Apocalypse Restoration: Reborn and I Ate My Way Back to the

The sound of chewing was the last thing I heard before the world ended.

Not the roar of the toxic spore cloud tearing through the skyline, and not the metallic screech of the city's emergency sirens. It was the sickening, wet crunch of teeth against bone in the adjoining room.

I sat pressed against the cold drywall of our living room, my hands clamped over my mouth, tears blurring the thick layer of grey ash coating my knees. Through the half-open door, I could see them.

My father's broken and half eaten leg, my mother’s hand, lifeless on the hardwood, her silver wedding band glinting beneath a smear of dark blood. My younger brother’s favorite jacket, torn to shreds near the hallway.

They hadn't even had a chance to scream when the mutated beasts smashed through the balcony glass. In less than ten minutes, the three people who were my entire world had been slaughtered, their lives snuffed out while I hid behind an overturned sofa like a coward.

Grief didn't hit me as a feeling; it hit like a physical crushing weight, caving in my chest until I couldn't catch a single breath.

"Adelle! Move, damn it!"

A harsh tug on my wrist dragged me across the floor. Julian. My boyfriend of three years. His face was slick with sweat, eyes wide with a frantic, animalistic panic. Behind him stood Chloe, my best friend since childhood, clutching a leather backpack jammed full of our last remaining canned goods and water bottles.

"They're inside," Julian hissed, his grip bruising my skin as he shoved me toward the back fire exit. "DAMN IT! We have to go now!"

"My mom..." I choked out, the words tasting like copper and ash. My voice was a broken raspy whisper. "No…Nooo! Julian, my brother... we can't leave them—"

"They're dead, Adelle!" Chloe snapped, her voice devoid of any warmth I had known for the past ten years. She didn't look at the hallway. She didn't look at the blood. She only looked at the door leading down to the alleyway. "If we stay, we die. Move!"

We stumbled out into the dark, rain-slick alley. The sky was a terrifying bruised purple, heavy with the toxic spores that turned infected humans into mindless, flesh-tearing corpses.

Every step felt like walking through wet cement. My mind was stuck in that living room, loop-playing the image of my mother's quiet hand and the brutal silence that followed. I was hollowed out, completely brokenhearted. I didn't care about the spores. I didn't care about the sirens. I just wanted the pain in my chest to stop.

Then, Julian pulled me into the shadow of an abandoned delivery van and stopped.

"Give me the keys to your dad's reinforced SUV," he said, holding out a pale, trembling hand.

I blinked, dazed, reaching numbly into my coat pocket. "Julian... the three of us can't fit all the gear in the back if we take the alley route, we need to..."

I paused.

Julian wasn't looking at me with concern. He was looking at the key fob in my palm with starved, desperate greed. Beside him, Chloe stepped closer, not to comfort me, but to position herself between me and the main road.

"Hand them over, Adelle," Chloe whispered softly. Too softly.

"What... what are you doing?" My breath hitched.

"The SUV only has enough fuel to reach the safe zone three cities over," Julian said, his eyes avoiding mine now, fixing instead on the vehicle parked twenty yards away. "And three people weigh down the engine. The supplies take up the back seats."

The realization hit me harder than the apocalyptic spore fall.

"Julian?" I stared at him, searching the face I had kissed a thousand times, looking for a shred of the boy who used to bring me hot coffee when I studied late. There was nothing there. Just cold, selfish calculation. "Chloe... please. My family just died. You're... you're all I have left."

Chloe scoffed, stepping back and pulling the backpack strap tight over her shoulder. "And whose fault is that? Your family was dead weight, Adelle. Just like you are now."

"No... no, please—"

Julian didn't wait for me to finish. He grabbed my wrist, yanked the key fob from my fingers, and with a brutal, sharp shove, threw me backward.

My spine hit the rusted edge of a dumpster with a sickening crack. I collapsed into the filth of the alley, gasping as pain exploded through my ribs. Before I could scramble up, Julian kicked the iron fire-escape ladder above us.

The heavy metal bell-like echo shattered the quiet alley, ringing out like a beacon across the dead city.

Within seconds, low, guttural growls echoed from the shadows of the main street. Snarls. The shuffling, erratic footsteps of the infected.

"Julian! Chloe!" I sobbed, reaching out blindly, my knees scraped raw on the concrete. "Don't leave me! Please! NO! Please! Don't leave me here to rot!"

Julian didn't turn back. He unlocked the SUV, tossed the supplies inside, and climbed into the driver's seat. Chloe hopped into the passenger side, pulling the door shut without giving me a single glance.

The engine roared to life. Tires shrieked against the wet pavement, kicking up a spray of filthy rainwater that drenched my face as they sped away into the gloom, leaving me trapped in the dead-end alley.

I lay in the mud, bleeding, hopeless, and utterly alone.

Around the corner, the first horde turned into the alley. Dozens of hollowed-out eyes fixed on me. Gray, rot-streaked skin, open sores, teeth bared in mindless hunger.

And at the very front of the horde was a figure in a tailored, ruined Italian suit.

Even through the grime and blood, I recognized him from the news—Steve Diamond, the eccentric young billionaire who owned half the city's real estate. His neck was torn open, his skin a deathly pale gray, but his clouded, milky eyes locked onto mine with a terrifying, unnatural intensity.

He didn't run like the others. He walked slowly, impeccably upright despite his rotting state, stepping over trash, groaning a strange, distorted sound that sounded eerily like my name.

A... dellee… M..iiiss S…pearrrr…

I couldn't move. My ribs were broken. My heart was already dead.

As the swarm closed in, blocking out the purple sky, a wave of bitter, burning fury flared through the cold despair in my chest.

I gave them everything. I had trusted them with my life. My family was dead, my body was broken, and I was going to be torn apart in a dark alley while my killers drove away in my father's car.

A blood-stained hand lunged for my throat. Fangs sank into my shoulder. Pain, blinding, searing pain—consumed every nerve ending in my body as the horde tore into me.

If I get another chance, I screamed in my mind, drowning in my own blood as darkness pulled me under, I will make you both crawl.

"Adelle! Wake up, sweetie, it's already 10 in the morning!"

A sharp gasp tore through my lungs.

I sat bolt upright, ripping off a soft, floral-patterned duvet. Cold sweat drenched my shirt, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I instinctively grabbed my shoulder—no blood. No torn flesh. No agonizing pain.

I grabbed my side, my ribs were completely intact.

Sunlight poured through a spotless window, illuminating a neat desk, soft beige curtains, and a glowing digital clock on my nightstand.

OCTOBER 9, 8:00 AM.

My breath hitched. I jumped out of bed, my bare feet hitting the warm hardwood floor, and grabbed the desk calendar.

The year printed at the top wasn't the year of the ashes. It was one year prior.

A sob caught in the back of my throat. I stood frozen in the middle of the room, tears spilling over my eyelashes before I could stop them. She was here. She was breathing.

I sat on the edge of the bed, my shaking hands gripping the sheets so hard my knuckles turned ghostly white. In the kitchen, I could hear my mother humming a soft melody, a sound so warm, so painfully fragile, that it sent a fresh spike of ice through my chest.

She’s alive. They’re alive.

My mind scrambled backward, forced to relive the horrific speed at which our world had dissolved. It hadn't been a slow collapse. It was a terrifying, violent execution.