[ WP ] All of humanity has died in a nuclear winter . Or so you thought .

Small flames danced on top of a lonely charred log in the fireplace. Soon they would recede and be nothing more than a soft orange glow. Jeremy would have to throw on some more wood quickly if he did n't want to restart his fire from scratch; a skill that he had acquired after much trial and error since his last match was struck six months ago. Given how prepared he was in every other regard, he could n't help but kick himself when he found himself faced with a freezing den, and nothing to combat it but a pile of damp sticks and an empty match box. 
 
 Jeremy had been king of the `` preppers''. He waited for `` The Big One'' for years, and if truth be told, the worst part of it all was that there was nobody around for him to say `` I told ya so!'' to. His isolated cabin in the Colorado woods was built for this very purpose. Walls three feet thick packed with the best insulation money could buy surrounded his tiny 300 square foot living space, just enough room for his bed, a wood stove and a table to eat his meals. In the corner, an ingenious little invention ( that he would have loved to brag about, if there was anyone around to hear it ) for a bathroom. A chamber pot mounted on a spinning base next to the wall, so after doing his business it could be rotated to the exterior of the cabin, so he could clean it later from the outside. No midnight waddling through a -20 degree snowdrift to take a shit. Boy, he was proud of that one. 
 
 But the real work went into the cellar. Three times the size of his living space, and chock full of enough canned food, MREs, and dried meats to last him thirty years. And the first aid corner of the cellar was basically a pharmacy. With all that important space devoted to food, medicine and the small amount of gunpowder and ammunition he tucked away for his 30-06 hunting rifle, there really was n't room for more than a few days worth of dry wood for the fire. No big deal though, hundreds of thousands of trees were right outside the cabin door in every direction. He had purchased the largest swath of land he could afford and plopped his cabin in the dead center of it. No roads, no unexpected guests, no problems. It took him months just to haul in all the building materials on his little ATV trailer, but it was worth it. 
 
 Jeremy lifted the thick wooden beam he used to bar the door closed and propped it up in the corner. He ducked his head slightly to make it through the doorway and stepped outside, pulling the thick door closed behind him. Attempting to find the sun in the sky, he found only a blurry bright spot amongst the grey film that covered everything above. He barely had to squint to look right at it. The forest was almost completely dead from lack of sunlight and heat. If he was lucky in another couple years the dust would settle, the sun would come out again, and maybe some tough little frozen seeds would thaw and sprout, turning the forest green again. But in the mean time, the dead, dry wood was exactly what he needed to get his fire going again. 
 
 A soft blanket of pristine snow covered the forest floor. In the first few months it would be littered with the scurrying footprints of the rabbits and squirrels, and sometimes deer and elk. Not anymore. When the green left the forest, the animals died off with it. 
 
 Jeremy could have chopped a tree close by and saved all the wood, that was quite a bit of work the last time he did it, and lacking foresight, nearly felled his little cabin along with the tree. Better to just find some smaller branches, stow them on his little pull-cart and bring them back. Besides, he liked his walks. 
 
 After half an hour or so ( judging by the dull glowing spot in the sky ) Jeremy made his way back with a full cart full of branches when he saw it. A very clear, distinct print in the snow, about three quarters the size of his own, followed by another directly in front of it, and another, all pointed back to his cabin. He dropped the handle of his cart and sprinted back, his lungs burning from the cold dry air. The small tracks followed his own and led directly to his door. Smoke billowed from his chimney. His new friend must have stoked the fire. He sure hoped it was a friend, because whoever it was was in his house, with all his food, and with the gun that he had left behind. He walked quietly up to the door and did the only thing he could think of. He knocked.
