Flowers in the Snow (ONC 2026)

*Note: This is based off an old and discontinued story that had its outline scrapped and reworked to fit the prompts for the ONC. Essentially, a new book for this competition. Only the core concept, title and the protagonist's name are kept the same.*
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A ribbon, a hair-clip, a pen, a notebook and a radio, held in the arms of a sixteen year old girl...

...

It's been four hundred of years since The Rot ravaged the world and sent people downward with its decaying touch, four hundred years since humanity has inhaled even a breath of fresh air and twenty years since the first fifth-generation child was born in the shelters deep underground. And now, beneath the poisoned earth at the edge of the world, only six of them remain living in the last surviving shelter, the last surviving Lifelight illuminating a darkened board.

For the rest were claimed by The Rot.

Protected at all costs, older generations shields the worst of the consequences, the worst of the panic, but truth cannot be hidden forever. With increasing tensions and increasing crime, it becomes clear that there are only two outcomes: to die in strife or to die in silence. That is, until an inexplicable hope presents itself in the form of a radio transmission originating from the single most uninhabitable place on Earth, the surface.

But it's too late, too late for most, other than the most protected, the youngest, the fifth generation.

The waiting game is over and now it's a race against time. Before The Rot reaches them, before they run out of supplies, the handful of survivors must reach out and find the source of the transmission. From this, there are only two possible results: death or a secured future.

*Cover done by the amazing @toruinagod*