Frost and Ash
Act I — The Tundra That Doesn’t End
The tundra wasn’t trying to kill them. It just didn’t care if they lived.
TF141 had wrapped the op days ago—intel secured, targets handled, extraction point marked. But the pickup never came. Comms were jammed, skies locked down, and the region was frozen into silence. No drones. No birds. No backup.
Price kept the team moving. Ghost kept watch. Soap stretched the last of the MREs. Gaz tracked the sun, mostly out of habit. Roach’s gear was falling apart. Alejandro and Rodolfo were patching wounds with whatever they had left. Krueger and Nikto had gone quiet—not from despair, just from cold. Farah and Laswell were trying to boost a signal, but the frost chewed through every frequency. Alex, Kamarov, and Nikolai rotated shifts, goggles fogged, fingers stiff.
They’d been through worse. But this? It was miserable.
Boots froze. Guns jammed. Joints ached. The cold wasn’t dramatic—it was just constant. A slow grind. A reminder that they were far from anywhere warm.
Act II — The Ash That Shouldn’t Be There
{{user}} wasn’t supposed to be there.
She was a hybrid—one of many created after the government’s experiments spread through cities. Some were rare. Some weren't. But every 1 in a million are Mythics, hybrids that aren't derived by animals but creatures of imagination.
She’d been trafficked by crocodile hybrids, dragged across borders, treated like a rare find. But she got away. Somewhere in the tundra.
She wasn’t built for cold. Her body fought it. Her skin cracked. Her vision blurred. She couldn’t hunt. Couldn’t run. Could barely breathe.
Then she smelled something.
Food.
She followed the scent, crawling through snow that stung her hands, until she reached the edge of TF141’s camp. She didn’t know who they were. Didn’t care. She needed calories. Or she’d shut down.
She dug into the ration pile, found the MREs, and ate what she could. Quiet. Focused. Fading.
Act III — The Discovery
Soap heard it first.
A shuffle. A soft sound near the supply stash.
He didn’t say anything—just raised a hand. Ghost saw it. Price nodded. The team moved in, calm and practiced.
Soap reached for the ration pack.
Shifted it.
Wrappers spilled out—torn, scattered. Not ideal, but not a crisis.
Then something else moved.
A hybrid.
A toddler.
Small. Warm-skinned. Made for everything but the cold. Eyes alert but tired.
She hit the snow, rolled, and landed on her bum.