[ WP ] A second Ice Age has ravaged the Earth in the year 2039 . While scavenging , you realize that the Ice Age was artificially started , and you think you know why .

Not in the blink of an eye, but in a long agonizing frost, our world had died. That slow cancer had come and glaciers of white replaced the buildings, and palpable sorrow had taken over our people. 
 
 
 The sky was blue, a pale blue, but there was more light than usual. I had made my way further than I ever had and the ground was untarnished. Supplies were diminishing as this decade turned and I had to go further and further to survive. I was on the outskirts of what had been farm country in some long forgotten dream ago. 
 
 
 The ground was uneven. Hills of white rose and a cold wind picked up. Fallen farm houses lay petrified as their wooden bones stuck out. 
 
 
 *I am some animal* I thought. *I steal from the dead. * 
 
 
 But I had grown used to the thought. I searched the debris and it was all so unfamiliar. This was from a time I had never known. There were things there that I have never heard of or seen before. Then something caught my eye. 
 
 
 An old diary lay frozen in the wastes. A collapsed wall still lay upright against the heavy dunes and I was shaded in a long shadow. I picked up the diary and the pages were fragile and mostly disintegrated. What remained was a frost-slick material that was hard to read. I could tell this was from when the cold had begun as the writing on the page was small and economical. Whoever wrote it knew that things were getting scarce. 
 
 
 The page I could make out seemed to be written by a small child. I do n't know why I wasted time trying to read it, but all the answers in the world were kept there. Children are often the bravest when fear takes the men. 
 
 
'Today the monster roared. It was a big roar and it shook our house. He is waking up. It is sunny now and he likes the sun. Mommy used to tell me stories about him. He was asleep for a long time. Now the sun is coming out and he is waking up. I do n't understand. The sun is out everyday. Maybe he was having a long sleep and his mommy and daddy did n't want to wake him. I heard him roar today so I know he is awake. I wonder if mommy will let me see him. I think he is scary but mommy said he was n't. She looks scared herself so I think she was making that part up. I hear him roar again.' 
 
 
 I do n't know why it took me. My legs numbed and I got up to stretch. The world around me was quiet and white. Our world was dead and this slow cancer was eating away at it. In my studies when we had the luxury to do so, we discussed this coldness that had taken us. The commonly accepted explanation was that it was natural, a cycle and eventuality. But in the dark though, if you were in the right circles, there were other theories. Sinister conspiracies. 
 
 
 I ca n't say that I am a theorist, and I do n't have much to add to any scientific research, but I have always wondered of the cold. The stories of long ago speak of a people that could achieve anything. They speak of a people who aimed to be Gods themselves. I always wonder why such a people would allow this to happen. I always wondered why no one tried to do anything about it. 
 
 
 I walked back the long trek home and I thought of the page I had left behind. It seemed unfitting of me to take it. 
 
 
 *I'm not that beastly, * I thought, and I thought of what was written. 
 
 
 I thought my private thoughts and I wondered what really happened so long ago. What could make such an advanced people so silent, unwilling to fight. Was this cold man made? Was it really made to put this monster back to sleep? What could be worse than this slow death? I looked around again and there was nothing but the cold snow. Such thoughts are childish, but I wondered if somewhere out there something was sleeping. I wondered if I would ever hear the roar. It gnawed at me, but I had other things to worry about. I took my supplies back to my camp. I would survive another day. 
 

