A Memory of Zero Degrees

Chapter 3: The Waking Wound (1)

GASP!

The sound was wet, ragged, and violent like a drowning man breaking the surface of an ocean that had already filled his lungs. Arthur's body jackknifed upright in the bed, his spine curving so sharply that the vertebrae cracked in protest. His hands flew to his chest, clawing at the fabric of his shirt, searching frantically for the gaping, frozen hole where Rivan's blade had punched through his sternum and stolen the last warmth from his heart.

Nothing.

No blood. No torn flesh. No shards of ice crystallizing in his veins. Just the frantic, staccato drumming of his own heartbeat against his ribs, a rhythm so fast and feral it bordered on arrhythmia.

He was drenched. The thin cotton of his t shirt clung to his torso like a second, sodden skin, and the pillow beneath his head was dark with sweat. The cold that cold, the minus forty five that had turned his marrow to slush was gone. In its place was the oppressive, humid warmth of a tropical morning. The air was thick with the smell of exhaust fumes, fried street food, and the faint, synthetic lavender of a cheap air freshener plugged into the wall.

Arthur's breath hitched. He knew this smell. He knew this air.

His wide, bloodshot eyes darted around the room. The cracked ceiling with the water stain in the shape of Borneo. The cheap IKEA desk cluttered with overdue bills and a cold cup of instant coffee. The window, covered by a thin, beige curtain that did nothing to stop the blazing Jakarta sun from turning the room into a kiln.

This was his apartment. His old apartment. The one he had abandoned on Day 1 of The Great Freeze, fleeing into the snow choked streets with nothing but a backpack and the desperate hope that humanity could outrun the ice.

With a hand that trembled so violently he nearly dropped it twice, Arthur reached for the phone on the nightstand. The screen glowed to life.

November 12, 2030. 08:03 AM.

He stared at the date. The numbers blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again as his vision swam with unshed tears. He had lived forty seven days in hell. Forty seven days of watching people freeze to death standing up, of gnawing on frozen leather belts to trick his stomach into silence, of loving Sera and trusting Rivan with every scrap of food he could scavenge. And in the end, they had stripped him naked, cut him like a piece of meat, and left him to die in a pool of his own piss and blood.

Thirty days.

The realization hit him like a physical blow to the solar plexus. He doubled over on the bed, his forehead pressing against his knees as a low, keening sound escaped his throat. It wasn't a sob. Arthur didn't think he remembered how to sob anymore. It was the sound of a pressure valve releasing a noise of pure, unadulterated relief that bordered on insanity.

He had thirty days until the sky turned grey and the snow began to fall. Thirty days until the world became a silent, white grave.

He was back.

[Ding!]

The sound was sharp, clean, and utterly alien. It came from inside his head, a chime like a crystal bell struck in the center of his skull. Arthur flinched, his hand instinctively reaching for a weapon that wasn't there. Before him, suspended in the air between his face and the dusty window, a pane of blue light materialized. It was semi transparent, holographic, and thrummed with an energy that made the hair on his arms stand on end.

[Soul Fluctuation Detected. Timeline Reversal Confirmed.]

[System Activation: Frost Survival Protocol   Level 0 Initializing...]

[Host Binding: Successful.]

A system. A fucking system.

Arthur had heard whispers of such things in his past life. Rumors, carried on the frozen wind by half mad survivors huddled around burning trash cans. Some people had "awakened" abilities months into the apocalypse men who could conjure sparks of flame from their fingertips, women who could sense approaching blizzards. But he had never heard of anyone gaining a system. And certainly not a full month before the end of the world.

Arthur's lips parted. He expected a laugh, some manic, disbelieving cackle to burst from his chest. But what came out was something else entirely. It was a slow, deliberate smile. It was the smile of a man who had just been handed a loaded gun in a room full of people he wanted to see dead.

But the smile didn't reach his eyes. It couldn't. Because even as the blue text hovered before him, promising power and survival, the rest of his mind was still trapped in the snow. Still feeling Sera's warm tongue sliding against his frozen lips while Rivan's knife carved tracks into his back.

Arthur pushed himself off the bed and stumbled to the window. He yanked the curtain aside, letting the harsh, golden light of a pre apocalyptic flood the room. Below, the city was alive. A cacophony of honking horns, shouting street vendors, and the endless, churning mass of humanity. They were all so blissfully, stupidly unaware. In thirty days, ninety nine percent of them would be frozen solid, their screams trapped forever in the ice.

He should feel something. Sorrow. Urgency. A desperate need to warn them.

Instead, Arthur felt a cold, creeping numbness spreading through his chest. It was different from the cold of the freeze. This was an internal winter, a frost born not of temperature but of utter, soul deep betrayal.

His hands gripped the windowsill. He looked down at them. They were clean. No frostbite. No blackened, dead fingertips. But they were shaking again. And as he watched, he clenched them into fists. Tighter. Tighter. His knuckles went white, the skin stretching thin over the bones. His short, neglected fingernails bit into the flesh of his palms, and he felt the sharp sting of skin tearing, the warm trickle of blood seeping between his fingers and dripping onto the dusty floor.