All Chapters of Rewinding The Apocalypse: My System Send Me To The Future: Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

Zinnia (POV)."Dorian, darling, close your eyes and hold out your hands, because your favorite fiancée just braved forty-five minutes of gridlock holiday traffic to bring you a custom-engraved platinum chronograph and a double-layered Belgian chocolate truffle cake!" I announce brightly, balancing a towering stack of gold-foiled Christmas gift boxes in my left arm while turning the spare brass key in the lock of Dorian Ashcroft’s penthouse door.The heavy mahogany door swings open smoothly into a dimly lit foyer scented heavily with vanilla candles,peppermint room spray, and an unmistakably weird, musky perfume that smells suspiciously like cheap department store honeysuckle."Hello? Dorian? Did you fall asleep watching holiday baking specials again, or are you hiding in the kitchen eating my peppermint bark before dinner?" I call out cheerfully, kicking off my snow-dusted leather boots onto the marble tile and strolling down the central hallway toward the master bedroom with my arms

[CHRONOS CHRISTMAS SYSTEM ACTIVATED. INITIATING EMERGENCY TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT: PLUS TWENTY YEARS.]A blinding sphere of electric-blue light detonates around my body just as the burning warehouse roof caves inward, swallowing the roaring flames whole and hurling me sideways through an invisible tunnel of freezing static. My stomach lurches violently as gravity flips upside down three times in a row, and an instant later, I slam face-first into a three-foot drift of dirty, ice-crusted snow."Gah! Cold! Freezing! What in the name of—cough, cough—where did the fire go?!" I gasp, scrambling up onto my knees and spitting freezing grey slush out of my mouth while slapping snow off my singed wool coat.Around me, the roaring warehouse inferno has vanished completely. Instead, I am kneeling in the middle of a shattered, snow-buried six-lane avenue lined with half-collapsed skyscrapers whose broken windows yawn like jagged black teeth against a bruised, slate-grey sky. Shredded red-and-green

BANG! CRASH!The heavy steel storage door finally gives up the ghost, bursting inward off its rusted hinges as the six-foot shelving unit packed with canned pumpkin puree topples sideways across the concrete floor like a timbered redwood."Oh, marvelous! Welcome to Zinnia’s House of Pain, please wipe your rotting feet on the canned squash before attempting to eat my face!" I yell at the top of my lungs, vaulting onto an overturned wooden pallet while gripping my ten-inch serrated chef’s knife with both white-knuckled hands.Three rotting zombies tumble into the cramped storage room in a tangled heap of torn winter coats, blackened fingernails, and holiday tinsel. The nearest one—a gaunt, grey-skinned man wearing a crooked plastic reindeer headband and a blood-soaked supermarket apron—scrambles upright first, lunging straight at my shins with a wet, rattling hiss."Back off, Rudolph, your nose isn't red—that’s just dried arterial spray!" I shout, swinging my chef’s knife in a wild hori

SWOOSH!The blinding column of white light dissolves so fast my eyes practically pop out of their sockets, and I hit the floor with a heavy THUD.Instead of ice-crusted asphalt or burnt supermarket linoleum, my cheek presses squarely against the plush Persian rug inside Dorian’s living room. The warm scent of vanilla candles and roasted pine nuts fills my nose.The roaring fireplace is still crackling softly, popping a tiny ember onto the hearth like nothing ever happened.I sit up instantly, gasping for air and waving my arms wildly in front of my face. "Don't bite me! I have ten thousand volts and zero tolerance for holiday carnivores!"Silence greets me.No snarling corpses. No howling arctic wind. No crying survivors holding frying pans.I glance down at my wrists. The dark soot stains, the torn leather jacket sleeve where the zombie claw snapped at me, and the deep, angry red scrapes on my elbows from falling through the storage room door are all still right there."Wait a second.