My senses, my muscles, my life, struggled like so many times before. The torturous bite of the unimaginably freezing wind tore through the naked and vulnerable flesh that escaped through my unsatisfying pelt. I would welcome Death happily into my arms. I would treat him as a friend, a brother, just so he can bestow eternal blissfulness from this killing frost. All the nights and days are filled with blizzards, snow, sleet, and assaulting hail—every second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day. Not one, single day has been filled with what the Fotians call “the Sun”. They name it the…Light Bringer. Oh, how I long to feel heat again! How I long to feel that pleasurable tingle that only the heat and fire of the sun can bring!

Fotians, or the People of Fire, are the exact polar opposite of us—literately. What is very strange about our planet is that one half of it is frozen tundra, while another is volcanic and sulfuric. Only one side of the planet is always covered by sunlight, volcanoes, and that is our opposite, Fotia. Our half, Pagos, however, is always obscured from the Sun, which is completely covered with snow, ice, and no vegetation. On Fotia, the temperatures range from eighty to ninety degrees Fahrenheit. While on Pagos, the temperature is always below zero.

I long to go to Fotia…At least there, I will not have to worry about slowly and painfully dying from starvation, hypothermia, frostbite, or from the ten foot tall black wolves that ponder the painfully frigid tundra. Millions die from these conditions, millions die from Fotia’s conditions. But even more die from the Anfractus. The Anfractus is the five hundred mile wide gap that encircles the Prime Meridian. It is an abyss that runs straight through the molten core of the planet, which supplies all of the power for both Hemispheres. No one is allowed to move to another Hemisphere or try to escape theirs. The force field, which can vaporize you immediately, runs from the edge of Fotia to the edge of Pagos. Whoever attempts to leave, is severely punished, by being tortured by their family members, including spouse, children, father, and mother. We live on this dystopian and horrible world because our world, our home, Earth…has been razed by its own inhabitants thousands of years ago. We brought what little food we had, and settled on this planet that we did not name, due to the rue and shamefulness this world has brought upon us. My ancestors did not bring anything, no technology, no literature, only weapons and armor.
I reached the Anfractus…the Gap…the Bridge…My hand still feeling as if was still there. I lost it due to frostbite; the blackness of it is still very visible in the open and rotten stump. I thought of my family, my daughter, wife, mother. I close my eyes, my hands shaking…a single tear drops into the snow…My face only a few inches from the force field. I see volcanism, ash, and lava erupting from the other side. My breathing steadies to a calm stop…my muscles relax and give in. I hold out my arms as the mythological creature we call a “bird”, as if to fly. I think of my father, mother, child, wife…planet. They all died years ago. I fall, blissfully and happily into the abyss…to leave this dystopia, this Hell…this world. I am in eternal happiness away from the Hostile Hemispheres.