The Apocalypse Reborn; No more Sacrifice

Five

The snow continued to fall relentlessly for another week, turning the city into a buried ghost town of ice and shadows. Inside Julian's apartment, however, the air was pleasantly warm, smelling faintly of freshly baked bread and roasted canned meat. Julian sat at his wooden desk, reviewing his inventory lists on a battery-powered tablet and making careful calculations about his food reserves.

His careful planning had paid off brilliantly. Even if he lived alone in this apartment for the next ten years, he had more than enough food, water, and medical supplies to last comfortably without ever stepping foot outside. But peace never lasted forever in a world undergoing an apocalypse.

Suddenly, a loud, violent crash echoed from the hallway outside his front door, followed by the angry shouting of multiple voices. Julian froze, raising his head to listen intently. He tapped his desk monitor to pull up the live security feed from the hallway camera.

Through the high-definition lens, Julian saw three rough-looking men standing right in front of his reinforced smart lock. One of them, a burly man with a thick beard and a heavy iron pipe in his hand, was smashing the pipe against the wall right next to Julian's door frame in a furious fit of rage. Behind them stood two trembling figures holding onto each other for dear life: Clara and her brother Marcus.

Marcus looked terrible. His face was pale, his lips were chapped and bleeding from the cold, and he wore three layers of dirty sweaters under a torn jacket. Clara looked even worse; her designer clothes were ruined, stained with dirt and mud, and she was sobbing uncontrollably as she pointed directly at Julian's high-tech door.

'That is his apartment! Right there!' Clara shrieked hysterically, her voice echoing down the empty concrete hallway. 'He has food inside! He has electricity, and he has heaters running! He is my husband, and everything he owns belongs to us! Break the door down and take everything you want!'

The bearded man with the iron pipe grinned an ugly, yellow-toothed smile. He spat on the floor and swung his heavy metal pipe directly against Julian's digital keypad with bone-crushing force. The keypad sparked loudly, but the heavy steel deadbolts held firm, refusing to budge an inch.

'Hey! Open up, you coward!' the bearded leader roared, slamming the pipe against the door once more with all his might. 'Your wife says you're hoarding all the good stuff in there! Open the door right now, hand over your food supplies, and maybe we won't break your legs before we kick you out into the snow!'

Julian watched the scene unfold on his monitor with a cold, mocking smile playing on his lips. So Clara had managed to find a gang of local thugs roaming the apartment complex, trading secrets about his apartment in exchange for a chance to get warm and eat food. She had literally brought wolves right to his doorstep just to spite him.

Julian stood up calmly from his desk, walked over to the hallway intercom system, and pressed the talk button. A loud, clear speaker mounted outside the front door broadcasted his voice directly into the hallway.

'Clara,' Julian's calm, steady voice echoed through the speaker, cutting through the shouting and the sound of metal hitting steel. 'I see you brought some new friends along. Did you forget that you packed your bags and walked out of this apartment weeks ago?'

Clara gasped, stepping forward as she recognized his voice instantly. She threw herself against the wall near the speaker, screaming at the top of her lungs. 'Julian! Please open the door! We are freezing! Marcus is sick, and these men are going to hurt us if you don't let us in! We are family! Open the door right now!'

'Family?' Julian chuckled softly, the sound cold enough to freeze water. 'When you pushed me out into the snow in my past life, did you think about family? When you drained my bank accounts to fund Marcus's useless projects while I starved, did you think about family? You made your bed, Clara. Now lie in it with your new friends.'

The bearded thug flew into a rage upon hearing Julian's refusal. He swung his iron pipe furiously against the door over and over again, leaving deep dents in the steel plating. 'You think a locked door is going to stop us, you piece of trash?!' the thug screamed, signaling to his two accomplices to grab a heavy wooden bench from the hallway to use as a battering ram.

