Chapter 2

Carys POV

I stared at the glowing blue text hovering in the air. My heart hammered against my ribs.

"Are you kidding me?" I whispered to myself. "A system?"

There was absolutely no system in the original trashy manuscript. This was entirely new. I waved my hand, trying to swat the blue screen away, but it stayed fixed in my vision.

The penalty system was real. Because I deviated from the original trashy plot by dumping my toxic family, the apocalypse wasn't thirty days away anymore. It was coming three days earlier.

I closed my eyes and focused, trying to figure out how this weird game-like interface worked. I felt a strange pull in my mind and suddenly saw a mental space. It was a dimensional storage area. But there was a huge red wall blocking off twenty percent of it. The screen flashed again, making it clear that my inventory space was reduced as a penalty just because I dumped my cheating boyfriend.

Things just became significantly more dangerous than I planned. For every change I make to survive, this stupid system will punish me. The loud boom I heard was just a blown transformer down the street, but the message was loud and clear. I didn't have a month to gather supplies. I needed to move with extreme urgency. And I needed money immediately.

I hailed a cab and yanked the back door open.

"Take me to the industrial district on the outskirts of the city," I told the driver. "Step on it."

"Sure thing, lady," the driver said, hitting the gas pedal.

As the cab sped down the road, I pulled up my banking app. The original Carys had a joint family trust fund. All her hard earned salary went straight into it so her mother and sister could spend it freely. It made me sick just thinking about it. I typed in the digits to transfer the entire balance into a safe offshore crypto wallet. Just as my thumb hovered over the confirm button, the blue system screen flashed a bright warning in my vision.

[RESTRICTION: The Heroine cannot steal from her family. Transaction blocked.]

I gritted my teeth.

"You have got to be joking," I muttered.

The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "Everything okay back there, miss?" he asked.

"Just focus on the road," I snapped. I didn't have time for small talk.

The system was actively protecting the plot. I couldn't just steal the money. I had to find a legal loophole. I opened the bank terms of service and scrolled fast. I read through paragraphs of boring text until I found it. There was a specific clause about primary account holders closing joint accounts due to suspected fraudulent activity.

I tapped on the customer service chat instantly.

"Hello," I typed. "I need to report suspicious activity on my joint account. My sister just made several unauthorized designer bag purchases. I believe her card was stolen."

The bank representative replied in seconds. They froze the access for both Kaelen and Selah instantly.

"Thank you," I typed back. "Due to this security breach, I want to close this joint account immediately and withdraw all remaining funds as a cashier check to myself."

The blue screen flickered, glitched, and vanished into thin air.

I smiled. I got the money, and the system couldn't do a thing about it because I followed the rules.

The cab dropped me off in front of a heavily fortified industrial compound. High concrete walls surrounded the entire place. This was Evander's safe zone. I banged my fist against the heavy steel door. I waited for a minute. Nobody answered. I banged again, much harder this time.

"Evander!" I yelled. "Open the door!"

The heavy locks finally clicked. The metal door creaked open. Evander stood there looking exhausted. His clothes were messy, and a fresh purple bruise rested on his cheek from his run in with the police. He looked at me with a mixture of hope and deep suspicion.

"Carys?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"

He clearly expected me to laugh at him. He expected me to call him a lunatic just like the rest of the world did earlier today.

Instead, I pushed past him into the compound. I walked straight to his metal workstation and dropped the printed bank confirmation on the table.

"I believe you," I told him. I looked around at the massive computer monitors and half built air filtration systems. "The government is trying to hide everything. Your spider research is one hundred percent accurate, and the timeline is much shorter than we think."

Evander stared at me. He was stunned. He closed the heavy door and walked toward me.

"You called me a crazy lunatic just two days ago," he said, his voice laced with confusion. "And how do you know about the police threatening me? They literally just left my house."

I couldn't tell him I read it in a trashy web novel. So I lied.

"I might have had a few connections that let me overhear the police dispatch," I said smoothly. "I heard them talking about silencing you. Plus, I've been noticing the exact same environmental changes you posted about. The strange insect bites. The sudden temperature drops."

He studied my face, trying to find a lie.

"I'm not here to mock you, Evander," I said firmly. "I'm here to fund you. We need to combine my newly acquired funds with your scientific knowledge. We are going to buy out wholesale food, medical supplies, and military grade solar panels before the day ends."

I saw a sharp shift in his eyes. The hurt from his childhood crush faded. An intense, paranoid excitement replaced it. For the first time in his life, someone wasn't just listening to him. Someone was actually funding his doomsday plans.

"Where did you get all this cash?" he asked, pointing at the receipt on the table.

"I liquidated my family trust fund," I replied coldly. "They don't need it anymore."

Evander frowned, his protective instincts instantly kicking in. "Wait, what happened? Did you have a fight with them? You never go against your mother."

I sighed. "I will explain everything to you later in detail. But for now, all you need to know is that I caught my boyfriend screwing my twin sister, so I decided to leave that house for good."

Evander's jaw clenched tight. He looked like he wanted to punch a wall, but he nodded. He respected my boundaries and didn't push the topic any further.

"Are you serious about all this, then?" he asked, bringing his focus back to the survival plan.

"Dead serious," I replied. "Do you have a contact who sells heavy duty survival gear without government tracking?"

He nodded slowly. He grabbed a ring of keys from the table. "I know an underground dealer in the black market. He won't ask questions if we have the cash."

"Perfect," I said. "Let's go right now."

We walked over to his reinforced off road truck. The metal exterior was welded with thick protective plates, and the tires were massive. Evander wasn't playing around. We climbed inside the cabin. It smelled like motor oil and stale coffee.

As he started the loud engine, my phone vibrated aggressively in my pocket. I pulled it out. A breaking news alert flashed on the screen.

I tapped the notification, and my blood ran cold.

The news anchor was reporting live from my old neighborhood. They were reporting a bizarre animal attack at my old apartment complex. The victim was my mother's next door neighbor.

"Look at this," I said, showing the phone to Evander.

The screen showed a blurry photo taken by a bystander. It was a massive mutated insect with huge venomous fangs. It looked exactly like the creatures Evander warned the world about.

"It's starting," Evander said. He gripped the steering wheel tight. "They are mutating faster than my models predicted."

The apocalypse signs were starting right where I left my family. Kaelen, Selah, and my mother were right in the middle of ground zero.

Suddenly, the blue system screen flashed violently in the dark cab. It blinded me for a second. The text glowed with an angry red outline this time.

[URGENT QUEST: The Heroine's emotional tethers are in mortal danger. Return to the apartment to save them, or permanently lose your sense of taste.]