April 16th. 7:00 AM.
Day two.
Jae-min woke up to silence.
No cars. No jeeps. No street vendors. No dogs barking. No children shouting.
Just the hum of the generator. The whisper of the air filtration. The soft breathing of the woman asleep on the couch.
Alessia was curled up under three wool blankets. Her indigo hair spilled over the edge. Her face was slack. Peaceful. She looked like she was sleeping in a snow globe.
Jae-min stood up. His joints popped. His muscles ached. The aftereffects of the warehouse raid still lingered in his bones.
He walked to the kitchen. Filled a glass of water from the independent tank. The water was room temperature. nineteen degrees. It tasted like plastic and minerals.
He drank it anyway.
Then he walked to the monitor.
The hallway camera showed a sheet of ice. Thick. Solid. Three inches deep. It covered the floor from end to end. The walls were frosted. The emergency exit signs were dark. Dead. No power.
Jae-min zoomed the camera in on the door to Unit 1420. Castañeda's apartment.
The door was open. Slightly ajar. Just like the man in gray had left it.
But now, a faint red glow pulsed inside the crack. rhythmic. Steady.
Thump... thump... thump.
Jae-min frowned. Leaned closer to the screen.
The red glow was reflecting off something wet.
Blood. Frozen blood. Someone had been in there recently. After the freeze.
"Uncle."
Rico opened his eyes. He had been sleeping in the second guest room. Fully clothed. M4 within reach. Old habits.
"What is it?"
"Unit 1420. Someone's inside."
Rico walked over. Looked at the screen. His jaw tightened.
"When?"
"Don't know. But the blood is fresh. Frozen solid, but fresh."
"How? It's minus seventy outside."
"They have a heat source."
Rico stared at the screen. The red glow pulsed.
"Naraka."
"Probably."
"They're still alive. In this building."
"They have a bunker too." Rico straightened. "Which means they've been watching us this whole time. Through the freeze."
Jae-min didn't answer. He just stared at the red glow.
Thump... thump... thump.
"Should we hit them?" Rico asked. Hand on the M4.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because we don't know how many there are. Because we don't know what they're capable of. Because we have limited ammo. And because right now, they're not attacking."
"So we wait?"
"We watch. We learn. We prepare."
Rico nodded slowly. "You're cold."
"I'm alive."
"Same thing."
10:00 AM.
Ji-yoo emerged from her room. Eyes swollen. Face blank. She hadn't cried since last night. The tears were gone. Replaced by something harder. Colder.
She walked to the kitchen. Poured a glass of water. Drank it standing up. Didn't speak.
Alessia woke up. Rubbed her eyes. Looked around. The blue LEDs. The steel walls. The blast plates.
"Morning," she said quietly.
"It's not morning," Jae-min said. "There is no morning. Just darkness."
Alessia stared at him. Then at the blast plates.
"How long?"
"Eleven hours of daylight left. Then it's dark for twelve. Then eleven hours of daylight. Then dark again. The rotation is destabilized. The Earth's axis is shifting."
"How do you know that?"
"I lived it."
Alessia didn't respond. She just wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and sat at the table.
Ji-yoo sat across from her. Both women stared at the bare wood.
Rico was at the monitor. Scanning the building.
Jae-min sat between them. Rifle across his lap. Cleaning it.
No one ate breakfast. No one was hungry. The smell of the food in the void didn't appeal to any of them.
The silence stretched. Heavy. Suffocating.
1:00 PM.
The temperature outside had risen slightly. Minus sixty-eight degrees. A "warm" spell.
Inside the bunker, Jae-min dropped the temperature to fifteen degrees. Conserving fuel.
"Fuel gauge," Rico said.
"Seventy-eight percent."
"At this rate?"
"Fourteen days. If we ration the heat. Twenty if we go cold."
"Can we survive minus twenty inside?"
"With blankets. Yes. For a while."
Rico nodded. "Then we go cold. Tonight. Drop to ten degrees. Save the fuel."
"Agreed."
3:00 PM.
Jae-min stood by the monitor.
The red glow in Unit 1420 was gone.
Whoever had been there had left. Or died. Or moved deeper into the building.
He switched cameras.
Basement level. The Ford Raptor was still there. Covered in six inches of ice. Undisturbed.
Ground floor. The lobby was a tomb. Ice sculptures where people used to be. A security guard frozen at his desk. Hand still reaching for the phone. Mouth open. Eyes wide.
Third floor. An apartment door hanging open. A family frozen on the couch. Watching TV. The screen was dark.
Seventh floor. A man frozen in the hallway. Crawling toward the stairs. One hand reaching forward. Face twisted in agony.
Tenth floor. A woman frozen in the elevator. Holding a baby. The baby was pressed against her chest. Both of them still.
Jae-min turned off the monitor.
"What did you see?" Alessia asked from the couch.
"Dead people."
"Many?"
"Thousands. Millions. Everyone who didn't have a bunker."
Alessia closed her eyes. A tear rolled down her cheek.
"I could have saved them," she whispered. "If I had known. If you had told me sooner. I could have warned them. I could have—"
"No." Jae-min's voice was flat. "You couldn't. I told my parents. They didn't believe me. Nobody believes the end of the world is coming until it hits them."
"It doesn't make it easier."
"No. It doesn't."
Ji-yoo stood up from the table. Walked to the storage room. Opened the door.
Inside, the void hummed.
She reached in. Pulled out a case of MREs. Tore it open. Pulled out a meal packet.
" Eat," she said. Throwing a packet at Jae-min.
"I'm not hungry."
"Eat anyway." She threw one at Alessia. Then at Rico.
"Force it down. We need calories. We need energy. We need to be ready."
Jae-min stared at the MRE packet. Beef stew. 1,200 calories.
He tore it open. Ate it cold. Chewed mechanically. Didn't taste it.
Just calories. Just fuel.
9:00 PM.
The temperature outside was minus seventy-two degrees.
Inside the bunker, Jae-min had dropped it to eight degrees.
Everyone was wearing layers. Jackets. Hats. Gloves. Their breath fogged in the cold air.
"Bedtime," Jae-min said.
"Who's on watch?" Rico asked.
"Me."
"You were up all last night."
"I'll sleep when I'm dead."
Rico frowned. But didn't argue. He walked to the guest room. Closed the door.
Ji-yoo went to her room. Closed the door.
Alessia stayed on the couch. Wrapped in blankets.
Jae-min sat at the table. Rifle across his lap. Eyes on the monitor.
The red glow in Unit 1420 hadn't come back.
But something else had.
On the roof.
A faint light. Not red. White. Flashing.
Morse code.
Jae-min pulled out a notebook. Started translating.
DOT. DASH. DOT. DOT. DASH. DOT. DASH.
W-A-I-T.
DOT. DOT. DASH. DOT.
F-O-R.
DOT. DASH. DOT. DOT. DOT.
I-T.
Jae-min stared at the screen.
Someone was on the roof. In minus seventy-two degrees.
Alive.
And they were sending a message.
To him.