She walked down the middle of main street, pulling her tattered jacket tighter around herself. The icy wind bit at her exposed flesh, attempting to lay its claim to her nose and fingertips. A perpetual grey hang in the air today, muting the once bright yellow stripes perfectly spaced on broken pavement and pressing the chill into her bones. It was likely to snow today-- she had to hurry.

She subconsciously fingered the chip that hung on a thin stretch of wire around her neck. The guys at the lab had told them it could protect someone for one-hundred days.

It was now day one-hundred-six.

She spotted the first traces of a flurry, suppressing the mild panic in her veins as she rushed towards the Station before they ran out of the good rations. For all people knew, they were going to get snowed in for half the year like last year. She'd heard rumors that two-thirds of the town had starved during the blizzard.

She hugged herself as she shuffled past the graveyard, keeping her head down, but stealing a look off to the side at the rows upon rows of tombstones. Every single stone slab was at least forty years old, but held the cracks of stones twice that-- the city had begun focusing all of its resources on providing for the living. No one had time to mourn the dead anymore. The white powder that had piled on top over the years now eating away at the surface the longer it sat. Most of the names were worn away, now.

She spotted a young man two rows back, seemingly in his late teens, huddled by a stone. His face was streaked with tears that had frozen to his face, as one hand clapped itself over his mouth, desperate to silence the muted sobs as his thin frame quivered. The other hand was coiled around the wire hanging from his neck.

Thin, glowing red lines peeked out between ghost-white fingers.

The stone he kneeled before looked to be one of the newest in the cemetery, the powder on it a smaller pile than the heaping mounds around it. The person buried beneath it likely had to make the same choice her parents made. They could either die of radiation poisoning, or choke on the fumes from the cities.

Most people chose the latter.

She remembers the gleeful cries of the lingering survivors as the city arrived with the first batch of chips that were now tied around everyone's neck. It bought them one hundred days of life without the fear of poison, without the pain seeping into your soul. She remembers people clamoring and fighting for their grasp at salvation. She remembers the short supply of chips, that time. She remembers people tearing the wires from each others' necks in a desperate fervor, red stained under fingernails.

She doesn't remember when she got used to the supply trucks never having enough.

They had told the survivors how much time each chip was supposed to work for-- that magical one-hundred day mark-- and the meanings of the colors that ran across the smooth surface. Blue meant the freedom to go outside and live. Green was the caution to stay indoors, where you would be safe. Red... Almost anyone with a red chip would be dead in twenty-four hours. No one had lived for more than thirty.

They had cautioned that anyone with a red chip would likely be dead before help arrived.

The glanced down at her own chip in mild curiosity, which gave way to deep relief. The intricate linework was still dyed blue. It was the end of a cycle and the supply trains had been hindered by a blizzard to the south. Chips were beginning to fail, one-by-one, but she was just grateful hers was still working. She was better off than most people including her family, who had woken up this morning to see that their chips were green.

She flinched and her head shot down to look at the pavement in front of her when she noticed an old man out of the corner of her eye, crawling across broken streets. A quick look showed he was around sixty or seventy, his broken moans slicing the otherwise silent air. She saw the chip around his neck was red, and immediately glued her eyes elsewhere.

Stiffened, frosted hands snagged the edge of her jacket, tearing the threadbare fabric. His hands clambered upwards and clawed at her neck, reaching for the wire and the salvation that was attached. She twisted and recoiled away from him. Her feet barely found purchase on the ground beneath her as she pulled out of his reach. Her breath heaved, cold white mist billowing from her mouth and dragging the chill deeper into her lungs as she gaped at the man before her. A banshee's wail split the silence and she flinched back at the cutting sound, the straggling hand falling to the pavement, limp.

She stuffed her chip into her shirt.

When she had arrived at the Station, she could see six others huddled around the wooden crate stuffed with supplies. Seven people were left with blue chips. Seven people that could go outside.

Seven people who bring food for their families.

The number hung in the air as everyone was counting everyone else, the realization hitting them that there was plenty of food to go around now. Before, when hundreds or thousands of people had blue chips, there was always a family or twenty that went hungry that month. Now that the death roll was rising, there was more room for kindness, and more space for survival.

When they saw her, the teenage boys threw their gathered supplies back into a pile and a silent agreement of round-robin selected over the group. Someone would reach roward, pick a packet of food, and the next person would follow. The packets didn't divide evenly by seven, though, and the boys exchanged glances before looking at her. She froze a moment and realized she recognized them. Each had sought shelter with her family at one point or another, caught outside in a storm of ash. She knew they had two parents and a sibling. They'd learned she had two parents, an older brother, and a baby sister.

They were giving her the packet.

She hesitantly reached forward and took the bundle, the paper crackling beneath her fingers. She nodded her thanks, and they parted ways.

It somehow grew colder, possibly from the slit in her jacket. She shivered, the icy tingling that rushed down her spine and through her blood making her scared. She broke into a run as the wind picked up, the lazy white-grey flakes now a ferocious monster as she spotted the dim lights of her home. Her chip bounced on its cord as she ran, the ash flying into her eyes causing them to sting and water, her frigid tears sending a spike of pain through her bones.

She flew through the door of her home, slamming the door behind her as she stared at her family and caught her breath. Each one sat on a discarded pillow or cushion in the barren room as they huddled around the fire in the center. She dropped the foot packets within reach and slid between her brother and her father, trying and failing to warm herself.

She passed out the food packets, splitting one with her brother and baby sister as her parents shared one as well. She took her first, long look at her family as her breathing finally slowed, their frightened stares making her freeze.

She swallowed hard, knowing that stare. It was a stare she had worn herself several times before. They had given the same stare to her uncle, her aunt, her younger brother, the boy across the street, his parents.

With a shaky breath and a puff of frosted air, she lifted her chip to her gaze, holding it between a trembling thumb and forefinger.

Red.