Chapter 122 The Long Thaw

• The Solar Freeze entered its tenth month without ceremony.
• There was no announcement, no broadcast, no signal that marked its passage. Time no longer arrived with sound. It arrived quietly, measured by breath fogging less in the mornings, by ice that cracked instead of holding firm, by the way people paused mid-step and frowned—not because something was wrong, but because something felt different.
• Lucy noticed it first in the stillness.