Chapter 7 The Air Is Cold

• Year 0, Three Months Before the Freeze
• The first breeze that drifted down from the mountains didn’t carry the sweetness of tropical rain, nor the salt of the nearby sea. It was dry—sharply so—and for a moment, Lucy simply stood in the yard of her city house, head tilted to the side, letting it brush over her skin.
• Her neighbors didn’t feel it, not really. To them, it was a fluke of the season, a laughable change. Tropical countries didn’t have winters. What was one cold morning but a strange story to tell over coffee?
• But to Lucy, it wasn’t a fluke. It was the first warning shot from a sky that would soon go silent.
• She wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders and turned back toward the house.
• The city of Tayawan was waking slowly. Roosters crowed lazily. Radios crackled to life behind barred windows. People still smiled here. Still believed the seasons would follow their old paths. But Lucy had already broken from that rhythm. She didn’t follow it anymore. She prepared.
• The walls around the house were almost finished—now nearly ten feet high, cement poured and reinforced with steel rods. The top bristled with broken glass and loops of barbed wire. It wasn’t beautiful, but it was honest. And more than that—it was hers.
• Security cameras blinked red in quiet patterns from their metal mounts. Weather-resistant. Solar-powered. Connected to an old tablet Lucy kept tucked inside a drawer by her bed. She checked the feed every few hours, out of habit now more than paranoia. She trusted the cameras. It was people she no longer believed in.
• Her mother’s old city house—barely used, hidden in plain sight—had become something close to a fortress. The windows were reinforced, their frames rebuilt with stainless steel and polycarbonate bulletproof glass she had ordered in pieces, unmarked and unlabeled, over the last year. The front and back doors had been gutted and replaced with industrial-grade steel, layered with ceramic sheeting—resistant to heat, blunt force, even grenades, according to the seller.
• She hoped she’d never find out just how much they could take.
• On the flat rooftop, she had built something few had noticed: a garden of raised beds, metal drums, and planter boxes. Lettuce, basil, mint, onions. Not enough to feed her forever, but enough to feel like she was trying.
• And beside that—a towering black water tank, newly installed, catching the eye of curious neighbors.
• “Bit much, isn’t it?” One of them, old Mang Bert, had chuckled as he leaned on the rusted fence between them as she passed by. “What’s all that for, hija? Planning for a drought?”
• Lucy flashed a grin as she adjusted the wrench on one of the tank’s bolts. “Not a drought,” she said smoothly. “I just really like warm baths. Having water stored means I can enjoy one even if the city pipes give up on me again.”
• Bert laughed and nodded, apparently satisfied. The old man had once told her she reminded him of her mother—quiet, but sharp. She didn’t correct him. Let the image of her remain soft in their minds, even if what she was building was steel beneath the smile.
• Deliveries came almost weekly now. Always small, always spaced apart, and never under her name. Lucy had created three separate aliases, two delivery addresses, and a logbook hidden in the bottom of her dresser. It was meticulous, but it had to be.
• This was not a country that wore snow boots. This was not a country that had shelves lined with thermal underwear, or anti-frostbite salves, or solar-powered thermal gloves. These things were strange here—unwelcome, even. Like whispering a foreign curse into a quiet church.
• She used her grandmother’s old contacts—people who owed favors or had once trusted the Healer of the village enough to deliver strange things, no questions asked. She paid in advance. Cash, always. And even then, every delivery was a risk.
• That morning, she stood at her front gate waiting for a shipment. She didn't smile, but neither did she look alarmed. Just another woman in a house too big for one.
• The van arrived on time.
• The side read Cargoflex Logistics in fading yellow paint. Lucy knew the driver now. A woman around her age, with a sharp laugh and too many keychains.
• “Morning, Luce!” Kara called as she hopped out of the passenger side, clipboard in hand. “Got something heavy for you today. You sure you don’t have a boyfriend hiding in that fortress of yours to carry this up?”
• Lucy smirked and pushed the gate open wider. “No boyfriend. Just a strong back and a deadline.”
