Chapter 13 Fear

• The temperature in Talawan had dropped to 23°F. It was no longer just the cold biting at the edges of the city—it was consuming it. By the hour, the freeze worsened, and with it, the death toll.
• The first signs had been subtle: stray dogs curled beneath broken stalls and alley shadows, unmoving. Then cats stopped prowling. Birds vanished entirely from the skies. Now, the streets bore the truth openly—frozen animal corpses piled along gutters and beside market carts long abandoned. In the slums, the first bodies had been discovered three nights ago—elderly men and women, curled beneath thin blankets that might as well have been paper. Children too, some only days away from their last meals. All claimed by a cold that no one had been prepared to endure.
• Looting began with quiet desperation—shadows slipping into shuttered hardware stores, slipping out with small heaters, solar lamps, or cans of kerosene. But it had turned quickly. Now, the windows of stores were smashed, and lines formed not for food but for warmth.