The Day The World Froze

The day the world froze was icy enough to meld our hearts into stone.

It had all began months before as the polar caps began to grow, rapidly. Icy winds blew through the Sahara Desert and strange phenomena such as snow was to be found in arid places like on Australia's Uluru. Not to mention a polar bear was seen walking the streets of Germany and a penguin crossing the boarder into France! The sudden chill over the globe was like God blew an icy breath upon the world and was seconds from smashing it into small pieces of ice shards.

We all felt and knew it was time to flee. Warmth was a myth by the time my family moved. Trudging through snow-bound streets, we headed north towards the less cool part of the equator. Sadly many of those who came with us did not survive the sudden blizzards that struck up within half a minute every two hours. I now can only laugh at what they told us in school before the Big Freeze - Global Warming, the globe's getting warmer? I don't think so.

So now living in conditions in which the entire population of the world is trying to cram into - we're running out of resources. This weather has killed off all crops - even the ones who are strongest against mild frost. Our clothing is tattered and mended here and there with any materials we can find and wood is constantly being stockpiled for warmth and bonfires in the caves we must resign ourselves to live in. We can only hope it doesn't run out soon.

I guess it's just one be joke isn't it - the world coaxed mankind out of its caves and enticed it into the arms of new life whereas now, it seems to have had enough of us and is forcing us to turn back the clock. Cavemen are all we are now. I heard that there are other... more savage groups of people around the equator region that have resorted to acts of cannibalism, it happens most often on the islands. Luckily the temporary International Crisis Government has placed laws and banns on this community of ours against such horrors.

Only time will tell if we survive each night and the one after. As in times like these, people are desperate.

(Science-Fiction Beginning)

The Cell of Ice

PRELUDE

Day ??? Month ??? 1788,

The cold seeps in through the walls of this cell like living tendrils of death that stroke my insides with icicles. Stone. That's all I can see around me. The cold life-sucking stone stealing my happiness and life. The scratches upon the walls around me count the days I've been stuck in here, however the dull blue glow of the cell has reduced my eyesight to nothing more than 10 centimetres forward and so those pitiful scratches mean nothing to me. My only current measurement of time here is the strange new short beard that clings to my face and is clumped together in spikes of icicles. It's just another reminder of my separation from society and my life before the arrest. I fear that I look like some nightmarish vision of Jack Frost waiting to come out from my lair. But alas - will I come out? I believe not as the guards have left long ago. For weeks I believe I have been the only one here, surviving on licking the water of icicles and killing the rats that run through. This predicament in which I am in is all for nought as I did not even commit a crime. All I did was write - of course I underestimated the power of my words but it was not me that turned them into what they are today. I now understand that the written word is to be used far more carefully than any other weapon in the world for though one word may lead you down the path of happiness and prosperity - another may lead you here. Here being the eternal prison of Hell - only cold and harsher upon the vitals. So as anoth--

Sounds, I hear something. Is it that I have finally gone mad? For I thin--

Voices, whispered voices. Coming closer, nearing the bars of my cell. They mus--

Chains rattling, clinking moving closer, closer, closer--

They're upon me like the plague, is this the end? They--

The Diary of Henry Walker ended here before several pages of a series of hurried symbols and scribbles. There is suspect of a second diary under a different name. Only time will tell whether his story will arise...

The Winter's Calling

I hurried off the train that had taken me to this place. Isolated. Lonely. That’s how I wanted it. The rhythmic dripping of the icicles that hung precariously from the passing lampposts soothed my beating heart. However, the ever increasing layers of clothing were failing to prevent the bitter cold from kissing my lungs. Free. Alive. I had done it. However the comfort of this thought did not keep my mind warm for long as the foreboding guilt of all of my past actions stealthily slid through my skull and froze it solid. This added to the frozen throbbing in my ears and toes made me feel as if I was one of the snowmen that greeted me on my way from the station. Frozen. Immobile. The crunching snow under my feet made me realize the pace that I was walking at. I stopped and took in the smell of sharp smoke that was the result of several indoor fires in the neighbourhood. But as I stood there, the whispers of Jack Frost reminded me that a blizzard was coming and that I was winter’s calling.

(Segment)