Reborn 7 Days Before Doomsday: Sovereign of the Infinite For

Chapter 1

"Just keep running, Norman, don't you dare stop!" he roared inside his head, his heavy boots slamming into the cracked pavement as twenty starved zombies shrieked right at his heels.

Two years of hell in ruined Southport had taught him that fresh blood meant death, and right now, his torn leg was painting the dry road crimson. He squeezed his bruised ribs tight around the heavy canvas sack, clutching thirty cans of food as if his very life depended on every ounce.

Three blocks back, a jagged piece of rusted rebar had sliced clean through his left calf, cutting the muscle open to the bone. Every desperate stride sent white-hot fire shooting up his leg, but dropping the bag was never an option.

If he let go of this food, Elena and her family would starve.

The crushing guilt in his chest hurt a thousand times worse than the monsters snapping at his back. Just last week, his mother had supposedly walked out into the horde to save their dwindling rations, leaving him drowning in sorrow. He had failed to protect his own mother, and that grief drove him to crawl into an infested depot alone, swinging an iron pipe through the dead just to keep his wife alive.

For four agonizing days, Elena had huddled in the corner of their locked apartment, weeping that her stomach was tearing itself apart from hunger. Her brother Damian had claimed he was too dizzy to stand, while his mother-in-law Beatrice cursed the empty kitchen in misery. "Hold on, Elena, I made it," Norman gasped through split lips, his vision blurring with sweat as he rounded the corner of Maple Street.

Ahead stood Greenfield Court, their apartment complex, heavily fortified behind thick concrete barriers and jagged iron spikes. The ground-floor lobby was built like a bunker, shielded by reinforced steel frames and thick security glass.

Norman threw his battered body against the locked glass door, leaving two wide, red handprints across the pane. Through the clear glass, two figures stepped out from behind the shade of the security desk. It was his wife Elena and her younger brother Damian, looking clean and untouched by the horror outside.

A wave of relief washed through Norman's chest, nearly dropping him to his knees on the concrete landing. He rapped his bloody knuckles against the steel frame, desperate for them to unlock the door. "Elena! Damian! Open up, the zombies are right on my heels!" Norman shouted, his voice cracking with exhaustion.

Elena stood in a clean white sweater, her hair combed neatly over her shoulders without a single speck of dust. Beside her, Damian held an iron crowbar, watching the street through the glass with calm, indifferent eyes. Damian walked forward at a relaxed pace, his clean sneakers tapping quietly against the polished lobby floor.

He reached up and twisted the upper deadbolt, pulling the heavy latch back with a sharp, metallic clack. Norman leaned his shoulder forward, ready to slip through the gap the second the frame swung open. "Take the bag first, my leg is shredded and I can barely stand," Norman breathed, his vision swimming with sweat.

Damian did not push the door open to pull him into safety. He cracked the frame only three inches, keeping his broad shoulder firmly braced behind the reinforced steel jamb. His hand shot through the narrow opening like a snake, ripping the heavy canvas sack straight out of Norman’s grip.

Before Norman could even speak, Damian raised his heavy combat boot and kicked him viciously in the chest. The brutal blow drove the air completely out of Norman's lungs, throwing him backward down the stone steps. The heavy glass door slammed shut with a dull boom, and Damian calmly slid all three deadbolts into place.

Norman crashed hard onto the scorching asphalt, spitting blood as sharp agony tore through his cracked ribs. He scrambled frantically through the dirt on his hands and knees, dragging his ruined calf back up to the entrance. His palms slammed flat against the reinforced pane, his dark eyes burning straight into Damian's smirking face.

"Damian, what the hell are you doing?!" Norman barked, his voice hard and furious despite the pain in his chest. "Unlock the door right now, the pack is turning the corner!" Fifty yards down the avenue, the fastest zombies sprinted toward the stairs, their milky eyes locked on the fresh blood.

Norman looked past the man toward his wife, his jaw tight as he waited for her to step in. "Elena, move him out of the way and unlock the door," Norman demanded, his bloody fingers gripping the cold handle. Elena did not take a single step toward the locks, her painted mouth curving into a cold, amused smirk.

She walked over and slid her slender arms around Damian's waist, resting her cheek comfortably against his chest. Damian wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her close like he had done it a thousand times before. Norman stared at them through the clear glass, his mind going dead cold as the brutal reality set in.

Damian reached out with his free hand and pressed down on the red intercom button beside the doorframe. Static crackled through the small speaker mounted above the entrance, carrying Damian’s calm, mocking drawl into the street. "You really think we’re letting a bleeding liability inside, Norman? Thanks for the haul, man, you were always such an obedient mule."

Norman stood tall against the glass, his voice dropping into a low, lethal gravel despite his bleeding leg. "Damian, you're her brother," Norman said, his eyes drilling into the man's face. "What kind of twisted game are you playing?"

Elena leaned into the microphone, letting out a laugh that sounded sharper than broken glass. "Brother?" Elena scoffed, shaking her head like she was talking to an utter fool. "You really are as stupid as you look, Norman."

She ran her fingers slowly down Damian's chest, resting her chin on his broad shoulder with a smug grin. "Damian has been my lover since long before I ever knew your name," Elena said through the speaker. "We grew up on the same block, and we shared your bed while you worked twelve-hour shifts at the docks."

The confession hit like a hammer, but Norman did not drop his head; he kept his eyes locked on her face. "You told me he was an orphan with nowhere to go," Norman said, his voice level and cold as ice. "You swore on your life that he was your only living family."

