Celsius (Sci-Fi Short Story)

The night comes like a cold blanket that whitewashes everything in sight with thick fog. Barry hurries up his step while walking up the street with a rucksack bulging uphill, he has to get to the nearest shelter, he knows it quite well, the spontaneous body spasms and his breath condensed in front of his jaws confirmed his alarming situation. He manages to climb to the top of the slope almost slipping on the wet asphalt, which began to create a thin film of ice.

Barry is covered in warm clothing from head to toe, but this didn’t seem to be enough in the face of the relentless cold wave that now seeps into his bones. He crosses the corner of a building with a staggering step and heads towards a ruined building, but what appears to be a kind of grayish mantis with a crystalline-looking exoskeleton flies over the sky with its wings as silver as the moon in its zenith, what seems to be a dangerous predator of immense proportions lands on the sidewalk and quickly bends towards him by deploying its thin claws in a menacing stance, its claws resembling two sharp blades as gleaming as diamond. Barry knows very well that if his body brushed against them, his flesh would be sliced by the animal's blades in an instant.

The mantis throws a sharp cut that Barry tries to dodge, but even so his left arm ends up severed. Barry falls on the cold hard ground while getting falter by the cold environment and the cut that makes him spill blood gushes that coagulate almost to the immediacy. Barry crawls in the snow, then the predator opens its jaws to devour him, Barry gets up and begins to walk in a zig-zag while facing an overwhelming pain, performs feints to mislead the insect, but it unfolds its wings and then flies away from him. "It seems he lost interest in me,” Barry thought relieved as he continued running towards the ruined building.

When arriving the building, Barry descends by an elevator and then he walks into its facilities in an underground floor, he has finally arrived at the refuge: a pile of conglomerated people, dispersed and congregated in that place that seems to be the last vestige of mankind in an implacable world.

Sarah rushes over to Barry to deal with the terrible bleeding in his left arm; she applies first aid with the limited resources left in the shelter. Sarah notices with disgust the rough cuts on his shoulder, clearly his arm was cut off violently.

"How is it possible that you let them catch you so easy? Have you left the usual route? It's literally a miracle that you survived one of its attacks!" Sarah rebukes him.

"I'm off the route because the factory’s resources have been running out for quite some time, or where do you think I got all this food I've brought in the last few weeks?" Barry responds to her while pointing to the bloodstained backpack.

Sarah takes her time to think inwardly for a few minutes but then she decides to break the silence.

"It is important that you rest, you will not have to leave this refuge until next week. Tomorrow will be the initiation of Kenya."

Barry frowns, but he knows he can't avoid it; his daughter has already turned 18 since two weeks ago.

The next morning, the imposing solar rays could be filtered through the cracks. Kenya already knows it very well, hell has come out another day and this time she’s already eighteen, old enough to head the next exploration.

Kenya walks nervously towards the door that would take her to hell. She picks up a shotgun and settles her backpack behind her. Kenya knows very well that this weapon will help her so little outside, but this could be the most effective way of fooling herself, an instrument to encourage her on the path that leads to the factory. She dresses lightly and then she puts on her head a burka to protect her face from the infernal heat of the outskirts.

When she finally opens the door, Kenya gets a distorted view of the environment due to the heated air. She forces herself to cross the threshold that separates her refuge from the asphalt jungle that city’s supposed to be. Kenya walks with slow and silent pace, she observes the map just to make sure that she’s following the indicated route, she knows that a single detour would take her to the mouth of the wolf.

Following the outlined path until she reaches what it should be the reservoir of water, she finds out a totally different scenario from the one they had been spoken of. The reservoir is partially destroyed and surrounded by a curtain of water vapor. However, Kenya decides to get closer to get some water. When she sets out to open the tap, an immense lizard jumps over it and lands behind it, exhaling a flare of fire that Kenya barely manages to dodge, a fraction of her shoulder was rubbed by it and now her skin is singed.

She throws the water container at it as a distraction and runs off back home. When she passes across a building, she encounters two idle komodos who notice her immediately and viciously attack her. Kenya quickly turns around and heads in another direction.

Kenya runs for hours and then fall exhausted on the asphalt, which is already warm and acclimatized, the sunset looms on the horizon. Kenya quickly observes two clouds over the deepening twilight: the mantids of the freezing night begin to pose with their wings. Kenya gets up and strides, but stops when she observes how two mantises begin to fight with the three komodos. Kenya hides behind debris to observe carefully, this is not something new, violent confrontations between solar komodos and lunar mantis are often frequent at that particular time of the afternoon. It’s as if a collision between fire and ice was treated.

A mantis approaches a komodo and delivers a lethal slash that cuts deep into its neck, however, a komodo approaches its back and incinerates it. Kenya observes with vivid curiosity all the confrontation, and then she makes an idea take shape in her mind, one that could turn the tide of the situation.

“The monsters of the day and the predators of the night are killing each other. I think I know how we could take advantage of it,” Kenya thinks.

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