The sun wasn't supposed to be blue.

Mateo rubbed his eyes before looking back. It was there, hidden behind rolling clouds. A ball of blue stuck to the sky, so out of place as if something plucked the sun away to put this new thing in its place.

Mateo wasn't color blind. At least, he thought he wasn't. So why was the sun–

A breeze whipped by, rocking his motorboat against the waves below. The sudden cold left his hair on ends. It was weird. This time of the year, especially in the tropical climate of Zambo Sur Philippines, it should've been warm and arid and dry.

The wind said anything but that.

"Tangina lola, your dear grandchild's finally lost it."

Mateo rummaged through the inside of his boat, ducking below where his trusty jacket was. He donned it on, the warm fuzzy feel of cloth keeping his body from the icy feel of the outside. It was only thick cheap cloth, but it was more than enough to get through.

Riding his boat on the open sea, with the engine revving behind, he headed towards the shore on the far side of his vision. With the water burbling below and the sea reflecting the high sky above, there was no feeling better than being out here.

Though it was a lot colder than he liked–and the sun above wasn't making things any better.

Mateo headed his way back from Dolphin Island. He made his living by ferrying tourists to and fro the island on his own little boat. He wasn't sure if it was legal–uncle Pedro did say this job was leaning in the gray area of things, but hey, his services did offer a lesser price for much faster travel compared to the official tourist boats.

He saw a gap in the market and he took advantage of that. If the passengers wanted to cut some expenses and are fine with a bumpy ride and a bit of smoke right to their faces, he was the man to call.

Mateo eyed his motorboat. It had been with him for a couple years old now, with the hull creaking against the waves and the outriggers overtaken with moss and barnacles. He'd even replaced the engine twice already, but now it seemed like he needed to get this third one fixed, and if it couldn't, he'd have to get another one. The smoke rising from the exhaust pipe wasn't a good look.

"Guess I need to go to Hans' place later." Mateo sighed, trailing the smoke with his eyes as the puff rose higher and higher into the air, eventually dissipating into the sky under the shine of the sun.

Mateo then paused, finding himself staring at the sky.

The clouds were gone.

He took the chance to get a good, long look at the blue sun. Normally this was asking for trouble, but to his surprise, his eyes weren't at all fazed by the sunlight. Instead, they actually felt cold, as if a block of ice was inches away in front of him, the wintry fog drying them out.

The sun was encased in a shell of ice, but still burning as if frost and fire coalesced. It glimmered, with sunlight showering down and down and down until the tips of it brushed Mateo's skin.

There was a sizzle. Ringing in Mateo's ears, as if there was something burning beside him.

That something was his skin.

"Shit!" Mateo recoiled, dumping his arm into the water. He grinded his teeth, hoping the burning pain would go away with the splashing of the waves.

It didn't.

What followed after was the cold. Mateo's lips numbed. He scraped it with his teeth, only to find flakes of skin peeling off. His nose burned. His mouth dried, his throat rasped, with his insides caving from the chilling air he breathed in.

It was hell. His knees buckled, tipping him over to the side of the boat with his face inches away from the water. He couldn't unsee it: the surface of the water, turning to thin sheets of ice against the reflection of the blue sun.

Mateo tucked himself into a ball. His breathing turned heavy, with every inch of his body shaking to stay alive, begging for warmth.

Everything around turned static white. With the ringing in his ears dialed higher, his consciousness was slipping away inches further.

Bang. Mateo bashed his head against the boat. If he were to fall unconscious now, he wasn't sure if he could ever wake up again. He couldn't do that. Not to his sister, and not to his lola. He wasn't biting the dust here.

Not by a long shot.

He banged his head again. As many times as it took to keep him from falling asleep. Sweat dripped from the side of his face, with a tempting whisper following, saying to just let it all be. But he kept on going even after the back of his head numbed from the pain.

And after everything, the burning cold stopped.

Body detected to have the Magic Node Relic. Successfully resisted the debuff of Frostblight.

Mateo peeked through his eyelids. White letters floated in front of him, immediately dissipating to thin air after brushing a hand across.

What was that?

