
But Avery was not alone in his doorway. Instead of his best friend, Richard was standing there, huddled together with the woman for a reason Dean could not explain.
The two of them were poorly dressed for the storm. Avery's short dark hair was partially concealed beneath a beanie. While her bare hands were kept stuffed inside her hoodie. Richard, on the other hand, appeared dressed in a tracksuit and nothing more.
The commotion had drawn the attention of the girl next door who stood separated. who rushed over as quickly as she could swim through the mountains of snow that had piled up.
She seemed equally perplexed to see another man next to Avery's side. Confusion quickly turned to concern.
"Is everything all right?"
She seemed to be dressed in what could loosely be described as winter attire. Though it appeared more suited towards a fashion statement or a social media post than actual cold weather.
Her arms were wrapped around her exposed midsection as her body trembled in the cold. Her body covered in what Dean considered to be an unseasonable tan.
Richard and Avery paid no attention to the young woman and barged their way into the residence without Dean even being able to speak for himself.
He simply sighed and shook his head, noticing that the girl next door was freezing in the cold more than any of them.
"It's fine Yuki, come on in and warm yourself by the fire."
Yuki blushed and twirled her obviously dyed blonde hair before entering the home with a silent bow of her head as a gesture of gratitude.
Once inside, and the door closed, sealing off the colder outside world from the barely livable habitat within, Avery quickly began to scold Dean, prodding his chest with her pale finger.
"Thank god! If you had kept us waiting another second, I would have given Richard the okay to break that damn door down! What took you so long? Don't you care about your fiancée?"
Richard was nowhere to be found. But his attempted plundering echoed throughout the home's interior.
All the while Dean sighed and shook his head. He understood why Avery was here; she had come over frequently since the snow first fell seeking his aid in some fashion or another.
However, Richard was an anomaly that even Yuki couldn't ignore. Her eyes never quite left the man's presence even as he rustled through the background.
Even so, Dean and his gaunt appearance were something that forced Yuki's attention to the present.
"Oh, my God… Dean… you're so thin… Are you okay?"
Dean paid the young woman little attention as his focus was still fixed on his girlfriend who seemed almost enraged in his presence.
"I'm fine… Yuki, I just haven't eaten in a few days is all…."
Before Yuki could protest further, Richard stormed into the room, having torn the kitchen and pantry apart looking for something, anything to eat.
"You fucking bastard! You made us wait in that damn cold for nearly five whole minutes! And you don't even have any food to welcome us with?"
Dean stood firmly in contrast to Richard's aggression. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the man's posture; it was obvious Richard was one second away from swinging at him.
"Does it look like I've been able to eat these last few days? Maybe there's something edible left in the basement, but I haven't been able to get the damn door open. It froze up weeks ago…."
Richard stared into Dean's eyes as they refocused on him and snorted. But Dean refused to back down.
Ultimately Avery broke between the two of them, grabbing Richard by the bicep, and forcing him away from Dean.
"Come on, there's no use fighting over a lack of supplies. You're stronger than Dean, clearly you can get into the basement, right?"
Dean didn't respond; he simply rolled his eyes at Avery's poor attempt to defuse the situation.
But much to his surprise it seemed to work, as Richard stopped cornering Dean and began to walk off with Avery.
"Yeah, you're right. This scrawny bastard is too weak to bust down that door, but it should be no problem for me."
Once Avery and Richard had scurried off, Dean sighed in relief. The Long Winter had strained his relationship with Avery, but he never expected her to bring Richard here to help shake him down for more supplies.
Dean couldn't help but have a bad feeling fill in the void of his gut, but didn't have time to think about this, as Yuki quickly drew his attention, pulling a crumpled, partially eaten bag of chips out of her half-hoodie's front pockets.
She handed them over to Dean, while averting her gaze, clearly blushing from the guilt she was feeling.
"I'm sorry… It's all I have left. If I had known you were starving, I would have come over and shared with you sooner. Please… eat."
Dean hesitated for the briefest of moments to grab the chips. Just long enough for Richard to come back into the room to witness the scene.
And when he saw Dean holding a bag of chips in his hands, he immediately fell into a fit of rage.
"You fucking prick! I knew it! You were holding out on us!"
Normally Dean would have been able to dodge the attack in time, but his body was too lethargic after the last week. The punch collided with his jaw just enough to knock him back into the bookcase behind him.
As Dean struggled to his feet, Yuki rushed in, attempting to stop the Richard from taking another swing.
Grabbing him by the waist, she held down as hard as she could, foolishly believing anchoring her weight was enough to stop the man.
"Stop it! Have you gone mad? It's just a bag of chips, Dean clearly needs it more than you do!"
This only served to enrage Richard who threw the woman off with violent force. Causing her to fall nearby and hit her head on the end table. She collapsed to the floor, as silent and stiff as the dead.
Dean quickly rushed over to check on the girl, and found that she neither had a pulse nor was breathing.
All the while Richard picked up the bag of chips that was partially crushed on the floor and began eating it, without the slightest care that he had just committed murder.
Dean felt something overwhelm him that he had long since tried to suppress in this life. Something primal and unrelenting.
He glared at Richard, his fists clenching into solid stone as he rose to his feet. It was as if the man had become possessed; in that moment all the strength that had fled from his body these last few days returned in a fury.
He quickly threw a jab, cross, and uppercut combo at Richard, knocking the man to the floor before getting on top of him and raining elbows and hammer fists down in an unbridled rage.
"You fucking prick! You killed her! For what? A bag of chips! I should fucking gouge your eyes out and feed them to you, you gluttonous thieving fuck!"
Cuts opened up across Richard's face as he tried to shield himself to no avail.
