MY BLUE SYSTEM.

Sandra's Pov

The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet dining room. A glass of water overturned, spilling across the cloth.

Drake froze, his hand flying up to

touch his reddening cheek, his eyes wide in absolute, stunned horror. He looked at me as if I had suddenly transformed into a ghost.

Selena gasped loudly, jumping to her feet. “What is wrong with you?! Did you just hit him? Are you insane?!”

I didn't answer her. I slowly rose from my chair, my movement deliberate, fluid, and terrifyingly calm. I picked up my worn out leather handbag, smoothing out the wrinkles of my skirt.

Step by step, I rounded the table until I was standing directly in front of Drake. He shrank back into his seat slightly, his breath hitching in his chest.

I reached out. My manicured fingers gently trailed down the lapel of his jacket, resting lightly over the beat of his heart.

“If you ever raise your hand to me again, Drake,” I whispered, my voice dripping with soft, deadly precision, “I won’t just do more than this. I'll do more than rendering you and your entire leach of a family crippled for the rest of your miserable lives. Do you understand me?”

Drake swallowed hard. The color drained completely from his face. The easy authority he had wielded over me for years evaporated into thin air. A genuine spark of fear flickered deep within his eyes.

I leaned down, bringing my lips close to his ear, catching the scent of his expensive cologne—the cologne bought with my money when I wasn't even permitted to wear one because according to Drake, men would come after me.

“Tell me, dear husband,” I murmured, shifting my icy gaze to Selena, whose mouth was hanging open in stunned silence. “Aren’t you and your… mistress… curious about what’s going to happen after this?”

Drake’s voice cracked, stammering over his words. “W-what… What rubbish are you talking about? Sandra, stop this!”

The hidden affair he thought he had buried so cleverly under the guise of sibling bond was exposed, dragged raw into the light. The panic on his face was exquisite.

I stepped back, adjusting my bag on my shoulder, giving them both a tight, elegant smile that didn't reach my eyes.

“If you’re so curious,” I said, turning my back on them and taking my first step toward the exit, “meet me at home.”

Then I began walking away. I didn't rush. Each stride was deliberate, my heels clicking rhythmically against the concrete with a sharp, crisp authority I had never allowed myself to possess in my previous life.

I could still feel the phantom heat of Drake’s horror-filled stare burning into my back, alongside Selena’s slack-jawed disbelief. For four years, I had shrunk into the shadows of their demands, lowering my gaze, swallowing my pride, and handing over every shred of my dignity just to keep a fake peace for a man who only saw me as a child-bearing tool.

Not anymore.

The cool evening air hit my face as I stepped out onto the curb, but it did nothing to quench the fire roaring in my veins.

As I raised my hand to hail a yellow cab, my reflection in the dark glass of a parked sedan caught my eye. The flickering streetlights cast sharp shadows across my pale face, and in that split second, the urban sounds around me dissolved into the roaring wind of a frozen wasteland.

A vivid memory snapped into my mind, jagged and agonizing.

The snow. The blood. The milky, vacant eyes.

In my past life, weeks into the madness, I had glimpsed a familiar face through the reinforced glass of a barricaded alleyway. It was Tiara. My childhood best friend. The girl who had held my hand through my parents' funeral, who had shared every secret, every dream, every tear for twenty years.

Drake had hated her. He had systematically dismantled our bond, delivering a cruel ultimatum three months after our wedding: “It’s her or me, Sandra. I won’t share my wife’s devotion with a bitter, loud-mouthed outsider.”

And I—foolish, desperate, infatuated fool that I was—had chosen him. I had severed a twenty-year sisterhood with a single cold text, trading my fiercely loyal best friend for a man who would eventually kick me into the teeth of monsters.

In that timeline, when I saw Tiara again, her beautiful olive skin was mottled grey, her jaw dripping with dark crimson as she tore through human flesh. She had died a horrific death alone because I wasn't there to protect her. I had failed her. Twice.

My hands began to shake violently, not from fear, but from a surge of suffocating guilt.

Not this time.

My thumb trembled as I pulled out my phone, scrolling back through buried, archived contacts until I found her name. My heart battered against my ribs as I pressed call.

It rang once. Twice. Three times.

"Hello?"

Her voice hit me like a physical blow—sharp, guardedly neutral, yet so painfully familiar that a lump immediately formed in my throat.

"T-Tiara..." My voice cracked, raw and unsteady.

A heavy silence stretched over the line. I heard her draw in a sharp, quiet breath before she hardened her tone, masking the flicker of emotion. "Sandra? What is this? Did you pocket-dial me, or did your husband grant you a five-minute pass from your leash?"

The sting of her words was entirely justified, and it burned like acid in my chest.

"How... how have you been?" I whispered, swallowing down the sob threatening to burst from my throat.

"Why are you calling me, Sandra?" Tiara interrupted flatly, her breath rustling against the speaker. "It’s been four years. Four years of radio silence after you threw away twenty years of friendship because Drake didn't like the way I looked at him. So tell me what you want, because I’m busy."

I gripped the phone tighter, forcing my voice to stabilize. I couldn't explain I had just been reborn the freezing blizzard, or the flesh-eating zombies right now—she would think I was having a mental breakdown. But I needed her to survive too.

"Tiara, listen to me very carefully," I said, my tone dropping into an intense, dead-serious register. "I need you to buy food. Canned goods, dry rice, water purifiers, medical kits and reinforce your house—enough to last at least a full year. Do it tonight. Clear out your savings if you have to. Please."

A beat of stunned silence followed. I could hear the faint hum of a television in her background.

"An apocalypse prep?" Tiara asked, her voice laced with deep confusion and a defensive layer of sarcasm. "After four years of ignoring my texts, you call me on a Valentine night to tell me to prepare for doomsday? Is this a joke? Did Drake send you to mock me?"

