The broadcast ca three days later.
I was in the kitchen making tea when Xu Zhenlan turned on the television in the living room. The sound drifted through the doorway—the familiar cadence of a governnt announcent, the kind that tried to sound reassuring while delivering news that wasn’t.
"—urge citizens to remain calm. The infection, while spreading faster than initially projected, is still contained to isolated regions—"
My hand stopped mid-pour.
The kettle hung suspended over the cup, steam rising in lazy spirals.
Faster than initially projected.
I set the kettle down carefully and walked to the doorway.
On the screen, a governnt official stood behind a podium, her expression professionally neutral. Behind her, a map displayed red zones spreading across regions that should have been yellow. Should have stayed yellow for another eleven days.
"—increased reports of aggressive behavior in affected individuals. We recomnd avoiding unnecessary travel to the following areas—"
The list scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Cities I recognized and even places that hadn’t been on the list in my previous life.
Not yet at least... not for another week and a half.
My chest tightened.
I knew this was a possibility, but that didn’t an I was happy about it. Sothing was wrong.
The tiline had changed.
"—dical facilities are prepared to handle the increased caseload. There is no need for panic buying or—"
I turned away from the television and walked back to the kitchen. My tea sat forgotten on the counter, steam still rising from the cup. I stared at it, my mind racing through dates, events, the careful sequence I’d morized from living through this once before.
The first broadcast had been on April 14th. Isolated incidents. Nothing to worry about.
The second broadcast—the one acknowledging faster spread—had been on April 25th.
Today was April 18th.
Seven days early.
Seven days I’d been counting on. Seven days of careful, thodical preparation. Seven days to finish stocking dical supplies, to reinforce the basent, to make sure everything was ready.
Gone up in smoke along with my carefully laid plans.
I picked up my phone and checked the date again, like the numbers might have changed. Like I might have miscounted.
April 18th.
The infection was accelerating.
Which ant everything else would accelerate too.
The collapse. The chaos. The mont when society stopped pretending it could hold itself together.
I had less ti than I thought.
Possibly much less.
I set the phone down and looked around the kitchen. Clean counters. Organized cabinets. Everything in its place. It looked normal. Safe. Like the world outside wasn’t about to tear itself apart.
But I knew better.
I’d lived through this before. I knew what ca next. The panic. The violence. The desperate scramble for resources when people finally realized the governnt couldn’t save them.
And now it was probably not going to wait until May 6th to truly hit.
I needed to move. Now.
I was on pins and needles all day, and that night, I waited until Zhenlan went to his study and Chenghai settled into his usual position by the front door. The house was quiet since it was so late, the kind of stillness that felt deceptive.
Temporary.
I didn’t tell them I was leaving.
I just went.
The back door closed silently behind . I moved through the garden, over the wall, into the alley beyond. No car. No driver. No bodyguard shadowing my steps.
Just and the city and the knowledge that I was running out of ti.
The first pharmacy was an hour walk away from the house. The storefront was dark, the gates pulled down, and the sign flipped to CLOSED. The city was sleeping, and I was going to take full advantage of it.
But I didn’t need them to be open.
I didn’t slow my pace. As I passed, I reached out with my space, no longer willing to put on an act. I hadn’t tried this before, but desperate tis and all that.
Taking in a deep breath, I pulled everything inside the store into my space.
Antibiotics. Antivirals. Pain dication. Antiseptics. Bandages. Sutures. Surgical gloves. Through the walls, through the locked doors, through the very air itself—it all ca to . Silent. Instant. Complete.
I glanced through the window as I moved past.
The shelves inside were empty. Completely bare. Even the products behind the pharmacy counter, the ones locked away in cabinets—gone. The security caras would show nothing but vacant shelves appearing in the span of a heartbeat.
I kept walking.
The second pharmacy was four blocks north, its neon sign dark, its parking lot empty. I passed it without breaking stride.
Cold dicine. Cough syrup. Vitamins. First aid kits. Thermoters. Blood pressure monitors. The refrigerated section with insulin and vaccines. The drawers behind the counter with controlled substances.
All of it pulled through the walls and into my space.
Gone.
Every last item.
I could feel the weight of it accumulating in that impossible place—thousands of products, tons of supplies, all existing sowhere that wasn’t quite here. The space didn’t care about physics. It didn’t care about walls or locks or property rights.
It just took what I told it to take.
The third pharmacy had a security guard’s car parked outside. Night shift. He was probably inside, making his rounds, checking that everything was secure.
He had no idea that as I walked past on the sidewalk across the street, everything he was guarding ceased to exist.
The shelves. The inventory. The stock room in back. The samples. The displays. Even the dical equipnt they rented out—crutches, wheelchairs, nebulizers.
Empty.
All of it.
I wondered what he’d think when he turned around and found himself standing in a completely gutted store. Would he think he was losing his mind? Would he check the caras and see the impossible—fully stocked shelves one mont, bare the next, with no one entering or leaving?
