Winter Wonderland
New Columbia City
December, CE 2092
Sally Peters’ pale blue eyes gazed at her surroundings as she stood in front of the open door to a
weathered ranch house—the warmth of the house at her back. The house was unimpressive but
comfortable-looking with tan paint, a grey roof and green shutters next to the windows. It wasn’t the
house Sally had dreamed of as a girl, but she liked it nonetheless. Compared to most of the houses she
saw in her day-to-day life, she often felt like she was living in a palace.
She looked from the vacant houses across the street with peeling paint and broken windows to
the yards filled with dead plants and, finally, to the pavement that hadn’t known a car’s wheels in over a
decade. Although the air of neglect and desertion hung over the neighborhood, she took comfort in the
fact that the buildings still stood, as if waiting for their owners to return.
New Columbia had suffered greatly in the last four decades as war plagued the world. It wasn’t
a traditional war fought with guns and bombs between nations, but instead had placed all of humanity
against a larger force. For many years, humanity looked like it might lose the war. New Columbia was
one of the worst hit cities and a conservative estimate had suggested that over fifty percent of the city
had been destroyed since the war had started. Additionally, the once-majestic city’s population—which
had reached its peak at 20 million—had been reduced to merely 100,000 citizens as attacks claimed lives
and the survivors began to flee the city. Most of the abandonment and damage Sally saw around her
was the result of scared citizens running away from a city under attack rather than actual attacks, but
she knew other parts of the city were mazes of destroyed buildings.
It took a brave person to live in New Columbia, where attacks were still a common part of life,
but it was the life that Sally had chosen.
She tucked her hands into the pockets of her jacket as a chilly breeze stirred the fallen leaves on
the ground and toyed with her long blonde ponytail. The early winter morning was grey and cool, and
she sensed that snow was in their future—her anticipation already growing for the first snow of the
season.
She shifted her weight—she was not only cold but restless—and turned to the house. “Will!
Come on!”
“Coming!”
A moment later her husband appeared, zipping up his jacket. “Sorry, my shoe was hiding under
the bed.” Although he was tall and well-built, his easy-going smile and kind brown eyes quickly assured
anyone who met him that he was not as intimidating as first glances might have suggested. He closed
the door to the house and followed Sally.
“Do you think it’ll snow today?” She asked, glancing over at Will as they walked along the empty
street.
“Maybe. It certainly feels like it could.”
“I hope it does.”
“I know you do.”
“Will?”
“Yes?”
Sally paused a moment and gazed toward the house nearest to them—a small two-story with
faded green paint, a broken front door and a roof that was missing most of its brown shingles. “Do you
think people will ever live in these houses again?”
“Maybe.” He followed her stare. “I have to hope that they will. That’s why we’re here, right?
Why would we stay here and fight to protect this city if we didn’t believe there was a reason to save it?”
“I don’t doubt that we’ll save the city… I just wonder if people will come back.”
“If it were you, would you come back once it was safe?”
She looked back toward him. For a brief moment her bright expression dimmed. “I didn’t go
back.” She thought briefly of the city she’d grown up in, a city, like New Columbia, that had suffered
great devastation from the war.
“True…” Will nodded slowly. “Neither one of us did.”
“After everything that was lost… there was no reason to go back. That wasn’t my home
anymore.”
“I understand.”
The war had cost them their families when they were teenagers, and had prompted both to join
the military. Now, thirteen years later, neither held regrets about the choices they’d made—which had
brought their paths together and eventually led them to New Columbia.
“Well, even if the people who left don’t come back, new people will come.” Will stated. “After
all, we came. New Columbia is our home now, right?”
Sally’s smile returned. “Of course. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. It’s funny, but
underneath the ruin and emptiness, I can still see the beauty of this city.” Her gaze went back to the
green house. “Now it’s falling apart, but I can imagine how it once might have been: the kitchen warm
as dinner cooked in the oven, children running through the lush grass outside, the door always open to
friends and family….” She turned back to Will. “I can’t explain it, but something about this city just
feels… right… to me.”
He put an arm around her shoulders as they stared walking again. “As long as I have you, I’m
happy.”
“That’s sweet. Cheesy, but sweet.”
“Would you expect anything less?”
“From you? No.”
Will chuckled. “You used to find me charming and witty.”
“I was young and naïve,” Sally replied, attempting to hide a smile, but failing.
“You were twenty-five.”
“I’d spent the last seven years adoring you from across the military base. After that amount of
time, I was ecstatic you’d finally made a move…”
“Things were complicated.” He protested. “We had our different responsibilities… I didn’t know
how you would feel about a relationship with someone you were stationed with… Come on, Sally, we
were in the middle of fighting a war, that wasn’t exactly an ideal time to be thinking about dating…”
“Those are lame excuses.” She replied.
