The snow wasn't just happening in that corner of Brazil; it was snowing like that all over the world.
The bases created by the countries also lost power, and even gasoline generators stopped, their electronic circuits fried by magnetic pulses.
Many scientists concluded that the Earth's magnetic field had drastically changed this time. This alteration released radiation that collapsed electrical grids and cooled the planet, leading to the global snowstorm.
The less fortunate, even in the bases, began to freeze, and if it lasted longer, they could die frozen in this cold. Some managed to find refuge in high places, but not everyone was so lucky.
And this cold wasn't just harming humans; animals were facing the same obstacle, being frozen by this snowstorm that showed no signs of stopping.
**
**
Night arrived.
The cold at night was even worse than during the day.
It was bone-chilling.
Luckily, he had a small fire near him.
However, Theo couldn't let it go out, not wanting to use the little gas he had left in the lighter.
Because of this, he gathered as much wood as possible.
'There's starting to be a lot of ash piling up in this toilet bowl,' he thought.
In the last apartment, through the walls, he had used the bathroom to do 'number two.'
But he knew he couldn't keep doing that, until he came up with an idea to do it with a plastic bag inside the toilet bowl and throw the bag out the window.
Anyway, the point is… He went to the second apartment and grabbed a toilet bowl from there too.
When the fire in the current one started to die down, he had already prepared the second toilet bowl.
Taking a piece of cushion, he set it on fire and then started burning wood in the second toilet bowl.
While one was burning wood, he cleaned the other while wearing a pair of leather gloves he found in the fifth apartment.
'In the end, there were some useful things,' he thought while using the pair of gloves and a small shovel to throw the ashes into a garbage bag.
When he finished, he took off the gloves and went to eat sardines again.
**
**
Six days and 23 hours had passed since the snow began — which he called: [Infernal White Days].
On the tenth floor of the building, Theo could see through the glass window the snow that had already reached a considerable height.
'When is this going to end?' he thought. 'I can't stand eating just sardines anymore…'
The worst part was that he had searched from the thirtieth floor to the tenth floor and hadn't found any canned food that was still edible.
The only thing he found was a total of 111 gallons of water.
That, in itself, was good. He didn't leave any behind and took them all to the thirtieth floor.
With so much water, he even dared to fill a bathtub with hot water boiled in pots.
For that, he used a total of four toilet bowls.
If there was one thing easy to come by, it was wood. Whether from beds or wardrobes. So, he didn't bother saving it.
And after several days without a proper bath, he started thinking about filling a bathtub with hot water even in his dreams and ended up giving in and doing it.
The result? Marvelous~
Nothing better than taking a hot bath in a bathtub on an extremely cold day while drinking expensive wine. It was like doing something extremely wrong and ostentatious, which made it even better.
For a moment, he had even forgotten the situation he was in, but reality knocked on the door when the water cooled quickly, and he had to get out, and it was so cold that 'Little Theo' seemed like a turtle pulling its head back into its shell…
"Another apartment with nothing but water," he murmured. But he still took the gallon with him in his inventory.
…
When he arrived at 'his apartment,' the living room was filled with many gallons taking up space.
Seeing that the fire in the toilet bowl he had left burning was about to go out, he approached and added more wood.
Sitting in the comfortable armchair near the fire, he had already washed his hands, so he took a can of sardines from his inventory.
*Gag Reflex*
'With this one, that's 75 cans of sardines…'
He missed eating meat, eating bread, even salad.
Besides cans of sardines, he had bought a total of three sets of winter clothes from the store.
Whenever the clothes he was wearing started to smell bad, he simply discarded the old ones and bought a new set. The one he was wearing now, he had bought that morning.
Essence: 203
'Well, I'm still saving up nicely,' Theo thought. 'With this, I should still be able to survive for at least a year while eating cans of sardines…'
Just the idea of eating sardines and drinking water for a whole year made his stomach churn.
**
**
Meanwhile, in the building where Violet and the others had moved to.
"Another body was thrown out the window…"
"With this one, that's the ninetieth corpse I've seen thrown out of windows…"
"Worse, even after dying of cold and hunger, they still turned into zombies, and their families still had to attack and kill those who turned into zombies."
"Remember what happened in number 904? Heavens, that was horrific, everyone ended up turning into zombies. Lucky that Violet showed up and killed them all, otherwise…"
"Well, we're still better off than those who decided to stay on the ship, look, the snow has reached this height, there's no way they could have survived, they must all have frozen to death."
"Truly pitiful…"
In apartment 3.111 on the thirty-first floor, Mia went to Violet with a steaming cup.
"Have some hot chocolate, Violet. It'll warm you up," she said with a kind and concerned smile.
Sighing softly, Violet knew if she didn't accept, Mia would start crying again, so she took it: "Thanks."
"Hehee~" Seeing her accept, the smile on Mia's lips became more evident.
In the apartment they shared, there were also other women, one of them being Sara and someone Theo knew well. It was Linda, Max's ex-wife.
"How many have died in total?" Violet asked after taking a sip of the hot chocolate.
"… 329 people, 177 being people over 50 and 33 children under 15," Mia said slowly, with sadness.
It was truly brutal. Compared to the zombies where they at least had the power to defend those people, in the face of extreme cold and hunger, without being able to search for resources, they were helpless and could only pray for the best.
"I see…" Violet sighed, tightening her grip around the mug.
"Violet, careful, you're going to break the cup," Mia gently warned.
"Ohh…"
Seeing it start to crack, she just made a sound of disinterest and went back to drinking.
After all, she couldn't waste it; that in itself was a luxury now.
Suddenly, she saw Mia's body shudder; she got scared, until she heard Mia exclaim: "Sister, look, the snow is stopping, the sky is clearing!"
"The snow is going away?" Linda and the others went to the glass window.
Everyone's eyes sparkled, overflowing with joy.
Similar reactions happened on the same floor and the lower floors of the building.
Many cried as if in the presence of a true miracle.
"It's over… It's finally ending!"
**
**
Theo had just returned from the bathroom with a bag in hand, and when he went to the window intending to throw out the trash… He murmured: "It's finally coming to an end…"
He just hoped that God wouldn't play a cruel joke and make it start snowing again right after…
'One question, what happened to the zombies that were frozen?' Theo began to wonder.