Chapter 2: The Weight of Borrowed Life

Gift’s POV

The phone kept buzzing in my hand until the screen finally went dark, leaving behind a silence so thick I could hear my own uneven breathing.

I sat back on the floor, resting my elbows on my knees, staring at the red warning text hovering in front of me. The glowing letters didn't fade when I blinked. I reached out, trying to physically swipe the box away with my fingers, but my hand passed right through the light as if it were made of thin smoke. I squeezed my eyes shut tight for ten full seconds, taking a deep breath and telling myself that when I opened them, everything would be back to normal.

When I opened my eyes, the screen was still there, quietly floating in the air.

"Okay," I whispered, my voice trembling as I pulled my legs closer to my chest. "Okay, so I can't turn it off."

A strange, quiet horror settled over me. I looked down at the sharp bits of clear glass scattered around my bare feet. My body was completely fine, but my mind felt like it was splitting in two. I wanted to scream, to run out into the hallway and find someone who could tell me what kind of hospital or facility I was in. Yet every time I thought about leaving, the memory of the book kept holding me back.

I forced myself to stand up, stepping carefully around the broken pieces on the floor. I walked slowly through the living room, looking around the space. It felt clean, organized, and lived-in, but none of it belonged to me.

On a small side shelf near the wall, a simple black frame caught my eye. I stepped closer and picked it up.

In the picture, three young people stood side by side under the bright sun, wearing black graduation gowns and holding rolled-up papers. In the middle was the girl whose body I now inhabited, smiling broadly with genuine joy. On her left was a tall, broad-shouldered young man with his arm thrown casually over her shoulder, laughing at something off-camera. On her right was a shorter girl with bright, energetic eyes and a wide grin, holding a colorful bundle of flowers.

Mich and Ladidi.

I stared at the girl's smile in the photograph, feeling a cold knot form tight in my stomach. She looked so happy, so completely full of life and plans for the future. She had friends who loved her, people who knew the small details of her personality, her favorite foods, and her habits. I didn't know any of those things. I was an intruder sitting in her home, wearing her clothes, and using her name.

"Where are you?" I asked the photo softly, my throat feeling dry and tight. "What happened to you?"

A heavy wave of guilt washed over me, so thick it made it hard to draw a proper breath. If I was here in her body, did that mean the original Gift was gone forever? Did she suffer before I woke up in her bed? I set the frame back down on the shelf, my hands shaking so badly I almost knocked it over again.

I needed to know the truth. I needed to know if I was actually losing my mind or if the nightmare I remembered reading about was truly coming for this world.

I turned back to the phone lying on the bed and picked it up. I swiped to open the main screen and checked the small date display near the top corner.

October 3rd.

My heart gave a painful thud against my ribs.

If my memory of the novel's early chapters was correct, the initial outbreak was scheduled to begin in exactly seventy-two hours. It started as an isolated case in the emergency ward of the central public hospital, quickly spiraling out of control before spreading through the crowded city train lines and public streets. By the end of the week, Metro City was supposed to be completely overrun.

Part of me still begged for a logical explanation. I thought about walking straight down to the nearest police station to report a break-in, or walking into a psychiatric clinic to ask for immediate medical help. If I told a doctor I was seeing floating blue screens and reading people's names from a fictional story, they would lock me in a quiet room and give me medicine. That sounded terrifying, but a tiny part of my brain preferred that over facing a real zombie apocalypse.

"Test it," I told myself, taking a slow, grounding breath. "Just test one small thing first."

In the very first chapter of the web novel, before the main character ever encountered a monster, she had read a small news report on her phone while eating breakfast. It was a brief, easily overlooked article about a multi-car accident on the Northern Highway involving a driver who had suddenly gone wild and attacked the emergency workers trying to pull him from his vehicle. At the time, the protagonist had dismissed it as a strange story about someone on drugs.

I unlocked the phone and tapped on the local news application.

My thumb hovered over the glass for a second, my pulse racing so fast I could feel it in my ears. I opened the breaking news tab and let the page refresh.

The top headline flashed onto the screen in dark red letters.

Unexplained Violent Assault Following Northern Highway Collision — Paramedics Attacked

I dropped my head back, letting out a ragged breath as my knees almost gave out again. My stomach dropped into a cold, empty void.

It was real. The novel wasn't just a story I had read on a computer screen; it was a roadmap of the immediate future, and every single terrible detail was unfolding line by line. The city outside was going to fall. People were going to die in the streets. And if I didn't find a way to protect myself, I was going to be slaughtered right along with them.

I stared at the article, reading through the short sentences describing how a man had bitten a paramedic on the arm before being restrained by officers. My mind raced, trying to pull up every fragment of information I could remember from those early chapters. I needed food. I needed clean water. I needed to find a safe way out of the building before the hallway became a trap.

Suddenly, a loud, violent knock echoed through the apartment, rattling the front door in its frame.

I jumped, nearly dropping the phone a third time. I stood frozen in the middle of the room, my muscles locking up as terror shot through my chest.

"Gift!" a man's voice called out from the other side of the wood. It was deep, frantic, and rough with strain. "Open up! Why aren't you answering your phone? I know you're in there!"

It was Mich.

He pounded on the door again, the heavy sound bouncing off the walls of the quiet living room.

"Gift, please!" he yelled, his voice sounding tight and desperate. "Something really strange is happening down at the precinct right now! We just got an emergency call and nobody knows what's going on! Open the door!"