CHAPTER 2: SECOND CHANCE

The words barely escaped my lips. I had been dead. I knew I had been dead. So how was I breathing? How was Rex alive? How was I back in the bedroom I had not seen in two years?

Then another thought struck me.

“Nido.”

I jumped to my feet. I ran toward the window so quickly that Rex barked behind me. My hands shook as I pulled the curtains open.

There he was. Curled up peacefully in his little bed. Alive.

My legs nearly gave out. The cat opened his eyes when he heard me approach. The moment he recognized me, he stretched lazily, rolled onto his back, and exposed his belly.

A broken sob escaped my lips. I rushed forward and picked him up.

“Nido…”

He purred.

I pressed him against my face, breathing in his familiar scent. He was warm. He was real. His tiny heartbeat was against my palm. I closed my eyes and held him tighter.

“I found you.”

For the first time since opening my eyes, I believed it. I was alive. I had been given another chance, and this time, I would not waste it

I carried Nido back to the bed and sat there with him for a long time. Memories of my previous life came rushing through my mind, one after another, each one more painful than the last. The first signs of the cataclysm, the panic, the deaths, the awakening of superpowers, the collapse of governments, the desperate struggle for food and water, the people who had betrayed me, the people I had trusted: Veyra, Nido’s death and my own death.

Everything had happened because I had been unprepared. But now I knew.

After making sure Rex and Nido were safely beside me, I finally went into the bathroom. I needed to think.

The warm water poured over my head as I stood beneath the shower, but I barely noticed it. I stared at my reflection through the steam. This face. This body. These hands. They belonged to me before the apocalypse. My hands in my previous life had been covered in scars. My skin had become rough and damaged from years of fighting, hunger, and exposure to the elements.

Now my fingers were smooth. My skin was healthy. My body was strong. I looked like the woman I had been before the world ended.

I slowly raised one hand to my neck. Then I froze. The pendant was gone.

My eyes widened.

“No.”

I touched my neck again. Nothing. The ruyi pendant I had worn since childhood was missing. I searched beneath my clothes. Nothing. I checked the bathroom floor. Nothing. My heart began pounding.

That pendant had never left me. Not once. Not when I slept. Not when I showered. Not during the apocalypse. It had been around my neck when I died.

I wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at my reflection. Then dizziness suddenly slammed into me. My vision twisted and for one terrifying second, I thought I was dying again. But when I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the bathroom.

I was somewhere else.

A vast space stretched before me. Mist covered the horizon. There was a small courtyard surrounded by an old wicker fence. Beyond it was a wide stretch of green grass, a flowing river, distant mountains, and enormous patches of dark, fertile soil.

I stared.

“What is this?”

The vision disappeared. I staggered backward. My heart was pounding. For a moment, I wondered if the gas heater was malfunctioning. Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe my brain had been damaged during death.

I immediately turned off everything in the bathroom and rushed outside. I changed into comfortable clothes, sat on the edge of my bed, and closed my eyes.

The strange world appeared again. I opened my eyes and it vanished instantly. I closed my eyes again and this time, it returned.

“Could this be…”

I reached for the tissue box on the coffee table. If I was imagining everything, nothing would happen. If I was not… I concentrated.

All of a sudden, the tissue box disappeared. My mouth fell open as I stared at my empty hand.

“It worked.” I looked around the room, ecstatic. “It actually worked!”

I could barely contain my excitement. The space was real and not only was it real, but I could enter it. With another thought, my surroundings changed. The next second, my feet touched soft grass.

I stood completely still. The mist moved gently around me. The air was clean and cool. In front of me stood the small courtyard I had seen earlier. A river flowed nearby, its clear water sparkling beneath a light that seemed to come from nowhere. Beyond it stretched fertile black soil, rich enough to make any farmer cry with happiness.

I slowly walked forward. “It’s so hugeeee. This is incredible.”

There was no visible sun, yet the entire space was bright. The temperature was comfortable, neither too hot nor too cold. White mist surrounded the distant edges, making the entire place feel separate from the outside world.

Then I saw the spring. It was only a short distance from the courtyard. Crystal-clear water flowed endlessly from the stone opening.

I couldn’t help but kneel beside it and cupped the water in my hands and drank. The moment the water entered my body, a strange warmth spread through me. The exhaustion from the nightmare seemed to disappear, even the tension that had been sitting in my chest began to fade.

My eyes widened.

“This isn’t ordinary water.”

I looked at the spring. A smile slowly spread across my face. In my previous life, I had heard stories about special spaces and miraculous springs. I had always assumed they were rumors created by desperate survivors.

Now I had one. A space of my own, a spiritual spring and a place that could potentially hold anything I wanted.

I hurried toward the courtyard. Inside the small house stood a simple wooden table. There was almost nothing else inside, except for a delicate box sitting in the center.

My heart skipped as I stepped closer, and when I opened the strangely familiar box, my breath caught at the sight of the missing ruyi pendant, the same jade pendant I had worn since childhood. I reached for it, but my fingers passed straight through, and no matter how many times I tried, the pendant remained untouched inside the box.

I frowned.

“Why can’t I touch you?”

There was no answer. I stared at the pendant for a long moment before stepping away. Whatever mystery surrounded it could wait. Right now, I had something far more important to do.

I knew the future. I knew when the cataclysm would begin, what would happen during the first wave, which supermarkets would be emptied first, where food and clean water could be found, which places would become dangerous, and which people would betray me. Most importantly, I knew I had only three months.

I walked out of the courtyard and looked across the endless space, a strange calm settling over me. In my previous life, I had spent two years running from death.

This time, death would have to run from me.

I clenched my fists and smiled coldly. “Veyra Watt, enjoy these last three months, because when the world ends, I won’t be the helpless Nerida you remember.”

I turned toward the courtyard, my gaze hardening. “I have three months to prepare. Three months to gather food, medicine, weapons, fuel, clothes, seeds, and everything else I can possibly store.”

I looked across the endless land and smiled.

“And this time, I’m going to fill this entire space until there isn’t room for a single grain of rice!”

The apocalypse had taken everything from me once.

It would not get the chance to do it twice.