2025-07-29 00:13:16Jared didn’t waste time watching Mei pack. He knew the moment she walked back into that house, she’d feel the pull of comfort again. The luxury. The lie. If he gave her too long, she might stay.
He loaded the SUV with what little gear he had—his old rucksack, a folded camp stove, a water filter he hadn’t touched in months. There was a sidearm buried in a lockbox under the driver’s seat. He checked it now, loading each bullet with mechanical precision.
[Time Remaining: 66 hrs 03 mins]
[Objective: Evacuate Safe Zone]
The system’s calm tone was beginning to unnerve him. Like a god whispering in a burning temple—offering guidance just moments before everything crumbled.
Mei came back out fifteen minutes later, wearing a dark hoodie and jeans, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She looked different. Smaller. Like the world had finally reached her skin.
“I didn’t bring much,” she murmured.
“Good,” Jared said. “We’ll need room for supplies.”
She climbed into the passenger seat without another word. When she reached for the seatbelt, her hands trembled. He noticed. Didn’t comment.
He started the engine.
The gate slid open slower than usual, its motors straining. As they rolled out into the neighborhood, Jared couldn’t help but glance in the rearview mirror. The Bai mansion sat tall and gleaming, like it still believed the world owed it protection.
It didn’t.
They were six blocks away when Mei broke the silence.
“Why are you helping me?”
Jared kept his eyes on the road. “Because you’re the only one who ever looked at me like I mattered. Even when your parents treated me like I was invisible, you didn’t. You just never said anything.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t know how.”
“I get it,” he said. “But this isn’t about guilt, Mei. It’s about surviving.”
They passed by a pharmacy. The glass front had been smashed in. Shelves picked clean. The street was littered with empty boxes, crushed pill bottles, wrappers. A man sat on the curb, cradling a plastic bag like it was gold.
“This started fast,” she said, voice small.
“It didn’t,” Jared replied. “It just went unnoticed.”
They reached the outer district checkpoint—a set of concrete barricades manned by two soldiers. Young. Nervous. Sweat clung to their foreheads despite the cool morning air.
Jared slowed down, rolled his window down halfway.
The taller soldier raised a hand. “ID?”
“Evacuating,” Jared said calmly. “Heading north.”
The second soldier peered into the SUV, eyes lingering on Mei. “That your sister?”
Jared smiled. “Wife.”
The soldier’s eyebrows lifted slightly, but he didn’t question it. “You’ve got thirty minutes. After that, we’re locking this checkpoint.”
“Understood.”
He nodded them through.
As the SUV pulled away, Mei exhaled slowly. “You’re good at lying.”
“I’m good at surviving.”
They drove for ten more minutes before the skyline behind them lit up.
A column of fire shot into the air—an explosion somewhere in the city core. The kind of fireball that didn’t just light up windows, but shook them.
Mei gasped, turning around in her seat. “That was downtown—Jared, my father’s office—”
“Don’t,” he said quietly. “Don’t look back.”
She didn’t answer. But she stopped turning.
They reached the first fuel point—a small service station Jared remembered from back when he did odd delivery runs. It was shuttered, but the side entrance had been broken open. Inside, two people were already raiding the place—a woman with wild eyes and a man clutching a tire iron like it was a sword.
Jared parked on the far side, grabbed his gun, and turned to Mei.
“Stay inside. Lock the doors. Don’t open them unless it’s me.”
She nodded, wide-eyed.
Jared stepped out, slow and steady. The gravel crunched under his boots.
The man saw him first. “Hey—back off, man. This one’s ours!”
Jared didn’t raise the gun, but he didn’t hide it either. “Relax. I just need a few supplies. You take what you need, I’ll take what I need. No fights.”
The woman hissed. “There’s no sharing anymore!”
“I’m not asking permission.”
The man stepped forward—too fast.
Jared moved faster.
In one clean motion, he slammed the butt of the gun into the man’s wrist, knocking the iron bar loose. A second step and his knee met ribs. The guy went down hard, gasping.
The woman screamed, reaching for her bag.
Jared didn’t fire. He simply stepped back, gun aimed now.
“Don’t. This isn’t worth dying for.”
The woman froze.
“Take your guy. Go.”
She didn’t argue. She dragged the man to his feet and stumbled out the door, cursing as she went.
Jared exhaled once, then turned and began moving through the shelves. He grabbed bottled water, a few remaining protein bars, two packs of bandages, painkillers. Not much. But enough.
Back in the SUV, Mei looked at him like he’d walked out of a warzone.
“You didn’t shoot them.”
“I didn’t need to.”
“They would’ve hurt you.”
He gave her a tired smile. “A lot of people will try in the days ahead. Doesn’t mean they’ll succeed.”
They kept driving.
The roads became narrower. Less paved. Nature crept in through cracks and curbs. Civilization started thinning out.
Mei turned toward him again. “Where are we really going?”
Jared looked ahead, his voice low. “A place I found years ago. Before I met your family. I used to live off the grid for a while, after the military.”
“You were in the military?” she asked, surprised.
“Special unit. Got out when things turned ugly.”
“You never told anyone.”
“No one ever asked.”
They crossed a bridge. Below, the river had already begun to fill with drifting wreckage—pieces of cities, of lives.
A second explosion rang out in the distance.
Jared didn’t flinch. Mei did.
She reached for his hand without thinking. He let her.
“Will we make it?” she asked quietly.
