My Apocalypse Godhood Begins With A Gift

I Will Watch Them Suffer

Lucy sat on the white leather sofa and stared at her phone screen. The banking application remained open on her lap. The seven digits glowed brightly against the stark white background of the digital ledger. She refreshed the page four times in rapid succession, secretly hoping the screen would glitch and reveal a zero balance. The million dollars sat stubbornly in her account. The transaction memo labeled "Severance Pay" mocked her directly.

Chase Perry walked over to the mahogany side table and poured two glasses of scotch. He handed one to Lucy and sat down beside her, crossing his legs casually.

"You are overthinking this," Chase said, taking a slow sip of the amber liquid. "He did not earn that money. He probably stole a winning lottery ticket or stumbled into a shady offshore account error. It is just a massive, desperate bluff to scare you into backing down from the divorce."

Lucy took the crystal glass but did not drink. She looked at the heavy front door Rex had walked through less than an hour ago.

"A million dollars is not a standard bluff," Lucy replied. Her voice wavered slightly, betraying her anxiety. "Director Shaw authorized the wire transfer personally. You saw the way the executive bowed to him. Rex looked entirely different. He did not look like the man who cleans our floors or washes my car."

Chase chuckled and leaned back deep into the plush cushions. He categorically refused to entertain the idea that the subservient errand boy possessed genuine institutional power.

"He is a loser, Lucy," Chase insisted firmly. "He threw away his entire stolen net worth just to make a dramatic exit in front of us. He will be begging on the street by next week when reality sets in. You do not need to worry about his cheap parlor tricks. Once my supply company closes our next massive sale, I will invest heavily in your fashion boutique. You will never have to think about his pathetic existence again."

Lucy finally took a sip of the scotch. The sharp burn grounded her racing thoughts. She nodded slowly, letting Chase rebuild her fragile ego with promises of corporate wealth.

Chase's phone began to vibrate violently on the glass coffee table. The caller identification displayed the official crest of the Central Reserve VIP division. Chase sat up straight, clearing his throat to project his practiced corporate tone before answering the call.

"This is Chase Perry," he answered smoothly.

"Mr. Perry," Director Shaw said over the speaker. The executive sounded strictly professional and entirely devoid of the fierce anger he displayed in the foyer earlier. "I am facilitating a bulk acquisition on behalf of an anonymous foreign investment group. They require immediate procurement of municipal infrastructure materials."

Chase smiled widely at Lucy and gestured to the phone. "We can certainly accommodate a bulk order. What specific materials does your client need to acquire?"

"They require twenty thousand tons of steel rebar," Shaw listed without hesitation. "They also need fifty thousand barrels of industrial thermal foam and five hundred commercial diesel generators. The order totals exactly fifty million dollars."

Chase froze completely. The glass of scotch slipped slightly in his sweaty grip. Fifty million dollars was not a standard quarterly deal. It was enough capital to clear out his entire warehousing district and double his corporate valuation overnight. These were basic construction items, but the sheer volume requested was staggering.

"Fifty million," Chase repeated, his voice cracking slightly. He quickly cleared his throat to regain his composure. "We currently have that inventory sitting in our secondary stockyards. When does the client want to initiate the transfer?"

"The funds have already been deposited into your corporate escrow account," Shaw stated flatly. "The client demands immediate access to the materials. They will send their private logistics team to your primary warehouse tomorrow morning to claim the goods."

"The inventory will be ready," Chase promised eagerly.

Shaw ended the call without offering a goodbye. Chase stared at the blank screen for a full ten seconds before leaping off the sofa.

"Did you hear that?" Chase shouted, slamming his fist onto the coffee table in pure excitement. "Fifty million dollars paid in full. Some foreign billionaire just bought out my entire dead stock at a massive premium. I told you we were moving into an entirely different league."

Lucy smiled broadly, the lingering anxiety of Rex's departure fading under the massive shadow of fifty million dollars. She stood up and hugged him tightly.

"Get your coat," Chase commanded, grabbing his luxury car keys from the table. "We need to go to the company headquarters right now and authorize the release forms for tomorrow morning. Follow me, and I will transfer an initial investment into your business account by Friday."

They walked out the front door of the Clark estate and stopped dead in their tracks.

Oakwood Drive was engulfed in total, unprecedented chaos. Three moving trucks idled along the curb, completely blocking the residential lane. Dozens of professional movers carried heavy wooden furniture, flat screen televisions, and designer wardrobes across the manicured lawns. Wealthy residents sprinted between their massive houses and their luxury cars with panicked urgency.

Chase frowned and walked aggressively down the driveway. He spotted Mrs. Higgins directing a pair of sweating movers hauling a grand piano out of her front door.

"What is going on here?" Chase called out, dodging a worker carrying a tall stack of cardboard boxes. "Are they evacuating the street?"

Mrs. Higgins paused and wiped sweat from her forehead. She looked at Chase with a mixture of physical exhaustion and profound, unapologetic greed.

