The world outside was cracked and crumbling. Pavement blistered under the sun. Power lines drooped like wax run from candles. In the downtown, metal signs curled in on themselves, buildings shimmered in the heat like mirages, and the air smelled of burning rubber and plastic. Toronto had died in the summer. The city was now a bleached and brittle sunburnt skeleton.
Julyah hadn't flinched when the world had turned to ash.
She no longer winced at the burning sight of the city she once called home. Her heart had thickened with the harsh days, grown inured. Kept a steady, even rhythm of measured beats. She was tougher now. No longer soft or easily shaken. Fear still lived in her like roots in cracked soil, but it no longer controlled her movements.
She had hardened in silence.
Kind, still. Soft spoken as always. But no longer fragile.
The backyard greenhouse was her safe place.
The greenhouse was an oasis in the villa's tiny, sun-blasted backyard. A miracle of reinforced framing, UV-reflective meshing, and temperature-controlling wards. While the soil outside crackled and crumbled, pale rows of hardy vegetables clawed their way through the dirt with stubborn, green determination: squash, peppers, amaranth, drought-resistant tomatoes.
Julyah weeded in silence, misting the leaves with precious filtered water, shifting the shade netting with careful precision. She hummed as she worked, not to herself, but to the plants. They, too, deserved gentleness.
She knew which ones were thriving, which were succumbing to pests, which were survivors, stubborn in the face of the long, long harshest weeks of the summer. They were hers, hers to care for, hers to feed to her family when the time came. She whispered to them sometimes, like they were old friends. Her voice was a murmur, encouragement passed like little secrets:
"Three more inches, and you'll make it into dinner."
"You held on today. That's brave."
Her harvest was handled with the same care. Nothing wasted. Every misshapen tomato and gnarled root was cleaned, dried or sealed in her magical bloom tattoo, the tiny petals a faint, pulsing, warm glow whenever something new was stored.
Indoors, she spent the remaining hours perusing survival manuals like a zealot might study scripture.
They were old books, printed volumes she'd scavenged during her first few months of wandering the city. She'd kept them in waterproof sleeves and stacked them high in the villa's reading corner, next to a solar-charged lamp and her father's favorite blanket.
Books like Desert Survival for Urban Dwellers, Off-Grid Preservation Techniques, and Herbal Remedies in Heatstroke Conditions.Her self-imposed syllabus. She annotated them heavily, the pages curling from use and heat-sweat.
Each night she cross-referenced her notes and updated her magical storage.
The bloom was more than just a storage device, it was her lifeline, her sanctuary.
She was obsessive about it now, organizing everything within by type and emergency level.
Section 1: Ready-to-eat meals and protein packs
Section 2: Water purification, filter kits, electrolyte powders
Section 3: Cooling and protective gear, spare gloves
Section 4: Field tools—shovels, knives, stun-guns, duct tape
Section 5: Books, old photographs, one tiny music player with three songs stored inside
But even with her careful regimen, there were some days that forced her outside, days when the villa's wards couldn't coax a downed solar panel back to life or when a forgotten signal flare had to be retrieved from the emergency shed by the back fence.
Today was one of those days.
Wrapped in a heat-reflective cloak, pulse knife in hand, Julyah stepped from the villa's cool interior. The moment her skin touched air, it prickled. The sun was no longer just hot, it was vicious. The air shimmered like oil slicked flame. Her boots crunched on a mat of brittle ash. What had once been grass.
The few trees that had been left were dead, the bark and leaves long since stripped by the heat. She didn't turn from a squirrel carcass crumpled against the back fence, fur singed black. She simply murmured, "I'm sorry," and kept walking.
The shed was close, but every step was a struggle. The filtered mask over her face was damp with sweat before she'd taken two paces. Even with cooling gear, her limbs felt leaden, her breaths labored.
The metal door of the shed was warped from the sun's heat. She levered it open with her pulse knife, retrieved the flare and double checked the emergency ration box inside. It was intact.
She looked around one last time, taking in the cracked, baking landscape. A painting melted in an oven.
Nothing moved. Not even birds.
A silence that wasn't peaceful—but posthumous.
She whispered to herself as she turned back:
"Six months. We've survived worse."