December 22nd

If George knew he had that much will power, he would have never wished for that. He would have never wished either to not have to go back to his parents' house.

Hell, he should have stopped thinking.

It was quite easy normally.

Anyway. It was too late now. It didn't change the fact that it was two o'clock and the sun had not risen yet. And he was still sitting in front of his window like an idiot. Perhaps the sun was going to wave at him from up there and if he looked away he wouldn't see shit! Or maybe it would give him the middle finger. With how things were turning out, one seemed more likely than the other.

He sighed, taking his eyes away from the black sky. Mourning the sunlight would not help him.

And this situation clearly wasn't going to help him save money on his electricity bills, for sure.

Selfish world.

Mumbling under his breath, which strangely smelt like pickles, he left his room to go downstairs. It would be easier to think with his friends.

The house that the four roommates had managed to rent was not very large but it had one floor and the rooms were far enough apart so that the four young men could stream and work on their own without disturbing the others. That was why they had chosen this place. That and because there was a large bathroom. That was the main point of George's presentation to his friends when he first discovered the place.

The bathroom was the heart of the house. At least for him. For Eliott, it was probably the living room. Being the one who organized most of the parties, it was not surprising. For Chris, it went without saying that it was the kitchen, he spent most of his time there. And for Ashley... the toilets. The poor boy had a fragile stomach.

Living together had its advantages when the world decided to go crazy. They were already living in a weird winter that had been going on for a year, but this... this was another level.

And it was soon Christmas as well!

"Still nothing..." grumbled Eliott as he left the university's website for what was to be the tenth time already. "It's pitch black and we still have practice? Nonsense."

Eliott was what George could have labeled as his best friend. He was an American soccer player with a lot of potentials, both for sport and for seduction. He was charming, even by George's standards.

Who wasn't attracted to a tall curly blond guy with beautiful brown eyes and an adorable little scar on the corner of his lips? Although the scar didn't come from a heroic battle, but rather from an overly drunken night, it was a small detail that attracted girls to him like bees to honey.

"What I find indecent is that you have training a day before Christmas," Chris commented, sitting next to him.

George grabbed an apple and sat down with them, sighing heavily.

"Can we focus on the main topic? Like, you know the sun disappearing? Do you think it's vanished?"

Eliott looked up from the screen and shot a curious look at him.

"You're the aerospace student, not us."

"I'm not sure we studied that in class," answered George with an annoyed tone.

"Once again, you're proving to us that you don't listen in class." Chris simply commented without looking up from his phone.

"Hey, I'll have you know that I, for a fact, have never had any trouble validating my years. Not like a certain someone."

If Eliott's eyes were warm and sweet, Chris' ice blue ones were frightening. And when his glare pierced through someone, the battle was lost.

"Excuse me?" he snarled, putting down his phone. "If a certain someone did not hurt himself like the idiot they are, I would have had my year!"

"I did not hurt myself on purpose!" protested vividly George, his voice getting higher.

"If you did, you would be dead for sure! You're such a mess, Jesus Christ. I told you countless times to not run down the stairs. And you did exactly the opposite!"

"I had my reasons!"

"You just wanted to grab snacks and go back to your stream! That is not a valid reason! You worried your fans and worried us!"

Ouch.

George was never good with confrontation, especially when it concerned him. Yes, he had slipped in the stairs and hurt himself pretty badly. He didn't think badly. He didn't think at all. He did that pretty well after all.

Not knowing what to say after that, he silently bit into his apple, looking down. Of course, he felt guilty for Chris. He had missed his exam just to take care of him and drive him to the hospital. He had taken care of George's viewers, explaining to them the situation and ending the stream as hours later almost everyone had stayed or came back regularly to see if someone had any news. He had stayed by his friend until he woke up, making sure he was okay.

All of that just for an idiot like him.

"I'm sorry," mumbled George, not daring to look up. "I'm sorry you've failed your year because of me."

Chris sighed and reached out a hand to shuffle George's dark locks.