“You know, you could have made the first move.”
“And made things easy for you? No way…”
“I feel like we’ve had this discussion before.” Will commented as they turned a corner and
started down another street. This street too was lined with once-nice houses that were now scarred
and abandoned—hollow reminders of everything that had been lost.
Sally considered his comment for a moment and then nodded. “We had this same ‘discussion’
six years ago. You ended it by announcing that we were only a few hours from Vegas and that we
should get married.”
“And you say I’m not a romantic.” He grinned as she rolled her eyes.
“Well you’re certainly illogical. We’d spent seven years working at the same base and you didn’t
speak to me until the night before we were dismissed from service. Then, a year later, you suggested
we get married in Vegas...”
“Aren’t you just as illogical for going along with it?”
“Maybe…”
Will fondly remembered the night, seven years prior, that the he’d heard the news the war was
over and all the military units were going to be dismissed. That had been the night he had gathered his
courage to speak to the pretty blonde he’d been admiring. He also remembered, albeit a little less
fondly, the subsequent year they’d spent aimlessly traveling as they searched for some kind of meaning
as soldiers in a world that had achieved relative peace.
He kissed her cheek. “I only needed a year to know that I didn’t need anything else if I had
you…”
She glanced at him. “You sound like a bad romance movie. However, I appreciate the
sentiment. You know, I wouldn’t have said yes if I hadn’t felt the same way.”
“I know.”
They were silent for a moment. Sally considered how they, still newlyweds at the time, had
wandered to New Columbia—the only place where the war continued—and had known immediately
that they wanted to stay. It had only taken a short discussion to decide to try and help end the fighting
and prevent further destruction of the city.
“Will?”
“Yes?”
“When this war ends… we’re going to stay here, right?”
Will glanced around at the street and then back to her. “It’s our home, isn’t it?”
“Just checking.”
A clattering from nearby startled their attention in the direction of an abandoned house nearby.
Sally’s hand went instinctively to the radio in her pocket. She remained tense as she searched for the
source of the noise; only relaxing once she realized that the sound had come from a branch brushing up
against the house in a gust of wind.
She glanced at Will and saw him relax as well.
“Let’s keeping moving.” She started walking again. “We’re running late and who knows what
kind of trouble the others are getting into without us…”
He nodded and sighed lightly. “Sometimes I worry those two cause more trouble than they
prevent when they’re on watch…”
Sally linked her arm with Will’s as they walked in comfortable, but cautious silence. A half-block
later, they arrived at the two-story house on a corner that served as their base. Unlike the buildings
around it, the exterior was well taken care of and there were lights on inside. A small white porch sat at
the top of stone steps and the front door was an inviting yellow color. The couple climbed the steps and
let themselves in.
The foyer was warm. Light illuminated the pale green walls while wood floors creaked under
their shoes. Two winter jackets already hung on a set of hooks on one wall.
Sally let her husband take her coat and hang it with his on the two empty hooks. She frowned
slightly as she noticed one of the other jackets was soaking wet and dripping water slowly onto the
floor. Following the smell of coffee and the sound of someone humming off-key, she found their two
colleagues in the kitchen.
Working at the counter, Darcy Sloan—the source of the humming—had her back to the
doorway. Her normally curly red hair hung wet and limp around her shoulders, but her jeans and blue tshirt were dry. Small in size, the redhead was several inches shorter than Sally and considerably shorter
than Will, but what she lacked in size she tended to make up for in personality.
Nearby, Sam Lin sat on the green faux-marble countertop. Dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt
that was too big for her young and petite figure, she swung her legs idly as she gazed at something
across the room. Her long black hair was back in a braid and her dark brown eyes—just as distant and
sad as usual, Sally noted—only briefly flickered in Sally’s direction before turning back to stare blankly at
the kitchen table.
“Darcy, why’s your jacket wet?” Sally asked.
The redhead spun toward her, green eyes wide. “Where’d you come from?”
“The door…”
“You’re slipping, Sloan.” Will teased as he wandered into the kitchen. “You shouldn’t be so easy
to sneak up on.”
Darcy nodded toward the appliance on the counter behind her. “I’m currently a little distracted
thanks to your demonic coffeemaker deciding it doesn’t want to work anymore…”
“That bloody thing…”
Sally watched her husband walk over to the counter to renew his on-going battle with the
coffeemaker before turning her attention back to Darcy. “So why is your jacket wet?”
“It’s not important.” Darcy replied.
“She fell into a pool.” Sam stated.
The redhead glared at the younger woman. “Hush, Sam.”
“You fell into a pool?” Sally echoed. “How’d that happen?”
