02

SIXTY DAYS

~SIENNA~

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

My eyes snapped open.

I sat up quickly, gasping for breath. A quick and painful feeling shot deep inside my chest.

My hands flew straight to my throat.

I waited for the cold air to fill my lungs. I waited for the loud wind. I waited for the ice and the deep darkness.

But instead, warm air filled my chest.

I sat completely still in the quiet room. My heart raced against my chest, beating fast and wildly.

I looked down at my hands. My fingers moved normally. There was no frostbite. No torn gloves. No dried blood beneath my nails.

I lifted my hands, touching my arms and shoulders. The skin was smooth and warm.

I was wearing an old, oversized T-shirt….the worn cotton one I used to sleep in years ago.

"What...?" My voice was just a soft whisper in the still room.

The alarm kept ringing.

I slowly turned my head toward the noise. An old phone sat on the wooden bedside table, its screen lit up in the dim light.

It wasn't the rough, broke satellite device I had used during the collapse.

It was my old smartphone.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed.

When my bare feet touched the floor, my knees staggered, nearly giving out under my weight.

I looked around the room.

The cheap wooden wardrobe stood against the far wall. The cracked mirror hung near the doorway. The faded blue curtains let in thin morning light.

On the nightstand, beside a small lamp, sat a framed picture.

Our wedding photograph.

I picked it up with shaking hands. This wasn't the battered copy from the bunker's central office. The frame was clean. The glass was whole.

In the picture, Ethan was smiling at me, his hand wrapped around mine.

I set the frame down and walked toward the mirror.

The woman looking back at me had full cheeks and dark, clear eyes. No sunken skin. No scar along the cheekbone from the ice storm. No silver strands in her dark hair.

I raised a hand and touched my own jaw.

"This isn't possible," I muttered.

I checked at my fingers again. There were no scars and no pale skin.

I stepped back twice and looked at the room again. I suddenly understood it clearly.

This was our old city apartment.

The one we lived in before the winter came. Before the food ran out. Before the bunker.

My breath came in fast, shallow gasps.

I backed away until my legs hit the side of the bed.

The steel door flashed in my mind. The dark lock. Ethan's blank eyes through the frost. Victoria's sharp voice over the speaker. The cold mug in his hand while I froze six inches away.

I stared at the closed bedroom door, panic gripping my throat.

‘Is this a dream?’

Maybe my brain was making up a peaceful memory while my body froze to death in the snowbank. Maybe this was just the final trick of hypothermia.

I reached down and pinched the skin on my arm. Hard.

A brief sting shot up my nerve endings. I gasped, releasing my grip.

Red skin spread where my fingernails had dug in. Real pain.

"I'm alive," I whispered.

I pinched myself again, harder this time. The pain remained.

A strange, breathless laugh escaped my lips, turning into a sudden sob before choking off into silence.

I sank onto the edge of the bed, burying my face in my hands.

"I died," I said out loud to the empty room. "I died out there."

But the air in my lungs was warm. My body wasn't numb.

I was breathing.

---

I reached for the phone on the bedside table.

The screen filled with light under my thumb.

I froze.

The calendar widget displayed the date in bright white text: ‘October 14.’ I stared at the numbers. I read the day, then the month, then the year.

My hands began to shake violently.

I remembered this exact date.

In my first life, October 14 was completely unmemorable. It was just a Tuesday. I had cooked dinner, washed the dishes, and listened to Ethan talk about his boss.

The world was still whole. The temperature hadn't dropped. The emergency warnings hadn't started. I unlocked the screen with my old passcode and opened the messaging app.

Conversations filled the screen.

A text from Victoria asking about Sunday dinner. A missed call from Ethan’s sister. A group thread with old friends.

People who were dead in my original timeline.

They were all here. Typing. Texting. Living.

I set the phone down on the coverlet.

---

I needed proof. Real proof.

I stood up and moved out into the hallway, my feet moving fast toward the living room. A small wall calendar hung near the kitchen counter. I rushed over and stared at the paper grid.

October 14.

My stomach dropped. I raised my hand and pointed a finger at the current date, then slowly dragged it forward across the boxes.

Ten days.

Twenty days.

Thirty.

Forty.

Fifty.

Sixty.

December 13.

I remembered that date with terrifying clearness. It was the day the main storm hit, bringing the deadly cold and collapsing the regional power grid.

I counted the boxes again, my pulse thumping in my ears.

Sixty days.

I had exactly sixty days before the cold arrived. I gripped the edge of the kitchen counter until my knuckles turned white.

"Sixty days," I whispered.

I walked over to the media console and grabbed the remote, turning on the television.

The screen flashed to life.

A news anchor sat behind a smooth desk, smiling into the camera. She talked about morning commuter traffic on the main highway. She mentioned a mild autumn afternoon with clear skies.

No emergency alerts. No military mobilization. No panic.

I walked over to the living room window and pulled back the curtain.

Below, the city street was crowded with life. Yellow taxis idle at the traffic light. People walked along the sidewalk holding paper coffee cups. A delivery driver unloaded boxes from the back of a truck.

