Foreign Lands/Lost-Survival:

Jeremy Gordon sat quietly in the corner of the cabin's lower floor, staring out of
the small, dusty window. Thick billowing clouds rolled across the afternoon sky,
blotting out the sun and casting everything in varying shades of grey. A fierce
wind blew across the small valley, bending trees this way and that, scattering
leaves and broken branches through the air.
He shivered as the strong wind rattled the thin windows, seeping through the
spaces between the wood and glass, raising goosebumps along his flesh. He
wrapped his jacket around his tall, lean body, the ragged and torn material doing
little to ward off the cold. It's been six months since he and his wife, Kimberly,
and his son, Daniel, took refuge with other survivors in this unknown forest. They
would suffer day after day, wondering if there would even be another.
He allowed himself to ponder on it, the thought hanging in his mind like smoke in
the air. The wind had come first, a terrifying phenomenon fuelled by elements no
one could name or explain. It brought with it a blanket of clouds that soon loosed
a torrential downpour upon the earth before rain turned to ice, strangling
everything it touched. In less than a month, the world had been thrown into an
ice age, and the routine of survival become something from prehistoric times.
Many lives were lost in that first month, and untold thousands of others had
perished in the attempt to locate a warmer area.
In the beginning, things had been simple. Water was not a worry. A smattering of
animals still inhabited the area, little trouble to hunt in their altered habitat, and
for a time his family had survived comfortably on the food and heat sources the
creatures provided. It wasn't long before live game became nearly impossible to
find. Even then, frozen corpses were plentiful, and proved to be sufficient.
Cooked thoroughly, much of the meat was suitable to eat, and what was not
edible was used as fuel for the wood-burning stove.
And now, Jeremy would enter the shredding cold wasteland everyday in his torn
jacket and blankets, scavenging for anything he could possibly find, anything
that could possibly keep him and his family alive for another day. As he trudged
through the icy ground, he would be lucky to even stumble across a dead figure,
with barely any flesh stuck on the bony mass of the carcass.
Yes, he recalled. Survival had been simple.
But even the frozen landscape could not prevent the decay of Gordon's food
stores. Jeremy had watched with a pained stomach as Kimberly and Daniel
consumed the last of what little food they had been forced to ration for more
than three weeks, after he had dug through the snow to find most of it rotted or
withered beyond use. He would stare as his wife and son ate gracefully, with a
smile on their, bony, weak faces. Jeremy would pray that every meal would be a
fulfilling one for their family.
As Jeremy stood in front of the window, memories of his past flashed through his
mind. "Is this really the end?" he thought. Suddenly, a cough somewhere behind

him snapped Jeremy back to reality. He started to look over his shoulder, but
stopped himself. Jeremy's heart began to beat faster second by second, afraid of
the sight that lay ahead of him. He tried again, turning very slowly.
Then he saw it. The two brittle bodies lay there, effortlessly, motionless. As he
stared, his heart stopped beating momentarily and his breathing came in ragged
gasps. Without a word, he wrapped himself in another blanket and slowly moved
to the stairs, with the heavy footsteps echoing through the cabin and suddenly,
he felt alone.
Jeremy felt a tear slowly stream down his bony cheek. He had never intended for
things turn the way they had. He had only wished to see that Kimberly and
Daniel did not suffer the agony so many other endured before death finally
released them.
Jeremy seated himself on the crooked, wooden stairs, crossing his legs and
rocking back and forth like a child warding off the lingering terror of a nightmare.
As he stared into blank space, he wondered if any hope of salvation remained.