Two

Everything was so warm and that was the first thing Scarlett noticed.

Her eyelids were too heavy to lift, but her senses were spinning from the overwhelming physical sensations pulsing through her. She was lying back against silky sheets, her breath catching in her throat as a wave of intense pleasure rushed through her lower belly, pulling a breathless, needy moan from her lips. Heavy, broad hands gripped her hips tightly, holding her pinned beneath a broad frame of a man who moved against hers in the dim room.

She could not see his face in the dark, but as her shaking fingers reached out to grip his back, she felt the hard muscle of his spine moving with every touch. It felt so good that her head rolled back into the soft pillows, her mind spinning from the rhythm of it all.

Then, a sudden thought hit her like a splash of ice water.

Wait a second... didn't I just die?

Her mind reeled, panic trying to push through the pleasure. She remembered the cold floor, the gunshot blowing through her chest, the bloody blanket in the mud, her parents laughing at her…

A deep growl echoed above her, the man moving faster as an intense wave of pleasure hit her full force. Scarlett gasped, her body coiling tight as the feeling crashed over her, washing away every thought in her head.

Right at that exact second, the air above the bed flickered with a strange, glowing light. A bright blue screen popped up right above her face.

[System Activation Successful!]

[Primary Mission Assigned: Recover the Zombie Emperor!]

[Host Status: Extremely Occupied.]

[System Dialogue: ...Oh, super sorry! I completely forgot you would be... occupied right now!]

Scarlett stared at the glowing letters through heavy, teary eyes, her breath coming fast as the man above her slowly settled his weight over her, burying his face in her neck. She thought she was losing her mind or having a crazy dream while dying. But the heat of the body pressing her into the bed was so real, and she was so tired and he was soooo deep in her, that she just could not bring herself to care. 

“Fuck…” 

Her eyes fluttered shut, yeah she'll deal with this later, let her just close her eyes. 

When Scarlett opened her eyes again, bright morning sunlight was streaming through the curtains of a high-end hotel room.

The bed beside her was cold, and the man was gone.

Scarlett sat up fast, pulling the white sheet against her chest as her eyes darted all around the room. Her heart hammered against her ribs. The quiet room, the smell of expensive cologne on the pillows, the faint ache between her legs,it was all so scary and familiar.

This was the hotel room from a month ago. This was the exact morning after her stupid one-night stand with a total stranger, the morning her baby was conceived.

"No... no, how?" Scarlett whispered, her voice shaking as tears filled her eyes. "How am I here? Ryan... my baby..."

The air in front of her face glimmered again, and that same massive blue screen locked right onto her vision. A bright digital clock began counting down, set precisely to thirty days, and right beneath it, new icons lit up, showing a spatial storage room and a glowing pool labeled as a Sacred Healing Spring.

[Time-Reversal Complete!]

[Host Status: Pregnant! System confirms the life signs of your little baby are active!]

[Notice: You have been sent back thirty days before the zombie virus starts!]

"I am going crazy," Scarlett choked out, pressing her hands against her head as she fell back against the bed. "I have lost my mind. My heart stopped. I watched my baby die in the mud, and now my brain is breaking..."

She scrambled out of the bed pulling on a robe, her legs shaking so hard she almost fell. She threw open the heavy curtains, her eyes wide with terror as she braced herself to see burning buildings and monsters.

Instead, the city below was bright, busy, and totally peaceful. Cars drove along the road, people walked down the sidewalk holding coffee cups, and the morning sun bounced off tall glass buildings. There were no dead bodies, no blood, and no zombies.

Scarlett turned around and stumbled toward the television, grabbing the remote and turning it on.

The morning news came on right away, showing a big press conference with government officials. The speakers were smiling, announcing a brand new technology that they claimed would cure diseases and make people stronger.

“...and we have our great government to thank for this new technology. Their research will make life here on our planet better for us..”

Scarlett stood frozen in front of the screen, listening to the news. She remembered this exact news report from her past life. Back then, she had just glanced at it while getting dressed. But now, she knows the scary truth behind those lies. That technology was actually taken from an alien crash site, and the government was rushing to test it on people.

 “Wait…In thirty days, that technology would leak into the air and turn millions of people into flesh-eating zombies…” she muttered to herself. 

