Reborn Before The Apocalypse

Daisy’s eyes snapped open.

She gasped, her lungs expanding as she swallowed a huge gulp of warm, rose-scented air. 

She looked around. The atmosphere was warm. Far too warm to be the apocalypse she had survived in for three years.

Daisy quickly scrambled out of bed, her legs shaking, and rushed straight to the vanity mirror across the room.

The hollow, sunless face of a body battered by the cold was gone. In its place was the radiant, healthy glow of a 29-year-old woman with flushed cheeks and smooth skin.

“Is this… a dream?”

Buzz. Buzz.

Her phone vibrated on the vanity top. Daisy snatched it up, her eyes locking onto the lock screen.

October 19.

Exactly 29 days before the world froze over. 

That thing that appeared before her… It didn't lie. It truly did send her back.

Back then, when the early weather alerts first started popping up, everyone had laughed it off as a chilly winter approaching. Nobody knew that the temperature would keep dropping until a global blizzard locked the earth in ice forever.

Daisy stared into her reflection, her expression turning terrifyingly cold.

In her past life, after the glacial arrived, the family had to stick together for warmth but even then, she had been the only one playing the dutiful daughter, sister, and wife: hunting down rare supplements because Maureen was ‘too sick.’ A lie.

Handing over all the food and clothes she found because her parents were ‘too weak.’ A lie.

Tolerating Desmond’s coldness because he was ‘exhausted from parenting.’ A big fat lie.

They had taken her for a fool even before the world froze over. For five years, they had stolen her fortune, murdered her daughter, and in the end, after she struggled so much for their survival, they butchered her for firewood and meat.

Never again.

Her phone buzzed in her hand again. Daisy looked down at the notification on the screen—a text message from Desmond:

【Daisy, don't forget to sign the release form for your grandfather's inheritance today. Maureen's hospital bill is due, and we need that money cleared by noon.】

Daisy stared at the text message on her screen, a cold, low chuckle vibrating in her chest.

​Five years. How had she never noticed?

How had she never questioned the closeness between her own husband and stepsister? How had she never noticed he worried about her the most?

Was it because she was simply raised to yield everything to her from a young age? Was it because even her parents circled around her that she naturally thought her husband circling around her was inevitable?

She had been a fool.

Pathetic and stupid. 

​For five full years before the freeze ever touched the earth, she had bled herself dry for these leeches. 

Before the blizzards, before the starvation, before the desperate hunts for scrap metal and canned food, she had spent half a decade slaving away as the ideal woman:

The foolish, deeply enamored wife who hung onto Desmond’s every word, believing his distance was just stress, and poured her heart—and her fortune—into making his life comfortable.

​The self-sacrificing sister who skipped her own meals, cancelled her own plans, and handed over millions because Maureen sneezed and claimed her ‘frail body’ needed it.

The dutiful, obedient daughter who bowed her head to every demand her parents made, desperate for a shred of approval from a family that viewed her as nothing more than a bank account.

​They had spent five years conditioning her to be their perfect, uncomplaining servant. 

They truly believed she was so hopelessly in love with Desmond and so desperately devoted to her family that she would tear out her own heart if they asked her to.

In the past, she would've. And then she would've ended up back in that shabby cabin, and become nothing but their firewood and meat.

But not this time. That absolute, arrogant confidence they had was going to be their utter ruin.

​Daisy lowered the phone, her fingers tapping against the cool glass. 

In her past life, the moment she saw a text like that from Desmond, she would have panicked, dropped everything, and rushed straight to the bank to sign away her grandfather’s hard-earned millions that were left to her, terrified that Maureen might suffer for even an hour.

​Not this time.

​She swiped open her contacts, pulled up her financial lawyer’s number, and dialed. He answered on the second ring.

​"Miss Daisy? Is everything alright? I was just preparing the final paperwork for your grandfather's trust transfer as your husband requested—"

​"Cancel it," Daisy cut in, her voice unnaturally smooth, devoid of the soft, anxious tremor he was used to hearing.

​Silence stretched across the line. "Pardon me, Miss Daisy?"

​"Freeze the transfer immediately," she commanded, looking at her flushed, living reflection in the mirror, her eyes dark with a lethal calm. "In fact, I want an immediate audit of every joint account, credit line, and asset access tied to Desmond and my stepmother. Block all secondary cards by noon."

​"Understood, Miss Daisy. I'll execute the freeze immediately. But... if I may ask, what about your stepsister's medical fund?"

​Daisy stared into the mirror, a slow, terrifying curve forming at the corner of her lips.

​"Let them wait. I'll deal with that later."