Chapter 1 " I want sun's warmth "

Thirty-seven days ago, the sun disappeared. No warning, no reason.

 The sky turned to ash, heavy and unyielding, like a curtain drawn over the world. The Earth began to freeze. 

Rivers slowed, their surfaces cracking with ice. Plants withered into brittle ghosts, their colors leached away. 

The cold seeped into everything bones, breath, hope. The world was dying, silent and slow, and I didn’t care.

I was thirty-four, a drifter even before the end. I’d seen enough of life to know it owed me nothing.

 No regrets, no dreams, no fear of death. I walked through abandoned towns, past frozen bodies curled like question marks in the snow, and felt nothing. 

My pack held a knife, a bottle of water, a few scraps of food. Enough to keep going, not enough to matter.

 Death was just a step I’d take when the time came. Until I found her. She was a shadow beneath a skeletal tree, half-buried in snow. 

A small, trembling shape, her coat torn and gray as the sky. I thought she was gone, another casualty of the cold. 

But a faint whimper stopped me, sharp as a blade in the wind. I knelt, brushing snow from her face. 

She was young ten, maybe eleven. Her lips were blue, her cheeks sunken. Dark hair clung to her forehead, crusted with ice.

 She looked like a doll left behind, fragile and forgotten.“Hey,” I said, my voice rough from weeks of silence.

 “You alive?” No answer. I should’ve walked away. I had enough for one, not two. But my hands moved on their own, lifting her into my arms. 

She was light, her bones sharp under her skin. I carried her to a crumbling barn I’d been using as shelter, its walls groaning against the wind. 

Inside, I set her near a fire fed by broken planks and pages ripped from a waterlogged novel.

 I wrapped her in my blanket, thin as it was, and waited. Hours later, her eyes opened dark, wide, catching the fire’s flicker.

 She stared at me, wary but not afraid. I held out a can of beans, warmed over the flames. 

“Eat,” I said, pushing it toward her.She took it, her fingers brushing mine, cold as frost. She ate slowly, savoring each bite, her gaze never leaving me. 

I watched her, this stranger who’d cracked something in me I didn’t know was there.

 Why did I care? I didn’t even know her name.“What’s your name, kid?” I asked, stirring the fire to avoid her eyes.

“Ayuma,” she whispered, her voice soft but clear. “I’m Ayuma.” “Ayuma,” I repeated. 

The word felt warm, a spark in the dark. “I’m Kael. You got anyone? Family?” She shook her head, her eyes dropping to the can.

 “The cold took them.”I nodded. No need for more. The cold took everyone eventually. “Sleep,” I told her. “You’re safe here.”

She curled up under the blanket, her small frame a shadow against the firelight.

 I stayed awake, listening to the wind howl through the barn’s cracks. For the first time in years, I felt something heavy in my chest.

 Not fear, not yet. But something close. I wanted sun's warmth but I got something better. 

Days passed, and Ayuma stayed. She was quiet at first, a ghost trailing my steps. 

But slowly, she came alive. She’d hum a tune I didn’t know, soft and lilting, while sorting our supplies. 

She’d trace shapes in the frost on the walls a bird, a star, a crooked smile. Her laughter, rare and bright, cut through the silence like sunlight I’d forgotten. 

She was too young for this world, too soft for its edges. Yet she endured, her chapped hands working beside mine to 

keep the fire alive, her sharp eyes scanning the horizon when we scavenged.

One night, by the fire, she spoke without prompting. “Kael, do you think the sun’s coming back?” I stared into the flames, their heat a faint tease.

 “Don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it’s gone for good.”She hugged her knees, her face half-hidden. “I used to draw suns. Big, yellow, with rays like arms. 

Mama said they were pretty. ”My throat tightened. “You draw good?” She nodded, a small smile breaking through.

 “I’d draw you one, but…” She glanced at the snow outside, where paper and pencils were long gone.

“Deal’s this,” I said, surprising myself. “We find something to draw with, you make me a sun. 

Okay? ”Her eyes lit up, brighter than the fire. “Okay.”That promise changed everything. 

