My Apocalypse Begins In Sixty Days

"You are a waste of resources, Aurora."

I barely heard Preston's voice over the roar of the storm. I stared at him through the reinforced glass of the blast door, my fingers scraping the steel frame. I could not believe he was actually locking me out.

Behind me, the sky was a churning yellow nightmare. The acid deluge had been falling for three days straight, melting asphalt and dissolving concrete walls across the city. The fumes burned my throat with every breath and filled my mouth with copper and ash.

"Preston, please." I coughed until my chest screamed. "Open the door. The acid is eating through my boots."

He stood in the pressurized foyer of the penthouse, warm and clean in his cashmere sweater. He looked down at me without a single flicker of pity. Then he glanced at his watch, like I was a delivery running late.

"You're not coming in," he said through the intercom.

"This is my grandfather's penthouse!" My voice cracked. "I paid for these blast doors. I bought the air scrubbers. I gave you eighty million dollars of my inheritance to renovate this building!"

For three years of marriage, I had hidden my wealth behind his name so he would never feel inferior. When his business failed, I covered his debts. When his mother wanted luxury jewelry, I bought it. When the stores ran dry, I carried the last of our food and clean water up to this penthouse and went hungry so his family could eat.

Preston only sneered.

"Your grandfather is dead, Aurora. Do you honestly think putting your name on a deed makes you better than me? I worked day and night while you played the devoted wife."

"I gave you my last clean water ration yesterday!" I slammed my fists against the glass.

A woman stepped into the hallway behind him. Chloe Mercer, his childhood sweetheart and cousin by marriage. She wore one of my silk robes and held a steaming cup of tea. She gave me a small, mocking smile and leaned against Preston's shoulder.

"The air filters are running low," she murmured, loud enough for the intercom to catch. "If she comes in, the scrubbers will fail twice as fast. Think of the baby."

My heart stopped. "The baby?"

Preston wrapped his arm around her waist. "Chloe is three months pregnant. She is carrying my child. You never gave me a family. You were always too frail, too boring. I stayed because your grandfather's trust fund was useful. Now the world is ending and money is just paper."

"You swore you loved me." My voice came out as a whisper. "You promised to protect me."

"I lied," he said. "Every time I touched you, my skin crawled. Goodbye, Aurora."

He switched off the intercom. He hit the master lock and walked deeper into the apartment with Chloe, and he did not look back once.

The hydraulic deadbolts slammed into place. Three loud, metallic thuds.

The sound hit my skull like a hammer.

Behind me, a low, wet growl rolled down the emergency stairwell.

Toxic rain leaked through the roof vents and sizzled on the floor. Then I saw them: a pack of skinless, acid-burned hounds crawling up the concrete steps, red eyes glowing in the dark, black saliva dripping from their jaws.

I ran.

My knees buckled with every step. I had not eaten a solid meal in four days, and my lungs felt full of crushed glass. I stumbled down the hall to apartment 902 and pounded on the door.

"Mrs. Higgins! Please, open up!"

Two months ago, I had knocked on this same door with a bag of canned peaches and rice. When her daughter's fever spiked, I gave her insulin from my own medical kit and sat with the girl until dawn. Mrs. Higgins had cried and called me an angel.

The peephole slid open. A pale eye looked out at me.

"Please," I sobbed. "They're right behind me."

The peephole snapped shut. Four heavy slide locks clicked, one after another. The light under the door went out.

"No," I whispered, backing away as tears burned my blistered cheeks.

Nobody came. Nobody opened a door. The whole floor stayed silent, a tomb of cowards hiding behind reinforced wood.

A snarl tore through the corridor.

I spun around as a mutated hound lunged. I ripped a fire extinguisher off the wall bracket and swung with everything I had left. The metal cylinder cracked against its skull. The beast yelped and tumbled into the toxic puddle, but two more leaped out of the shadows.

One clamped its yellow fangs into my left shoulder.

Pain tore through me as the flesh ripped. I punched and gouged at its eyes until it let go, but the third hound hit me from the side and slammed me to the floor. Its claws shredded my jacket and dug into my stomach.

Blood poured out of me, warm and dark, mixing with the acid pooling on the tiles.

Through the broken glass of the rooftop terrace, I could still see the golden glow of my penthouse. Preston and Chloe were in there, sipping hot tea, safe behind walls I had bought and paid for.

Tears slid down my face, mixing with blood and acid.

With the last breath in my dying lungs, I stared up at the toxic sky and whispered my vow.

"If I get another chance, I will never shed a tear for you again. I will never beg a single soul for mercy. I will take this apocalypse into my own hands, and I will make every one of you beg at my feet."

A massive hound lunged for my throat.

Darkness swallowed my vision. The pain vanished. The roar of the hounds, the burn of the acid, and the bitter cold of death all faded into complete silence.

Ding!

A clear chime rang deep inside my soul. Something hot pressed into my right palm, like a coin of fire.

[Host life signs extinguished.]

[Dying vow detected. Deepest resentment verified.]

[Void Matrix bound successfully.]

[Reversing temporal coordinates... Sixty days before the Fracture.]

A sharp gasp tore out of me.

I jerked upright, hands flying to my throat. There was no blood. There was no torn flesh. My lungs filled with clean, cool air that smelled of lavender and fresh linen.

I sat very still. My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my teeth. My hands were shaking, and I pressed them flat against the sheets until they stopped.

I was on an enormous king-sized bed covered in white Egyptian cotton. Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, bright and clear, without one trace of yellow cloud.

I turned my right hand over. A tiny black spiral sat in the center of my palm, as dark as ink and as cold as a coin pulled from the snow.

The Void Matrix.

On the nightstand, the digital clock glowed softly.

September 14, 2026. 8:15 AM.

Sixty days.

I was back. Sixty days before the world ended.

The bedroom door clicked open.

Preston walked in, young and handsome and untouched by hunger. He wore an Italian suit that I had paid for, and he was straightening his platinum cufflinks. A leather folder was tucked under his left arm. A gold fountain pen was in his right hand.

"Aurora, you're still in bed?" His voice was full of easy arrogance. "The meeting with the bank is in one hour. Sign the asset transfer papers for your grandfather's logistics company. Don't make me ask twice."

He tossed the open folder onto the blanket and held out the pen.

In my last life, I had signed those papers without reading a single line. I had handed him control of seventy billion dollars in shipping routes, deep-water warehouses and supply chains, and he had used every piece of it to build himself a fortress while I begged outside it.

I looked at the document. Then I slowly looked up at his face.

I did not see a husband. I saw the man who locked me out in the acid rain to be torn apart by dogs while his pregnant mistress drank tea in my silk robe.

I took the pen from his fingers.

Preston smirked, sure that I would obey like I always had.

I held the pen over the signature line for two seconds. Then, without blinking, I opened my hand and let it fall.

It clattered across the hardwood floor and rolled away.

His eyes darkened. "What are you doing? Pick that up."

I threw off the covers and stood. I looked straight into his eyes. My heart was cold and calm, and the pain was gone.

"I want a divorce."