Sunshine

6:34 PM

2719

7 World leaders from different organizations each individually hover over a big red shiny button. They all press the button at the same time and the sound of multiple roaring engines could be heard all around the globe. Satellite-like objects soar up into the cloudless sky and into the Earth's atmosphere, visible from all areas of Earth.

The metal space objects suddenly began to extend into the sky. They resembled the form of metal sheets like a visible layer on top of the atmosphere.

Those 7 world leaders take out a handgun from their pocket, point it straight at their heads, and ruthlessly pull the trigger on themselves.

2724 – 5 years later.

Nearly the entirety of Earth's sky has been blocked by government satellites. Temperatures have begun to drastically drop, some places of land becoming inhabitable. Resources are slowly starting to become limited.

That was how the artificial ice age began.

2861 – Over 100 years later.

11 billion people have died over that span of time. Less than 1 billion, 100 million, 10 million, 5 million… Currently, it is estimated that only 2 million or less people are alive. But the number seems much scarcer than that.

Two organizations exist today. The rebellion who seeks to destroy all the current satellites and free itself from this ice age, and the other who reinforces the ice age and protects the satellites. Two separate societies. And even with a dire situation such as this, humans just can't stop killing each other for once.

These two groups are currently at war with each other. And a young, brown-haired boy found himself fighting for one of these groups, the rebellion.

He crouches on a snowy mountain hill, looking into his scope directed towards the snowy plain below him. The air below him is covered with soaring bullets flying astray, the battlefield below him is separated into two groups exchanging gunfire. He spots someone with a white helmet hiding in the snow, trying to take cover from the ongoing gun exchange.

The young boy suddenly positions his rifle, and, without hesitation, pulls the trigger. "Sorry…" He murmurs under his breath, taking the life of an opposing soldier as a puddle of blood surrounds the recently deceased corpse.

This cycle continues for a while. The young boy narrowly manages to escape being spotted as he hastily reloads his rifle after every shot.

The battle was violently bloody. Medics hovered over their soldiers in the coldness of the snow, trying to stop blood flowing out of open wounds. Numerous corpses laid flat out on the bitter snowy landscape. The air was filled with only gunshots and cries of dying soldiers. Even so, it seemed the young boy wasn't fazed one bit by the horrific sounds of war.

It was clear that the battle was one sided. The opposition loses number after number. Soon enough, they find themselves in a dire situation with the only hope to escape. The government soldiers retreat into the snowy wilderness of the nearby forest. The young boy takes out his helmet and gives a heavy sigh of relief. Phew.

Typically, this would mean a battle was won. But today was a different day for the rebellion soldiers.

The rebellion was going to try to break apart a piece of the metal sheet-like satellites. The boy was told how dangerous this operation would be back at camp. Nevertheless, he still accepted the mission.

On the center of the battlefield, three specialized artillery cannons pointed up to the sky. They formed into a triangle shape and had the rebellions emblem on the side; two rifles crossed into an X shape with a drawing of the sun above the rifles.

Suddenly, the boy felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned his head to see who tapped his shoulder, only to realize it was a trustworthy teammate and ally. "Yo, we should head back now, Kaj. Unless you wanna get vaporized by the blast," his teammate wore a pair of black goggles with his helmet on.

"Yeaaah, yea, got it." The boy, Kaj, stood up and grabbed his rifle, strapping it onto his back. "Thanks, Silver."

The two began to walk back to meet with their other teammates and witness the cannon blast. The walk would have to last at least half an hour, so the two began talking.

"Y'know… I heard some rumors about the cannons," Silver, Kaj's trustworthy teammate decided to break the silence with some mischievous conversation.

"Such as..?" Kaj had an intrigued expression on his face.

"Uh, not much now that I think about it. I heard that they took over 50 years to make, because they're charged up with solar energy, so…"

"Ah. That makes sense, but it also doesn't. Why does it have to be solar energy?"

"I don't know, dude, I'm not a rocket scientist."

"...Fair point."

The two kept walking, chatting with each other as their leather boots made footprints in the snow.

Kaj was a gifted and rare individual. Humans had begun to adapt to the cold. So much so that the majority of people were born with white or blonde hair with crystal blue eyes. Kaj, however, was born with brown hair and brown eyes, which was unsuitable for a soldier because of how easily they could be spotted in the pureness of the snow. Silver was like the former people mentioned, white hair and blue eyes. The two, part of the same squad of snipers, had quickly become friends who looked out for each other.

