Chapter 19: The Last Winter
The world changed faster than anyone had expected.
Within months, reports came flooding in from every corner of the globe:Mysterious disappearances.Entire towns lost in sudden, inexplicable fogs.People acting strange, forgetting who they were, wandering into cold mists and never returning.
Governments tried to respond.Quarantines were imposed.Borders closed.Scientists proposed endless theories — viral outbreaks, psychological warfare, climate-induced hallucinations.
None of them came close to the truth.
The ancient being that had once been trapped under the Arctic ice was now fully awake.It moved like a sickness through the mist, unseen but deeply felt, infecting not bodies — but memories.
It didn't kill directly.
It whispered.
It showed you the people you loved most, alive again, smiling, calling you forward.
And once you accepted the lie, once you stepped into the mist, your mind was consumed.
You became part of it.
You became another memory — hollow, twisted, and hungry.
Melissa Kane survived the initial escape from Greenland, but she carried the terror with her everywhere she went.The world no longer felt real.Every face she passed on the street seemed too familiar — yet wrong.Shadows shifted when she wasn't looking.
She kept moving from city to city, always one step ahead of the spreading cold.
But deep inside, she knew there was no escaping it.
Not anymore.
She had seen the black heart of it.
And it had seen her.
Three Years Later
The Arctic Circle was gone.
Satellites showed a swirling black storm where once there had been nothing but ice.The oceans near the poles began to freeze unnaturally, strange crystalline structures blooming on the surface like deadly flowers.
Entire regions fell silent.
Russia.
Canada.
Northern Europe.
Gone.
Cut off, swallowed by the cold.
The mist advanced, relentless.
It rolled over mountains, across oceans, unstoppable.No amount of fire or science or prayer could stop it.
Inside the mist, cities fell into silence.
Inside the mist, time and memory broke apart.
Inside the mist, humanity forgot itself.
Melissa joined one of the last known survivor colonies in the Swiss Alps.They had rigged ancient bunkers, reinforced them against the cold.They lived by strict rules:— No opening doors after dark.— No responding to voices outside.— No talking about the past.
Because the past was the weapon now.
One memory — one slip — and you were lost.
The colony was small.Less than 300 people.
Each day, they sent scouts down the mountain to forage for supplies.
Each day, fewer scouts returned.
The mist crept higher every week.
It wouldn't be long now.
Inside the Colony
Melissa sat in a dim room lit by oil lamps.She ran her fingers along an old photograph — a group photo of her research team before it had all gone wrong.Smiling faces.
She didn't dare look too long.
Sometimes the photos changed when you weren't watching.Sometimes the dead smiled wider.Sometimes they spoke.
Her mind was a battlefield now — every memory a potential trap.
She had lost so much.
Her friends.
Her home.
The world.
And now, as she heard the first low whistles of wind at the heavy steel doors, she knew what was coming.
The mist had reached them.
It was only a matter of time.
The Final Night
The alarms sounded at midnight.
Short, frantic bursts.
Melissa grabbed her pack and rushed toward the command center, heart pounding.
Soldiers barked orders, civilians scrambled for weapons they barely knew how to use.
The monitors showed it clearly:A wall of black mist climbing the slopes, swallowing the valley below.
Figures moved within it.
Familiar ones.
Dead ones.
"Hold the doors!" the commander shouted."Do not let anyone in unless verified!"
Then, a knock.
Soft.
Gentle.
Insistent.
Melissa's heart twisted.
She heard her sister's voice outside, clear as day."Mel… open the door. It's cold. Please."
Her sister had died five years ago.
Melissa squeezed her eyes shut.
Don't listen.
Don't believe.
Another knock.
Harder.
Closer.
"I'm scared, Mel. Let me in."
The steel of the bunker door rattled.
Someone nearby whimpered and reached for the handle.
"No!" Melissa screamed, tackling them to the ground.
But it was too late.
The door cracked open.
The mist poured in like a living thing.
Inside the Bunker
Chaos exploded.
People screamed and ran.
The mist twisted and warped, forming figures that grabbed and embraced, kissed and pulled.
Some stood frozen in joy, reuniting with lovers, children, parents — before their faces darkened, their bodies withered, and they collapsed into dust.
Melissa ran, covering her mouth with a scarf soaked in antiseptic, hoping — praying — that it would buy her time.
She stumbled through collapsing corridors, past old friends now twisted into grinning shadows.
She ran toward the emergency exit tunnels — barely used, deep in the mountain.
The mist chased her like a living river.
Whispering.
Begging.
Promising.
Every step was a battle against her own mind.
She heard her mother's lullaby.
Saw her father's smile.
Felt the arms of an old lover.
None of it was real.
None of it was safe.
Tears streaming down her face, Melissa reached the blast doors at the tunnel entrance.
She entered the code with trembling fingers.
Behind her, the mist roared.
The door slammed shut just as something cold and wet brushed the back of her neck.
She fell to her knees, gasping.
Alive.
For now.
Days Later
Melissa trudged through the snow, alone.
The world behind her was lost.
The colony was gone.
The cities were gone.
The oceans were freezing.
She walked south, toward warmer lands — if they still existed.
Everywhere she went, she saw remnants of what had been:Toys abandoned in empty parks.Cars frozen in place on highways.Houses standing silent under grey skies.
Sometimes, she thought she saw other survivors in the distance.
But she never approached.
It could be real.
It could be memories.
It didn't matter anymore.
The world was drowning in memory.
And she was the last one who remembered what it had once been.
The last true soul in a world of frozen ghosts.
Final Scene
One night, under a sky filled with strange, flickering lights, Melissa built a fire in a ruined church.
She sat beside it, clutching a worn journal — her record of everything she had seen, everything she had lost.
Maybe someday, someone would find it.
Maybe someone would know what really happened.
Or maybe not.
Maybe the mist would take everything — every story, every truth, every dream.
Maybe there would be nothing left but whispers on the frozen wind.
She closed her eyes.
The fire crackled softly.
Outside, the mist waited.
Patient.
Smiling.
It had all the time in the world.
After all, memories never truly die.
They just freeze.
And wait.