A woman was laughing on the corner, her coat open to the cool air.

Everything was normal.

I leaned my head against the glass, remembering what these same streets looked like after the collapse. Abandoned cars covered in three feet of black ice. Burnt out storefronts. Silence.

"It hasn’t happened yet," I murmured against the cold pane.

---

A sudden memory surfaced….a detail from my first life.

On October 14, at exactly eight in the morning, a local news broadcast was interrupted by a minor story about a shipment train derailment two towns over. It was completely unimportant at the time.

I looked at the digital clock on the television cable box.

07:59.

I held my breath, keeping my eyes locked on the screen.

The anchor finished her sentence about the afternoon weather. The screen cut briefly to a commercial, then returned to a breaking news banner.

"We're receiving reports of a shipment derailment near the northern junction," the reporter announced. "Emergency crews are on the scene..."

The exact same words. The exact same visual.

My blood ran cold.

Tonight, Ethan would walk through the front door at six fifteen. He would grumble about his trip to work. He would ask what was for dinner. He would kiss my temple and tell me he was exhausted.

In my first life, I had loved him for it. I had spent six years building a life around his comfort.

And six years later, he had locked me outside in forty-below weather while he drank hot tea from my favorite mug.

I stepped back from the window.

This wasn't a hallucination. This wasn't a dying dream.

I was back.

---

The front door lock clicked.

I turned around, every muscle in my body locking up.

The door swung open.

Ethan stepped inside, carrying a dark leather briefcase. He wore his work suit, his hair slightly windblown. He looked young. Healthy. Entirely harmless.

He closed the door behind him and set his keys on the entryway tray.

When he looked up and saw me standing near the living room, a soft smile touched his lips.

"You're awake early," he said, setting his briefcase down. "I thought you were going to sleep in today."

I couldn't speak.

My tongue felt heavy in my mouth. I stared at his face….at the jawline, the eyes, the hands that had buried themselves deep in his pockets while he watched me bleed against the steel door.

He didn't know. To him, today was just another Tuesday.

Ethan walked toward me, reaching out a hand to touch my shoulder. "Sienna? Are you okay? You look pale."

Instinctively, I took a short step back, putting distance between us.

Ethan stopped, his hand hanging in the air. A look of mild confusion crossed his face. "What's wrong?"

My chest ached. Rage screamed inside my head. I wanted to throw the ceramic vase on the table at his head. I wanted to scream in his face until my lungs gave out.

I squeezed my hands into tight fists behind my back, forcing my expression to stay flat.

"Nothing," I said, my voice steady and quiet. "Just a bad dream."

He looked at me for a second longer, then relaxed, shaking his head with a light chuckle. "You always take your dreams too seriously. I'm going to grab a quick shower before work."

He turned and walked down the hallway toward the bathroom.

I watched his back until the door shut.

That was my first decision. I wouldn't tell him. I wouldn't warn him. I wouldn't waste a single second trying to make him understand.

---

The moment the shower started running, I walked over to the small desk in the corner of the room.

I grabbed a blank leather-bound notebook and a pen.

On the very first page, I wrote in bold, dark letters: ‘DAY 60’

Underneath, I added two words: ‘THE FALL’

I began writing down everything I remembered from the first timeline, my pen moving rapidly across the paper.

October 14: Derailment near northern junction.

November 02: First sudden drop in regional temperatures.

November 15: Food supply disruptions begin.

December 13: The main storm hits. Power grid collapses.

I wrote down everything I could remember. Dates. Locations of wholesale warehouses. Water filtration units. Fuel reserves. The people who had turned their backs on me.

Some memories were crystal clear. Others were blurred, slipping away as if my brain were trying to reject the trauma.

My hand dragged across the paper until my fingers cramped, filling three full pages with dates, locations, and names.

When I reached the bottom of the fourth page, I paused.

I didn't write down the door. I didn't write down the frostbite. I didn't write down my death.

I didn't need to write it down. It was burned into my mind forever.

I closed the notebook and slipped it deep inside my personal handbag, zipped the pocket shut, and pulled the bag close to my side.

I looked around the apartment.

In my first life, I had been caught off guard. I had waited for official instructions. I had listened to Ethan when he said things would clear up in a few days.

I had spent my life savings buying supplies for his family while they sat in our living room complaining about the cold.

I had put everyone else's survival before my own.

I pulled out my phone and tapped open my personal banking application.

The screen loaded, displaying my individual savings account—money left to me by my mother that I had kept separate from the joint household expenses.

Balance: $48,250.00

In my past life, I had handed this exact sum over to Ethan's mother to help pay off her mortgage two weeks before the world ended.

I stared at the balance for a long moment. Not a single dollar would leave this account for his family this time.

I exited the app, locked the screen, and slipped the phone into my pocket.

Down the hallway, the shower turned off. I looked toward the hallway door one last time, my eyes cold and clear.

Sixty days.

That was all I had.

"This time," I whispered to the empty room, "I'm saving myself