BELOW ZERO

Chapter 3

*Third Person POV*

Emmy and Cyra left Cyra's house and stepped into the ice and snow that had suddenly covered the Earth as they knew it. Walking down the street, the two girls stopped and turned around.

"Emmy, is this really how we're going to leave this place?" Cyra questioned. "Leaving our families' bodies to freeze? No proper burial or goodbyes?"

"Cy... believe me, I want to break down into tears in this very spot, but we have to move on. We need to find a way to keep ourselves safe. It's what our families would want." Emmy told Cyra as she gently pulled her into a hug.

"So what next then? We're all the way in Pennsylvania and we need to get to California or some other place where it's warm." Cyra said.

"I think our first order of business should be to find ourselves a map, seeing as our phones no longer work and we don't have access to google maps!!!" Emmy responded waving her phone around in frustration.

Cyra and Emmy headed down the road until the reached a gas station. The sight was unbearable. Cars haphazardly stopped, many crashed into one another, and their drivers were icicles.

The two girls glanced at each other and Emmy grasped onto Cyra hand for support. They headed into the little shop and began to scavenge for anything that could be of use.

"Emmy," Cyra called out to her friend. "I found some rope, I'm going to put in my backpack, it may come in useful later on."

"Alright. I found the map we were looking for," Emmy told her.

The two sat close together examining the map. After determining their location they concluded they needed to start heading southwest. The grabbed their supplies and started on their way.

By the time night had fallen the girls were in a dense forest, one of the many ones in Pennsylvania. They set up a makeshift shelter for them to settle down in and huddle together for warmth.

"Emmy don't you think it's a bit weird?" Cyra asked all of a sudden.

"What's weird?" Emmy questioned.

"You know... the fact that people everywhere are dying from the cold at alarmingly fast rates. Yet we're not." Cyra told her friend.

"Yeah I've been thinking about that too. Is there something different about us?" Emmy wondered.

"I'm not sure Em, but whatever it is, I'm glad I have you by my side. I wouldn't be able to do this without my best friend." Cyra told her.

"Aww Cy, I love you. We'll figure this out together. We're going to try our hardest to get somewhere safe." Emmy reassured her.

The two girls leaned in for a hug and then huddled together to sleep.

Unfortunately for them, their sleep was short lived. The two friends awoke to the sound of snow crunching beneath feet.