Julian did not panic. He simply walked over to his living room wall cabinet, opened a small locked compartment, and pulled out a heavy-duty tactical flare gun loaded with a bright magnesium shell. He walked back to the hallway door, stood safely behind the reinforced steel barrier, and waited for them to make their next move.

Outside Julian's front door, the atmosphere turned chaotic and violent. The bearded gang leader and his two armed accomplices hoisted the heavy wooden hallway bench onto their shoulders, using it like a battering ram to smash against the center of Julian's heavy steel security door with terrifying force. A loud, booming crash echoed through the entire floor, shaking dust from the ceiling and leaving a massive dent right in the middle of the metal plating.

'Keep hitting it! The lock is starting to give way!' one of the accomplices shouted eagerly, his eyes wide with greed and adrenaline as he anticipated looting warm clothes, canned food, and electricity.

Clara stood a few feet back, watching the violent assault with a mixture of desperate hope and underlying fear. Even now, she still believed that once the door was broken down, Julian would cower in fear, apologize on his knees, and hand over all his supplies like the submissive husband he used to be. Marcus stood beside her, shivering violently and coughing up phlegm into a dirty handkerchief, offering no help whatsoever.

Inside the apartment, Julian stood calmly behind the door, watching every movement through his wide-angle security camera monitor. He waited until the men lined up the wooden bench for a second heavy charge, gathering their momentum to slam against the door once more.

Just as the men rushed forward with a loud battle cry, Julian reached down and pulled a specialized emergency release valve connected to a high-pressure nitrogen and pepper-gas dispersal pipe he had secretly installed above the hallway lintel during his renovations.

With a sharp hiss, a thick cloud of high-concentration tactical pepper gas and blinding chemical vapor blasted directly down from the ceiling ceiling vents right into the faces of the three charging intruders. The gas exploded in a dense, stinging cloud that burned the eyes, nose, and throat instantly.

'Aargh! My eyes! I can't see anything!' the bearded leader screamed, dropping the wooden bench instantly and falling hard to his knees on the concrete floor, clawing frantically at his face as burning tears streamed down his cheeks.

His two accomplices panicked, dropping their grip and stumbling backward into the walls, coughing uncontrollably and gagging as the suffocating chemical cloud filled the hallway air. They tripped over each other in absolute blindness, desperate to escape the blinding pain.

Clara and Marcus, standing a little further back, caught the edge of the chemical mist. Clara instantly dropped to her knees, clutching her throat and coughing violently as her eyes watered uncontrollably. 'Cough! Cough! Oh God, it burns! Julian, what are you doing?! Stop it!' she shrieked through her tears.

Julian unlocked the heavy viewing port on the front door and looked out at the pathetic scene with cold, indifferent eyes. The invincible gang of tough guys was now reduced to a group of crying, crawling wrecks rolling on the dirty hallway floor.

'Listen to me very carefully,' Julian said, his voice deep, commanding, and absolute through the external speaker. 'If you ever step foot on this floor again, or if you ever make another sound outside my door, the next gas canister I release will not just make you cry—it will put you to sleep permanently. Get out of my sight before I lose my patience.'

Hearing the cold threat in his voice, the blinded gang leader stumbled blindly toward the stairwell door, cursing and groaning in agony as his accomplices dragged him along by his jacket. Within seconds, they scrambled down the stairs like beaten dogs, fleeing for their lives.

Clara and Marcus were left behind in the hallway, completely abandoned by the thugs who had promised to protect them. Clara crawled toward Julian's door, pressing her bloody, tear-stained face against the metal surface as she wept in total despair.

'Julian... please... I'm sorry... take me back...' Clara sobbed weakly, her voice fading into a pathetic whimper as the freezing cold air of the hallway bit deep into her bones.

Julian stared at her through the security monitor for a few long seconds. There was no pity in his heart—only the memory of being left to die alone in the snow in his past life. Without saying another word, Julian turned off the hallway monitor, walked back into his warm, brightly lit living room, and locked the inner security bolt with a satisfying click. Let her freeze. He had won.