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
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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