"No evacuation," Mrs. Higgins answered breathlessly. "Some crazy big shot billionaire is buying up the entire street. He offered me five million dollars for my house and demanded we vacate by sunset. Immediate payment. Mr. Henderson just sold his place right after me."

Chase stared at her in sheer disbelief. "Five million dollars? Your house is barely appraised at two million. Who in their right mind is paying those drastically inflated prices?"

"I do not know and I do not care," Mrs. Higgins admitted, waving her hand dismissively toward the moving trucks. "The Central Reserve legal team handled the paperwork right on my porch. The money cleared my account ten minutes ago. I am incredibly rich."

She turned her back on Chase and started shouting orders at the movers again.

Chase scoffed loudly and shook his head. He looked down the busy street at the frantic homeowners abandoning their pristine properties.

"What an absolute idiot," Chase mocked, opening the door to his sports car. "Only a stupid, impulsive amateur throws away capital like that on inflated suburban real estate. He will be bankrupt in a year. Come on, Lucy. Let us go manage some actual corporate wealth."

Lucy climbed into the passenger seat, casting one last confused glance at the frantic neighborhood before Chase sped away toward the commercial district.

Across the neighborhood, Rex stood on the empty back patio of the former Higgins estate. He watched the sun begin its slow descent toward the tree line. His new phone buzzed heavily in his pocket. He answered the call instantly.

"Mr. Lawson," Director Shaw said over the secure line. "I have an official update on the property acquisitions."

"Proceed," Rex ordered.

"We successfully closed on five houses this afternoon," Shaw reported. The banker sounded slightly breathless, clearly managing a massive team of corporate lawyers. "The deeds are permanently registered under your name. However, the news spread rapidly through the local homeowners association. We currently have ten more people demanding to sell their properties today. At this rate, you will own the entire Oakwood estate by the end of the week."

Rex rested his hands on the stone railing overlooking the sprawling backyard. The perimeter was coming together much faster than he anticipated.

"Do not wait until the end of the week," Rex instructed calmly. "Deploy more legal teams to the neighborhood tomorrow morning. Set up a dedicated processing center right here in the Higgins living room. I want every single house bought and emptied as fast as possible."

"Sir," Shaw hesitated, his corporate caution bleeding into his professional tone. "The residents are realizing you hold a monopoly on the purchasing power. They are drastically inflating their asking prices to exploit the situation. If we proceed at this pace, we will be paying severe premiums."

"I do not care about the premiums," Rex said flatly. "I am willing to go up to three times the current market price. Pay whatever they ask, as long as they surrender the keys and leave the property immediately."

Shaw fell entirely silent for a moment. He tried to process the sheer magnitude of the financial loss Rex was willingly accepting on residential real estate.

"I will authorize the multiplier," Shaw finally agreed. "But if you do not mind me asking, why are you pursuing this specific estate so aggressively? There are far more secure private islands or remote mountain compounds available on the global market for a fraction of the cost."

Rex laughed. The sound was incredibly cold and devoid of any real humor.

"You will all see soon enough," Rex replied.

He ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. He turned away from the railing and walked back inside the empty mansion. His footsteps echoed loudly off the bare marble floors. He walked into the grand foyer and locked the heavy mahogany door, securing his new command center.

His mind drifted back to the apocalyptic nightmare. The memory played in his head with vivid, terrifying clarity.

When the eternal ice age struck the world, society did not collapse uniformly. The government prioritized specific high net worth neighborhoods for immediate relief, infrastructure support, and military protection. Oakwood Drive was one of those designated safe zones. In his premonition, the military had established heavily armed supply checkpoints at the end of this exact street. They dropped ration crates, medical supplies, and thermal heaters directly to the wealthy residents.

Meanwhile, Rex had frozen to death on a concrete porch while Lucy and Chase enjoyed government subsidized premium steaks inside a heated bunker.

These people had treated him with cruel disdain for three long years. They mocked his cheap clothes, his poor background, and his quiet subservience. They viewed him as an insect.

By aggressively purchasing their houses today, he was altering their immediate future. The real estate market in the affluent sectors moved notoriously slow. It took over thirty days to close on a new mansion, undergo financial background checks, and finalize the strict neighborhood association approvals.

The homeowners currently stuffing millions of dollars into their bank accounts had nowhere permanent to go. By evicting them at sunset, they would be forced to rent luxury hotel suites or lease temporary apartments in the lower commercial districts while they hunted for new estates.

The apocalypse arrived in exactly thirty days.

When the global temperature plummeted to negative sixty degrees, the government would inevitably lock down Oakwood Drive to protect the new sole owner of the estate. The former residents would be permanently trapped in vulnerable, unfortified commercial zones with paper money that possessed absolutely zero heating value. Millions of dollars in a checking account could not start a fire.

Rex walked into the empty living room and stared out the large bay window. He watched his former neighbors eagerly pack their vehicles and drive away from the only physical sanctuary that could save their lives.

When the ice finally came, he would sit in his heated fortress and watch them suffer.