Let him wonder.
I had more important things to do.
Grocery stores were next.
The first one was a twenty-four-hour location, but it was closed for overnight restocking. The lights were on inside, but the doors were locked, the parking lot empty except for a few employee vehicles around back.
I walked along the sidewalk that ran past the building’s length.
Canned goods. Dried pasta. Rice. Flour. Sugar. Salt. Cooking oil. Spices. Everything that would last, everything that could be stored, everything that would keep alive when the world outside stopped functioning.
Aisle by aisle, as I passed, I pulled it all through.
The canned vegetables. The soup. The tuna and salmon. The peanut butter and jelly. The crackers and cookies. The cereal. The coffee and tea. The bottled water—every single gallon, every single case.
The frozen section. The dairy section. The produce—even though it wouldn’t last, I took it anyway. The at departnt. The bakery. The deli.
Everything.
I didn’t discriminate. I didn’t leave so much as a chocolate bar at the checkout counter.
By the ti I reached the end of the building, the store was a hollow shell. Empty shelves. Empty coolers. Empty freezers. Just a building full of fixtures and nothing else.
I hit two more grocery stores in rapid succession, walking past their darkened storefronts with the sa steady pace. A small family-owned market. A discount food warehouse. Both closed. Both locked up tight.
Both completely emptied as I passed.
The supply shops and hardware stores ca next.
I walked through the comrcial district as the sky began to lighten, the first hints of dawn touching the horizon. Every closed storefront I passed beca a hollow shell.
Batteries. Flashlights. Portable stoves. Water purification tablets. Rope. Tarps. Duct tape. Tools. Generators. Propane tanks. Lumber. Nails. Screws. Paint. Everything in the camping section. Everything in the automotive section. Everything in the garden section.
A sporting goods store lost every tent, every sleeping bag, every piece of survival gear.
A pharmacy chain lost every dication, every supplent, every first aid supply across three locations.
A camping outfitter lost everything from backpacks to freeze-dried als to water filters.
I walked past them all, my hands in my pockets, my expression blank, and I took everything they had.
The security caras would show the impossible. Fully stocked stores one mont. Completely bare the next. No doors opening. No one entering. Just... emptiness appearing like a magic trick.
But it wasn’t magic.
It was power.
It was .
And I wasn’t giving anything back.
The city blurred around —streetlights and storefronts and the occasional pedestrian who didn’t look twice at the woman walking alone through the night. I moved fast, covering ground quickly, hitting stores across a wide area so no single location would be completely stripped.
Not that it mattered.
In a few days, they’d all be empty anyway.
People would panic. They’d rush the stores, fighting over the last cans of soup, the last bottles of water, the last packages of batteries. They’d tear each other apart for resources that wouldn’t save them.
But I’d already taken mine.
I returned ho just before dawn.
The house was still quiet. Zhenlan’s study light was off. Chenghai had moved from the front door to the couch, his eyes closed, his breathing even.
Neither of them knew I’d left.
Good.
I went straight to the basent.
The space was already partially prepared—reinforced walls, sealed windows, supplies stacked in organized rows. But it wasn’t enough. Not anymore.
I moved through the room thodically, checking every seal, every barrier, every access point.
The door was solid, but I reinforced it anyway, adding extra locks, extra bolts, making sure nothing could force its way through. The windows were small and high, but I covered them with tal sheets, welding them in place with equipnt I’d taken from a hardware store weeks ago.
The ventilation system needed filters. Better ones. I installed three layers, each designed to catch progressively smaller particles. Air could get in. Nothing else.
The walls were concrete, but I checked them anyway, running my hands along the surface, feeling for cracks, for weak points, for anywhere sothing might break through.
Nothing.
Solid.
I moved to the supplies next, reorganizing them with a speed that bordered on frantic. dical supplies in one corner. Food in another. Water along the back wall. Weapons within easy reach.
Everything had to be accessible. Everything had to be ready.
Because I didn’t know how much ti I had left.
Hours passed. The sky outside lightened from black to gray to pale blue. My hands moved automatically, stacking, sorting, checking, rechecking.
When I finally stopped, the basent looked like it always had, but I knew better.
It was a bunker.
Which was exactly what it needed to be.
I climbed the stairs and locked the door behind . My phone sat on the kitchen counter where I’d left it. I picked it up and checked the date again.
April 19th.
The broadcast had said the infection was spreading faster than expected.
But how much faster?
In my previous life, the collapse had co on May 6th. Twenty-two days from the first broadcast. Twenty-two days of escalating chaos across the world before everything fell apart completely.
But if the tiline had shifted—if events were accelerating—then May 6th might not be the date anymore.
It could be sooner.
Much sooner.
I stared at the screen, at the numbers that suddenly felt aningless.
April19th.
But how many days until the end?
I didn’t know.
For the first ti since I’d woken up in this second life, I didn’t know exactly when the world would end.
And that uncertainty was more terrifying than anything I’d faced before.
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