Chapter 1: BETRAYED BEFORE THE RAIN

The iron doors slammed shut behind me, and the sound was so loud that I felt it in my teeth. I froze with my hand still wrapped around the handle. For a few seconds, I couldn't understand why the door wasn't moving. I pulled once, then again, harder this time, but the heavy steel didn't budge. I tried turning the handle in both directions, hoping I had somehow locked it myself, but it was useless. When I looked at the small gap around the door, I finally understood what had happened. Someone had locked it from the other side.

"Ethan!" I started banging on the door with both hands. "Ethan, open the door! Clara!" My voice echoed through the empty concourse, but nobody answered me immediately. I could hear footsteps on the other side, quick and uneven, followed by voices I couldn't make out. They were moving away. "Ethan!" I shouted again. "Open the damn door!" I pressed my face against the cold metal, trying to hear them more clearly. My breathing had become so fast that I could barely hear anything over it. "Ethan, please." My voice broke when I spoke again. "My bag is still out there. You left it behind. We can share everything. Just open the door for a second and let me through."

"Mira, stop shouting!"

Clara finally answered. There was something in her voice that made me go still. Clara had been my best friend for five years. I knew what she sounded like when she was scared, angry, tired, or worried. This wasn't any of those things. She sounded scared, but there was something else underneath it, something that made my stomach twist. "If you keep making that much noise, they'll hear you," she said. "Do you want them to come after all of us?"

I stared at the door. "They already know I'm here."

Nobody answered.

I swallowed hard. "You locked me in."

"Mira..."

"You locked the door."

"We didn't have a choice."

Ethan's voice came next. I almost felt relieved when I heard him, even though I don't know why. Maybe because hearing the voice of someone I trusted was easier than accepting what was happening. "The eastern staircase collapsed," he said. "The horde is right behind you. If we open the door now, we're putting everyone at risk."

"Then let me out before they get here."

"We can't."

"What do you mean, you can't?"

There was a pause before Ethan sighed. "You've always been stronger than the rest of us, Mira. Just hold them off for a little while. We'll get to the outer perimeter and come back when it's safe."

I stopped breathing for a second. "Come back?"

"Yes."

"You want me to stay here alone?"

"We don't have another option."

I knew he was lying. I knew it before he finished speaking. There was no coming back. The way he said it, the calmness in his voice, told me everything I needed to know. He had already made his decision. Clara had too. They weren't trapped outside trying to find a way to save me. They were leaving.

"You're sacrificing me," I whispered.

Neither of them answered.

I closed my eyes. For three months, I had shared everything I had with these people: food, water, medicine, blankets, weapons. Whenever Ethan complained that he was too tired to walk, I carried part of his load. When we didn't have enough food, I gave him more because he always insisted he needed the extra energy. When Clara was attacked by scavengers in the downtown ruins, I went back for her even though everyone else had already escaped. I still remembered that day. One of the mutated dogs had bitten into my arm while I was trying to pull Clara toward the truck. I had almost lost the use of that arm, but I didn't leave her behind. I had risked my life for her. I had risked it for both of them.

And now they were doing this to me.

"You bastards," I said quietly.

"Mira, I'm sorry," Clara said. Her voice was getting farther away.

"Clara?"

"We have to go."

"Clara, don't do this."

I heard footsteps retreating down the corridor.

"Clara!"

"Thank you for everything," she called back. "We'll never forget you."

I stared at the door in disbelief. Then I heard a mechanical click. The lock engaged.

That was when I knew they were really gone.

I stood there for several seconds, staring at the door as if it might suddenly open again. I kept expecting Ethan to come back. Maybe he'd realize what he was doing. Maybe Clara would change her mind. Maybe one of them would turn around and tell me they had only been trying to scare me. But the corridor remained silent.

Then something moved in the darkness behind me.

I slowly turned around. The service corridor was almost completely dark, except for the weak emergency lights along the walls. Broken boxes and pieces of debris covered the floor. I tightened my grip on the hunting knife in my right hand and raised the stun baton in my left. The baton had barely enough power left to protect me, but it was better than nothing. I could hear something breathing, and then another sound followed, a wet clicking noise that made my stomach turn.

