2025-07-29 00:11:53The SUV’s engine rumbled low and steady like a warning growl. Jared stood beside it for a moment, listening, testing—every gear, every turn, every tremor in the machine. It wasn’t perfect. It wouldn’t outrun an explosion. But it would move, and in the days ahead, that was enough.
He wiped his hands clean, though the grease clung to his fingers like guilt. The garage lights flickered. Another surge. The city’s power grid was failing in waves now, and no one was fixing it.
[Time Remaining: 68 hrs 42 mins]
[Objective Update: Gather Med Supplies – In Progress]
The system had gone quiet after that, no new prompts. No help. Just a countdown.
He turned back toward the house.
A sharp voice echoed through the halls upstairs—Mrs. Bai, again, her shrill tone cutting through silence like shattered glass.
“You’re saying we can’t get through to the warehouse? What do you mean gone dark? Are you telling me the entire eastern district shut down and no one knows why?”
Jared climbed the steps slowly, each footfall careful and quiet.
He reached the top landing and saw chaos in motion.
Mr. Bai stood near the window, phone pressed to his ear, face pale as ash. Beside him, his wife paced with fury in her heels, clutching her tablet like it held answers. Mei sat on the couch, biting her thumbnail, her eyes darting from screen to screen on the TV.
News reports played on a loop.
Riot in Port Harrow.
Supermarket looted in broad daylight.
A man attacking paramedics on Main Street.
No motive. No warning.
Just… rage.
“What’s happening to people?” Mei whispered.
Jared watched her for a second longer than he should’ve. Her soft voice didn’t match the fear in her eyes. This wasn’t the world she was raised in. The ivory tower was crumbling—and she had no idea how to breathe in the dust.
Mrs. Bai finally turned, catching sight of him. “You.”
Jared raised a brow. “Me?”
“You fixed the garage car, right? I want it moved into the covered port. It’s not going to sit outside in that filth.”
“I’ll get to it,” Jared said, voice flat.
“Now,” she snapped.
“Sure. Right after you all stop ignoring the fact that this city’s falling apart.”
That made the room pause.
Mr. Bai looked up from his call. Mei slowly turned toward him. Even the television anchor seemed to hold his breath.
“What did you just say?” Mrs. Bai asked, her voice sharp with disbelief.
“I said you’re pretending this is just a bad news cycle. But it’s not. This isn’t a riot. This isn’t a protest. It’s collapse,” Jared said evenly. “The supply chains are gone. Communications are failing. People are panicking. And in about three days, the real violence starts.”
Silence.
Then Mrs. Bai scoffed. “And what—now you’re some kind of expert? Please. You’re a mechanic, Jared. An unemployed son-in-law we dragged in from the streets out of pity.”
“Enough,” Mr. Bai barked, but his voice lacked bite.
Jared ignored her. His eyes went to Mei. “You saw it. You’ve been watching. You feel it in your chest, don’t you? That sense that something’s wrong—not just wrong, but different.”
Mei didn’t speak. But she didn’t look away either.
“Listen to me,” Jared continued, tone low. Measured. “In less than three days, whatever’s spreading will reach this neighborhood. And once it’s here, your gates and bodyguards won’t mean a thing.”
“We have a panic room,” Mr. Bai muttered, as if repeating a prayer.
Jared nodded slowly. “Sure. You do. But it’s stocked for maybe a week. After that? You’ll need fuel. Food. Water. And good luck finding it when the whole city’s tearing itself apart.”
“You sound insane,” Mrs. Bai spat.
He turned to her now. Fully. Calm, but firm.
“I sound prepared. You’ve spent years treating me like a ghost in this house. Useless. Weak. Like I belonged beneath your heels,” Jared said. “But here’s what’s going to happen. In about sixty-eight hours, those same heels will be soaked in blood, and you’ll realize the world doesn’t care how rich you were. It only cares how fast you ran and who you stepped on to survive.”
Mrs. Bai opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Jared took a slow breath, then turned to Mei again. “You still have time. If you want to come with me when I leave, I’ll keep you safe. But I won’t ask twice.”
Mei stared at him like she didn’t know who he was. And maybe she didn’t. Not this version. Not the one who wasn’t afraid anymore.
Jared turned and walked out without waiting for a response.
Outside, the sky had turned gray.
Thick smoke crept in from the northern districts, and sirens had given way to silence. The kind of silence that rang too loud. That hinted at something breathing in the dark.
He stepped into the SUV and closed the door.
There was a knock on the window. He looked up—and saw her.
Mei.
She stood stiffly, arms crossed, hugging herself. Her voice muffled through the glass.
“Where would we even go?”
He rolled the window down halfway. “Out of the city. Into the hills. I know a place.”
She hesitated. “And my parents?”
Jared’s jaw clenched. “You know they won’t come. Not until it’s too late.”
She didn’t answer right away. Then nodded once. “I’ll pack.”
He watched her turn and hurry inside, and for the first time in hours, something shifted inside him. Not relief. Not comfort. But resolve.
He wasn’t just surviving anymore. He was choosing who to save.