Ayuma wasn’t just a kid I’d saved. She was a reason to keep moving, to fight the cold and hunger. 

I’d been ready to let the world take me, but now I was scared scared of losing her. She was too young to die, too precious to fade into the snow. 

I’d do anything to keep her safe. Day 38. After the Sun Disappeared I woke to Ayuma’s cough, a dry rasp in the dark. We were cold, hungry. 

The kind of hunger that makes your bones scream, your body a stranger. My hands shook as I tucked the blanket worn to threads over her. 

Her face was pale, lips cracked, eyes dull but stubborn. She needed food. I had to find it. 

Sendai was a mile west, a Japanese city I remembered from old maps.

 Once vibrant, now probably as dead as everything else. But maybe there’d be something cans, rice, anything.

I nudged her gently. “We’re moving, kid.”She stirred, her voice faint. “My legs… I can’t feel them, Kael.

”My chest tightened. “Alright. Hop on.”She climbed onto my back, her arms loose around my shoulders. 

She was too light, her body ice-cold against mine. Each breath she took was slow, ragged, like it cost her everything. 

I counted them, each one a fragile thread. I was scared. Scared her next breath wouldn’t come. 

Scared I’d fail her.Then I felt her smile, her cheek curving against my neck. “Look,” she whispered, pointing. A streetlight flickered in the distance, weak but alive. 

“It’s trying to stay alive, like us.” That smile, those words they were a spark in the freezing dark. 

A month ago, I’d have let the cold take me. But Ayuma? She was the only warm thing left. 

I wanted to give her everything food, warmth, a sky with a sun. But I had nothing. 

Just legs to carry her, a will to keep walking until I found something to keep her alive. 

We reached Sendai at dusk, the gray haze swallowing what light remained.

 The city was a ghost, its streetlights buzzing faintly, flickering like lost souls.

 Snow dusted a Shinto shrine, its red torii gate leaning like it was tired of standing.

 A vending machine lay toppled, its glass cracked, spilling cans of Pocari Sweat and coffee into the frost. 

The air smelled of rust and stale ice, the only sound the crunch of my boots and Ayuma’s soft hum, a tune that kept me grounded.

We wandered empty streets, past shuttered shops and cars buried in snow, until I spotted a 7-Eleven.

 Its door was shattered, glass glittering like frozen tears. Inside, the air was thick with mildew and the faint tang of spoiled rice. 

Shelves held scattered treasures: expired onigiri wrapped in plastic, a can of tuna, instant ramen packets, a box of Pocky sticks still sealed. 

Ayuma’s eyes widened, a faint glow in them. “Pocky,” she said, clutching the box. “Mama loved these. 

Can I keep it?” “Eat it,” I said, softer than I meant. “It’s yours.” She tore it open, nibbling the chocolate, her smile flickering back.

 “Tastes like before,” she murmured, her voice distant. “Like home.” I stuffed a bag with what I could carry rice, tuna, a dented can of soup, some crackers.

 Some expired, some not. Didn’t matter. It was enough. Enough to keep her breathing, to keep her smile alive.

We found shelter in a bus stop, its roof barely holding off the snow. I wrapped her in my coat, ignoring the cold biting my skin.

 Her coughs came harder, her breaths shallow. I held her close, her hand finding mine, small but fierce.

 “Thanks, Kael,” she whispered, half-asleep. “For not leaving me.”I swallowed, my throat tight.

 “I’m not leaving you anywhere, kid.”She smiled, faint but real, and drifted off, her weight steady against me. 

I stared at the flickering streetlight across the street, its light stubborn, like her. The sky was gray, the sun gone. 

But her warmth, her hum, her spark they were my sun. I’d carry her, fight for her, as long as I had breath.

Then I heard it a low howl, sharp and growing. The wind picked up, whipping snow across the street.

 The streetlight flickered once, twice, then died. The air turned thick, snow swirling in angry gusts, blotting out the city. 

A storm was coming, fast and merciless, swallowing Sendai in white. I pulled Ayuma closer, her coughs lost in the roar. 

We had food, but no shelter could hold against this. I didn’t know if we’d survive the night.