MasukMaureen’s fake gasping instantly hitched in her throat. Her eyes snapped wide with genuine, unadulterated horror as she stared at the phone pressed to Daisy’s ear."N-No!" Maureen stammered out, her voice suddenly sounding far too strong and clear for someone allegedly on the brink of cardiac arrest. She scrambled up off the velvet armrest, her hands frantically waving through the air. "I... I'm fine, Sis! Really! It's—it's just a mild episode; it happens all the time! It'll pass in a few minutes; I just need a little rest!"Beside her, Desmond’s face twitched nervously. He quickly reached out to catch Maureen’s arm, trying to cover for her obvious slip. "Yes, Daisy, put the phone down! You know how sensitive Maureen’s condition is. Bringing loud paramedics and flashing sirens here will only stress her heart out more!"Daisy didn't lower the phone. Instead, a slow, dazzling grin spread across her lips—a smile so bright, radiant, and utterly devoid of warmth that it made the hair on
Desmond choked on his breath, his face turning a blotchy, guilty red. "N-no! Of course not! It's just—"Realizing his own bluster was failing, Desmond’s eyes darted down to the child standing beside him. He grabbed Lukas by the shoulders, roughly pushing the boy forward directly into Daisy’s path."Lukas!" Desmond urged, his voice dropping into a manipulative, coercive edge. "Tell your mother! Tell her what you were telling me earlier about how much you want your Aunt Maureen to get better!"Lukas stumbled forward, his small hands clutching tightly to the silk of Daisy's emerald dress. He squeezed out a trembling, watery sob, gazing up at her with wide, wet eyes that looked so impossibly innocent—the exact pathetic act he had perfected under Maureen’s tutelage."Mommy..." Lukas whimpered, his voice cracking with rehearsed heartbreak. "Are you mad at me? Is that why you don't want to help Auntie Maureen? Please don't be mad, Mommy. I love you so much. If Auntie Maureen dies, I'll
Daisy shifted her gaze down to four-year-old Lukas, who was clinging to Maureen’s skirt.Looking at the boy, her heart gave a painful, conflicted throb. She remembered holding him through late-night fevers, cradling him when he cried, and pouring years of maternal love into raising him. The child had always been cold and distant toward her, but she had convinced herself he was just shy. Even now, knowing he wasn't her biological blood, a small, foolish part of her wondered... ‘I can't blame the child. He is innocent in all this. Maybe he’s just being manipulated by them. Maybe I should take him away from these monsters when I leave. That way, he can survive…’Then, the boy helped her to shatter that foolish thought and feeling of sympathy as he let out an ugly, loud whine."Mommy..." Lukas pouted, tugging furiously at Maureen’s hand. "How much longer do I have to keep calling Auntie 'Mom'? I hate her! She's so annoying and controlling, always making me eat vegetables and forcing
Daisy hung up, dropped the phone onto the bed, and walked straight into the master bathroom.She turned the brass faucet, letting steaming water cascade into the deep porcelain soaking tub. Dropping her robe, she stepped into the heat, sinking into the water until it reached her collarbones.Physically, her body wasn't suffering from the sub-zero bite of the past life, but the memory and trauma of frost-blackened skin and shivering bones lingered deep in her nerve endings. Soaking in the scalding, lavender-scented water was the first real comfort she had allowed herself, a quiet moment to anchor herself back in the living world.As the steam rose around her, Daisy closed her eyes and began to calculate.Twenty-nine days.Twenty-nine days until the hail and snow, the temperature plunged into the negatives, and society collapsed into a desperate, bloody wasteland. The System had given her a clear directive: stockpile supplies, build a safe sanctuary, and exact her revenge.Food
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 ear
Daisy opened her eyes, but there was no feeling left in her body. No heat, no pain, no pulse. But the instinct to scream overwhelmed her, and she did, as loud as her lungs could… then she ran her hand through her body, at the places she felt pain before her death.That was when she realized… She didn't have a body. She was a floating mass, not living. She was a ghost, floating above the frozen ground. And below her was the grotesque nightmare of what her supposedly weak sister and husband had done to her.Desmond, her husband for years, sat hunched over an overturned plastic crate, his fingers blackened by severe frostbite, his teeth tearing savagely into a strip of pale, raw meat. Across from him, Maureen, her stepsister, crouched close to a weak, sputtering pit, her shivering hands casually feeding a jagged, marrow-stained fragment of bone into the fire.Those were… Daisy’s bones.They had hacked her to death while she slept, stripped her flesh, and were now burning her skeleton f







