Survival Queen of the Frozen Wastes novel Chapter 1

It was the year 2027, and the end of the world was now less than an hour away. "00:59:23"

Riley Carter stood on a ladder with a screw clenched between her teeth, an impact driver in her hand, securing the last window panel in place.

A month ago, that timer had just appeared out of nowhere, hanging in the corner of everyone's vision like it had always been there.

At first, people wrote it off as some kind of mass hacker prank. The government fed the media soothing statements in an attempt to keep things calm, but there was no way to talk down the panic as prices kept rising and supplies were held in a monopoly in real time. News outlets might spin whatever narrative they wanted, but no one could argue with the price of eggs.

For a while, it was a frenzy. People cleaned out grocery stores like locusts. The government did what they could—price caps, purchase limits, reassurances from the podium—but none of it mattered. The cost of living kept climbing, and bit by bit, the country started coming apart at the seams.

Online, it was a circus. Some people posted doom-laden predictions. Others openly celebrated the thought of the world finally burning. A few just seemed relieved they wouldn't have to clock in on Monday.

In that final hour, things got truly ugly. Both on the streets and on social media, it was chaos.

Some people figured why not went out with a bang? If the world was ending, they'd spend their last hours doing every reckless thing they'd ever fantasized about.

Others, paralyzed by fear of whatever was coming, scrambled for anything they could hoard. Supplies. Weapons. Gasoline. Didn't matter what, as long as they had more of it than the next guy.

Most people just wanted to be with the ones they loved.

Riley didn't have that luxury anymore.

Fresh out of community college, she'd lost both her parents in a highway pileup eighteen months back. The only thing they'd left her was the family hardware store, a cramped little place wedged between a laundromat and a taqueria. She'd been running it solo for just over a year when that d*mn countdown appeared overhead.

At first, she'd thought maybe an apocalypse wouldn't be the worst thing. Maybe there'd be something on the other side. A reunion.

But then she thought about her folks. They'd doted on her. Made her feel like the center of their world. And even though she'd grown a thick skin since going it alone, feeling indifferent to the world, she knew what they'd want. They'd want her to fight. To stay. She was the only piece of them still left in this world.

People always say you aren't really gone until the last person forgets your name.

As long as she kept breathing, kept carrying them with her another day, they weren't truly dead.

Riley spat the screw into her palm, face calm, the impact driver whirring as she sank another fastener into the reinforced frame.

"Flour's three hundred a pound now, and you can't even buy it straight—they make you tack on a bunch of other junk you don't need just to get it," she muttered to herself, shaking her head.

When that timer first flickered into existence, Riley had done something smart. She'd liquidated everything. Converted every dollar she could scrape together into supplies. Unfortunately, by the time she hit the stores, inflation had already done its damage. Her savings didn't go nearly as far as they should have.

Any cash that was left went toward tools. If the world was ending, she thought they could be useful.

Riley pressed the last sheet of thick insulation foam into the window frame, seating it flush against the reinforced plywood beneath. The impact driver snarled as she buried the screws. Then she reached for her pneumatic glue gun—a satisfying pfft as the sealant filled the final gap.

She wiped sweat from her forehead and climbed down off the ladder. Stepped back to admire her work. The little apartment was a fortress now.

Doors reinforced. Windows barricaded. Every interior wall lined with an extra layer of insulation.

She glanced down at herself.

Custom-fit heavy-duty workwear. Slash-resistant fabric. More pockets than she'd ever need. Reinforced padding at the knees and elbows. It wasn't fashionable, but it was practical.

And her real treasure: tools. A chainsaw. A reciprocating saw. The impact driver in her hand. A multi-bit screwdriver that had cost more than she wanted to admit.

She'd brought everything usable from the shop back here, consolidated it into three massive toolboxes. She'd also grabbed some stuff like an air purifier and some spare filters—anything that might matter when civilization took a vacation.

She didn't know what the countdown would bring.

Some folks online predicted zombies. Others said asteroid impact. Volcanic winter. Alien invasion. Take your pick.

Food. Tools. Shelter. She'd even started working out, building strength she'd never needed before. She'd done everything she could think of to prepare. Whatever was coming, she figured she'd last longer than most.

With nothing left to do, she dropped onto one of the big toolboxes laid flat on the floor, wiped her forehead again, and pulled out her phone.

Most news apps had crashed. The only things still loading were comment sections, and they were going crazy.

[Anyone got rice? I'll pay eight grand for a bag. Please, we got nothing left.]

[Forget it, man. Money's toilet paper now. Saw it with my own eyes—some rich assholes cleared out the Costco warehouse last week. All that 'purchase limit' crap was just theater. Shelves were empty 'cause the stock never made it there. It's all sitting in some hedge fund guy's basement.]

[No kidding? Same thing happened to me! Store manager kept telling me, 'We're limiting purchases, come back next week, we'll put your name on the list.' So the whole time the back room was empty? They were just jerking us around?]

[Of course they were. Rich people cornered the market on everything. So what are normal people supposed to do? Just sit here and die?]

[Anyone know what actually happens when the clock hits zero? Like, is it nukes? That virus thing from that old video game?]

Riley locked her phone. Tucked it away. She didn't have anything to add to that conversation.

A month ago, when the countdown first showed up, prices had spiked instantly. A fifty-pound bag of rice that normally went for thirty bucks jumped to eight hundred overnight. By yesterday, it was breaking two grand.

The wealthy had rolled up with trucks and cleaned out supermarkets. Riley had been smart—she'd gone early, bought stuff that would keep, stuff that was calorie-dense and cheap. Chocolate. Survival biscuits. Canned goods. It wasn't much, but it was enough for one person, at least for a while.

She took a deep breath and glanced at the timer.

"00:01:10"

Just over a minute.

Riley gripped the toolbox beneath her. Knuckles white.

Who knew what would happen when that thing hit zero? Maybe it'd be like 2012—all hype, nothing real.

In that last minute, her life flickered past. Her parents' faces. The hardware store. The lonely months since.

"00:00:00"

The countdown ended.

Riley had just started to breathe a sigh of relief—nothing happened, maybe it really was nothing—when the world lurched beneath her.

A dizzying weightlessness. A sensation of falling.

Everything spun.

*****

She didn't know how long she was out.

"Whew."

A wind like a knife blade sliced across her face. Riley's eyes snapped open.

Her warm apartment was gone. In its place, an endless white expanse stretched in every direction.

Snow whipped through the air. Wind howled like a wounded animal.

And at her feet, a small campfire guttered in the gale, threatening to die at any second.

"What the—"

Before she could process, a chime rang directly in her skull. Not heard. Known.

"Welcome to the Extreme Cold Survival Game.

"Earth no longer exists. This is your new home. This is your grave.

"Survival rules are as follows.

"1. Each player begins with one campfire. It is your only defense against the cold. If the campfire dies, you will be judged deceased by the system. Not that it matters—without the fire, you won't last anyway.

"2. This is a real world. You can die from hunger. From exposure. From animal attack.

"3. Supplies stockpiled in your previous world do not carry over. Only items on your person, or in direct physical contact at the moment of transfer, are retained.

"4. Struggle to survive. It is your only hope."

Riley's heart slammed against her ribs.

Supplies didn't carry over?

Her mind flashed to those wealthy forum posters bragging about their warehouse stockpiles.

And then she looked down at herself.

Workwear. Intact.

Retrieve.

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