• Behind Kara, the driver—a man named Elias—grunted as he pulled a heavy crate from the back. His arms were lean, corded with muscle from years of hauling cargo up apartment stairs. He didn’t talk much, but his eyes scanned everything.
• She liked that about him. He didn’t ask questions, but he noticed things.
• Today’s crate held winter gloves. Military-grade. Inside, tucked between the layers, were waterproof thermal sheets, flame-retardant fabric, and a few tools designed for snow camping.
• Kara didn’t peek inside—she never did—but she raised an eyebrow as Lucy signed.
• “Girl, you’re either starting a fashion trend,” she said, laughing, “or you’re about to climb Everest.”
• “Neither,” Lucy replied with a shrug. “Just preparing. You know how weird the weather’s been lately.”
• Kara nodded, then glanced at the horizon. “Actually, yeah. I heard on the news this morning—some guy on a radio station saying northern winds are shifting. Said it might be the coldest dry season in decades.”
• “Decades?” Elias said finally, setting the crate down beside the door. “Or ever?”
• Lucy’s gaze flicked to him.
• Elias shrugged, wiping sweat from his brow. “Feels different, is all. My grandma said she hasn’t seen mornings this cold since she was a kid. And that was before the ‘98 drought.”
• Lucy smiled faintly. “Maybe the seasons are just... remembering themselves.”
• Kara laughed again, not catching the weight in Lucy’s tone. “If they do, I want snow. Just once. I want to wear a real coat, not this knockoff hoodie I got at the night market.”
• “You might get your wish,” Lucy murmured.
• They didn’t hear her.
• Later that night, she sat at her kitchen table with a cup of ginger tea, the radio murmuring in the background.
• “—temperature dropped again in several regions overnight, including some highland barangays not typically known for cool air. Residents are advised to monitor children and elderly family members for signs of colds or flu. While unusual, weather experts say these fluctuations are still within acceptable parameters…”
• Lucy sipped her tea slowly.
• The voices on the street were changing. She heard it in the way tricycle drivers mentioned the cold while rubbing their arms. In how sari-sari store owners started selling out of blankets. In the way the sky had turned a little too grey for comfort.
• And yet, no alarms. No warnings. No plans.
• But Lucy had her own.
• In her basement—now barricaded and repurposed—she’d begun assembling heating devices powered by the solar generator, hooked up with timers and emergency kill switches. The fuel-powered backup was sealed in another hidden corner, surrounded by air filters and enough fireproof insulation to keep it safe even in the worst scenario.
• The Domain, of course, remained her trump card. Spring weather bloomed eternally within, its sun ever-present, its soil soft and forgiving. She used it to recharge her solar equipment during long nights and rainy days—leaving the panels under its light, like a world within a world.
• But she never said that aloud.
• Three days later, another delivery arrived. This time, Kara was alone.
• “Elias called in sick,” she said, shifting the crate onto her hip. “Didn’t say why. Just... said he had a bad feeling.”
• Lucy took the box silently.
• “You okay?” Kara asked, watching her. “You’ve been different lately.”
• Lucy paused, then smiled softly. “You ever feel like something big is coming? Something no one’s ready for?”
• Kara tilted her head. “I mean... sure. End of the world stuff?”
• “Maybe not the end,” Lucy said. “But the beginning of something else.”
• Kara blinked, unsure how to respond. “Well... if it comes, I hope we get to face it together. You seem like the type who’d know what to do.”
• Lucy laughed gently. “Or maybe just someone who’s been afraid long enough to start preparing.”
• That night, as the city’s lights flickered under another cold wind, Lucy stood on the rooftop beside her water tank and looked up at the stars.
• The sky was sharp tonight. Clear. Beautiful, in a terrible way.
• Somewhere, far away, the Freeze had already begun. She could feel it in her bones. In the dreams that had grown quieter, rarer—but more urgent.
• She no longer waited for visions. She had seen enough.
• The Freeze was coming.
• And this time, she wouldn’t be caught in its fire.