The Winter Tyrant-Chapter 5: The Long Winter

It had been nearly two weeks since Yuki last spoke to Dean. She had watched painfully as the construction on his house continued until it concluded just a few days prior.

However, when it finally finished the next few days were like heaven: no noise to keep her up at night, or to drown out her daily peace.

And on the third after the construction had finished, Yuki awoke in the morning completely oblivious to the changes in the world that had occurred overnight.

She went about her normal morning schedule, showering, cooking breakfast, drinking coffee, and scrolling the internet to check on the latest updates to her favorite TV shows and manga.

It was only after she saw a social media post regarding strange weather patterns emerging across the Northern Hemisphere that she finally glanced out her windows and saw the first snow falling.

"What in the goddamn—"

Yuki cut herself off as the audio on her phone overwhelmed her.

"With an unseasonable snowstorm hitting the Dominion of Laurentia and the northern half of the Union of Columbia, local authorities have announced the closure of educational facilities for the day. The snowstorm is expected to continue throughout the day, and potentially through the night as well, so we suggest that those in the affected areas stock up on supplies if they have not already."

Yuki glanced back over at the snowfall and realized it was coming down far too heavily to simply disappear in a day or two.

She had grown up in the northernmost province of Yamato, a nation in the far east. To her extensive snow was considered normal in the winter.

Because of that, she knew the difference between snow that would be gone by tomorrow afternoon and snow that would last for days, even weeks, long after it stopped falling.

Yuki quickly got up from her seat and rushed over to her pantry to find that her supplies were lacking. She had enough rice to last a week at best, maybe two. As for other goods, she was severely lacking.

"Shit, I need to get to the store. I hope I’m not too late."

She quickly got dressed appropriately for the weather and rushed out the door. Where she saw Dean standing in his doorway wearing nothing but a pair of pajama pants. There was a cup of coffee in his hands as he stared out into the snow, his gaze with no particular focus.

The heat of his breath and the steam from his coffee drifted through the air. As it did, Yuki could have sworn Dean had said something while she was in the midst of unlocking her car.

"So it begins...."

Yuki glanced over her shoulder back at Dean, but found that he had already walked back inside and shut the door behind him. His truck was eerily vacant from the driveway where it normally lay parked.

The windows were soon blacked out by thick shades that automatically and uniformly descended, and in doing so blocked any insight that could be gleaned from what lay hidden behind them.

Yuki simply shook her head, and climbed into the driver’s seat as she ignited her engine, and took off down the road, heading to the store in the desperate hope that it hadn’t already been pilfered by the panicked crowds of the ill-prepared.

---

Dean sat back in his house; he flipped a switch that lay in his server room, which disconnected him from the Union of Columbia’s power grid and immediately brought all of his critical systems online.

The lights came on, and the heat returned with them. The long winter had begun, just as it had done in his memories.

It had not come crashing down violently or suddenly. But with a subtle and unseasonable storm. One that never went away, and only got worse as time went by.

As he sat down in his kitchen, gazing at the 3D rendered map of his newly rebuilt property on his laptop, which the security company had gifted him he couldn’t help but suffer from flashbacks from his past life.

At first, people treated the snow as an inconvenience. The first few days people pilfered stores, but not to the point of outright rioting. Many continued to live their days as they had done before.

Whether that was going to work, or for the younger generations, celebrating their time off from school with excessive gaming or television. One thing was constant across the internet: nobody thought anything particularly unusual about the event other than that it was out of season.

But Dean knew better. He watched a stream unfold as the girl talked with her chat, laughing about how she had ordered enough supplies to last the week with ease. She even opened a bag of chips and snacked on them, mocking those who hadn’t "prepared properly."

The chat fawned over her "insight." While Dean scoffed in disbelief. He quickly pulled his laptop closer to him and placed down his mug of coffee, asking one simple question she hadn’t thought of.

"And what if the storm lasts longer than a week? How will you fare then, considering the majority of your items appear to be perishable goods with less than a two-week shelf life?"

The girl’s face bunched up into a hideous scowl as she immediately called for Dean’s ban.

"Mods!"

Dean laughed as he was instantly removed from the chat and shook his head.

"The dumb bitch will be dead within a fortnight at this rate."

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. The moment after Dean said those words he noticed a call on his phone from an unknown number.

