The Last Of Us Returns
Three years after the apocalypse began, Damon was betrayed by his own wife and thrown from the walls of the survivor base he helped build. As the infected tore him apart, Celeste watched from the arms of her lover.
Then Damon woke up thirty days before the outbreak.
With a second chance at life and memories of everything he lost, Damon files for divorce, cuts ties with the Sterling family, and prepares for the end of the world. The strange ability that came back with him may be his greatest weapon. Anything he has touched can be moved to a place he has stood before.
He uses his knowledge of the future to build a fortune, secure food and supplies, and save the people he failed to protect in his first life. This time, his mother, his best friend, and the others he once lost will have a chance to survive.
But Damon isn’t the only one preparing for the apocalypse.
Celeste’s father has spent years studying Damon’s blood, and the secret behind his ability may be connected to the outbreak itself. Worse, Grant, the man who helped destroy Damon’s life, has returned with memories of the future.
Damon knows how the world ends.
Now he must find out who else knows, and how far they are willing to go to control what comes next.
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Chapter: 8Chapter 8Damon didn't let Grant reach the doors.He thought about the pallet of canned tomatoes he had touched in Lena's warehouse, and the concrete under his own feet, and half a ton of cans crashed down between Grant and the exit. Grant stopped with one boot an inch from the pile."Say my mother's name again," Damon said, wiping blood from his nose. "Go ahead."Grant looked at the cans, then laughed and stepped around them. "Nice trick, Quartermaster. Let's see how long you can keep it up."When his car was gone, Damon turned around. Martha stood in the van doorway holding her insulin box. She had heard all of it."What happened on the ninth day?" she asked.He told her in three sentences, because she deserved the truth. She couldn’t dare to cry. She put the box in her cardigan pocket, said, "Then I'd better not die this time," and went inside to find a kettle.By morning, the Northgate story was gone.Sterling Pharmaceuticals put out a statement before breakfast. One mentally ill
Last Updated: 2026-10-22
Chapter: 7Chapter 7 "Turn it up," Damon said.Benji turned the radio up with a shaking hand. The newsreader's voice filled the yard over the sound of the fire hoses."...the officer was taken to St. Anne's Hospital, where staff say he became violent shortly after arrival. Police have closed Northgate station and are asking residents in the area to stay indoors. Sterling Pharmaceuticals has not responded to requests for comment...""St. Anne's," Damon said. "That's in the middle of the city.""Is that bad?" Benji asked. "Tell me that's not bad.""It's bad."Lena still had her thumb over the call button. She looked from the radio to Damon, and he watched her put it together, the twenty-seven days, the steel doors, don't open them for anyone named Sterling."This is it," she said. "This is the thing you told me about.""Yes.""You said twenty-seven days.""It was supposed to be twenty-four now. It's early." He stood up off the curb, and his head swam, and he had to grab the side of the van. "Get
Last Updated: 2026-10-22
Chapter: 6Chapter 6Damon picked up his wine, drank half of it, and set the glass back down."No," he said.Celeste didn't blink. "No?""I'm not your partner, I'm not your husband, and I'm not your science project." He stood and buttoned his jacket. "If you really want to know what's coming, go ask your father what's on the fourth floor at Northgate. Ask him how many of those eleven patients have died and gotten back up."For the first time since he had known her, Celeste's face went completely blank.At the door, Grant stepped into his path. Celeste told him to move, and when he didn't, she said his name once, cold enough to make him step aside. As Damon passed, Grant leaned in and said quietly, so she couldn't hear, "Twenty-four days, Damon. Tick tock."Damon kept walking, but in the elevator he had to lean against the wall to stop his hands from shaking. Grant knew the date.His phone buzzed. Benji, out of breath. "We got her. She's fine, she's yelling at me for driving too fast, but a black
Last Updated: 2026-10-22
Chapter: 5Chapter 5 Damon spent the next two days at the warehouse, testing what he could and couldn't do.He found out on Thursday morning that living things wouldn't move. A mouse ran across the loading floor, and he had touched it by accident chasing it out from under a pallet, but no matter how hard he pushed, it stayed exactly where it was, twitching its nose at him. He couldn't move himself either. He tried twenty times, standing in the middle of the warehouse with his eyes shut and his whole body aching, until Lena walked in and asked why he was standing in the middle of the floor with his fists clenched making constipated faces.So he couldn't just pull his mother out of the Sterling clinic. He would have to do it the hard way."The hard way," Benji said on Friday afternoon, sitting in the van outside the clinic with a stack of papers on his knees, "is me walking into a fancy hospital with Lena's uncle's lawyer and pretending I know what I'm doing.""You don't have to pretend anything.
Last Updated: 2026-10-22
Chapter: 4Chapter 4 Damon could have lied to her. He had a dozen easy lies ready, and Lena was looking at him with her arms crossed and her jaw tight, waiting to catch every one of them."I'll tell you something true," he said. "And you're going to think I'm crazy.""I already think you're crazy. You paid four hundred thousand for my dad's stores and then felt up every pallet in the warehouse."Benji choked on a chip."In twenty-seven days, something is going to happen to this city," Damon said. "People are going to get sick, and they're going to turn violent, and it's going to spread faster than anyone can stop it. When it starts, I want you and Max inside this warehouse with the steel doors locked. Don't open them for anyone named Sterling. Don't open them for Jace, no matter what he says or what he promises you."Lena stared at him. "Something is going to happen," she repeated slowly. "In twenty-seven days.""Yes.""How do you know that?""I can't tell you yet.""Of course you can't." She p
Last Updated: 2026-10-22
Chapter: 3Chapter 3 Damon looked at the wet keys on the counter, then up at Celeste."Jace keeps his keys in his left pocket," he said. "He was leaning over me pouring wine. They probably fell out, somebody kicked them, and a waiter tossed them in the tank so he wouldn't get blamed.""That's a good answer," Celeste said. "You've had all weekend to come up with it.""It's the truth.""It isn't, and we both know it." She picked the keys back up and dropped them into her pocket. "You don't have to tell me today. I'll find out myself, and you know I will, because I always do.""Then I guess you'll be busy for a while."Jace shoved past his sister and grabbed the front of Damon's shirt. He smelled of old whiskey, and his eyes were bloodshot. "You think you're smart now? You think one lucky bet makes you somebody? Two days ago you were washing my car."Damon looked down at the hand on his shirt. "Your sister's watching, Jace. Do you want her to see what happens next?"Jace's grip tightened, and for
Last Updated: 2026-10-22
