Chapter 1: The Great Mind Will Save Us

I am shaken awake with the ground still maroon from the moonlight. The cold bites into my skin as I dig through the sack I just climbed out of to fish out my pants. They are wrinkled, but warm as I jump into them. I fish my jacket out with only slightly less urgency. Even fully dressed, the cold seeps into and under my skin. Just as it had done as I slept in the sack, just as it had done the night before. Warmth has been out of my grasp since we began our journey two weeks before, but I roll up my sack, stuff my knife inside, strap it to my back, and walk under the red until the pink and orange of dawn. I don’t have a choice. The world is crumbling, and father says only the Great Mind will save us.