The pair met up with the rest of the group who had been waiting for them. They did a head count, put on their blast protection goggles, and waited.

Waited, waited, waited. Over an hour had passed till they finally heard the signal, 5 rounds of nearby echoing gunshots, which meant the operation would soon commence. Discussion broke out between the couple of groups.

"I wonder if it'll really work," a soldier said to the group.

"Of course it will!" Shouted another soldier, seemingly impatient, "Damn! Have patience!"

Kaj and Silver met eyes, a small chuckle escaped from Kaj. At that moment, a countdown could be heard throughout the area.

"10," a mysterious voice spoke throughout the entire forest area through a blasting speaker, "9."

"8, 7, 6, 5."

Raj was suddenly getting a bad feeling. Chills ran through his back and goosebumps formed on his arms.

"4, 3, 2."

Raj didn't like this one bit. It was suddenly happening too fast.

"1," the voice said, "0."

An ear-piercing noise of electrifying engines erupted throughout the air. Three beams of yellow light suddenly shot into the sky and made contact with the satellite sheet-like object. Red rings burned through the metal of government satellites. Was it working? Nobody knew for certain.

"Hey… it feels strangely warm," Kaj quietly remarked.

"That's because… the solar energy?" Silver's eyebrows furrowed and his lips pouted.

"Yeah, probably, but- something seems off."

"How?" An intrigued Silver asked.

"I just get a bad feeling about thi-!" The snowy Earth violently shook with a tremor, interrupting Kaj's remark. Looking up at the sky revealed clouds of smoke surrounding a fiery blast. Puffs of smoke expand out and even reach the group, which lead the soldiers to viciously cough and shake away the air.

"Fu-fuck!" Kaj screams out to the group, "What the hell happened!?"

"Not good… Not good!" Silver yells out, the entirety of the group being blinded by the blast. In the midst of the smoke, gunshots are suddenly fired at the group. The smoke clears up enough for the group to suddenly realize that they are under gunfire from their enemies who had sneaked up on them.

Kaj picks up his rifle and runs to a nearby tree, reloading his gun to shoot back. A soldier besides him is suddenly shot and collapses to snow.

"Bad, bad, bad…" Kaj murmurs to himself, shooting randomly into the smoke as he can't make out anybody, "We've been ambushed." He quickly drags the wounded soldier behind the tree so the soldier could take cover.

Kaj sprints from tree to tree, avoiding streaks of gunfire that barely miss his head. He retreats backward until he is far enough to use his rifle's scope. He shoots a couple of soldiers but quickly realizes he is greatly outnumbered, and they are pushing the group back. In a matter of minutes, they're just a few trees away from Kaj.

"Running out into the open field would be a bad mistake, but so would staying here…" Kaj thinks to himself, an idea forming into his head.

Kaj straps his rifle onto his back. He leaps forward into the air and clings on a tree branch, pulling himself upward. He grabs another sturdy tree branch, repeating the process till he's fully up on the tree and blended in with the leaves. Soldiers are directly under him, but they don't seem to notice. But… something was off about the soldier's uniforms. They were unknown to Kaj. They weren't the uniforms of Kaj's teammates or the enemy, they were different.

Another tremor shook the Earth as the mysterious soldiers disappeared off into the open tundra, out of sight. Kaj looks up at the sky and notices a big gap in between metal sheets. A small circle is formed on a part of the metal sheet and the yellow beams are gone.

Out of curiosity, Kaj climbs down the tree and moves underneath the big gap in the sky. A yellow light emanates from the blue atmosphere. He looks up into the sky, a big yellow circle in his vision. He stares at it for a few seconds but quickly looks away because it's so bright it hurts his eyes.

"What the hell is that…" Kaj says to himself in utter amazement. The bright yellow object gives him a feeling of warmth and even relaxation. It was almost like staring into a light, but it felt much more real than that.

"That bright yellow thing…" Kaj finally remarks, highlighting the end of his flashback he told. He sits in front of a dimly lit bar, taking a sip of beer.

"Interesting," a woman sits across from him, "Kaj, that thing you just described is the Sun."

Unbeknownst to him, Kaj had experienced his first time under sunshine in the bitter snowy landscape of what's left of the world.