The man tried to get out from under Dean, but clearly was lacking in grappling experience as Dean stabilized his base with a support hand before landing another elbow directly to Richard's temple, knocking the man's head against the cold stone tile.
Just when Dean was about to stick his thumb beneath Richard's eyelid and finish the job, he felt a sharp pain from behind. He looked around to find that Avery had literally stabbed him in the back.
Tears flooded from her eyes as the life faded from Dean's body, allowing Richard to effortlessly get out from under him.
"I'm sorry, Dean… You made me do this… You're too weak and I need Richard to survive…."
Dean was now covered in his own blood, as was the floor beneath him. He gazed up at his fiancée and the man who had once been his best friend as they hugged in front of him, using his last breath to curse them.
"You fucking whore… I gave you everything… I starved so that you could eat… And this is how you repay me… You better pray I stay dead… Because if there's a chance *cough* that I survive this… I will make sure the two of you eat each other!"
Richard glared at Dean and his defiant expression of disdain in his eyes. The last thing Dean saw was a series of floating red numbers over the two of them.
---
Name: Richard Adams
Health: 30/100
Relationship: Hostile
---
Name: Avery Bennett
Health: 90/100
Relationship: Hostile
---
Dean didn't have time to think about what this mysterious text overlay meant, because in the next moment Richard stepped forward and smashed his face in with a boot.
---
Dean awoke with a start in his bed. His forehead was drenched in sweat as he struggled to gain his bearings. Where was he? And why was he so warm?
Had Yuki not died after all? Had he been mistaken in reading her vital signs? Had she saved him? If so, then how did she restore the power that had been out for weeks?
He looked down at his body and noticed he was not the slightest bit gaunt; his fit frame was still in its peak state. Just as his figure had been prior to the fall of the first snow and the new ice age that followed.
How was this possible? He looked over at his phone, which lay on his nightstand, fully charged, and saw messages.
The date was confirmed… July 22th, 2026. Nearly an entire month before the first snowstorm hit the Pacific Northwestern states within the Union of Columbia.
Within Terra, the Pacific Northwest was one of the first regions affected by the Ice Age. And it just so happened to be where Dean lived.
He couldn't believe his eyes. Was it all just a dream? No… It was too vivid and too coherent to be such a thing.
Had it been a prophetic vision? Or had he regressed back to the beginning? Had someone or something given him another chance at survival?
Dean didn't think about it for long as he saw an unread message in his phone's contacts. It was from Avery, and when he saw the words, it boiled his blood.
"Looking forward to our date tomorrow! XOXO"
Dean vividly remembered how Avery had literally stabbed him in the back and professed her infidelity as her last confession.
His hands began to clench around the phone before he tossed it aside and rose to his feet.
Avery and Richard… they had used him until he had nothing left to give, and then they had stabbed him in the back.
And Yuki… Yuki! Was she still alive? The thought filled him with remorse.
He remembered how she had died simply trying to give him some food so that he could survive a little longer. Doing what little she could to protect him from Richard's sudden and unprovoked attack.
It consumed his thoughts; he needed to know. If he had been sent back to the beginning, then Yuki just had to be alive. Didn't she?
He forced himself to take a deep breath and calm himself. There was no point freaking out about possibilities right now. Clearly, he had been given a second chance. And just when he was about to crawl out of his bed, the doorbell rang.
The doorbell rang… and so early in the morning? Wait a second, July 22nd, 2026? He remembered this day. It was the first real interaction he and Yuki had as neighbors, and not long before the first snow began to fall.
Dean got out of bed and dressed himself just enough to be presentable. Walking down the stairs of his two-story house, he found himself at the door opening it.
And there she was, standing in the doorway, dressed in a pink satin robe, which matched the highlights in her obviously dyed blonde hair perfectly.
A stack of letters was in the girl's hands as she awkwardly tried not to meet Dean's eyes.
"It's Dean, right? For some reason, I got your mail today."
A memory flashed back through Dean's mind as he gazed upon the young woman who only a few weeks prior, had moved in next door to his old family home.
She was a freshman in college, supposed to be starting her first semester in the fall. But this was the first time they had ever truly spoken other than in mere passing.
Dean however was more focused on the glowing yellow alphanumerical figures surrounding Yuki's figure.
---
Name: Yuki Tanaka
Health: 100/100
Relationship: Neutral
---
He gazed at Yuki for a long time in awkward silence, causing the young woman to blush, as she finally snapped him to attention.
"Hey are you okay? You seem a little out of it? I'm really sorry if I woke you up."
Once Dean heard Yuki's voice, he immediately regained his clarity, shaking his head in an almost canine-like gesture, before grabbing the stack of envelopes from the woman's dainty hands.
"No need to apologize, it's not your fault, truth of the matter is I didn't get much sleep last night. Thanks, Yuki, I'll see you around."
Yuki blushed the moment her eyes met Dean's; she didn't believe she had ever told Dean her name before.
And yet he seemed to already know it; she began walking away after performing a slight bow of apology once more.
But Dean called out to her one last time before shutting his door behind him.
"Hey, Yuki, if you ever need any help feel free to drop by…."
Yuki didn't think much of Dean's words. But after she had fed him and tried to save him from Richard's assault, he couldn't help but feel a deep debt of gratitude towards the woman.
At the same time, she was the only person he could reasonably trust not to stab him in the back in the upcoming days. For she had already died to save him once already.
But Dean didn't have time to reflect on the past. He had been given a second chance at life, and with the storm that was coming. He had to prepare for the long winter that only he knew was coming.
Because with only a month before the ice age apocalypse began, every second wasted was the difference between surviving for the long haul or lying bleeding out in his childhood home.