In the Frigid Apocalypse My Husband Lost His Wife With His Own Hands Chapter 11

In the Frigid Apocalypse My Husband Lost His Wife With His Own Hands Chapter 11

At the same time, a complete consciousness-audit report was transmitted to Ethan’s wrist unit.

It proved that from the instant I opened my eyes beneath the ice, my cognition, pain perception, and

emotions had never been interrupted.

When he blew off my leg, I felt the pain.

When he broke my finger and took my wedding ring, I knew it was him.

When he watched me write the words “I do not consent” and signed the authorization anyway, I had been

completely conscious.

This time, he could not even forgive himself by claiming he had mistaken me for something else.

When I woke again, two months had passed.

Across the Northern Icefields, thirteen thousand cryogenic beings simultaneously fed energy into the prime

cryocore.

The complete neural map preserved inside the cryocore was reactivated. Ice, water, and cryofungal filaments

rebuilt my body inch by inch.

Together, they made real the theory the researchers had dismissed as impossible.

I remembered my name.

I remembered the Deep Freeze.

I also remembered that someone had once taken thirty percent of my cryocore.

The only thing I did not remember was Ethan Mercer.

When he found me, I was distributing identification cards to cryogenic beings at an abandoned train station

in the Northern Icefields.

Ethan had become painfully thin.

His left hand was badly frostbitten, and two fingers were missing.

He stopped about thirty feet away and did not attempt to come closer.

“Nora.”

I looked up.

“Do I know you?”

The color drained from his face.

Ethan took out the repaired wedding ring.

“I’m Ethan Mercer.”

“Your husband.”

I glanced at the ring.

“What corpse did you take that from?”

His hand jerked.

Maisie tugged on the hem of my coat.

“Nora, he’s been here lots of times.”

“Everyone chases him away.”

I nodded.

“Then please ask him to leave today too.”

Ethan did not argue.

He placed a document case on the ground.

Inside were the cancellation of his household survival slot, evidence of the institute’s crimes, and a petition for the rights of cryogenic beings.

On top was a copy of a video that had been released publicly.

In it, Ethan stood in Haven’s council chamber and personally played the full recording of himself signing the

personhood-erasure authorization.

Someone tried to defend him, arguing that Sophie had been dying and that the institute had concealed the

risks.

Ethan cut them off.

“The institute did not put the pen in my hand.”

“Sophie did not force me to sign.”

“I knew who Nora was. I knew she had refused. I still believed my decision mattered more than hers.”

“My mistake wasn’t that I failed to recognize her.”

“It was that I never treated her refusal as a decision.”

At the end of the recording, he publicly relinquished his legal proxy authority and introduced a measure barring family members from authorizing procedures involving the personhood, memories, or organs of any

infected person who retained continuous consciousness.

Ethan spoke quietly.

“Sophie’s dependent registration has been terminated.”

“My spousal emergency medical proxy authority has been terminated too.”

“The people at the institute are standing trial.”

I asked calmly, “What does any of that have to do with me?”