The first time they knew something was wrong was when the snowstorms hit. Granted, snowstorms were normal, but these were not normal snowstorms. In any given year, some snowstorms would be blizzards, causing death and destruction, and some snowstorms would be of the gentler variety, providing just enough snow to get kids out of school and let them have snowball fights and build snowmen. This year, all the snowstorms were of the hostile kind. Some scientists theorized that global warming had caused more devastating storms through increased summer evaporation. Others used the increase in storm intensity as an argument against global warming. People all throughout the northern climes felt the effects, but nobody was devastated more than one 32-year-old snowboarding champion in New York.
He was out camping with his 5-year-old daughter when the blizzard hit. It was so cold that the car was unable to keep running, and it sputtered to a stop.
"Why are we stopping, daddy?"
"Don't worry, Jack Frost's just playing a trick on us."
"Dad, I'm scared."
"Nothing's going to happen to us. We're going to have some fun." As he looked at the snow piling up outside, an idea formed in his mind. "I think it's about time for you to learn to build an igloo."
It took a long time to build the igloo in this cold-too blizzard. When they got inside, he had frostbite on his fingers, toes, and nose. Even worse, his daughter wasn't shivering. He huddled close to her to warm her up and gave her a granola bar so she would have enough energy to begin shivering again.
"Daddy, we're going to die, aren't we?"
"Honey, I met Jack Frost, and he told me that I and my family had nothing to fear from the cold. We'll be fine."
Four days later
"The good news is we were able to save one of your legs."
"My daughter. Is she alright?"
"I'm sorry, but she had frozen to death by the time we got there. There was nothing we could do." He let out a scream of rage and frustration.
"Why, Jack, why?!"
Things only got worse as time went on. First, children stopped getting money in exchange for missing teeth. A few days after that, everybody stopped having dreams.
Easter Afternoon
I'm telling you, this is just like that time when Easter didn't happen when we were kids. The Guardians were in trouble then and you didn't believe me. Why won't you believe me now?"
"Okay, even assuming that something happened to the Easter Bunny and the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy, who's to say it wasn't Jack Frost who did it, like you said before?"
"I changed my mind. Jack wouldn't do that. Something must have happened to him too."
"Oh, really? Jack's always been reckless and wild. What about that time you almost got run over?"
"I was fine!"
"Your tooth was knocked out by a sofa!"
"That was it, and I got a quarter for it! Jack risked his life standing up to the bad guy to protect me and the other Guardians. He can't be the bad guy now."
"Jamie, HE KILLED OUR DAUGHTER! Is that bad enough for you?"
They were quiet for a while. Then Jamie replied meekly, "I don't think that was him. Maybe he forgot to watch over us at the time, or was preoccupied somewhere else. Or maybe he was captured or killed. But the one thing I know for sure is that he'd never hurt a child. Which means something probably did happen to him if he allowed such a horrible winter to continue this long. I have to go to the North Pole to make sure whatever happened didn't take out Santa too."
"Are you insane? You have a prosthetic leg, and you're going to go off on this wild adventure!"
"I have to. Think of all the kids who are still out there and who don't believe in the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman. Remember how horrible that was for us! I won't let it happen to my sister's kids too."
Over the next few months, Jamie worked out and got himself back into adventuring condition. He also made all the necessary preparations for an Arctic expedition; from the usual ones, like assembling supplies and a team, to the decidedly abnormal preparation of buying an automatic assault rifle and learning how to use it. He claimed it was for protection from polar bears, and people put it down to the insecurity of a man who had already lost a leg.
All this time, the weather got worse and worse. The winter deepened, and snow began to fall farther and farther south. The worst famine in history struck the globe as crops were killed off by the cold. Not too many people died, as it was the most industrialized nations that, being the farthest north, were the hardest hit, and they subsisted on stored food, but it was only a matter of time before the stores ran out. The whole time, Jamie maintained that Jack Frost wasn't responsible, but he was starting to wonder-who else could it be?
In early September, Jamie and his expedition made it to the North Pole, where they found a horrible sight. The gates of North's workshop lay askew, but the inside was even worse. Frozen yetis and elves littered the floor next to destroyed toys. Jamie noted with a little bit of hope that North's body was not among the frozen corpses. He had escaped or been captured. Either way, there would be no Christmas this year.
That night, Jamie's expedition slept more warmly than they had in a long time. They had found some firewood and used it to make a bonfire. Jamie stayed up long after the rest of the crew had fallen asleep in exhaustion. Staring at the moon, Jamie asked, "What now? Do we just sink quietly into another Ice Age? With the Guardians gone, our children are screwed, and it seems that this endless winter is going to screw the adults as well." He paused. "Is it Jack who's doing this? I don't see how it could be, but I can't think of any other possibilities." Just then, a snowy gust blew through the roofless ruin of a room they were sleeping in. Jamie caught something that fell from the remnants of the second floor-a Russian nesting doll. It had the harshly frozen face of Jack Frost on it. "So it is him? No, it can't be." Jamie opened the doll. The next layer was a smiling boy with a cast on his arm. "Sure, Jack is reckless, but he's not evil...is he?" The innermost layer was a baby, smiling and playing. "Jack would never hurt a child, I'm sure of it!"
Jamie heard a log collapse in the fire and turned to put another one in. He gasped in shock as he saw one thick branch with a flame on the top floating in a beam of moonlight. It floated toward him, and he reached out and grabbed it at the unlit base. A huge flame shot from the top as he touched it. He noticed with some surprise that the fire didn't seem to be consuming the wood while burning on it. Jamie pointed the torch at a patch of ice and concentrated. A burst of flame shot out. "Cool!" Jamie said. "Although this could be kind of hard to carry around all the time, particularly once I get home," he said to the moon. His torch morphed into a flashlight. "I get it," Jamie said. "The British call flashlights torches. Clever." He pushed the button on the flashlight, and it turned back into a torch, although he noticed it still had a button on it. He planted the torch in the ground and went to sleep.
On the way home from the expedition, Jamie though really hard about what he should do next. He decided to get himself on a news channel after most kids had likely gone to sleep and make an announcement to the world. After an introduction by a newscaster, he began, "This will be disturbing, so if there are any kids still awake, PLEASE go to bed." After a significant interval, Jamie showed pictures of North's destroyed workshop that he had taken on his expedition. "Whether or not you believe my pictures, and whether or not you believe that Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Sandman, and Jack Frost are real, it is a fact that Easter didn't happen this year, it is a fact that children aren't being rewarded for lost teeth anymore, and it is a fact that nobody can dream. When I was a kid, Jack Frost told me that even if we couldn't see them before, they'd always be in our hearts. He also told me that that sort of made us Guardians too. I say that we should be the Guardians for our children. Sure, this winter is awful, but we can't allow that to remove the hope, joy, wonder, and fun from our children's lives. If we remember those, humanity can find a way through this ice age. So let's make Christmas for our children, our future!"
Jamie's message was spread around the globe. Without North, it wasn't as special as normal, but it was enough to preserve wonder in children despite the widespread hunger and cold. And on December 26, Jamie woke his wife up with his shouts of excitement.
"What is it?" she moaned.
"I had a dream! I know what I need to do now!"