"It's okay. I'm glad you're fine now. I was just worried. You seem to always get in trouble wherever you are... Understand us, we care about you."

Eliott nodded, a faint smile on his lips.

"Yeah, you're a big dumb-dumb, we have to keep an eye on you."

They laughed a bit, forgetting for a moment the whole situation. But they could not run from it.

"Honestly, I don't know if it would do that if the sun vanished. Technically if the sun disappeared it would take 8 minutes for us to realize that the sun vanished."

"Could it be a solar eclipse?" asked Ashley, just arriving in the kitchen. "Like a really long one?"

"No. I've watched the last total solar eclipse we had two years ago. It is far from that."

"In what ways?"

George put down his apple and got up, reaching for the lamp in the corner of the room. He lights up one of the light bulbs and put a round plate in front of it.

"What do you see?"

"... A ring of light and a black hole in the middle?" said Chris with a questioning tone, clearly not sure.

"Yes. This is a total solar eclipse. It's the moon basically just covering the whole sun for some minutes. But it doesn't mean that the sun stops shining right? Hence the ring of light. Hence the fact that depending on the time and the date, not everyone around the world will see it. During a total solar eclipse, it does not get pitch black outside. It stays sunny. It just looks like there is a sunrise everywhere around you."

Setting the plate down and turning off the light, he sat back in his chair, his friends just looking at him, obviously waiting for more.

"There is no light in the sky and it affects everyone. I sent a message to Tom this morning. He said that in England it was the same. No sun, no moon. And it's getting colder already. I also called my Abuela and she said exactly the same."

Eliott stayed silent for a moment, his eyes wandering in the kitchen.

"I hoped that all I found on Twitter was fake..."

"Sadly, I don't think it is," answered Chris with a flat tone. "Not that I am excited about it though."

"It's clearly not. And it means that the winter will get colder," added Ashley, his voice getting lower and lower.

George glanced at him and grimaced. Poor boy. He was clearly terrified. Not that George was not. He was mortified. But what could they do? It's not like they had any power over Mother Nature.

"We've been experiencing a winter that is still going on after a year. And now that? The world really wants us dead." continued Ashley with a whiny voice. "What have we done?"

"To deserve that?" said Chris with a snide tone. "Oh, nothing you know. The usual like killing each other, pollute the whole damn planet, hate e-"

"Shut it, Chris." snapped George when he noticed Ashley's bottom lip slightly starting to tremble. "It's clearly not the time to be sarcastic, can't you see that Ash' is terrified?"

"I see. But it's not by protecting him from the world that it will be better."

George clenched his fists, exchanging a look with Eliott. The silence floated for a good ten seconds before the latter stood up.

"We have to get out of the house and find someone who will tell us what's happening."

"Yeah, you do that while I go on stream. Maybe some of my followers will know a thing or what to do." agreed George.

He then looked at Ashley and Chris.

"Ash', do you want to come with me?"

"I'll be more useful with you than with Eliott."

"Then it's decided. Chris, you'll come with me."

"¡Hola, it's Firey here! I don't know if I have to say good afternoon, we can't really see the good right now, but anyway. How are you?"

George started his stream with a faint smile, trying as best as he could to look positive and bright. But the situation they were in was a bit too strange, even for him. He looked at the chat where his community was slowly starting to grow and read some messages. He answered some of the simplest questions, people mostly asking him if he was alright.

Ashley soon joined him on the voice channel with a characteristic 'ding' and another one followed a second later.

"Hey there." a deep voice said.

It was one of his online friends and fellow members of his gaming team, GenS. His real name was Sam but he preferred his pseudo.

"Hello GenS, long time no see!" cheered Ashley with a wide smile in his voice. "How does it look like in Liverpool right now?"

"Not good. Probably as good as you. But people are afraid, there has been some burglary in the town center this afternoon. It's not gonna get better."

"Oh yeah, I forgot that it's the middle of the night in Europe. When did the sun disappear for you?"

"Around 10 am. Something like that. It scared the shit out of me."

