2025-07-29 00:08:29Jared sat alone in the Bai family’s garage, his hands black with grease, hunched over the engine of a forgotten SUV. The thing hadn’t run in years, but he remembered it vividly—an old model the Bai family deemed too ugly for their polished image. That was fine. He didn’t need pretty. He needed functional. Strong. Durable. He needed an escape vehicle.
The system’s timer hovered faintly in his mind’s eye:
[Time Remaining: 71 hrs 03 mins]
[Mission: Secure a Safe House]
There was no more time to play the fool.
His shirt clung to his back, sweat soaking through the thin fabric as the heat rose—part from the weather, part from the thickening dread outside. The smoke was creeping closer. Reports were trickling in: riots downtown, a strange virus spreading, people tearing each other apart in traffic jams and supermarkets.
It wasn’t panic anymore. It was desperation. The first taste of collapse.
But inside this garage, there was only the sound of clinking metal and Jared’s even breathing.
“Hey.”
He didn’t turn.
“I said hey, Jared.” A pause. “You got a second?”
Jared slowly turned his head. A tall, broad-shouldered man stood in the doorway, hair slicked back, wearing a sharp suit that looked out of place in this new world unraveling by the second.
A world where clean suits meant nothing.
“Vin,” Jared said, standing upright and wiping his hands on a rag. “Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”
Vincent Wang.
His old college buddy. Once his closest friend. Now the CEO of Eastern Pharmaceuticals—a company built, in part, on Jared’s stolen research. In the old timeline, Vin had become a warlord in the new world, hoarding medicine and selling hope to the highest bidder. Jared remembered watching him on a rooftop as fire rained down from the sky, his friend-turned-tyrant laughing while cities burned.
But here he was again. Clean. Polished. Still pretending this was a world that could be saved with charm and a Rolex.
Vin smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I was in the neighborhood. Heard about the fire, thought I’d check in. You okay?”
Jared narrowed his eyes. “You came here to check on me?”
Vin chuckled, stepping into the garage. “Well, no. Not really. I came to talk to Mr. Bai, but he’s in full meltdown mode upstairs. Something about losing contact with his warehouses. Figured I’d kill time with an old friend.”
“Friend,” Jared echoed.
He didn’t forget. Not the betrayal. Not the lies. Not the last time he saw Vin holding a gun to his back.
“You’re quiet,” Vin said. “Did I offend you?”
“No,” Jared said. “I’m just deciding whether or not to punch you.”
Vin gave a low laugh. “Still got that temper, huh? That’s good. Means you haven’t totally given up.”
Jared went back to the car. “What do you want, really?”
Vin leaned against the wall, arms folded. “I want information. You’re not acting like the loser son-in-law you used to be. People are talking. You’re calm when everyone else is losing their minds. That usually means one thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“You know something.”
Jared said nothing.
Vin continued, “You always had that brain. You see things others don’t. Hell, you warned me about that virus theory back in school, remember? The one that mutated under radiation stress? You called it ‘Phase Z’.”
Jared froze.
Vin grinned. “Yeah. That one. The same strain some news outlet just mentioned five minutes ago. You told me it was theoretical. Funny how it suddenly isn’t.”
“You’re reaching,” Jared muttered.
“Am I?” Vin stepped forward. “I think you know what’s coming. And I think you’re planning something. Stockpiling. Hiding. Escaping.”
Jared kept his expression unreadable.
Vin’s voice dropped. “I want in.”
Jared looked up slowly. “You?”
“Yeah. You’re not the only one who sees the writing on the wall. Whatever you’re building, I want to be part of it. No strings. Just survival.”
There it was. The same snake charming his way into safety. But Jared wasn’t the same fool who once trusted him.
“You’ll betray me the second it benefits you,” Jared said.
Vin didn’t deny it. “Maybe. But right now, I’m useful. I’ve got contacts, warehouses, tech. You’re going to need people like me.”
“I don’t need rats.”
“You’ll need allies,” Vin said, stepping closer. “And trust me, when society collapses, the only people still breathing are the ones who knew how to play dirty.”
Jared met his gaze. And for a moment, it was like looking back through time—at the man he once admired. Before the power. Before the greed.
“Here’s what I need,” Jared said, tossing a wrench onto the workbench. “Three crates of antivirals. Two satellite phones. One secure truck with an armored chassis.”
Vin blinked. “That’s a tall order.”
“Consider it your buy-in.”
Vin’s mouth twitched into a half-smile. “You drive a hard bargain.”
“I’m not bargaining,” Jared said. “I’m building a future. Either you help me or get the hell out of my way.”
Vin stepped back, clearly weighing his options. Then he nodded once. “Alright. Give me twelve hours.”
“Eight,” Jared said.
Vin arched a brow. “That’s not enough time—”
“You said you’re useful,” Jared interrupted. “Prove it.”
They stared at each other for a long second. Then Vin smiled again, this time more genuinely.
“You’ve changed,” he said. “I almost forgot what you were capable of.”
Jared didn’t answer.
Vin turned and walked out, disappearing into the thick heat of the late afternoon. The smoke was thicker now. Sirens had stopped. The city was falling silent in the worst way.
And Jared?
He tightened the last bolt on the engine and closed the hood.
The old SUV roared to life.
