Reborn With Infinite Supplies System in Apocalypse

Chapter 2 - Ten Minutes Before the End

I checked the clock three times before I trusted it.

8:50 a.m.

Ten minutes.

That was all the world had left before it shattered.

My hands were steady as I reached for my phone. No cracks. No dried blood in the grooves. The screen lit up instantly, full battery, no emergency alerts yet. Social feeds scrolled like nothing was wrong. Complaints about classes. Coffee photos. Someone is arguing about a game update.

I had seen this moment before. Not lived it like this, but I remembered the aftermath so clearly that the normalcy felt obscene.

Ten minutes before screaming replaced conversation.

Ten minutes before teeth replaced words.

I moved.

There was no panic in me, not the blind kind. Panic belonged to people who thought survival was a group effort. I had learned better. My body followed memory, not fear. Shoes. Bag. Keys. Everything I grabbed mattered. Everything else could burn.

The hallway outside my apartment was quiet. Too quiet. The elevator doors stood open, obedient, still functional. In my first life, I had taken the stairs, thinking exercise might matter later. It hadn’t. I stepped into the elevator this time and jabbed the ground floor button.

As it descended, my reflection wavered in the metal walls. I looked ordinary. That was the most dangerous thing about this moment. The world still believed in the ordinary.

The doors opened to the street.

Noise rushed in—traffic, voices, engines, a city breathing normally. I scanned faces automatically, not looking for danger yet, but for patterns. Who clustered. Who argued. Who pushed. Panic did not start with screams. It began with denial.

A siren wailed in the distance. The wrong kind. Long, low, sustained.

Someone laughed nervously nearby. “Drill again?”

I didn’t slow down.

I cut through an alley, emerged two blocks over, and headed for the campus edge. The girls’ dorm complex rose ahead, tall and clean, gates still open. In my first life, this place had sealed itself almost by accident. A faulty lockdown system. A delayed response. It became an island while the rest drowned.

I had died trying to reach it too late.

This time, I didn’t hesitate.

The first scream hit as I crossed the street.

It wasn’t loud at first. It cracked. Like something breaking under pressure. Heads turned. Someone dropped a bag. Another siren joined the first, closer now, overlapping into a wall of sound that made my teeth ache.

A man stumbled out of a café clutching his arm. Blood soaked his sleeve. People rushed toward him instead of away.

I knew what came next.

“Stop,” I muttered, but no one listened.

The man lifted his head.

His eyes were wrong. Empty in a way that wasn’t unconsciousness. His jaw worked, clicking softly, like he was chewing something that wasn’t there.

Then he lunged.

The scream that followed was real. Sharp. Alive. It spread faster than any infection.

People ran.

The city fractured in seconds.

I sprinted.

Behind me, glass shattered. A car horn blared endlessly as someone collapsed over the wheel. I didn’t look back. Looking back was how you died. Ahead, the dorm gates began to close, delayed by human indecision. A guard shouted orders no one followed.

I ran harder.

A hand grabbed my backpack strap. I twisted, slammed my elbow back into a chest, and tore free without slowing. The shock on the man’s face didn’t matter. Explanations were luxuries for the dead.

I slid through the gate as it clanged shut behind me.

For half a second, there was silence.

Then the pounding began.

Fists. Bodies. Screams from the other side. The guard fumbled with his radio, face pale, eyes darting like prey. Girls clustered in the courtyard, crying, shouting, filming, praying.

I stood there breathing hard, chest tight but functional, and felt something unfamiliar settle over me.

Control.

Not safety. Control was different. Fragile. Temporary. But real.

Someone shouted in my direction. “Hey! What’s happening?”

I didn’t answer.

I backed away slowly, mind racing. Ten minutes had become maybe three. The timeline had shifted slightly, compressed by chaos, but the shape was the same. Lockdowns would cascade. Networks would choke. Power would flicker, then fail.

Food would become currency. Fear would become law.

And I would not starve again.

A deep vibration rippled through the air, not sound but sensation. The courtyard lights flickered. Phones buzzed all at once with emergency alerts, finally too late.

Then everything froze.

Not physically. People still moved. Sound still existed. But something fundamental paused, like the world had taken a breath it didn’t know how to release.

My vision blurred.

A translucent glow edged my sight, faint at first, then sharp enough to force focus. Lines of light assembled in front of me, geometric and precise, hovering at eye level. The guard’s shouting faded to background noise, as if the world had decided this mattered more.

Text resolved.

Infinite Supply System Activated.

I stared at the panel, heart pounding, not with fear this time, but with recognition. Not disbelief. Expectation.

So this was why.

In my first life, I had wondered why I remembered so much at the end, why clarity came with starvation. Why regret sharpened instead of dulled?

This wasn’t mercy.

It was a transaction.

The panel shifted, more lines forming beneath the first.

User verified: Kyle.

Status: Reborn Subject.

Primary Condition: Survival Monopoly.

I swallowed.

The screams outside the gate rose in pitch as something heavy slammed against the metal. Somewhere, a girl sobbed loudly, hysterical enough to draw attention. I knew how that ended, too.

The panel waited.

I felt it. Not impatience. Assessment.

Ten minutes ago, I had died hungry.

Now the world was offering me something else.

I straightened.

If this system ran on rules, I would learn them.

If it demanded payment, I would decide the cost.

The panel pulsed once, softly.

Awaiting initialisation.

Behind me, the gates groaned.

In front of me, the future opened.