Chapter One

"Vanessa! Wake up, you lazy ass!" Veronica’s shrill, grating voice pierced right through the closed door before Vanessa could even draw a proper breath. "Sleeping like a dead pig while my poor son is out slaving away at the office to provide for this family?!"

Vanessa bolted upright, gasping for air as if she had been pulled from the bottom of an ocean. Her nightshirt clung to her skin, sodden with cold sweat. Her throat felt raw, cracked, and burning.

A bitter, silent contempt flashed through her mind despite the terror. "Slaving away at the office?" Everyone in the city knew her husband, Andrea, had been unemployed for the longest. While she worked sixteen-hour shifts to support them all, he was undoubtedly out drinking, gambling, and wasting money with his equally jobless friends.

Her hand flew straight to her neck, fingers digging into her skin. The phantom sensation of thick fingers crushing her windpipe was still so fresh—she could still hear the sickening snap of her cartilage giving way as her vision blacked out.

"I'm... alive?" she whispered, her voice barely audible over her ragged breathing.

She stared around the sweltering bedroom. The faded floral wallpaper, the dark oak vanity, the heavy blackout curtains—it was all hauntingly familiar.

"What date is it? Is it August 10th?!" she gasped as her trembling fingers scrambled across the nightstand to grab her phone, tapping the screen.

The stark digital numbers illuminated the gloom :July 1.

To confirm what her eyes were seeing, Vanessa turned her head toward the digital calendar sitting on the side table. The LED display flickered in the hot shadows: JULY 1.

"July first?" She wiped a streak of sweat from her eyes, her breath catching in her chest. "Why is it so hot? What on earth is happening...?"

Then she looked up at the wall. The air conditioner was completely dead, its power light dark.

A sudden realization hit her. "Wait... if this isn't August..."

Her heart hammered violently against her ribs as the reality began to sink in. Was she back alone? Or was this just some sick, elaborate nightmare before her mind finally surrendered to death?

She counted backward in her head, the timeline clicking into place with terrifying precision. July 1st to August 10th. It was exactly forty days.

Forty days before the Solar Flare Cataclysm—the extreme-heat apocalypse that would push temperatures past fifty degrees Celsius, melt asphalt on the streets, destroy the entire power grid, and turn human beings into feral beasts fighting to the death over a single drop of water.

"Didn't you hear me, you useless girl?!" The bedroom door slammed open, crashing against the drywall and shattering her train of thought.

Veronica, her tyrannical mother-in-law, stomped inside, her posture aggressive and her hand held out expectantly. "You think money grows on trees? The electric bill was sky-high last month, so I turned off the air conditioner! We can't have any more waste on our hands, you know, since you have decided to sleep away instead of working!"

Vanessa was still too dumbfounded to speak, so her mother-in-law continued anyway. "Your company deposits your paycheck at 12 every first day of the month, it's a minute past. Transfer it over immediately so we can pay the utility bills and stock the kitchen!"

Right on her heels shuffled Susan, dragging a heavy plastic laundry hamper overflowing with mud-stained clothes. She dropped it at the foot of Vanessa's bed with an exaggerated sigh, fanning herself with a manicured hand.

"Sister-in-law," Susan whined softly, her voice dripping with that delicate innocence that used to fool Vanessa every single time. "Leo got his clothes filthy playing outside today. It's so hot, and my skin is far too sensitive for harsh laundry soap in this weather... could you hand-wash these for me right now? Oh, and Andrea needs his linen shirts ironed immediately."

Vanessa sat frozen on the damp mattress, staring at the two parasites.

In her past life, she had been the ultimate dutiful fool. She had worked sixteen-hour shifts, spending every cent of her salary and her late mother's inheritance to cater to Andrea’s ungrateful family. She had even run miles across the city in fifty-degree heat just to find imported muffins for Susan.

And how had they rewarded her?

When the apocalyptic heatwave hit and the power grid collapsed, they locked her outside on the sun-baked balcony to starve. Through the thick glass, Vanessa watched Andrea wrap his arms around Susan, kissing her beneath the cool breeze of the high-end backup air conditioner Vanessa had bought.