One step closer.
The countdown ticked on.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 105- She Doesn’t Know Me
POV: JaredJared forgot how to breathe.Emma was standing three steps away from him.Alive.Not a projection flickering across a broken monitor. Not a figure made of golden light. Not a fragment of consciousness trapped inside the system. Not someone he had to chase through another reality or reach through a wall of memories.Just Emma.She stood beside the old computer with one hand resting against the edge of the desk, her dark hair falling loosely around her face. The glasses were the same. The slight crease between her eyebrows was the same. Even the way she tilted her head when she was trying to understand something was painfully familiar.There were no glowing threads beneath her skin.No strange distortion around her body.No system interface hovering in the air.Nothing separated her from the world.She was flesh and blood.Jared’s chest tightened so suddenly that he almost doubled over.“Emma.”Her name came out broken.He took a step toward her.Then another.He wanted to la
Chapter 104- The First Jared
POV: JaredThe screens came back one by one.Jared stood in the middle of the server room, unable to move.Every monitor showed him.Not the same him.Different ones.A boy with a missing front tooth.A teenager sitting alone in a classroom.A young man wearing a military uniform.An older Jared with silver in his hair.One version had blood running down the side of his face.Another was lying motionless on a hospital bed.Another was standing beside a woman Jared didn’t recognize.Another was holding a child.Another was laughing.Another was screaming.Some were dead.Some were clearly alive.Some looked like they had lived completely different lives.Jared walked closer to the screens.He saw one version of himself standing in a kitchen, barefoot, cooking breakfast.Another was sitting behind a desk in a company office.Another was running through a burning city.Another was wearing the same clothes Jared had worn during one of the loops.He remembered that one.He remembered dying
Chapter 103- The Man Behind The Glass
POV: JaredThe man stood behind the glass wall.Jared didn’t move.Neither did he.For a few seconds, the only sound in the room was the low hum of the servers.The emergency lights washed the man’s face in a dull white glow.He looked ordinary.That was the first thing Jared noticed.No glowing eyes.No strange markings.No unnatural movement.No golden light surrounding his body.Just a man.Older than Jared remembered him.Maybe in his late fifties.His hair was mostly gray, neatly cut. He wore a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His hands rested loosely at his sides.He looked like someone Jared could have passed on the street without noticing.And somehow, that was worse.Jared knew that face.Not from one memory.From hundreds.Fragments.A voice speaking through broken speakers.A silhouette standing inside white corridors.A man appearing whenever the system reached a point Jared wasn’t supposed to survive.A man who always seemed to know what Jared had done be
Chapter 102- Run 37
POV: JaredJared was out of bed before the figure could take another step.“Emma?”The woman stood at the end of the hallway.She didn’t answer.Jared’s heart slammed against his ribs.Every part of him wanted to believe it was her.The face was right.The hair was right.Even the slight tilt of her head was familiar.But the eyes were wrong.Emma’s eyes had always moved when she thought. She looked away when she was uncomfortable. She narrowed them when she was trying to understand something. She rolled them when Jared said something stupid.This woman simply stared.Jared stepped into the hallway.“Who are you?”Nothing.He took another step.The figure turned.Then she walked away.“Wait.”Jared followed.His bare feet hit the floor hard as he moved through the hallway.He reached the corner.Nothing.The hallway was empty.Jared stopped.He checked the stairs.The living room.The kitchen.The front door.Locked.The back door.Locked.Nobody.He searched every room in the house.
Chapter 101- The Life That Never Happened
POV: JaredJared went home the next morning.He almost expected the world to resist him.It didn’t.The drive from the hospital was painfully ordinary.Cars moved through familiar streets. People crossed roads with shopping bags in their hands. A bus stopped too close to a traffic light, and the driver leaned on the horn when the car behind him refused to move.Nothing was burning.Nothing was collapsing.There were no infected people wandering through the streets.No alarms.No strange lights in the sky.No invisible pressure pressing against Jared’s skull.The city simply existed.And somehow, that frightened him more than the apocalypse ever had.He stared through the passenger window as Elena drove.Three days ago, he had been standing beneath a tree in a world that should not have existed.Three days ago, he had watched Emma become something larger than one body.Three days ago, he had made the hardest decision of his life.Now there were traffic jams.Now there were advertisemen
Chapter 100- After She Let Go
POV: JaredJared woke to the sound of a machine beeping.Once.Twice.Again.It was annoyingly ordinary.For several seconds, he didn’t open his eyes.He waited.There was always something waiting for him when he woke.A voice.A warning.A command.A strange pressure behind his eyes.Sometimes there had been pain.Sometimes there had been light.Sometimes he had opened his eyes in places that should not have existed.He waited for the familiar sensation to arrive.Nothing did.Jared frowned.He opened his eyes.A white ceiling stared back at him.A fluorescent light buzzed above his head.There was a curtain beside the bed. Pale blue. Slightly wrinkled.An IV line ran into the back of his hand.He stared at it.Then at the monitor.Then at his other hand.Nothing.No golden light beneath his skin.No faint lines moving under his veins.No threads stretching beyond the room.He swallowed.The air felt different.Not cleaner.Not safer.Just…Empty.Jared slowly pushed himself upright.
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Reader Comments
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