76°00’08.2”S 53°43’31.2”E – Nuevo Trujillo, Spanish Antarctic Colonies

19.05.2024- 00.00 UTC +3.00

The announcement persisted once again in my head. My girlfriend’s shattered body was lying right next to me, as I tried to regain control of my breathing. One bizarre thought kept popping up in my mind.

Why am I alive?

I knew fully well the sub-zero temperatures around me would not have crystallized me instantly like Lucia – so there was something more at play. On the other hand, I was only wearing a T-shirt in Antarctica, and I only felt mild discomfort from the breeze.

I looked at my exposed arms and hands, as I tried to make sense of what happened. My hands were even sweaty from the stress.

“Am I dead? Am I a ghost?” I asked out loud, wondering if hearing the question would make it less ridiculous. I was very much alive and, besides the bruising from tumbling down the stairs of the Paseo, feeling fine. I checked my pockets. My phone was completely shattered, and as much as I would wish to function, it would not respond to any of my button pressing.

A thumping noise came from the direction of the Paseo. My skin crawled and I turned towards the general direction of its walls, but I could not tell what exactly I heared. It sounded as if something collapsed, but the sound was carried away by the thick white sub-zero temperature cloud that was covering the area. The cloud held strong all over around me, limiting my vision to only five meters or so. Orienting myself would be difficult, but not impossible if I simply chose to walk as far away as I could from the direction of the Paseo. I shot a last look at Lucia’s remains and the guilt overwhelmed me. I had somehow managed to make her final moments an awkward teenage break-up, although I am sure she probably did not care anymore.

Okay, focus. I had to get out of there and find someone to explain to me what was happening. Mourning Lucia respectfully would have to wait for another time.

“It was good knowing you and eh,” I said, feeling more frustrated than sad. I hadn’t asked to be the one to survive and I felt immense pressure to say some impressive honorary words. But I had nothing, and no one was around to see or hear this. “Bye,” I said awkwardly and started walking through the white cloud.

I kept walking for a good ten minutes, unfortunately still very much inside the white cloud of ice. I was now in the Chinese District, an area that used to be something like the Chinatown of N.T. From the announcement before, it sounded as if its southern part was safe, so I had a good amount of walking to go through.

It was not heavy on the legs, so much as on the mind. The entire area was normally heavily populated and quite developed. While civilians here might have had a minute or so to evacuate more than we had at the Paseo, most of them were caught running in the street, now completely frozen in place. I could not help but look at the people of all ages who had since turned into ice sculptures in their final pose. Some of them seemed like they were running in the street, and some were completely shattered. Perhaps they jumped from a nearby window in panic, as the cloud engulfed their home.

A terrifying thought invaded my mind: what if whatever was keeping me warm would stop doing that any moment? Maybe I was just lucky for a passing moment, spared by some kind of divine providence – and then any second I could just turn into a frozen sculpture. The thought ironically caused me to sweat even more, but I decided to start walking faster, paving my way through the snow. Running on the frozen roads was not an option, but feeling the increasing risk I was in I did not hold back and picked up the pace.

It must have been a total of thirty minutes of walking fast in this condition. I had stopped looking at the frozen people around me, realizing that I could not carry the thought of all the thousands of dead people surrounding me. Finally, the fog had started to thin out and I could hear commotion and noise dead ahead.

“Help!” I started yelling as I ran “Please help!”

These last seconds before I exited the fog were the most terrifying. The idea that I could just freeze over a few meters before escaping urged me to make sure people heard me and witness that I had at the very least reached so far. So, I yelled as much as I could I was running.

“I am here! I am here!”

Eventually I exited the fog and ran into what looked like an emergency camp. Tents were set up everywhere in a plaza I could no longer recognize. People were wearing heavy coats, and what seemed like doctors ran around tending to people lying on beds. Some of them did not visibly look hurt, just unconscious. Others had limbs frozen over or cut off.

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As I walked in the middle of the scene, I realized immediately I looked out of place. I was wearing my summer clothes, I was probably the most in shape than anyone else, and I had yelled so loud that the entire camp was looking at me.

A doctor came right towards me looking perplexed. She pulled a flashlight to look directly into my face as I winced back. Covered in fur and snow, hands trembling and her breath visibly shaking, she was revealing a stark contrast with my demeanour.

“You-do you- are you alright?” she asked, visibly more in shock than I was.

