2025-07-29 00:05:38It started with a scream.
Not the kind of scream you hear in a movie—sharp and dramatic—but the raw kind. The kind that came from something primal. Fear. Pain. Confusion. Jared was just waking up when it pierced the air.
For a second, he forgot where he was.
Then his eyes adjusted to the room: bare walls, creaky fan, a cheap curtain dancing in the wind. The Bai family’s spare room—still the place he called home, even if everyone in it hated that fact.
The scream came again. Closer this time.
Jared got up quickly and grabbed the cloth-wrapped pistol from under the mattress. He didn’t know what he expected, but his gut had been twisting since the system pinged him again just before dawn.
[System Alert: Warning—first signs of breakdown detected.]
Breakdown.
He remembered the word. In his first life, it had started the same way. Cities crumbling from the inside. One crack at a time. People thought it was madness. Then hunger. Then war. But it wasn’t. It was something deeper, older, and planned.
Jared didn’t bother with shoes. He stepped out into the hallway in bare feet, the pistol tucked tight at his side.
Downstairs, chaos had already begun to take shape.
Two maids were shrieking near the window. Mr. Bai, Elena’s father, was on the phone, shouting into it like volume would make it connect faster. And outside—
Smoke.
Thick, dark columns rising up in the distance. Not from one fire. Three. Four. Maybe more. The city skyline, usually smooth and predictable, was blurred behind plumes of ash.
Jared stepped onto the porch. The air tasted burnt.
A crowd had gathered near the gates. People were filming with their phones, shouting about explosions at the petrol depot, at the old market, and on the bridge. One woman fainted. A man was trying to resuscitate her, but he looked like he was about to pass out himself.
“What’s happening?” a voice asked sharply behind him.
Jared turned.
Elena stood barefoot, wrapped in a thin satin robe. No makeup. No cold expression this time. Just confusion.
Jared didn’t answer immediately. He was watching the smoke. Listening to the panic. Measuring the timing. It was exactly the same.
“Tell me,” Elena said again, stepping closer. “Is it a terrorist attack?”
“No.”
“Then what—”
“It’s the beginning,” he said quietly. “Of something bigger.”
She blinked. “You’re being dramatic.”
“No,” Jared said. “I’m being accurate.”
Something in his tone made her pause. She studied his face—really looked at him—and for the first time in a long time, she didn’t seem sure what to say.
“You’re acting like you expected this.”
Jared turned to face her fully.
“I did.”
A pause. Just long enough for something unspoken to settle between them.
Before she could speak again, Mr. Bai’s voice thundered from the house.
“Jared! What the hell are you standing there for? Do something useful for once!”
He was red in the face, waving his dead phone in the air. “Call the police! Call the news! Do something!”
Jared met his eyes, calm. “No one’s coming.”
“What?”
“The police. The army. The government. They’re not coming. Not this time.”
“You think this is some end-of-the-world nonsense?” Mr. Bai scoffed. “You’ve always been unstable, but this—this is delusion.”
Jared took a step forward. “You don’t have to believe me. But if you want to live, start stocking water. Food. Close your gates. And keep your family close.”
Elena’s eyes widened slightly.
“You’re serious,” she said.
Jared nodded once. “Dead serious.”
Mr. Bai sneered, ready to spit another insult, but before he could, a distant explosion echoed in the sky—louder this time. The ground trembled slightly beneath their feet. A ripple of screams followed from the city below.
No one said anything for a moment.
Then Elena whispered, “That didn’t sound like a market fire.”
Jared looked up at the thickening smoke cloud and the flickers of red in the sky.
“It’s not,” he said.
Inside his mind, the system pinged again:
[System Update: Survival Stage unlocked.]
[New Mission: Secure a safe house within 72 hours.]
[Warning: Civil collapse predicted within seven days.]
Jared turned and walked back into the house, past the stunned maids, past Mr. Bai still frozen in denial.
He had work to do.
This time, he wouldn’t die unprepared.