Dean had not heard from Avery or Richard since he made his stance clear. They had stopped trying to bypass his blocking of their numbers and had even remained far away from his property.

Perhaps they had forgotten about him entirely; after all, Dean had ghosted the both of them following his regression.

That is until today. A message appeared from another unknown number, and it seemed desperate.

"Dean, I’ve given you your space because something seemed to have upset you. And I wouldn’t be a proper fiancée if I didn’t allow you to work things out on your own."

Dean was just about to press block on the number when the next message came through just as fast as the first. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"But it’s been a month now, and I still don’t know what I ever did to make you hate me so... Are you okay? Do you have enough supplies to last through the storm? Please respond!"

He couldn’t help but sneer at the vain attempt to win him back. Actually pretending to care about his situation? That was cute; it was the same trick she had used to steal all his supplies to begin with.

And he had been stupid enough to fall for it. A man in love is a fool after all, and he had fallen prey to a particularly nasty vixen. One who had quite literally snuffed the life out of him in the end.

But that was not a mistake he would make twice. He instantly responded to the message, briefly and bluntly, before blocking it outright.

"I’m fine... Why don’t you see if you can leech off of Richard if you don’t have enough supplies stashed away."

Despite blocking Avery from contacting him, yet again. Dean knew now that she was not going to let this go. He had tried to cut things off amicably before they escalated to a state where things would end up like they had before he regressed.

But even after all of that, if she still chose to reach out to him first upon watching the first snowfall, then he knew that, one way or another, someone would be bleeding out on the ice. And this time it wasn’t going to be him....

---

Yuki arrived at the nearest grocery store a full thirty minutes after driving off. What was supposed to be a normal ten-minute drive took three times as long due to the chaotic conditions of the road.

And when she pulled into the parking lot, she found that it was packed. People were rushing in and out of the store, carts overflowing with anything they could grab: food, water, milk, alcohol, tobacco, cat litter.

For reasons she couldn’t understand, a few even ran past her with televisions and gaming consoles under their arms.

Practically everything was gone, even goods that would be expired in just a week or two.

Freezers stood empty, doors hanging open like broken jaws. And what remained for the less prepared, and the least paranoid? Uncooked beans, rice, and lentils.

Yuki couldn’t believe her eyes as she begrudgingly stocked up on what little supplies remained. Stashing them into her cart as she drove up to the counter. Seeing an employee flabbergasted that she had even bothered approaching him.

"Aren’t you just going to take your cart and go?"

Yuki blinked. "Take it... and go? Don’t I have to pay?"

He sighed, glancing toward the exit where people streamed out unchecked.

"You’d be the first person today who even asked. Just take it. It’s not like any of it’s expensive."

The pity that the man showed her caused Yuki to sulk more than she rolled her cart out of the door. Internally reflecting on the sheer state of panic people were in, and the unseasonal snowstorm that had suddenly hit them.

"Lentils and rice? Not even some chicken? Is this all I’m supposed to eat over the next week or two?"

Yuki had just finished piling the supplies into the trunk of her car while she voiced her complaint. Piling into the driver’s seat as she once more tried to navigate the chaotic streets back home.

---

Night fell not long after, and the temperature had dropped further. Though the blizzard was far from reaching its peak, the world became grimly quiet.

At least the world outside of Dean’s home. Dean was not like everyone else in his neighborhood; he continued to watch television; the news droning on in the background about the unusual shift in weather, all while he prepared himself some pasta.

"We have received an update from the local authorities confirming that the storm is likely to continue through tomorrow and potentially carry over past the weekend. So bundle up, stay warm, and make sure you’re spreading out your supplies until the storm has passed."

Dean could only scoff and shake his head... They were already alerting the public not to blow through the supplies they had raided from grocery stores so quickly.

It was just like how he remembered it before the regression. First came the vague statements about the storm continuing through the day and the next, and a need not to waste supplies.

Then, by the time the weekend was over, the public broadcasting stations were begging people to ration electricity, as rolling brownouts began to affect the region. And finally, by the end of the first week, the broadcasts stopped coming altogether....

Dean took a bite, savoring it longer than necessary before bringing his portions over to his dining table and switching the television station from the news to a random entertainment program.

The darkness of night went on, and Dean alone was entirely unaffected by the cold that came with it.