In the world without the sun, the cold was all its own entity. It slithered across the earth in silence, a smothering weight that pressed down on the land and left it cracked and broken.

Whatever colors had once decorated the world had drained away, leaving only ashen gray skies and the never-ending drifts of snow. 

The people who had survived were a tougher breed, their hands as rough as their words, their lives short, merciless, and brutish. It was a place for survivors, for fighters, and for thieves.

Emmett was all three.

He adjusted his goggles and peered into the distance, his breath crystallizing in the frigid air. Beside him, his gang waited, their eyes on him as they huddled beneath thick, scavenged coats, layers patched together with scraps of old fabric and plastic tarps. 

The raiders of the frozen plains looked more like ghosts than men, their faces hidden beneath makeshift scarves, their weapons glinting coldly in the dull gray light.

“We’ll strike at dawn,” Emmett muttered, though dawn was nothing but a technicality now, just a term for the grayer part of the endless night.

They had been tracking a convoy for days, a slow-moving caravan of scrapped-together vehicles trudging along the ice-crusted roads. The convoy had fuel, food, medicine, things that Emmett’s gang could live off for weeks. But every attack was a risk; the people on those convoys were armed and just as desperate.

“Think they’ll put up a fight?” Emmett’s closest friend, Lyle, asked, his voice muffled behind his scarf.

Emmett glanced at him. “They always do. But we’re faster. Hit hard, don’t leave ‘em time to think.”

That was Emmett’s rule, the one thing that had kept them alive this long. He had been part of the gang since he was a boy, just another scrappy kid left orphaned by the Frozen Decay, a name they gave to the sun’s death and the icy collapse that followed.

Emmett had learned to fight, to steal, and eventually to lead. Now he was twenty-three and ran the gang like a machine. It was the only way they would survive the endless night.

As the hours stretched on, the convoy came into sight, a handful of trucks covered in sheets of ice, their engines coughing out plumes of white smoke. The drivers were reckless, Emmett thought. They hadn’t even tried to camouflage the smoke trails, which was as good as an invitation to an ambush.

“Positions,” he murmured, and his gang melted into the shadows.

The convoy trundled closer, its lights cutting through the murky twilight, and Emmett felt his pulse quicken. There were shouts and sounds of hasty footsteps as his gang moved into action, swarming from both sides and surrounding the first truck. 

Shots cracked through the still air, echoing like ghosts as Emmett darted forward, his knife flashing as he took out the closest driver. The man fell with a groan, sinking into the snow, and Emmett wasted no time rifling through his pockets.

“Grab the packs!” he yelled, and his gang descended, stripping the trucks of anything valuable—cans of food, coils of wire, bottles of murky water, even fragments of cloth that could be stitched into repairs.

But then, there was a sound—faint but unmistakable.

It was the slow, thumping cadence of a large vehicle in the distance, an unfamiliar sound in the land of silence. Emmett’s blood turned to ice.

“Scatter!” he barked, but it was too late.

Out of the gray murk, a hulking tank rolled toward them, its front lined with spikes, a relic of the old wars. The tank’s spotlight swept the road, catching the shapes of Emmett’s gang as they dove for cover. 

A single shot from the tank’s cannon exploded into the ground, sending a wave of debris and snow flying. Emmett covered his head, trying to think, but his mind was racing, his survival instincts warring with the need to protect his gang.

“This way!” he called, beckoning to Lyle and the others, who scrambled after him, barely keeping up as they ran from the deadly tank. The convoy had set a trap, Emmett realized, a brutal tactic he’d only heard whispers of. Now he and his people were prey.

They bolted into the forest, ducking beneath branches heavy with snow. The tank rumbled closer, and Emmett led his gang deeper into the dark woods, where the frozen ground cracked beneath their feet.

The tank couldn’t follow them there, not with trees so close together, but it was cold comfort.

As the sounds of the tank faded, Emmett took a deep breath, his heart still hammering. They had escaped, but barely. They were down to three—half the gang gone, lost to the ambush.

“We … we can’t keep this up, Emmett,” Lyle said, his voice thick with exhaustion and despair. “There’s nothing left out here. No sun, no life, just scraps and ice.”

Emmett looked around at the endless gray, at his remaining crew, at the bleak wasteland that stretched in every direction. He wondered if maybe Lyle was right. 

But Emmett couldn’t give up, not after surviving this long, not when he still had people to lead, a family to keep alive. His hand tightened around his knife, a cold resolve settling in his chest.

“We survive,” Emmett said, his voice steady. “We find a way, just like we always have. There’s got to be somewhere out there that’s better than this. We’ll keep moving.”

The others looked at him, their eyes shadowed but hopeful. They were tired, beaten, but still alive. And in this frozen world, that was the only victory left.

They set out once more into the endless cold, a dwindling band of survivors determined to carve a path in a world that had long since given up on them.

The End