Thirty Days Before The End

The first thing I did when I woke up was check whether I was still dying.

My hand flew to my thigh, searching for the wound that had refused to stop bleeding. I dragged my fingers over smooth skin, then checked my ankle. No blood, no swelling, no broken bones.

I sat up so quickly that the room tilted.

Pale blue curtains hung beside the window, and morning sunlight stretched across the wooden floor. Somewhere downstairs, a woman was arguing over a delivery that had arrived at the wrong address. The ordinary sounds of the house made my stomach tighten. Here, the water still ran, the electricity worked, and nobody was barricading doors against the infected.

I knew this room. The crack above the wardrobe, the faded mark on the wall, the bedside drawer that always stuck unless I lifted it slightly before pulling.

My bedroom.

My old bedroom.

I grabbed my phone. My hands shook so badly that I entered the wrong password twice before the screen unlocked.

October 14.

I checked the year.

Thirty days.

I had thirty days before the first outbreak overwhelmed the hospitals, before abandoned vehicles choked the roads, and before emergency shelters began turning people away. Thirty days before the world I knew became a place where clean water was worth more than jewelry and a working vehicle could mean the difference between life and death.

I checked the date again.

It didn't change.

A message from Corvin appeared beneath a reminder for our dinner reservation.

Don't forget to pick up the suit from the tailor. I need it before Friday.

I stared at it, then laughed. The sound came out sharp and unfamiliar.

In my first life, I would have checked the tailor's opening hours, rearranged my schedule, and made sure the suit was ready. I had spent years making Corvin's life easier, convincing myself that compromise was what marriage required.

He had repaid me by leaving me trapped beneath a metal frame while the infected came for me.

I opened the message thread.

I'll handle it, I typed automatically.

My thumb hovered over the screen. Then I deleted the words.

Pick it up yourself.

I sent the message before I could reconsider.

His reply came less than a minute later.

What?

I placed the phone facedown.

For once, Corvin could deal with the discomfort of not getting what he wanted.

I went to the bathroom and turned on the lights. The mirror showed me a woman several years younger than the one I remembered from the final days of my life. My eyes were clear, my hair was clean, and my face hadn't yet acquired the exhaustion that came from sleeping in abandoned buildings and wondering whether the next sound outside meant death.

I lifted my shirt, checked my ribs, and examined my arms and knees. Even the small scar on my left palm was there, exactly where I remembered it.

I was alive.

Not dreaming. Not recovering in a hospital. Alive, thirty days before the end.

I gripped the sink and forced myself to breathe slowly. Panic would not secure a building, buy supplies, or get me out of the city before the roads became impassable.

I had already wasted enough time waiting for other people to make decisions that determined whether I lived.

I would not do it again.

Back in my bedroom, I found a notebook in my desk and opened it to a clean page. I couldn't record every event I remembered, and some details had become confused by fear and exhaustion. What I needed was a plan.

At the top of the page, I wrote three headings.

SURVIVAL. RESOURCES. SEVERIN VEYR.

My pen stopped over his name.

I remembered the scar through his eyebrow, the blood on his jaw, and the way he had looked at me when I begged him not to return for the other survivors. He had been injured himself, yet he had gone back because there were still people he could save.

I had watched him disappear into the infected.

For days afterward, I had searched for news of him. Eventually, the survivors stopped looking. No body was recovered, but everyone assumed he was dead.

I had never learned what happened during his final moments.

Now I had another chance to change them.

But I needed to be careful. Severin had been a stranger who saved me because he believed I could be saved. I wouldn't turn his sacrifice into another excuse to build my entire life around a man. I had done that with Corvin, and I knew where it had led.

This time, I would secure my own survival first. If I could reach Severin before the evacuation that killed him, I would do everything I could to keep him alive.

I turned back to my notebook.

The first outbreak wouldn't destroy civilization in a single afternoon. In my first life, the early reports had been confusing, and people had argued over whether the illness was contagious. Hospitals continued accepting patients even after their staff began falling ill. Officials offered reassurances while the situation deteriorated.

Those first days had been dangerous precisely because life still appeared normal.

I needed to move before everyone else understood what was happening.

My priorities were straightforward: secure independent funds, dependable transport, a defensible location, medical supplies, food, and water. Money would help, but money alone wouldn't save me once people began competing for the same resources.