George laid back in his chair, listening to his friends talking. He tried to imagine how he would have reacted if he had seen this. Probably would have had a heart attack or something.

"Why don't you come here in the States with us until it goes back to normal?" proposed George, resting his chin on his palm.

"Tempting but do you think that the planes will still be flying?"

"Never heard of night flight, big guy?"

GenS let out a sharp laugh, his hand automatically slamming on his desk, making the two streamers wince.

"Geez, calm down Sam."

"I'll see if I can book a ticket for the end of the week, it would be better to be with you than just by myself."

George grinned widely, looking at his camera with a satisfied expression. He checked his chat, laughing at some of the messages his community was sending. People liked to imagine that he, or his friends, were dating each other. He did not find that weird, rather amusing. He liked to play on this. He was bisexual after all, so it did not offend him. And he loved to see the fanarts that they were sending him on Twitter.

"Yeah, we're good company, everyone knows that."

Talking with his friends really relaxed him. It was a bit easier to digest this information with them.

"We should text Ezra and Ridox to make them come over too. The more the merrier" added Ashley with an excited tone.

"I think it's gonna get difficult to host all of them. Plus Ridox would be the only girl here, she would probably be uncomfortable."

The three of them stayed silent for a minute and suddenly George's phone vibrated. He raised an eyebrow and looked at the message he had just received.

"Really Ash? You tell me that with a text"

"H-Hey! Don't read it!"

"You sent me 'she could sleep in my room' and you expect me to not read it out loud? You bet on the dark horse."

"Come on dude! That's not cool!" protested the streamer with a whiny voice.

"Whatev' baby boy."

"Do you think your Christmas will be normal with that?" asked GenS.

"Definitely not. It's gonna ruin the mood for sure..." sighed George, feeling an annoyed expression creeping upon his face as he talked.

He loved Christmas. It was the best time of the year. But with the recent events that occurred in the world around them, with the never-ending winter, the conflicts that had risen everywhere, and the ongoing pandemic that was slowly killing two continents... George did not have the heart to celebrate Christmas. Nor to see his family, if he was completely honest. Sterile political debates instead of a warm reunion were not his cup of tea. He missed those Christmas where they at least tried to maintain a festive atmosphere and preserve the childhood innocence.

All of that was gone now.

"I don't think that the mood would have been there even if it was a normal one," commented GenS with a sigh. "Holidays magic is long gone."

"Don't be a sad bitch, I beg you," grumbled Ashley. "We don't need that right now."

GenS probably shrugged and for a moment the three streamers stayed silent. But it was not an uncomfortable silence nor a sad one. It was thoughtful.

They were back to their main problem.

"So what do you think happened?" finally asked GenS.

"Chris asked if it could be a total solar eclipse, which is not, so I don't know. The Sun cannot have exploded, we would be dead already."

"It would be better I think."

"If we were dead?"

"Yeah. And you know why," answered GenS with a flat tone. "The temperatures are already low. But we had some sunlight."

George froze. He didn't think about that. How could he have forgotten that?

"It is likely that the temperature will drop by 4 degrees between today and tomorrow. It should have dropped a bit already."

He looked at his chat and nodded. Most of his community was sending him the temperatures they had. Everyone had lost some degrees.

That was not good at all.

"It's gonna get colder and colder if the sun doesn't show up again soon." added the streamer, rubbing his knuckles against his chin. "The rivers are already frozen... The temperature will drop down by 18 degrees. It is just a hypothesis but it is probable. But I'm sure that the sun will be back! I hope..."

He looked down to his knees, not really believing in what he was saying.

"Let's think about the worst for now. What would you do?"

"I honestly don't know dude. It would be nearly impossible to have water or food at some point. I think the best way to survive this would be to dig down and set our towns undergrown in a deep deep place where the heat of the Earth can warm us and our water. If we could use its heat to create electricity... that would be even better. But I-"

He suddenly paused as his phone buzzed next to him.

He glanced at the screen and froze.

Dad: "Please stay where you are. It is not safe anymore here."

"We love you, Georgie."