Through the crackling intercom, Andrea laughed at her tears, revealing the truth: six-year-old Leo wasn't an adopted nephew at all. He was the biological lovechild of Andrea and Susan, his supposed "adopted sister" who had been taken in by his family years ago.

And when the end came, Andrea traded Vanessa's body to the desperate men down the hall for two cans of spam, watching through the peephole as she was strangled to death.

"Are you deaf, Vanessa?!" Veronica barked, stepping forward and snapping her fingers right in her face. "Pull up your banking app and send the recurring transfer before I call Andrea!"

The sharp snapping of fingers snapped Vanessa out of her stupor. Looking at her mother-in-law's greedy face and Susan’s subtle smirk, the final piece of reality clicked into place.

I really came back,Vanessa realized, a cold, lethal clarity flooding her veins. God gave me a second chance, and I swear I will never make the same mistake again. I won't play the dutiful fool, and I won't let these parasites bleed me dry ever again.

A slow, chilling smile touched Vanessa's lips.

"A transfer?" Vanessa asked, her tone eerily light.

She picked up her phone, opened her banking app, and pulled up the recurring scheduled transfer set to automatically forward her entire salary to her mother-in-law’s account ten minutes after payday.

With a quick tap, her thumb hit [Cancel Recurring Transfer].

"What are you doing?!" Veronica screeched as her phone failed to chime with the incoming deposit alert. "Where is the transfer confirmation?!"

"It's gone," Vanessa said flatly.

She swung her legs over the bed, stood up, and kicked the heavy plastic laundry hamper with all her weight.

BANG!

The hamper skidded across the floor, tipping over violently against Susan’s shins. Dirty clothes, soapy water, and wet mud burst out, splashing all over Susan's white designer dress.

"Ahhhh! My dress!" Susan shrieked, tumbling backward onto the filthy laundry.

"Have you lost your mind?!" Veronica gasped, her face twisting in shock. She quickly pulled out her smartphone, swiped the screen, and placed a call directly to Andrea, slapping it onto speakerphone. "I am calling Andrea right now! You're going to pay for this!"

The phone rang twice before Andrea’s voice blasted through the speaker. "Mom? What's going on? Why are you calling me this early?"

"Andrea!" Veronica shrieked into the mic, holding the phone like a weapon. "Your crazy wife has completely lost her mind! She refused to transfer her paycheck, and now she just kicked dirty laundry all over Susan!"

"Vanessa! What the hell is wrong with you?!"* Andrea shouted over the speakerphone, his tone instantly exploding into rage. "I can hear Mom screaming from here and you're acting like a lunatic! You know you don't have a life without my family! Get down on your knees and apologize right now!"*

Veronica smirked triumphantly, thrusting the glowing screen straight into Vanessa's face. "You hear him?! Get on your knees!"

"Apologize? You want me to apologize?" Vanessa asked, her voice dropping into a calm, controlled register.

"Yes! Right now! On your knees!" Andrea barked through the speaker.

Vanessa offered the glowing phone a sweet, submissive smile. She slowly bent her knees, lowering her body toward the floor as if preparing to drop into a humble kneel before them.

Veronica leaned in, her eyes glinting with malicious pride.

But as Vanessa reached down, her hands moved with swift, lethal precision—snatching her handbag and her passport directly from the open nightstand drawer.

In one fluid movement, she snapped straight back up, tucking the documents tightly into her bag while grabbing Veronica's wrist mid-air with her free hand, pinning the phone in place. Her grip tightened like a steel vise until the old woman gasped in pain.

Vanessa leaned right into the phone's microphone, her voice cold enough to freeze blood.

"Wash them yourself," Vanessa spat softly to Veronica. "Or let his real mother do it—if she can take her hands off her own brother for five minutes."

"What did you just say?!"Andrea roared through the speaker, his voice trembling with a mixture of shock and sheer panic. "Vanessa, don't you dare—"

Vanessa leaned down, her lips practically touching the receiver, and screamed at the top of her lungs:

"GO TO HELL, ANDREA! I WANT A DIVORCE!"

Without waiting for another word, Vanessa turned on her heel, strode out of the bedroom, and slammed the front door behind her.