"It's not a joke," I pleaded quietly, my eyes burning. I was tempted to blurt out that I was leaving him, that I had just slapped his face across a restaurant and was on my way to destroy his life, but I forced myself to stop. "Just trust me this once. One last time, Tiara. Stockpile everything you can."

I paused, breathing through the tight knot in my throat. "Thank you for answering."

Before she could respond, I ended the call. I closed my eyes, pressing the warm metal of the phone against my forehead. I knew Tiara—underneath her defensive walls, she was paranoid and fiercely practical. She would think I was crazy, but she would still go out and buy the supplies and prepare just in case.

Yet, as I tucked the phone away, the guilt of throwing away a twenty-year sisterhood for a man who treated me like a disposable, child-birthing tool made the anger in my chest boil over. The fire within me didn't just burn; it demanded total destruction.

A yellow cab pulled up to the curb, its tires splashing through a puddle. I slid into the back seat.

The moment the driver hit the gas and the engine hummed to life, the air in front of my face began to ripple. A vivid, iridescent blue light bloomed in the dim cabin, casting an ethereal glow over my hands. I didn't flinch.

A crisp, semi-transparent rectangular screen materialized out of thin air, hovering right before my eyes.

[SURVIVAL SYSTEM ACTIVATED] Host: Sandra Ellis

Timeline Synced: 21 Days Before Impact.

[QUEST MANDATE]

Stockpile survival resources worth a minimum of $10,000 USD within the next 2 HOURS.

[REWARD]

Activation of the 'Apocalypse Survival Manual' & Unlimited Storage Space.

[TIME REMAINING]

01:59:58...

My heart thudded against my ribs, hard and fast. I had expected the Blue System to return—it was the very cheat that had allowed me to build the fortified fortress in my past life—but it had appeared a whole week before the outbreak back then! Having it now, three weeks early, was a game-changer.

Ten thousand dollars in two hours.

My fingers flew across my phone screen, pulling up my banking app. My stomach dropped. The balance displayed in bold black numbers made my blood run cold: $142.15.

I was dead broke. Every savings from my previous work, every bonus, every dime I had scraped together over the last four years working for a tech organization that paid me a million dollars monthly, had been systematically funneled into Drake’s account under the guise of "building our joint future." Yet, he had made me resigned from the work last year because there'd be tendencies I would cheat on him with my boss. And because I loved Drake, because I loved my abusive marriage, I had resigned immediately without notice.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my jaw clenching so hard my teeth ached. I couldn't buy a dozen crates of bottled water with one-forty-two dollars, let alone ten thousand dollars worth of high-grade survival gear.

Then my eyes snapped open. The inheritance.

Tonight was the night my late parents’ attorney, Mr. Harrison was supposed to hand over the deeds to Duncan's real estate portfolio and liquid trusts worth billions. In my past life, I had meekly signed the authorization form making Drake the sole trustee, giving him the power to strip me of everything.

If I wanted that system activated, I needed that money unlocked now. I placed a call to Mr. Harrison, alerting him that I’d be meeting him in the next forty minutes.

"Step on it," I told the driver, my voice steady despite the adrenaline roaring in my ears.

Fifteen minutes later, the cab pulled into the driveway of the grand, two-story house I had bought for Drake and myself as a wedding present with my first salary, the same house my mother-in-law had slowly claimed as her own.

I shoved a twenty-dollar bill at the driver and marched up the stone steps. The moment I pushed the front door open, the suffocating atmosphere of the house wrapped around me like a damp towel.

Standing in the foyer was Veronica, my mother-in-law.

She stood with her arms crossed tightly over her floral blouse, her chest heaving as she fumed. Her lips were pressed into a thin, white line, her sharp eyes glaring at me with unspoken venom. She had clearly received a frantic phone call from Selena. Usually, the sheer weight of her silent disapproval would have had me stammering apologies, scrambling to make her herbal tea to calm her nerves.

I didn't even slow down. I walked right past her as if she were a piece of cheap furniture, not giving her a single glance.

"Sandra!" she hissed, her voice trembling with outrage. "How dare you—"

I slammed the door of the master bedroom shut, cutting off her shrill voice.

My hands didn't shake as I opened the bottom drawer of the nightstand. Reaching all the way to the back, underneath a stack of old photo albums, my fingers brushed against cold paper. I pulled out the crisp white envelope I had stashed away nearly a year ago—the divorce papers I had drafted in secret during one of Drake's rare moments of cruelty, papers I had lacked the courage to ever present.

I checked the time on my phone.

1 hour and 38 minutes remaining.

Tucking the heavy Manila folder under my arm, I turned on my heel and headed back down the grand staircase.

Drake and Selena were already standing in the center of the living room. Drake’s cheek was still flushed pink from my palm, his tailored jacket tossed carelessly on the sofa. Selena hovered close behind his arm, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, playing the fragile victim to perfection. Veronica stood beside them, her hands on her hips, waiting to execute me with her words.

Drake took a step forward, his chest puffing out as he tried to reclaim the authority he had lost at the restaurant. His eyebrows knit together in a practiced scowl.

"Sandra, what the hell was that stunt at the restaurant?!" Drake barked, his voice straining to sound commanding, though a nervous quiver still lingered beneath it. "You lost your damn mind! Apologize to everyone right now, and maybe—"

I didn't let him finish.

With a smooth flick of my wrist, I launched the heavy Manila envelope across the room.

The folder spun through the air and struck Drake squarely in the chest with a loud thwack. He caught it reflexively, his brow furrowing in confusion as he looked down at the gold metallic clasps.

"What is this?" he demanded, flicking the clasp open.

"Let's get divorced," I said.