**Time: 23rd - 25th**
After the third darkness, "normal" didn't return. Light came back, but a deep, bone-chilling cold—an invisible plague—swept the globe within hours.
London's temperature plunged 20°C in 24 hours. Improbable blizzards dumped snow on Canary Wharf. Ice floes speckled the Thames. Emergency BBC broadcasts stammered: the Gulf Stream seemed stalled!
An unprecedented Arctic super-freeze was descending!
No natural model predicted its fury or duration.
"The Frost" became the new apocalypse. Panic fermented into desperate madness.
Inside Jack's steel fortress, the thermometer held at a tolerable 15°C (thanks to insulation and sporadic electric heat from the hand-crank generator).
Wrapped in blankets, he watched the snow-chaos below. Street fights erupted over tins or fuel. Sirens faded, replaced by sporadic, chilling gunshots and distant booms. Government emergency decrees and curfews melted like the vanished snow.
Internet died.
Mobile signals flickered. Surviving radio crackled with official platitudes and SOS static.
The book lay open. Its cold, hard parchment seemed to radiate chill.
He traced its spine, eyes catching a previously overlooked illustration: an intricate star chart in dark gold ink.
Its centre wasn't the familiar solar system, but strangely placed stars emitting different auras, connected by energy streams.
Marginal notes used symbols far older and more complex than his 300—some faintly resembled his "void," "rift," and "observe" glyphs.
"Observe? Observe *what*?" Alarm bells rang. This wasn't astronomy.
It looked like… a **navigation chart**? To deep space? Or… to the rifts about to tear?
Then—the burning sensation on his calf returned! Sharper, lasting a full second—a red-hot needle prick.
He looked down.
No mark. Utterly real. "Aetheric Resonance"? He sat instantly, cross-legged, seeking that damned "Spiritual Focus."
The cold air felt thick. The burning didn't return, but after two hours of near-defeat, a faint **"hum"** vibrated in his mind—like the thinnest plucked string! Gone instantly, but electrifying!
Not energy absorbed, but… **perception**! Like hearing currents in pitch-black water! Proof: ambient Aether was rising! His "Resonant Chord" wasn't dead!
Hope, a first match struck in darkness.
He scrambled to craft a new glyph—the only proven one: "Ignis Sol."
He breathed deep, recalling the "hum," pouring focus into drawing the "Sigil of Conduit," imagining channelling the sensed "Tide" into the silver-sulphur ink.
The nib scratched vellum. As the final stroke finished, the lines seemed to… **grip** something unseen! The paper *vibrated* with a deep, sub-audible hum before settling.
Not active. But no longer dead! A sponge touched by dew! Jack's heart raced. Halfway! He needed a stronger "Tide"!
---
**Time: 26th**
The cold deepened. Snow paralysed London. Only desperate survivors and armed raiders moved outside. Jack's flat was an island.
That afternoon, the sky tore.
Not darkness. Within the grey-white cloud cover, long, jagged **purple rifts** appeared silently. Like cracks in colossal glass, edges flickering with unstable energy.
They spanned the sky—hundreds of metres long—glowing with cold, alien light.
"Dimensions Torn!" Jack pressed against a spy hole, chilled steel against his sweating face. The book's prophecy, made horrifically real.
BBC's emergency long-wave crackled: "…All citizens… observe unexplained upper-atmospheric phenomena… cause unknown… remain calm… zzzt… avoid… zzzt… energy radiation… zzzt…" Static drowned it.
The rifts lasted an hour, sealing as strangely as they opened. Panic was now marrow-deep.
Worse: through his spy hole, Jack saw a massive, vulture-like creature—plated in dark purple chitin, three compound eyes—squeeze from a closing rift atop a snow-buried office block! It shrieked—a metallic scrape—circled, then plunged towards the streets.
"Extradimensional entities…" Jack whispered, stomach churning. *Not of Earth*. The invasion had begun. And it looked hostile.
He checked all steel plates. Gun ready. Security vanished. He needed *power*.
He lunged for the book. His eyes caught a tiny diagram tucked deep in the binding: a cross-legged figure. Not bones or organs inside, but a complex network of flowing golden points and… **geometric structures**? Around the figure floated minuscule symbols radiating ancient power. Jack's breath caught—their style matched the star chart's marginalia! They belonged to no known language. They felt like… **manifested concepts**?
"Oriental…" The word surfaced.
His great-grandfather's trip?
Was the book's core secret from the East? Was this network inside the figure "Aetheric Resonance"? Were the geometries and primal symbols advanced cultivation methods?
He sensed an iceberg tip.