Torment

Snowpiercer

Screaming, just screaming. That's all I could hear. The muffled cries of families and lovers clinging onto each other in desperation were all that filled the frozen air around me. I was eighteen, alone, frightened and cold, so cold. It was just barbaric, there were rows upon rows of pitiful people labelled as nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet.
I reached into my coat pocket, shivering as my fingers brushed the frozen metal of my jacket zip. I let out a frosty breath of relief as I clasped the only thing that assured my safety, a ticket.

A gust of piercing wind struck my cheeks and brought me back to the harsh reality I was living in. I was currently shuffling towards a frostbitten train carriage with nothing but a coat, jeans, boots and a stolen scarf to my name. As I neared the steel, looming carriages of the tail end, I blew warm air from my nostrils in an attempt to loosen the frosted streaming tears from my chapped face. I kept my eyes forward, using my snow-covered eyelashes as blinkers from the unfortunate parents that were pleading for spare tickets to ensure their children's safety. It was as a heartbreaking sob left a father's lips that I remembered how we got here, how mankind managed to fuck something up this bad.

It was July 1st 2014 and I was a practising nurse at The Royal London Hospital. Originally from the coastal town of Poole in the South of England, I was away from my friends, away from my family and away from my home. Growing up I had never seen snow. We'd learnt about it during history classes at school, but it seemed as unimaginable as dinosaurs. The human race had kick-started global warming during the industrial revolution and as the years went on so did the fossil fuels, machines and deforestation. It got to the 1970s and the planet was warming at an alarming rate. There was nothing scientists could do to reverse our mistakes. So 40 years later, here was the newest generation suffering from past mistakes. Summer in England was always pleasant but now, in this new climate changed environment, the streets of London looked more like an outback desert town in Australia than a city famous for its river.

The sun had not yet risen, and I had been finishing off my duties in the minor injury's unit at the hospital. Even with no natural light touching the bare streets beneath us it was already climbing to 50 degrees Celsius. I dabbed my sweaty forehead with a paper towel as an announcement ripped through the radio on a nearby patient's bedside cabinet.

"At this hour 0600, It has been declared that CW7 is to stop global warming. Today, 79 countries will begin releasing CW7 into the atmosphere and down the temperatures. According to scientists the CW7 will bring global temperatures down to levels as an answer to mankind's warming of the planet." A smile brushed my lips as I heard the patients on my ward cheer with joy at the thought of normal weather sweeping across the globe once more. But we were wrong, we were so wrong.

After the aeroplanes took to the sky to disperse the chemical the unimaginable happened. CW7 was strong, too strong for the governments to handle. Just after the initial launch to control global warming, the air became colder, days became shorter and before the world knew it there was nothing but ice, snow, darkness and sub-zero temperatures. CW7 had begun to induce an un-survivable ice age. Every hour temperatures were plummeting and with no one else to turn to, the world looked to the once labelled maniac, Wilford.

During the height of climate change, he had invented a self-sustaining train. The once in a lifetime invention had everything from regenerating water and electricity to farms and night clubs. It had all a population would need to survive a constant journey around the world until an apocalyptic event was over.

The reveal of Wilford's invention and the beginning of the ice age began seven days ago. In just 168 hours everything we knew changed. At first, snow began to fall, amazing myself and the fellow 90s babies, but it didn't stop. It just kept falling and settling, attaching to the worlds parched ground like Velcro. As the snow increased so did the wind and with the wind came minus 20 temperatures. We had gone from one extreme to the other and the world, yet again, wasn't ready. The first two days saw school and work closures. After five days the death toll had risen to its thousands. And stories of families being snowed into their homes and either freezing or starving to death were all the few remaining news channels focused on. I ended up having no choice but to stay in London trying to help all I could with medical issues we thought had been long extinct. Frostbite, flu's and all cold-related illnesses made a mass return and we were completely out of our depth.