He turned to a crawl, then readied to stand, grabbing anything beside to help him up. His body quivered, with his knees stifling, but after a few, long seconds, he managed.

The cold eventually left, thawing his lips and face and fingers. He could feel the warmth returning, like bliss, before he gave away a deep sigh of relief.

"Fuck." Mateo turned left then right, with his eyes darting from the inside of the boat to the surface of the waters. Everything was back to normal.

Aside from the sun.

It was still there, stuck to the sky like a pinned object. Still blue. Still frozen. Though now hidden again behind clouds, it didn't look like it was going to come out anytime soon.

"Great–" A cruck from behind caught Mateo's attention. The engine came to a stop. With the final whir of the gears, there was complete silence, with only the splashing of the waters below fueling the sound of the sea. Mateo then turned his attention north. A wooden pier was just off his vision.

He let out a deep sigh before taking an oar, rowing the rest of his way towards the docks. With a final huff, he came ashore, with a middle-aged man coming up to him scratching the goatee growing out of his well-endowed chin. It was uncle Pedro.

"You okay there, Matty?" Uncle Pedro said. "Did you feel that cold… whatever-it-was?"

"Tito." Mateo threw a coil of rope, with uncle Pedro in turn catching the other end to twist and tie to a post close by.

"More or less." Mateo looked around his boat to check for leakage. "How about you? Anything wrong on your end?"

"Better than not at least. My fingers though–" Uncle Pedro flashed his hand. He had two fingers frozen, with hoarfrost sticking out like thin white spikes from it.

Mateo flinched. Jumping to the pier, he grabbed uncle Pedro's hand and eyed his fingers. This was bad. They looked dead, as if the cold cut off the blood supply leading up to each one.

"I couldn't run to cover fast enough." Uncle Pedro said.

"Cover?"

"That's right, Matty. I knew there was something wrong the moment that glittering sunshine came." He then pointed to the row of stands. "The cold instantly went away the moment I took cover, but by then my fingers–"

"Did you see the floating words?"

"Floating… words?"

They didn't see it? Mateo stared at his hands. Maybe he was just hallucinating from all that beating he gave his own head.

A sudden thought then flashed to mind.

"I'll see you later, Tito." Mateo bit his lips before taking off running, waving a quick goodbye to uncle Pedro before dashing up the steep incline of wooden stairs and sprinted east. Passing by the crowds of people in the marketplace–all staring and murmuring amongst themselves at the sight of the sky above–he sprinted, as fast as he could.

Through an old bridge, he came into a worn-down neighborhood. A squatter's area, the part of the town where all the poorest of the poor gathered. Small shacks made the neighborhood what it was, along with the kids around wearing tattered clothes, though unsurprisingly there were only a handful out and about playing.

Some of the kids even had the same frozen blight as uncle Pedro's, affecting parts of their hands and legs, yet they still had the balls to play tag and hide-and-seek.

Mateo shook his head before his gaze wandered to a crowd of kids gathered on the streets. They were pooling around something.

It was a dog's corpse.

Mateo came to a half stop, standing in front of the body. Laying there, the dog was frozen, covered in hoarfrost like uncle Pedro's fingers. But there was something else just beneath the thin layer of skin. Worms.

Mateo knew that dog. It was the stray that wandered around the neighborhood, begging for scraps to feed its puppies. Out of all the ways it could've passed, it had to go out like this.

"Get back to your parents!" Mateo shouted to the kids, shooing them away before staring again at the body.

"Look out for your kids, for fuck's sake." He shook his head before starting, his slow pace turned to a run.

He stopped to a secluded end of the neighborhood far from the rest, with full mangrove woodlands dotting the backdrop. It was a full stop, with his feet planted to the ground as if fear held him in place, the image of the dead dog flashing on and off inside his head.

Mateo raised his gaze to the shack just a few paces up front. It was a dull building overlooking the ocean on a low cliff. He mustered his strength and stepped into the veranda, the creaking of the wood underfoot not helping him calm his nerves. With one step after another, he came closer to the door, with the wind passing by whistling a hollow tune. It was a light-hearted whistle, a gentle whistle, as if telling him everything was alright.

He clutched the door's handle, and with a twist, he pushed it open.

"I'm home."