Apocalypse countdown

Amelia didn't move for several seconds.

Vincent Reed was already preparing.

That was the only explanation she could come up with for why a man who wasn't supposed to be in this sector for another four months had been at her warehouse before the apocalypse had even begun.

She had spent the entire night believing she was the only person who knew what was coming.

Now she wasn't so sure.

If Reed was preparing this early, then there was a possibility that someone else had survived the previous timeline with their memories intact.

Or perhaps he knew something she didn't. Either possibility was bad.

She knew how he was. She had seen him two years into the fall, standing on top of an armored personnel carrier in the ruins of the lower district. He had been directing a group of armed survivors through a swarm of mutated beasts.

By then, he had been hardened by everything that had happened. His face was scarred, and he was ruthless. He had become one of the leaders among the survivors.

Amelia's chest tightened. 'He's preparing.' her inner mind repeated. 

How else could he have found the Fourth Street warehouse?

That area would become a radiation dead zone after the fall. There had been no reason for anyone important to be there this early.

If Vincent was preparing this early, Amelia couldn't afford to treat the warehouse like a normal storage facility anymore.

Amelia put her phone away and walked over to Mark and his team.

“Stop the current installation,” Amelia said. “We are changing the entire layout. I want iron security doors on every entrance. Reinforce every window frame with steel mesh. Upgrade the digital deadbolts and reinforce the entire security system. And I want heavy-duty industrial AC units and solar-powered extraction fans installed in the roof immediately.”

Mark looked at her. “Mrs. Vance, that’s a structural retrofitting project. We have weekend jobs booked across the city, and my workers are already assigned to other sites starting tomorrow morning. We can queue this for two weeks from now—”

“I need it completed in less than forty-eight hours,” Amelia cut him off. “Someone broke into my property yesterday morning, Mark. They cut my padlocks. I am not waiting two weeks to secure my perimeter.”

“Forty-eight hours is logistically impossible with our current crew size—”

“I will triple your standard company rate for the weekend,” Amelia said. “Name your overtime f*e, and I’ll wire the deposit to your firm before your truck leaves here today. Pull the workers from the other sites.”

Mark looked down at his tablet. He was quiet for a few seconds.

“I'll call the office. We'll have the steel doors delivered by three this afternoon.”

.................

By 12:30 PM, Amelia had left the industrial district behind.

She drove toward downtown, still thinking about what she had seen at the warehouse.

She checked the dashboard clock. It was lunchtime.

On the passenger seat was an insulated bag from a quiet, upscale bistro. Inside were two boxes of roasted chicken, wild rice, and greens. It was nothing like the stale catered lunches her family usually ordered.

In her first life, she wouldn't have dreamed of showing up at Ian’s law firm without having an assistant book his calendar days in advance.

They had lived more like polite roommates than a married couple.

But now, knowing that Ian was probably sitting at his desk working through a mountain of paperwork while her family secretly worked against her, she wanted to see him.

She needed something familiar.

She parked a block away from the glass office tower where Ian worked and stepped out onto the busy sidewalk.

The cool autumn air hit her face. Then she heard a scream.

“Leo! Stop!”

Amelia turned toward the sound.

A toddler, no older than three, had gotten away from a distracted woman and was running toward the road.

A yellow cab was coming down the street. The driver hadn't seen him.

Amelia didn't think. She ran.

Three years of surviving the fall had taught her to react quickly. She pushed off the pavement and reached the child just as the cab came closer.

She grabbed him by his jacket and pulled him back.

The cab rushed past, its horn blaring. Amelia and the boy fell onto the sidewalk.

The child started crying immediately. Amelia pushed herself up and checked him.

“Are you okay? Hey, look at me. Are you hurt?”

The boy's mother stood on the side frozen, clearly shaken from fear.

The boy pointed at his leg. His trousers were torn at the knee, and there was a nasty scrape underneath. Blood was already running down his leg.

Without thinking, Amelia placed her palm over the wound and pressed down.

A sudden shock went through her arm. It moved from her hand straight into her chest.

Ding. A mechanical voice sounded inside her head.

[Congratulations, Host.]

[Purification Touch has been unlocked.]

[Ability acquired: Purification Touch.]

Amelia froze. Warmth spread from her palm through her arm and into her fingers

Something was happening beneath her hand. She slowly lifted it.

The bleeding had stopped.

The wound was closing right in front of her eyes. The torn skin came back together, and the dirt around it disappeared.

Within seconds, the child's knee was smooth again. There wasn't even a scar. Only the tear in his trousers remained.

The boy stopped crying, then he stood up and ran to his mother. Amelia looked down at her own hand.

A glowing blueprint appeared in front of her eyes.

[Purification Touch allows the host to remove harmful contaminants, toxins, and cosmic corruption through direct contact.]

Amelia's mind immediately went to the apocalypse.

A healing ability.

If she could use this on people after the world was exposed to radiation, it could change everything.

But before she could think any further, the voice inside her head changed.

The blue text disappeared. Red warnings appeared in its place.

[Warning: Spatial timeline anomaly detected. Temporal tracking recalibrated.]

[Apocalypse countdown: 11 days.]

Amelia's heart dropped. Eleven days?

She stared at the words, unable to process them. She had planned for one hundred and eighty days.

Now she had eleven.