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Chapter 67- The Thing About Freedom
POV: JaredJared does not tell Emma where he is going.Not because he wants to hide it from her, but because he knows she would come if he asked. And this is something he needs to face without her steadying the ground beneath his feet.The imprint waits where she found it.It does not look dangerous. That is its trick.The place feels quieter than the rest of the world, like sound itself is holding its breath. The air has a faint pressure to it, the kind you feel before rain, before something gives way. The ground here does not quite commit to being solid. It remembers something else.Jared steps closer.The imprint stirs.It recognizes him immediately.Not with words. With knowing.The world tilts, gently, and then the visions begin.Not explosions. Not triumph. No glory.Relief.He sees Emma sitting beside the river, whole in a way that makes his chest ache. Her breath steady. Her gaze clear. No pauses. No flickers. No fear hiding behind her eyes. She laughs without checking herself
Chapter 66- What He Would Erase
POV: EmmaThe question slips out of her before she can stop it.They are not arguing. That is the worst part. There is no raised voice to blame it on. No sharp edge to pretend caused the damage.They are sitting near the river where the water moves slow and patient, like it has nowhere else it needs to be. Jared is skipping stones, not very well. Each one either sinks immediately or hits the surface wrong and dies with a sad sound.Emma watches his hands. Strong. Scarred now. Real.She tells herself not to ask.She asks anyway.“If you could change one thing,” she says quietly, staring at the water instead of him, “would it be me?”The world does not react.The river keeps moving. A bird calls somewhere far off. The question does not echo or shatter anything. It just exists.Jared’s hand stills.He does not throw the stone.He does not answer.That pause stretches, thin and unbearable.Emma feels it inside her chest like pressure building behind glass.She should not have asked. She k
Chapter 65- The Weight of Knowing
POV: JaredJared notices it in the pauses.Emma still walks beside him. Still listens. Still answers when he speaks. But the spaces between her words have grown careful, like she is choosing where not to step.She laughs less. When she does, it comes late, like an echo that almost didn’t bother returning.That night, the fire burns low. Not dying. Just contained. Jared feeds it small sticks, one at a time, watching the way the flames respond immediately now. No correction. No delay. Cause and effect, clean and honest.Emma sits across from him, knees pulled in, arms looped loosely around them. She is staring into the fire but not really seeing it.He does not say her name at first.He waits.The waiting stretches. Too long.“Okay,” he says finally, keeping his voice light on purpose. “You’ve been doing that thing.”She blinks. “What thing?”“The quiet one,” he replies. “The one where you think if you don’t move too much, the world won’t notice you’re there.”Her mouth curves slightly.
Chapter 64- The Imprint
POV: EmmaEmma notices it because the birds stop mid-sound.Not silence. Worse than silence. The echo of a sound that forgets how to finish.She is standing near the riverbank, rinsing dirt from her hands, when the water ripples wrong. Not outward. Inward. Like the surface hesitates, then resumes pretending nothing happened.Her breath catches.She does not call for Jared.Instinct tells her this is not for both of them.She steps closer. The ground feels normal under her boots until it does not. One step is solid, the next sinks a fraction too deep, then snaps back like it regrets allowing her weight. Her head pulses faintly, not pain, just pressure behind the eyes.The world here stutters.She kneels slowly and presses her palm to the earth.It is warm.Not sunlight warm. Active warm.Her glasses are gone. Her tools are gone. But her mind still knows how to listen. She closes her eyes and lets the feeling rise instead of fighting it.Something answers.Not a voice. Not code. A prese
Chapter 63- Something That Lasts a Night
POV: JaredBy the time the light starts to tilt, Jared realizes they have been walking in loose circles.Not lost. Just not going anywhere on purpose.The world here does not rush them. Shadows stretch slowly. The air cools without warning. When the sun lowers, it does not feel like a threat, but it does feel like a question.He stops near a cluster of trees and looks around.“This is as good as anywhere,” he says.Emma nods. She looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with weakness. More like she is learning how to exist inside a body again. She lowers herself onto a rock and watches him.“So,” she says lightly. “What’s the plan?”Jared stares at the trees.He has led evacuations. Built fortresses underground. Optimized supply chains while cities burned. But right now, all he sees is wood and uneven ground and the fact that night is coming whether he is ready or not.“We build something,” he says.She raises an eyebrow. “Something permanent?”He lets out a short breath. “Somethin
Chapter 62- Emma Forgets
POV: EmmaIt happens in the middle of a sentence.Emma is talking about the river. About how the water sounds different here, like it knows where it is going. She is explaining it badly, she knows she is, using her hands too much, trying to describe something that feels more than it sounds.Then she is sitting down.The ground is cool against her palms. Her breath is wrong, too fast, like she has been running. Her heart stutters once, then starts again, hard and uneven.She blinks.Jared is crouched in front of her.Not rushing. Not shouting her name. Just there, steady, eyes sharp, like he has already measured the situation and decided not to be afraid.That scares her more than panic would have.“How long?” she asks.Jared tilts his head slightly. “A few seconds.”Her mouth feels dry. “I was standing.”“You were,” he says.“And talking.”“You were doing that too.”She presses her fingers into the dirt, grounding herself in the pressure. The world feels intact. Too intact. That makes
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