There was more movement under the blowing snow.

Something long and low slid along a frozen riverbed, too far under the ice to see clearly. It turned the water black above it as it passed.

Sera didn’t move. Her eyes stayed on the dividing line ahead where the sky looked different.

The wind changed first.

Cold rolled off the north behind them, the kind that scoured skin and didn’t even stop at bone.

Ahead, the air turned warmer by degrees. Snow stopped blowing sideways. The engine pitch steadied when the gusts quit hammering the rotors.

Then the horizon cracked open.

The ice didn’t fade out so much as just stopped.

One mile it was all white—glaciers, frozen rivers, ridges crawling with things too big to carry names anymore.

The next mile dropped into cliffs where the snow fell away in long, sheer cuts of black rock... and below that, green.

Country M.

Trees spread in thick walls of dark forest.

A river cut wide and black through the valley floor, its edges crawling with vines where snow should have been.

Something with scales slid off the bank and left the water boiling for long seconds before it stilled.

The line between worlds looked carved with a knife.

Lachlan leaned forward, squinting through the windshield. "You ever seen anything like that?"

"No," Elias replied with a shake of his head. He checked the fuel gauge like it might tell him why.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

Alexei watched the sky over the tree line where birds wheeled in black clouds big enough to blot stars. "We shouldn’t be here," he murmured.

Sera finally shifted her eyes from the glass. "We are here."

Zubair brought them lower, keeping the rotors clear of the cliff wind. The transport shuddered once when air currents grabbed the frame, then smoothed out again.

The valley opened under them.

Forests spread in every direction, thick enough to hide cities if cities still existed.

There were no roads. No lights. No power lines. Just green swallowing everything the way ice had swallowed the north.

Elias scanned the tree cover. "Navigation?"

Zubair shook his head once. "None. The compass still doesn’t point North."

"We’ll run out of fuel before we see O City," Alexei grunted, his eyes narrowing on the landscape beneath him.

"Then we land before that," Zubair returned, his eyes forward.

Sera sat still with Luci’s head on her boots.

She watched the ground slide by under them—forests, rivers, shapes in the dark that didn’t move like anything she knew. Some too fast. Some too heavy.

No towns.

No survivors.

Lachlan finally broke the silence. "Feels welcoming."

No one answered.

Zubair dipped the nose in the direction he thought was south. The helicopter slid over the cliff line and left the ice behind.

The world below disappeared into trees as the helicopter pushed forward over a quilt of dead fields.

Squares and circles ran to the horizon. Brown stubble, black dirt, pale dust where the topsoil had peeled away.

Old irrigation rings drew green ghosts on the land, but nothing grew in them now.

The roads cut everything into clean lines, perfect and useless.

Zubair flew low to stay out of the wind.

The air over the plains slapped the rotors sideways in hard, mean bursts.

Dust rose in slow columns from far-off fields and drifted across county roads like tired storms. The sun sat behind a sheet of haze that turned it to a dull coin.

Nothing cast a real shadow.

"Fuel," Elias called over the engine.

"Not enough," Zubair answered.

"How far?" Lachlan asked, grinning like distance was a joke he liked.

"Farther than we have," Zubair said.

Alexei watched the horizon. "Keep the altitude. Don’t fight the gusts. Let them roll."

"I am," Zubair told him, his hands steady on the controls.

Sera sat with her back to the bulkhead, Luci’s head heavy across her boots.

She watched through the side window.

Not the men.

Not the gauges.

The ground.

They crossed a four-lane highway.

Cars lay nose to tail in both directions, doors open, glass gone, paint burned flat by years of sun and dust.

A tractor-trailer sprawled across both lanes and the median like it had fallen asleep sideways.

A water tower stood beyond the interchange, white letters flaking from its belly. A line of grain silos sat behind it like gray giants keeping watch over nothing.

The rotors thumped heavier as the air thickened with grit.

Zubair eased the nose down and skimmed lower, chasing cleaner air.

The instrument panel told him nothing he didn’t already know—no navigation, no radio, no help. His eyes did the work. His hands did the rest.

Elias leaned forward and looked at the fuel sight. "Less than a quarter."

"We’ll ride it to fumes," Zubair said.

"And then?"

"Then we land."

"On what?" Lachlan asked, peering down. "Dirt? Rock? Hope?"

"Fields," Elias said. "Pick the ones without irrigation ruts."

"Pick the ones without bones," Alexei added.

The only problem was that every field held bones.

Cattle lay in neat rows along the fence lines where herds had tried to press through when the gates didn’t open.

White ribs curled up like fingers. Skulls stared with empty eyes at a sky that never answered.

In one pasture, something had pulled three cows onto a gravel road and eaten them down to spine and hooves. The dust covered everything and made it the same color.

They crossed a town that had all but been forgotten. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Low buildings with flat roofs, a school with broken windows, a church steeple still standing because the ground did not care enough to knock it down.

There was even a gas station with prices frozen on a sign no one could read through the grime.

There wasn’t a single person walking around, no dogs, not even a single bird could be heard.

Only the wind.

And then the wind changed.

Elias lifted his head and listened. Zubair felt it in the controls a second later...a heavier push from the west, sharp and hot.

The nose wanted to fight for control, but Zubair held it with his heel and did not let the tail slide.

A dust wall marched across the fields to their right, straight and even, like a brown curtain pulled by an invisible hand.

It ate fence posts and mailboxes and the edges of barns and came on without hurry.