He glanced at her, and this time, his answer wasn’t hardened by experience or burdened by doubt. It was clear. Certain.
“Yes.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Episode 52- The Last Log
[Before the first reset]The world wasn’t quiet when it ended.It screamed.The sky above the city split open like a wound, releasing static and gold instead of rain. Emma watched the power grids below blinking out one by one from the upper floors of the research tower. Every shutdown had the distant sound of a dying heartbeat. She didn't flinch. This was what she had expected. There was always fire, noise, and Jared's name on her lips at the end of the loops. Around her, the lab was collapsing. Wires were sparking beneath the feet, half the screens were black, and red warnings on the main console kept flickering.[System integrity: 3%][Core fracture detected.][Reinitialization impossible.]Emma’s reflection wavered on the cracked glass, a ghost of herself staring back — tired eyes, smudged lenses, hands trembling from too much coffee and not enough sleep. She exhaled slowly, almost a laugh, though it sounded more like a sob.“Figures,” she whispered. “You’d crash right when I s
Episode 51- The loop breaker
Jared didn’t run this time.He just stood there, in the middle of the street, as the crowd of his own faces passed him by. Every screen showed him smiling, shaking hands, saving cities that never fell. The applause sounded hollow. Too perfect.He raised his hand, almost afraid to touch the nearest display. His fingers met cold glass. The man inside the screen mirrored him perfectly, down to the twitch in his jaw—then, for a split second, didn’t.The reflection blinked the wrong way.A chill slid down his spine.The system whispered, soft but shaking.[Observation node unstable.][Loop integrity: 92%][Warning: anomaly detected.]Jared’s chest ached. He could hear his own heartbeat echoing like it didn’t belong to him anymore. He had been here before, hadn’t he? This street, this moment, this air that tasted like metal and memory.“Stop it,” he muttered. “Stop showing me this.”But the city didn’t stop. It kept moving, kept smiling, kept pretending everything was fine.Then one screen—
Episode 50- Rebirth of the Chainbearer
The light tore the sky open. Not like thunder. It was unlike any storm he had ever seen. Thin, gold, and alive, it poured through the cloud fissures and bled downward as though the heavens themselves were being rewritten. Jared covered his eyes. The interface of the system was glitching, flickering between static and warnings. Whatever was coming wasn’t supposed to exist. Then the shape broke through. Feathers that glistened between light and metal, wings that resembled blades, and chains underneath it. Like a crown of ruin, dozens of them drag through the air. He gasped. That silhouette was familiar to him. Buried in one of the system's locked files, he had seen it before—the day humanity fell. The day he died.The Archon.Except this time… it wasn’t the same.The light shifted as the creature descended, and for a moment—just a heartbeat—he saw a human form at its center. A face. Pale. Still.Emma.“No…” His voice broke. “No, no, that’s impossible.”The system buzzed, cold and
Episode 49- When the seal Broke
The world didn't feel alive again, even after the storm had passed. It was hollow. Jared took a seat at the edge of what used to be the chamber. The light was gone, and the stone had split open like a wound. The sky and the ash and the taste of the air were all gray now. Even though he was no longer bleeding, he could still feel the burn where the chains had been beneath his skin. The heartbeat wasn't his when he put his palm to his chest. It sounded heavier and slower, like someone else was still inside of him.[System recalibrating…][Host integrity: 82%][Warning: Identity interference detected.]He exhaled through his teeth. “You again.”Silence. Then—faint, like a thought that didn’t belong to him—You opened the seal, Jared. We’re not separate anymore.He froze. The voice wasn’t cold this time. It sounded… calm. Familiar. Almost like his own, if it were stripped of everything human.“Get out of my head.”I can’t. You brought me back.His fingers curled into fists. He could st
Chapter 48- The Echo Beneath
The air was colder here. It felt thin and sharp against his skin, as if the world were breathing without him. Something nearby was dripping water when Jared woke up, a slow rhythm that held him in place. The room had vanished. Dust, roots, and stone in its place. It didn't feel natural, but it might have been a cave. Veins of light pulsed faintly through the walls, resembling arteries. He sat up too quickly. The world slanted to one side. His hands shook. The marks remained deep into his arms. However, they were now different, with black streaks twining with gold lines that moved with each blink. His palms ached from rubbing at them. They didn’t fade.He sat there for a long time, listening and trying to remember how to breathe like a normal person. Everything inside him continued to hum from what happened in the chamber. That voice. That thing wearing his face. The crack of the seal. When he eventually forced himself to stand, the cave seemed to be watching him as the walls tremb
Chapter 47- The Awakening Below
The sound came first, a low, thrumming pulse that didn’t belong to the air. It went directly into his bones through the stone's fractured veins beneath the floor. As the rhythm got louder and faster, Jared stumbled and gripped his head. Something alive was inside the fracture. Like lightning, the golden threads exploded outward and shattered through the chamber.The chains on his arms trembled as though they had been called home, writhing in response. He could feel them pulling, dragging his body closer to the stone. He hissed, "Stop," but the roar erupting around him caused his voice to break apart. Images flickered through his mind —Faces, burning cities, the gleam of a crown half-buried in ash. And through it all, that same whisper, soft and sure: You left us.Jared fell to one knee. The stone split wider, spilling light so bright it burned the air. Something within it moved—slow, deliberate—and for the first time, Jared wasn’t sure if it was reaching for him… or becoming him.
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