“Yes, I think so? What is happening?” I asked confused. People rose up to look at me, or turned around whispering. No one dared come near however. The doctor called two of what must have been her assistants that hesitantly approached. She started giving them orders to cover me in blankets and lead me to a tent.

“Please tell me what is happening?” I insisted.

“We don’t know right now,” she said, with a quiet voice, trying to compose herself “but we need to get you somewhere warm, and quick. You must be… freezing.”

I followed her as we crossed the small camp, approaching a huge military tent, rippling and moving by the cold streams of wind. The tent pulsed and jumped when we opened the zip cover. Inside, more people were cramped, covered in blankets and gauze around amputated limbs. The tent kept some warmth and provided refuge from the powerful winds outside. It was clear however, people would quickly need some proper hospitalization.

“Please wait for me,” the woman said, and left me sitting on a chair “I will be coming right away,” she said, albeit a bit reluctantly.

I obeyed. I had no option. A radio inside the tent was broadcasting news from across N.T through heavy static. I felt numbed by panic as I tried to understand what the radio was broadcasting. This was way bigger than I initially feared. Were other places affected? Had this cloud reached the center – were my parents okay? Or did they turn like Lucia? The sound of her shattering into pieces haunted me. I gradually sank into anxiety and realized I began feeling cold. I held even stronger onto my blankets and tried to calm myself down.

I waited in the tent but dared not make a sound to complain. People lying in there were hurt and moaning in pain I could only try to imagine. I looked at my watch and realized that I had been waiting for a good while.

I stood up still holding on to my blankets and walked towards the exit of the tent. As I opened the entrance only a bit, I saw outside a crowd had gathered. Not just any crowd: soldiers dressed in military equipment and holding rifles. I was about to head back and sit at my place when I noticed my doctor talking with them.

A feeling of doubt and paranoia crawled up my spine. I looked around in the tent I was in; all the victims of the attack were lucky if they were conscious, and only having lost one arm. And here I was, jumping out of the cloud of icy death looking all fine. How many questions must have been raised? I obviously knew I had nothing to do with what happened – but the realization that I looked more guilty than anyone else in this camp quickly hit.

The doctor pointed towards the tent, and I stood back. Did they see me looking? Were they here for me? Were all these guns here for me?

I started sweating again and I dropped the blanket. Should I wait and explain to them? Would they even wait for me to explain or was I about to get into deadly trouble? Should I run?

Suddenly, the regular black military-grade tent stopped moving, as if it had turned to stone. I stopped hearing the commotion outside or inside the tent.

“You have to come with me,” a voice said. I turned startled towards the middle of the tent, where a young man was standing. He was also wearing a big coat, different from the rest. One hand was wearing a glove, while the other one was exposed. A peculiar symbol glimmered on the back of his palm.

His expression was worried but more confident than mine. His sharp and imposing characteristics only made his command sound more serious, although he was only slightly older than me. Twenty-something perhaps. He pointed outside.

“There is a whole battalion of troops ready to storm the entire camp to get their hands on the Survivor,” he stressed with a purposeful intention the “survivor”. Was I supposed to be this survivor? I wondered what he meant by that: so many in this camp had survived the onslaught of ice, much as I had, although not unscathed like me.

Everyone else in the tent seemed to not bother worrying about the weird man in the middle. It was as if only I could see him. I started doubting myself: was I hallucinating?

“My ward can hide us, but only for a while. You either stay or follow.”

His ward? What was he even talking about? I sensed the tent trembling again, and apparently whatever his hand and symbol were doing, was quickly dissipating. I had to make a call. Once he saw my decisiveness, he started walking towards the exit of the tent.

“Muffle your ears, stay close and don’t let even a whimper out” he commanded, keeping his arm up. I listened and put my hands against my ears, and as he opened the tent, I did even more so.

It sounded as if all the sounds of the camp were magnified to the tenth-degree. The young man started running across the camp, avoiding all the soldiers that were walking towards us. I stayed next to him to the best of my abilities, trying to hold myself from yelling: the noise was absolute madness.

Whatever this man was doing, no one noticed us running among the soldiers. It was not as if they could not see us, sure they glanced at us. But at the same time, they averted their gaze as if we were unimportant.

The man kept running and I ran next to him. And for the third time that hour, another terrifying thought crossed my mind. If the soldiers came for me thinking I had something to do with that white cloud, why was this man helping me?