Elena sneered, pressing her hands against the inside of the glass as she looked at him with pure contempt. "If I didn't say that, would an uneducated laborer like you have let him move into your house?" Elena said, her eyes devoid of warmth. "I only married you because your filthy rich father died and left his massive corporate empire to a lost, illiterate son."

"You actually thought a woman like me fell in love with a poor stray who couldn't even read a contract?" Elena mocked, her lips curling in disgust. "We swarmed you from day one just to siphon your father's millions, and when the world collapsed, you became our free pack mule."

Heavy slippers slapped against the floor tiles as a third figure came scurrying down the lobby hallway. Beatrice arrived wearing a clean silk bathrobe, her eyes lighting up with manic greed the moment she saw the canvas sack in Damian's hands.

"Food! Real food!" Beatrice squealed with joy, shoving past Elena to snatch the heavy bag. She tore open the canvas flap, pulled out a can of braised beef, and popped the metal pull-tab with a loud hiss.

Without even waiting for a fork, Beatrice dug her dirty fingers straight into the can, shoving a massive chunk of greasy meat into her mouth. Thick broth dribbled down her double chin as she chewed ravenously, letting out a satisfied groan. "Oh, thank heaven! Good meat! I was so sick of eating dry crackers!"

Norman watched his mother-in-law gorging on the food he had nearly died to retrieve, his jaw clenched until his teeth ground together. Then, a sickening thought pierced through his rage, striking the rawest nerve in his body.

He leaned against the glass, his voice dropping into a harsh, trembling whisper. "My mother... last week, you told me she walked out into the horde to save our rations."

Beatrice swallowed her mouthful of beef and pushed Damian aside, shoving her greasy face right up to the microphone. "Walked out on her own?" Beatrice cackled with shrill, mocking laughter. "That useless old cripple was coughing day and night, whining about her sore knees and eating up our supplies!"

Norman’s eyes narrowed into deadly slits, a thick vein throbbing violently against his temple. "What did you do to her, Beatrice?"

"We got tired of waiting for her to die," Damian cut in, resting his elbow on the desk with an arrogant grin. "The three of us planned it the second you left for the harbor. We weren't going to waste another can of soup on an old bag who couldn't even carry her own weight."

Elena stepped closer to the glass, a cruel smile dancing on her lips as she joined in without a shred of shame. "She begged for mercy, Norman. She grabbed my ankles on the hallway floor, crying and screaming for you to save her."

"We didn't listen to a single word," Beatrice snickered, licking beef grease from her fingers. "Elena grabbed her arms, Damian held her legs, and I shoved her right over the third-floor fire escape railing! All three of us gave her one big push together!"

"She screamed your name all the way down to the pavement," Damian laughed through the speaker. "The zombies in the alley swarmed her before she could even stand up. They ripped her apart in less than two minutes."

The breath left Norman's lungs in one cold, violent shock as the monstrous truth shattered his soul. Every sacrifice, every scrap of food he had given up, every drop of blood he had shed for these people—they had taken it all and butchered his mother like garbage.

"All three of you... threw my mother to the dead," Norman breathed, the words carrying a weight so lethal the air itself seemed to freeze.

Elena did not flinch; she leaned up and pressed her lips against Damian’s cheek right in front of the window. "She was useless, Norman, just like you," Elena said smoothly. "Now that you brought us thirty cans of food, Damian, Mom, and I have enough to last until the military clears the district."

Damian let go of the intercom button, giving Norman a mocking wave of his fingers before turning back toward the stairs. Beatrice giggled, clutching two more cans of beef against her chest as the three of them strolled toward the upper floors together.

The speaker clicked dead, leaving only the sound of their laughter echoing through the lobby. Behind Norman, the frantic shrieks of the zombie pack tore up the concrete steps.

Norman did not cower or freeze. The grief in his chest exploded into pure, blackened fury as he spun around with a roar, swinging his heavy iron wrench into the lead zombie’s skull with a sickening crack.

The monster dropped like a stone, black blood spraying across his face as a second zombie lunged for his throat. Norman sidestepped on his shredded calf, completely ignoring the blinding agony, and drove the iron tool through the creature’s jaw, snapping bone and knocking it off the landing.

Even starved, exhausted, and bleeding to death, the fighter in him refused to die on his knees. But there were simply too many.

A massive, mutated zombie slammed into his wounded side, knocking the heavy wrench from his fingers. Three more rotting beasts piled onto his chest, their dead weight driving him flat against the stone floor. Jagged, blackened teeth sank deep into his shoulder, tearing away flesh while sharp claws raked across his ribs and stomach.

Norman did not scream. He planted his bloody palms into the stone, forcing his chin up through the gore running down his face.

Through the clear glass, Beatrice was already climbing the second-floor stairs, happily shoveling more meat into her mouth while Elena leaned against Damian's arm, laughing at some private joke. They didn't look back once.

Hot blood poured from Norman's torn throat, pooling beneath his broken body as the monsters tore into him. Every drop of sweat, every lie he had swallowed, and every ounce of devotion had been repaid with his mother's murder.

Norman locked his dying gaze onto the glass doors, his soul burning with a vow that tore through the heavens. If he ever drew another breath in this world, he would flay the skin from their bones and make them choke on their own blood.

His broken chest gave one last, shallow heave against the cold stones. The burning hatred in his eyes slowly dimmed as endless, freezing dark swallowed his world.