“It’s not important.”
“She tripped.”
“Sam!”
“What?” Sam looked up from the spot she’d been staring at. “They’ve worked with you for
three years, Darcy. It’s not like they aren’t aware of your coordination issues…”
“I’m trying to keep a little of my dignity intact.”
“You have dignity left?”
Sally glanced between the two young women. “How was the rest of the night?” She asked,
hoping to derail the argument before it got any worse. She silently hoped they hadn’t been bickering
the whole night—that always led to long days for all of them. She loved both dearly, but they certainly
tried her patience at times.
“Uneventful.” Darcy shrugged. “We only had to go out the one time—just one unwanted
visitor. Everything was fine until the damn pool appeared out of nowhere...”
“Pools don’t appear out of thin air, Darcy.” Will commented as the coffeemaker hissed angrily
at him.
“This one did. So did the rock I tripped on…”
“That really inspires confidence, Darcy.” Sam remarked flatly.
“Whatever… I get the job done. Who cares if it’s done less than gracefully...”
The brief silence that fell over the room was ended by the coffeemaker growling threateningly
and Will swearing under his breath.
“You guys are a little later this morning than usual.” Darcy glanced to the clock.
“We just walked slower than normal. We got talking.” Sally replied.
“No worries. We had things under control.”
“Says the one who claims that the pool fell into her.” Sam rolled her eyes.
“Success!” Will announced as the coffeemaker began to brew, preventing Darcy from making a
response to Sam. “You’ve met your match once more…” He murmured.
His wife glanced over at him. “I think you secretly enjoy fighting with that thing.”
“Maybe a little.”
“It’s always reassuring to know that you’re smarter than an appliance, Dear.”
Will raised an eyebrow. “Did you ever doubt that I was?”
Sally merely smiled.
“At least he can use the toaster without setting it on fire.” Sam commented.
Darcy glared at her. “That happened like five years ago. It was a one-time thing and it wasn’t
my fault. Why do you blame me for every single thing that goes wrong?”
“It’s easy and, more often than not, accurate…” Will replied.
“That’s not very nice…” The redhead pouted.
“We’re not saying you’re a troublemaker, Darcy.” Sally added. “You just happen to have a
talent for attracting trouble.”
“I guess that’s true… I mean, look at the company I keep.”
Will and Sally laughed while Sam turned her attention back to whatever she’d been staring at on
the table—no trace of humor on her young face.
Darcy wandered over to a cabinet and frowned as she gazed at its contents. “Where’d all our
mugs go?”
“Probably wherever we left them last.” Sally replied.
“Or maybe they got tired of being overused and ran off.”
Sam glanced toward the redhead. “You’re so weird.”
“You’re just figuring this out?”
Will ignored the two young women and nodded toward the window. “Look outside, Sally.”
She looked out the window over the sink to see that snow had begun to fall steadily from the
grey clouds. “It’s pretty.”
The big, fluffy snowflakes danced past the house and settled on the frozen ground—already
starting to gather in a thin layer.
“Maybe it’ll snow enough that we can build a snowman!” Darcy said excitedly.
“We’re in the middle of a war and you want to build a snowman?” Sam frowned slightly.
“Well, forgive me for not dwelling on the doom and gloom out there. There’s nothing wrong
with enjoying a few minutes of peace when we’re offered it.”
“Whatever you say, Darcy…”
The redhead made a face at her. “I’m going to go hunt down our missing mugs.” She headed
for the door.
Sam hopped off the counter and followed silently after her.
“Never a dull moment, huh?” Will laughed lightly.
“It’s when it’s quiet around here that I start to worry.” Sally replied.
“Me too.”
She could hear Darcy and Sam bickering in the other room, but it didn’t bother her. She merely
stared out at the snow and sighed contently.
“What are you thinking?” He asked softly, moving close to her side.
“Every day we walk past reminders of loss and destruction, jumping at every little sound
because we don’t know what could lurk within those desolate houses. We surround ourselves with
danger and uncertainty because we made the choice to keep fighting even though we could have lived
somewhere else in peace. We’ve made our home in a city at war. And yet, as strange as it sounds, at
the end of the day—here with you and Darcy and Sam—I’m happy.”
“I don’t think that’s strange at all. I feel the same way.”
Sally looked up at him and smiled before turning her gaze back to the snowflakes. She could see
the house across the street, but the snow obscured the broken steps of its porch and the dead plants in
the yard. “We’ve been through a lot and I know there’s still more to come, but for now… everything is
okay. I’m happy and, most importantly, this is home.”
Will nodded and followed her gaze out the window. They stood in the silence of the warm
kitchen, watching the world slowly disappear behind a drifting curtain of pure white.