Chapter 4 — You’re Overreacting

By noon, Evelyn had spent nearly four thousand dollars.

And it still didn’t feel like enough.

People still laughed in the parking lot while buying Halloween decorations beneath emergency alerts, completely unaware the world was already starting to crack beneath them.

The shelves inside the grocery store looked wrong.

Not empty.

Thinner.

Too many gaps between bottled water cases. Too many carts are overloaded with canned food and batteries.

Instinct.

Even if nobody understood it yet.

A sharp pulse flickered across Evelyn’s vision.

TASK ONE COMPLETE: CLEAN WATER SOURCE ACQUIRED.

BEGINNER REWARD ISSUED.

+5 INVENTORY SLOTS.

Evelyn stopped walking.

“Inventory slots?”

The blue interface expanded instantly.

PERSONAL STORAGE SYSTEM UNLOCKED.

Five glowing squares appeared in front of her vision.

Tentatively, Evelyn touched the bottled water case in her cart.

STORE.

The water vanished instantly.

Her pulse slammed against her ribs.

Nobody nearby reacted.

Slowly, she focused on the slot again.

The water reappeared in the cart in large quantities.

“Oh, my God.”

Portable storage.

Hidden supplies.

No carrying weight.

For the first time all morning, something dangerously close to relief flickered through her chest.

Then she tested it again.

A loose grocery bag disappeared easily.

But when she touched the side of her car—

STORE.

Pain exploded behind her eyes.

Evelyn recoiled violently, grabbing the door handle while nausea twisted through her stomach.

WARNING: OBJECT MASS EXCEEDS HOST TOLERANCE.

“Jesus Christ.”

A woman nearby glanced at her before hurrying away.

Evelyn swallowed hard.

So the inventory had limits.

Good to know before she accidentally tried storing something massive and killed herself in the process.

Her phone rang.

Damian.

The brief excitement vanished immediately.

“What?” Evelyn answered.

“Wow. Friendly.” Traffic noise echoed behind his voice. “You feeling better?”

“Fine.”

“You still sound weird.”

Evelyn leaned against the car, watching dark clouds gather overhead.

“I’m shopping.”

“You spent almost two grand at an outdoor supply store.”

Right.

Shared bank notifications.

“You checked the account already?”

“Well, yeah. My phone thought someone was building a bunker.”

“It’s my money too.”

A pause.

“Okay,” Damian said carefully. “What’s going on?”

The apocalypse.

Starvation.

Watching strangers tear each other apart over canned soup.

Instead, Evelyn said, “I’m preparing.”

“For what?”

“Winter.”

Damian snorted softly. “Evie, it’s September.”

Her jaw tightened.

“You know,” he continued lightly, “most people buy pumpkin candles when they spiral. Not military-grade water filters.”

Maybe most people were stupid.

Thunder rolled faintly overhead.

“Look, if this is about us—”

“It’s not.”

The lie came easier now.

Because suddenly “us” felt temporary.

“I just think you’re letting anxiety get to you again,” Damian said carefully.

Again.

That word always carried weight with him.

Not cruel enough to sound intentional.

Just enough to make her question herself.

Anxiety.

Overthinking.

Too emotional.

Never valid.

Never urgent until it inconvenienced him personally.

“You don’t have to carry everything alone all the time,” he added, softening his voice.

Once, that would have sounded caring.

Now she heard the real meaning underneath it.

Stop making me uncomfortable.

“You should probably slow down on spending, too,” Damian continued casually. “Rent’s due next week.”

Evelyn laughed softly.

Short.

Disbelieving.

Rent.

In three months, people would be burning cash for warmth.

“What?” Damian asked.

“Nothing.”

“You’re acting really off today.”

Because dying changed people.

“I have to go,” Evelyn said.

“Evie—”

She hung up first.

The silence afterward felt good.

That realization unsettled her more than the conversation itself.

The blue interface pulsed again.

CURRENT SURVIVAL RATE: 5.9%

Still terrible.

But climbing.

Another notification buzzed across her phone.

CLAIRE: Heyyy :) Is Damian home yet? He forgot his charger at work again lol.

Evelyn stared at the message.

The casual familiarity.

The tiny little again.

This happened often.

Claire never texted her directly before.

Only Damian.

Evelyn typed back carefully.

No, he’s still at work.

The typing bubble appeared instantly.

CLAIRE: Ohhh okay! Thanks, girl ❤️

Then another message appeared.

CLAIRE: You feeling better, btw? Damian said you had some kind of meltdown this morning :(

Evelyn went still.

Meltdown.

Not a panic attack.

Not a nightmare.

Meltdown.

Heat crawled slowly up the back of her neck.

She could practically hear Damian saying it.

Poor Evelyn’s overreacting again.

Another message appeared immediately after.

CLAIRE: You should eat something if you skipped breakfast again lol

Evelyn stared at the screen.

Skipped breakfast again.

Claire knew that?

A tiny detail.

Meaningless on its own.

Except it wasn’t.

It was intimacy disguised as casual conversation.

Proof of all the things Evelyn used to ignore because love made excuses faster than logic could ask questions.

Slowly, she locked the phone instead of replying.

Not worth it.

None of them were.

Rain thickened across the parking lot while customers rushed toward the entrance with overloaded carts.

Inside the store, voices were getting louder.

Near the bottled water aisle, a cashier argued with a customer over a new purchase limit.

“That sign wasn’t there before.”

“It is now, sir.”

The water pallets were almost empty.

Evelyn’s stomach tightened.

In her first life, shortages hadn’t started this early.

Not in September.

The timeline was accelerating.

The blue interface flickered softly across her vision.

OUTBREAK ACCELERATION DETECTED.

CURRENT SURVIVAL RATE: 5.9%

Another line appeared beneath it.

CIVIL STABILITY DECLINING FASTER THAN PROJECTED.

For the first time all day, genuine fear crawled down Evelyn’s spine.

Because the world wasn’t repeating itself.

It was getting worse faster.