[Yep, you got it!] the blue screen flickered, text scrolling smoothly with a little chime.

Scarlett gasped and faced it again. 

 [The outbreak comes from alien tech. I was created from the same stuff to stop everyone from dying! But to stop the apocalypse, you have to complete your Primary Mission: Find and recover the Zombie Emperor!]

Scarlett blinked, her mind trying to keep up. "The Zombie Emperor...?"

[As the zombie virus gets worse, it will eventually create a super special zombie!] the System explained cheerfully. 

[The Zombie Emperor will look almost totally human. He will move and act like a real person, but he won't be able to talk normally, he will control huge zombie hordes, he won't want to eat human flesh, and he has a dark mist inside him that makes him transform. If you find him and clean out that dark mist, the virus will stop for good!]

The text paused for a second before popping up again.

[To clean out the dark mist, we have to do it little by little through direct physical fluid contact between you and the Zombie Emperor! Every time you have fluid contact, I can clear out a tiny bit of the infection. I don't know who his human self is yet, so you'll have to find him yourself after the zombies start!]

“But wait—”

[Oh, and one more super important thing! To fully cure him at the end, you need to collect lots of Z-Crystals from inside the chests of evolved zombies. During the future Eclipse, all the dead zombies will mutate one last time to come back to life and take over Earth. If you get enough Z-Crystals before the Eclipse, we can use them on the Zombie Emperor to fix everyone permanently!]

Scarlett stared at the blue screen, letting out a wild, confused laugh. "Fluid contact? Digging crystals out of zombie chests? A Zombie Emperor?” 

She held her head, “Oh…I've gone crazy, my mind snapped. Am I crazy? Am I in a hospital somewhere dreaming all this up?!"

She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking as everything felt so wild and overwhelming. "Why is this happening to me? What is going on? Am I really living my life over again?!"

She raised her head, glaring at the floating screen. "And who the fuck are you?! What exactly are you?!"

[I'm your super helpful System, of course!] the screen chimed back in a bubbly way.

“What exactly are you, in my head…brain or something? How can I see you?” 

 [My power comes from the alien tech that brought you back. But don't worry about that right now, Host! You don't have time to waste, you have twenty-nine days and twenty-three hours left!]

Scarlett squeezed her eyes shut, taking a long, deep breath to calm her beating heart. It sounded like a crazy story from a book. It felt totally impossible... but the bright blue screen was right there, the news was playing the exact same report from her memory, and her body still felt warm from her early pregnancy.

It was all real.

She turned around and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door and turning the shower on. Stepping under the hot water, Scarlett closed her eyes and let it wash over her skin. It had been a whole year since she had felt hot water, clean soap, or a soft towel.

As the steam filled the room, her hand moved down to rest gently on her stomach. Ryan was in there. Her baby was alive again.

A sharp, painful ache hit her chest as she remembered her parents' cold faces when they admitted to throwing her newborn to the monsters. They had used her for twenty-four years, treated her like trash, and then shot her like a dog when their real daughter came back.

Scarlett leaned her head against the tile, a freezing anger settling deep inside her.

"You know what?" she whispered, her hands pulling into tight fists as a cold smile spread across her face. "Fuck it."

This was not a nightmare. This was her second chance.

She was not going to sit around crying, and she was definitely not going to let anyone push her around anymore. She had thirty days to get ready. She knew how the world was going to end, she had a system with a spatial storage room, and she was going to use every single bit of her family's money. She was going to survive, protect her child, end the apocalypse, and make her fake parents and their real daughter pay for everything they did to her.

She thought briefly about the broad-shouldered man from last night, wondering who he was, but she quickly brushed it off. He did not matter right now. Only her baby and her survival mattered.

Scarlett turned off the shower, dried herself, and put on a nice outfit from the hotel closet. As she grabbed her purse, the blue screen chimed happily in her ear.

[You look super refreshed and ready to go! Are you excited to start the mission?!]

Scarlett fixed her jacket, her eyes shining with pure determination. "Yeah. Fuck yeah."

She checked out of the hotel, stepped out into the fresh morning air, and walked straight to her car in the parking lot. Sitting behind the wheel, she smiled as the engine roared to life, loving the smooth feeling of driving down clean streets again.

Scarlett stepped on the gas, driving straight toward her parents' house, ready to start taking back everything she was owed.