What’s the worth of a fire? When the frigid world comes knocking at your door, scratching your windows, feeling your walls for even the slightest crack for it to worm its slender tendrils to feed off the warmth inside – how do you measure the value of any shelter against the cold? How many lives, how much property, how much of your morals is the mere promise of warmth worth? The answer is that in the end, down the wire, just the promise itself is worth everything you have – and the cold will take it and still be left ravenous.

I watch the silent furnace in the middle of the city once a roaring blaze they said would never go out. We fed it religiously: trash, feces, our own dead – anything to keep it burning and keep our lives going. I guess they didn’t lie, it didn’t just go out. It broke. One by one we sent in the children, at least the ones small enough to clamber through the machinery. And, one by one they never came out, their bodies probably a twisted mass of now-charred flesh, strewn somewhere in that mechanical labyrinth.

A month later and a city of broken families later, the governor finally forced away the last of our city’s children from her family to try one last time to fix the great machine.

We all remember that last one, a small girl of probably around 7. Shivering from the frigid cold, fear oozing out of her eyes, her small hands barely able to grasp the tools as she was lifted and fed to our mechanical god. Told her friends were simply waiting for her at the center of the furnace, and her and everyone would come out when it was over. It was a lie; we all knew it.

The crowd of adults, too cowardly to try themselves, waited with baited breadth, some mumbled prayers to no one and no god to simply pass the time. We could faintly hear the little girl clambering through the labyrinth of gears and pipes, who knows how many times her dead friends saved her from getting stuck and twisted, or cushioned her falls?

 Time dragged on and the cold, disinterested in the spectacle of loss of life toyed with us outside. Then, with a small clink the furnace roared to life, and in that burst of flame I swear I could her the cries of one brave girl – now forever frozen in the air over the city.

There was no celebration. We all knew what had happened, in our desperation, we had killed ourselves. Sure, we may have gone back to our houses and shelters thinking that the furnace breaking was just a stroke of bad luck, improbable to happen again – at least while we drew breath in the warmth soaked with the souls of children. But we knew that was a lie, and each and every one of us decided to quietly shut our doors and wait for the inevitable.

It happened maybe a month later, the furnace sputtered and died, and the cold returned. We all tried to keep warm in our own different ways. I, having been a corpse rat as a child used the month to navigate through the huge sewage pipes that led to the great machine and scavenge supplies. I wasn’t the only other one with the idea, occasionally I would see another childhood friend, we’d briefly acknowledge the other, grab our goods and scamper away like the rats we were once and always. Getting back to my lair I’d stash my goods into the cistern connected to my shelter. Sure, it had been there for water, but with all the snow outside, I put it to better use.

Others didn’t manage as well; I imagine my neighbors tried to warm themselves with feces after the furnace died and they gutted their shelter. Not a terrible idea, the frigid cold would freeze dry fresh droppings quickly and they would burn well. Given the stench though, they must have gotten desperate.

The thing about the cold though? It’s relentless and it does not care at all about whatever preparations you may have set. Eventually, your defenses will crack, and your façade of safety will shatter. For me, it was the birds.

Huge woolly creatures that resembled crows if you squinted and pretended, they were 10 times smaller. Driven hungry by the frigid wastelands they smelt our death and came to feast. It was all I could do to keep them from tearing my shelter to pieces, I can’t say the same for the cisterns holding my stash, guess I shouldn’t have stowed dead bodies in there amongst the trash. Day by day, they got more ambitious, and day by day my junkyard shotgun was proving less effective. It’s time to go.

I watch the metal behemoth from the holes in my shelter. There isn’t any movement except the slowly falling snow, in better days it would have been beautiful. Despite the twirling of the snow and the rumbles of the wind, it all feels oddly silent and still. I get up and grab my shotgun and a pouch with the last remnants of meat I have.

“Thanks Harlan,” I mutter.

Slowly, I push the door to my shelter, looking up into the overcast sky, straining to hear any signs of the birds. It’s quiet.

Going back in, I make my way to the bathroom, and straining, lift away my toilet to expose the entrance to the sewer lines, normally they’d be wet and musty, but after weeks of disuse and exposure to the cold they are dry. I don a gasmask anyway and drop in.

I have a feeling that if anyone else is alive, they’ll be in the center of town. Maybe they’d found a way to take shelter in the broken furnace. It’s a bit of a long shot, but at the very least, it’ll buy me some time from the birds, and I’ve all but picked my old scrounging grounds clean.

The metal of the pipes provides no shelter from the cold, having been exposed without the heat from the furnace the metal is freezes my hands through the gloves as I shakily make my way towards the center of the city. At least I don’t have to deal with the howling winds reverberating through the hollow pipes or the birds. Still, by the time I reach my destination, my hands are numb with the cold.

Closer to the furnace, the pipes dip and drop into where the core of the blaze would have been, it’s a long fall and even in ideal circumstances I would break something. However, there are service towers connected to the pipes at these points allowing for a safer exit. I have to take off my gloves in order to turn the hatch open the blood rushing frantically away from my fingers leaving them feeling like gravely stone.

