The snowstorm came early that year—thick, fast, and strangely silent. The town of Dalewood was buried in white overnight, cut off from the outside world. Power lines went down, roads vanished under drifts, and even cell signals flickered and died. The townsfolk bundled up and hunkered down, expecting a few days of inconvenience.

But then the first case appeared.

Mrs. Trammel, an elderly woman known for walking her dog every morning, was found on her porch—frozen stiff. Her skin was blue-gray, her eyes iced over, and yet no frostbite showed on her extremities. It was as though the cold had started from the inside and pushed outward. Her dog was nowhere to be found.

The next day, it was the school janitor. Then a postal worker. Each time, the pattern was the same: cold and rigid, no signs of struggle, no signs of external freezing. Rumors spread: was it a virus? Poisoned water? Something supernatural?

Dr. Hannah Reed, the town’s only physician, examined the bodies and found something disturbing—ice crystals in the blood, and tiny cracks in the organs, as if they’d been flash-frozen from within. She locked herself in her clinic to study further, but even she wasn’t safe. Her assistant found her the next morning, upright in her chair, eyes wide, skin like blue marble.

And the snow kept falling.

Some said it was the storm itself—that something lived in it, something ancient and hungry. Others spoke of a local legend: an old miner’s curse after he froze to death in the hills, swearing vengeance on the town that left him behind. Whatever it was, the cold was spreading, not just through the air, but through the people.

Now, those left alive must decide: stay and risk freezing from within, or brave the storm and whatever waits beyond the white?

Time is running out. And the cold is closing in.