The creatures were coming.

I backed away from the door until my shoulders touched the steel. I knew there was nowhere else to go, but I still looked around, searching for something I could use as an escape route. There was nothing.

The first creature appeared at the end of the corridor.

I recognized it immediately. It had once been a Doberman. Now it was enormous. Its body had swollen until it was almost the size of a small horse, and parts of its skin had split open, exposing muscles that twitched strangely beneath the surface. Its eyes had turned pale and cloudy, and thick black saliva hung from its mouth.

Another creature appeared behind it, then another, and then another.

Four of them.

I tightened my fingers around the knife. There was no way I was getting out of there alive. For some reason, the first thing that came to my mind wasn't fear. It was Ethan. Then Clara. I remembered every time I had put them before myself, every time I had believed they would do the same for me if our positions were ever reversed.

I had been wrong.

"If I ever get another chance," I whispered, staring at the creatures, "I'm killing you both."

The creature charged.

I barely had time to move before it slammed into me. Its teeth sank into my shoulder, tearing through my jacket and into my flesh. I screamed and drove the knife into its side, but another creature was already on me. Claws ripped across my stomach. I felt something warm run beneath my clothes, and when I tried to push them away, another set of teeth caught my leg. There were too many. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't fight them anymore.

The last thing I felt was the cold steel of the door against my back and the sharp pain spreading through my body. Then everything went dark.

I'm sorry, Mom.

The thought came quietly.

I tried.

---

I woke up gasping. My body jerked upright, and I grabbed my stomach so quickly that my fingernails dug into my skin. I was breathing hard, almost choking on the air as I looked down at myself. There was no blood, no open wound, nothing. I touched my stomach again, then my shoulder, then my legs. Everything was fine.

"What..."

My voice sounded strange.

I looked around. For several seconds, I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. I wasn't in the shopping center. I was in my bedroom. Morning sunlight was coming through the curtains, falling across the floor and the edge of my bed. The room smelled faintly of lavender fabric softener and the old books I used to keep on my desk.

I stared at the desk near the window. My college textbooks were still there. My old laptop was sitting beside them, plugged into the charger. There was even a half-finished cup of coffee beside it. I slowly turned toward the mirror.

The woman staring back at me looked younger.

There were no scars on my face. My hair was long and healthy, my skin was clean, and there was none of the exhaustion I had carried during the last few months of the apocalypse. I touched my cheek, and the reflection did the same. My hand started shaking.

"No."

I looked around the room again. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. My old curtains. My old desk. My old bed. Even the small crack near the corner of the ceiling was still there.

I reached for my phone on the nightstand. It was lying beside a glass of water. I picked it up and pressed the power button. The screen came on.

For a moment, I only stared at it.

Then I saw the date.

October 12 — 8:14 AM.

My fingers went cold.

I checked it again. October 12. I opened another app. The date was the same. I checked the year.

The same year.

My mind immediately started counting.

Thirty days.

I had thirty days.

Thirty days before the red rain. Thirty days before the power went out. Thirty days before the animals began changing. Thirty days before the cities became impossible to live in. Thirty days before the world I knew disappeared.

I slowly sat down on the edge of the bed.

I wasn't dreaming. I knew what would happen because I had already lived through it. I knew which supermarkets would be emptied first. I knew which roads would become impossible to use. I knew what the red rain would do to people who stayed outside too long. I knew how quickly food and medicine would disappear once everyone realized what was happening.

And I knew exactly how Ethan and Clara would betray me.

My hands stopped shaking.

I looked at the phone again, and then I laughed. It wasn't a happy laugh. I couldn't even explain why I was laughing, but after everything I had just experienced, the sound escaped me anyway.

They had left me to die. They had watched me beg them to open the door. They had walked away while monsters tore me apart.

And somehow, I had been given another chance.

This time, I wasn't going to waste it.

Ethan could keep whatever lies he had told me. Clara could keep pretending she had ever been my friend. I wasn't going to save either of them.

I had thirty days to prepare, and I intended to use every single one of them.