A numb pain shoots through my fingers as I struggle with hatch, it feels like I’m tearing off my skin as I peel my frozen fingers away and hurriedly shove them back into my gloves. Fumbling, I manage to pull some frozen chips of feces and kindling from one of my pouches. My fingers struggle with the match, but I manage to light my little dung heap. The metal begins to creak and groan as it’s old bolts and joints thaw, same with the bones in my fingers. I can start to feel the blood pensively crawl back into my digits as I sit, huddled over the small fire.  I imagine the metal will be a decent conductor of heat and help my fight against the cold as it warms. I forget about the hatch until a gust of wind puffs its way into the opening and the hollow of the tube takes up the role of a wind tunnel – blowing my fire away into the dark depths. I pull my coat around me tightly, trying to keep the warmth I do have from being stolen by the icy wind stabbing at me with a thousand needles.

Making my way back to the hatch, my eyes gaze upon the tall stone skeletons of the central district residences. Home to the once rich, wealthy upper class it was rumored that their proximity to the furnace allowed special old age luxuries like hot baths. The buildings look listless and empty, but perhaps they haven’t been gutted entirely, it’s worth a shot.

I step out into the falling snow and slowly start descending the service ladder to the snowy field below. I start losing feeling in my fingers again around a third of the way down, the gloves beginning to feel abominably blocky and clumsy. Around the halfway point I half to stop, the frigid air sucking my life from me at an alarming rate. I’m glad I haven’t removed my gasmask; else I watch as my very soul leaves my body through frosty breaths. Tentatively, I lower my leg for the next rung, I don’t find it, my fingers, refusing to close fail and I plummet.

 I lay in the snow for a few moments, reflecting on how the thing that may very well kill me in a few minutes had just saved my life. Slowly, I get up, my whole body now feeling numb from the cold, and I slowly hobble into the nearest building, using my shotgun for support. The door is gone, torn off its hinges – probably for firewood. Not a good sign.

Through sheer force of will, I scan the house for any burnables, stumbling upon an auspicious pile of wood and trash in a corner of the second floor. I pay no mind to the obvious questions as I try to use this brief second wind to get a fire going. I get my fire, but at the cost of all my matches, kindling and most of my newfound supply. It doesn’t matter, I have my fire. Slowly, as the warmth returns to my frigid body, so do the questions. If there was burnable wood for a fire, where did the inhabitants go?

Eventually, my curiosity gets the better of me and I carefully leave the safety of my fire. Peeking through the other rooms I finally get a possible answer. Out in the snow, between the houses and the furnace I barely make out the head and shoulders of a corpse buried in the snow. The sight reminds me of my other problem and my belly growls. I have some meat in my pouch, but there might be so much more out in the snow. The cold would have preserved the body, prevented rotting, and once warmed the jerky-like meat would probably taste like grilled tofu.

It takes a lot of effort to dig the body out of the snow and I must take time to rethaw my body before my fingers will cooperate and let me pare the meat off the bones. I lay the strips out to warm and lay down by the fire, I lazily watch the birds as they pick feverishly at cisterns hung from buildings in the outer ring. Whatever keeps them away from here I think to myself. Eventually I doze off.

I awake to a frigid cold; the fire is out, and the meat is gone. I force the sleep from my body and begin to frantically look around. As I tear through the rooms, I briefly catch glimpse of a figure trudging through the snow to a set of houses across the street. I fly outside, the fear and adrenaline helping to keep my mind from the cold. I approach the corner I saw the figure disappear into; shotgun drawn. A stout figure steps out from a corner with a worn revolver drawn. I can barely make out any features through the thick bundle of clothing.

“I just want my food back.” I discretely flick my safety off.

“You come from the outer ring?” The figure asks in a possibly feminine gravely voice. I ignore the question.

“Or we could split it, there should be enough for two.”

“The birds have been pushing survivors into the inner city. You know what that means?”

“Others?” I take the bait, “we could work together, we could – “

“Good eating.” I think I hear a smacking of lips beneath all the scarves.

“You’re going to … eat me?” My finger twitches involuntarily on the trigger. I realize I can’t even really feel the shotgun. I have to end this soon.

“Don’t take the high road, I saw how fast you skinned that body. Not yet, first you’ll be bait for the meal after.”

My mind drifts to the auspicious pile of wood I found, this means whoever this is has fuel to spare. Bad move, negotiations over. I try to pull the trigger, my fingers barely twitch, having already spent their energy to the cold. The figure notices and pulls the revolver back into their body. Following suit I brace the shotgun against my body as they, with surprising dexterity given the freezing cold, let loose a burst of fire. My shotgun retorts finally after their fourth word. A mass of tangled metal tears through their clothes like a knife through butter and the figure crumples to the ground a mass of twisted cloth, flesh, and metal bits. I drop to the ground, the adrenaline falling, I feel … tired. Without thinking I touch my left side, my mind barely registering the strange warmth on my gloved fingers and the red stains on the leather. I collapse backwards into the snow, my body leaking its warmth into the frigid snow. I look up towards the pipes as a cawing breaks the stillness around me. A couple of those woolly crows sit perched on the cold metal, sizing up the easy pickings strewn on the ground – the gunfire must have attracted them.

My will begins to fade, I imagine myself being picked apart by one of those oversized beaks, parts of me comfortably sliding down their slimy gullets, finally finding shelter from the incessant, uncaring cold. I watch as the birds finally hop down to the ground, and I feel

                                                                                                                                                                Warm.