I was a police officer before the Arctic Device went off half a year ago. The people I knew as friends, family, and total strangers now lay motionless in whatever positions they were in prior to the event; completely frozen, right down to the smallest molecule. The rest of the world remained unharmed. The climate operated as usual, and the animals frolicked about with no cares in the world.

You may be wondering how I survived. That's a simple answer, really. The Device was very versatile in that you could program it to freeze or avoid freezing just about anybody. In theory, you could have it freeze every Native American without so much as poking the rest of humanity. It was a very powerful weapon, indeed. Punch in a few numbers, and you become Death.

America developed it back in the Cold War days to use as a "kill-Russia-fast" device. Don't ask me how they made it; I have no idea. Through a whistle-blower or two, all of humanity learned about it. Soon after, everyone but me perished. I could only assume that there was some kind of software glitch, and that my continued existence was thanks to the machine making an exception for me via sheer, dumb luck.

Anyways, things were quite routine. Grab some supplies, go back home, cry a bit, then sleep. I had just gotten home from a supply run just the other day when I heard the ringing of our town's church bell. After recovering from shock, I immediately rushed out of my house and ran as fast as I could. Could this be another survivor? Did a body unfreeze and fall on the bell-ringer? These questions and more ran through my head as I got closer and close to the church.

All of a sudden, a bright white flash blinded me, and I fell towards the ground. Before passing out in terror, I heard a voice that could have belonged to Satan himself.

"DO YOU THINK I CHOSE YOU FOR NO REASON?"