[System Update: Companion Acquired – Mei Bai]
[Survival Bonus Activated: +15% Resource Luck]
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Chapter 85- What the World Is Becoming
POV: JaredI go farther than I ever meant to.It starts small. A longer walk. One more hill. A place I used to avoid because there was nothing there and nothing is dangerous when you are used to things breaking.But the nothing is gone now.There are paths.Not carved. Not forced. They curve the way feet prefer to move, the way water would choose if it had legs. I follow one and realize I am not deciding where to step. The ground already knows.I pass a frame of something that might become a shelter. Three walls leaning into each other, patient. No tool marks. No signs of hands. Just intention, paused mid-thought.I touch the surface. It is warm. Alive in that quiet way stone sometimes is when it remembers heat.There are people.Not echoes. Not visitors who vanish when you look too closely.People with packs and stories and tired eyes that have learned how to hope without making noise about it. They move carefully, like the world might change its mind if they rush.When they see me,
Chapter 84- Proof of Life
POV: JaredThe visitor returns on a morning that feels undecided.Not stormy. Not kind. The sort of morning that could become anything if pushed hard enough.They do not come alone this time.There are two of them now, standing where the ground still remembers Emma’s footsteps. One waits farther back, respectful or wary, I cannot tell. The other holds a narrow case against their chest. Not sealed. Not dramatic. Just carried like something that has already been opened too many times.I do not ask why they are here.I think part of me has been expecting this since the footprint by the river.They kneel. Open the case. Push it toward me.“There’s no point bringing images,” the visitor says. Their voice is softer than before, like they learned something since last we spoke. “Those can lie without knowing they’re lying.”Inside the case are three things.They are arranged without ceremony. No labels. No explanation. Just objects, trusting me to recognize the truth on my own.The first is a
Chapter 83- The Day the Journal Changes
POV: JaredI notice the journal first.Not because I am looking for it. It has learned how to find me on its own. It sits where it always does, near the window, catching the part of the morning light that feels undecided. I pick it up the way I always do, careful, familiar, like my hands remember rules my head did not make.I read the same page as yesterday. I am sure of that. I even remember where I stopped, the way her handwriting slanted when she got tired, the tiny pause before the sentence broke off.That is why my eyes trip.There is a line that does not belong.Not a new page. Not an ending. Something threaded in, quiet and precise, as if it had always been waiting for space.The ink is darker. The letters are steadier. Cleaner than the rest, like her hand did not hesitate even once.I read it again. Slower.I remember more when I’m farther away.The room feels smaller for a second. Or maybe I do.I flip back a page. Then forward. I check the margins, the binding, the spine, li
Chapter 82- Staying Still Means Trusting
POV: JaredTime does not pass the way I expected it to.It does not rush at me. It does not circle back to hurt me on purpose. It moves like the river does when no one is watching. Forward, uneven, sometimes quiet enough that I forget it is working at all.The first days are the hardest. Not because of pain. Because of habit.I keep turning to speak to her. I keep saving thoughts like spare coins, planning to hand them to her later. When I realize there is no later yet, my chest tightens, then loosens. Over and over. Like a muscle learning a new job.I do not break.That surprises me.Instead, I learn the shape of loneliness without panic. I learn that missing someone does not mean I am losing them. It just means there is space now, and space can be lived in.I talk. Out loud.At first it feels foolish, then it feels necessary.I tell the tree by the river about my dreams. The ones where the world glitches and she laughs like it is nothing. The river gets updates too. I explain my day
Chapter 81- The Goodbye That Isn’t One
POV: JaredEmma did not disappear.That was the lie I had been preparing myself for. Light. Noise. Some dramatic tearing of space that would give my grief something sharp to hook onto.Instead, she packed slowly.Not with bags. With pauses.She touched things like she was checking they were still real. The edge of the table. The wall where the shelter leaned a little to the left. The river stone she liked because it fit perfectly in her palm. She left it where it was.I stood a few steps away and did not help. Not because I did not want to. Because helping would have meant participating in the leaving, and I was not ready to be that honest.When she was done, she walked.No announcement. No speech. Just forward, toward the place where the air thinned and the world felt less certain. The visitor waited farther ahead, out of respect or strategy. I did not care which.The grass bent under her feet. Then sprang back up.Every instinct in me screamed to follow.I had chased her across coll
Chapter 80- Emma Chooses Something New
POV: JaredShe did not say it like a sacrifice.That was the first thing that scared me.Emma said it while folding her sleeves, like she was preparing to wash her hands. Calm. Thought through. Already lived with the idea long enough that it had softened around the edges.“There’s a third option,” she said.I waited for the catch. There was always one.She would go with the visitor. Not forever. Not to save everything. Just one breach. One place that was still tearing itself apart. She would help them stabilize it, show them how to listen instead of forcing fixes, teach them how to let broken systems breathe.Then she would come back.No vows attached. No guarantees smuggled into the sentence.Just intention.I opened my mouth and nothing came out.I wanted to argue. I had the words ready. I had them memorized. I could list risks and probabilities and timelines like scripture. I could tell her how fragile this world still was, how fragile she was, how every separation felt like tempti
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