I opened my laptop and searched for the industrial property I remembered from the early months of the apocalypse.

The listing showed a large logistics complex outside the city, complete with warehouses, vehicle access, and enough space to accommodate a substantial group. I recognized the photographs immediately.

In my first life, survivors had called the place the Bastion. A former military logistics commander had helped turn it into a defensible settlement, and it had lasted longer than most.

Severin had been involved in its early development.

I checked the property's ownership and access arrangements, then wrote its address in my notebook. I couldn't command armed personnel or train people to defend a perimeter, but I understood commercial property, procurement, supply routes, and negotiations. I knew how to recognize an asset's value before everyone else wanted to buy it.

Those skills could give Severin something he needed.

They could also give me a place in his plans.

A knock sounded at the bedroom door.

"Vespera? Are you awake?"

Corvin.

My shoulders tightened before I could stop them. For one terrible second, I was back beside the overturned bus, reaching for a man who had already decided to leave me behind.

Then I looked at the notebook.

SURVIVAL. RESOURCES. SEVERIN VEYR.

I closed it.

"Come in."

Corvin entered in a neatly pressed shirt, wearing the expensive watch I'd bought him for our anniversary. He looked healthy, rested, and entirely unaware that I had watched him abandon me in another life.

He glanced at my phone.

"What was that message about?"

"The suit?"

"Yes. Why are you telling me to pick it up myself?"

"Because it's your suit."

He stared at me, waiting for me to explain the joke.

When I didn't, he gave a short laugh. "All right. What is this really about?"

"Nothing. I thought you could collect your own clothes."

"Since when?"

The question was so ridiculous that I nearly answered honestly.

Since you watched me bleed and decided I wasn't worth saving.

Instead, I folded my arms. "Since today."

His expression shifted. Corvin disliked uncertainty, particularly when it involved me. He was accustomed to knowing which version of his wife he would encounter: the accommodating woman who listened to his complaints, the practical one who solved his problems, or the forgiving one who accepted apologies he had barely bothered to make.

He didn't know what to do with someone who had stopped rushing to make his life comfortable.

"Have you been talking to someone?" he asked.

"No."

"Then why are you acting like this?"

I looked at him, remembering the moment he had pried my fingers from his sleeve.

"I'm tired, Corvin."

"Of what?"

"Being responsible for everything."

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Perhaps he thought I wanted an apology. Perhaps he expected me to explain myself until he could find a way to dismiss my feelings.

I wasn't interested in making this easier for him.

"I have a lot to do today," I said. "Please close the door on your way out."

He left without another word.

I waited until his footsteps faded, then returned to the laptop. I no longer needed to understand precisely when Corvin had stopped choosing me. The choice he made in my first life belonged to him.

What I did with my second life belonged to me.

I searched for Severin Veyr.

The first results included old military profiles and references to his work on emergency logistics projects. Another article mentioned a privately funded preparedness initiative. The information was limited, but it gave me somewhere to start.

Then I found a recent photograph attached to an announcement about a logistics development project.

I stopped breathing.

Severin stood beside a row of vehicles, wearing a dark jacket with his sleeves rolled to his elbows. His hair was shorter than I remembered, but the scar through his left eyebrow was unmistakable.

He was alive.

My fingers tightened around the edge of the desk as I read the date beneath the photograph.

Four days earlier.

For several seconds, I could only stare at his face. I had watched him disappear beneath a wave of infected bodies. I had mourned him without ever knowing whether he had been afraid at the end.

Stay alive, Vespera.

His final words returned so clearly that I pressed my knuckles against my mouth.

He was alive now. In thirty days, he would begin making the same decisions that led him back to the evacuation corridor. He would return for people who had been abandoned because that was the kind of man he was.

I knew the choice he would make.

I also knew where it would lead.

"Not this time," I whispered.

I opened a new document and began drafting a proposal. I would offer property access, procurement assistance, and resources to strengthen his preparations. I would give him a practical reason to meet me and something valuable enough to make him listen.

He might suspect me. He might reject the offer. And if he asked why I was so determined to help him, I had no explanation he could accept without questioning everything.

I would deal with that when it happened.

For now, I had thirty days to change the future.

Severin Veyr was alive.

I had thirty days to make sure he stayed that way.