Snowborn

Prologue

2135 - 54 years post-asteroid

"There is nothing we can do, Bill. Nothing. Just accept that."

"Julia, calm down." Bill says. 

"No. No. I can't calm down. The entire world population is either dead or almost dead, weak from starvation and exposure. We, on the other hand, are resting comfortably in an underground bunker."

It was true. What remained of the great world leaders were holed up in one large bunker, where they had gone when the asteroid was spotted.

Julia, ten when her mother and father, two political figures, brought her here. She had lived here ever since, and hadn't ever forgiven herself. Once, she was brought up to the surface, and saw the destruction.

Bill hands her a nutrition stick. She chews it, trying to remember times when she had actually gotten to eat real food, before almost all crops and farm animals were ravaged by the asteroid and its effects.

"Julia, I've been meaning to show you something." Bill says softly.

"What?" Julia snaps, tears streaming down her cheeks. Seeing Bill's hurt look, she puts a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Ok. What is it? I want to know."

He leaves the room for a moment, coming back with a rolled-up sheet of paper and some pushpins. Bill unrolls and then pins the drawing to the wall. Julia comes over to look.

It's a drawing of something that looks like a giant bubble, but made of something like glass. It seems to grow crops and also...

"Is that a living area?" Julia asks, incredulous. Hope begins to rise up in her chest, bubbling and fizzing like a soda that's been shaken too hard. 

"Yep." Bill says proudly. "It could at least house some people. I was thinking that there could be a lot of these, centered around the equator so that temperatures wouldn't affect them as much."

"How many people would be housed in these?"

"I don't really know, this is still in the idea stage. There won't be enough space for everyone, though. It could possibly house the children until they were ready to go out into communities around the bubbles... also, the managers of these bubbles could hand out food to the people of the communities."

"Hmmm..." Julia says. "It still seems like a lot of people would die once they were brought out... but less than right now."

Neither speaks for a moment, knowing that, beyond their bunker, people around the world are suffering.

"I'm in."