جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 7

Betony threw herself upward, air tearing into her lungs like broken glass.She thrashing her arms, her fingers clawing frantically at the space around her as if she were still submerged in that freezing, silt-heavy ocean, suffocating beneath falling concrete slabs.The wave. The garage collapsing.She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the crushing weight to split her skull.Nothing came.Instead, her palms pressed against soft, dry cotton. The air hitting her face was warm and still, smelling faintly of clean laundry and lavender fabric softener—not salt, diesel, and rotting timber.Betony opened her eyes.She was sitting on her mattress. Sunlight filtered through the white sheer curtains of her studio apartment. Beside her bed, her small desk fan hummed peacefully on its lowest setting, oscillating back and forth.Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs as she ripped back the light blanket. She grabbed her right leg, sliding her trembling hands down her thigh to her ankle. Her s

By two-thirty that afternoon, Betony walked out of her third financial institution, her handbag considerably heavier.Using her spotless credit rating, clean editorial employment record, and rapid liquid conversion, she had maxed out her high-limit credit cards, secured two emergency personal loans, and drained her modest retirement fund.Her mobile banking screen displayed her new reality: $138,450 in liquid capital.In four weeks, the global banking grid would collapse into dead servers and useless digital numbers. Today, those numbers bought her absolute freedom.She rushed back to her low-elevation studio apartment, arriving just as the clock struck three. Spreading her notebook across the small kitchen table, she began drafting a detailed, multi-category inventory: bulk grains, medical supplies, solar battery stations, water purification units, and long-term canned protein.Betony paused, her pen hovering over the paper as her gaze swept across her cramped studio.This room is a

The hum of the high-rise private elevator died down as the digital floor indicator settled on twenty-eight. Inside, the atmosphere remained heavy and charged, still holding the lingering chill of the forty-minute blackout. Outside the panoramic windows, the city was slowly stuttering back to life. Streetlamps flickered, traffic signals shifted back to green, and down in the bay, the ocean water swelled quietly back toward the concrete piers.To the rest of the world, it was just a temporary power surge—a minor grid glitch that meteorologists would dismiss by evening.Zaid stood near the doorway, he had excused himself and went up to his penthouse apartment moments after the glitch ended to pick up something, his broad frame relaxed, though his sharp hazel eyes remained pinned on Betony. He didn't ask her why she hadn't panicked when the lights went out. He didn't question her about the reinforced steel door frame being installed or the heavy 4x4 diesel truck parked in her assigned spa