The Son-in-Law Apocalypse Revenge

001

Desmond's mood instantly turned sour with shock as Vanessa pulled the supplies from his hands and pushed him out into the clawing arms of a dimensional beast.

"Are you insane, Vanessa!" He yelled the instant he could find his voice.

Sweat mixed with the thick fumes of fear trickled down his skin as the earth trembled under his feet from the beast's roar. The creature was a jagged mass of crystalline limbs, its eyes glowing with a hunger that shouldn't exist in this world.

However, Vanessa only posed a sour frown from behind the safety of the reinforced glass.

"The only madman I see here is you, thinking that you're even worthy to be in my company," she said. Her voice came through the external speakers, cold and sharp.

Desmond's eyes popped with confusion and his face stretched with fear as he looked back at the enclosing beast and then back at his wife. He slammed his palms against the glass, the vibration rattling his teeth.

"I don't know what this is about, Vanessa! Just open the door and we will discuss it!" He shivered, his knees nearly giving way as the beast’s shadow fell over him. "Dad, mom, talk some sense into Vanessa for me, please!"

He looked past her to the Hawthornes. They stood like spectators at a theater. Victor Hawthorne stood with his hands behind his back, checking his watch with clinical detachment.

"Talk sense into her?" Victor spat in utter disgust. "Desmond, let's just say, this is the right decision my daughter has ever made. 

Actually, it's the first sensible thing she’s done since the day she brought you home."

"Victor, please!" Desmond begged.

Maria stepped forward, her face layered with disdain. "Don't 'Maria' me, you pathetic boy. Look at you. You aren't worthy of my daughter, dude. The only thing you do is get us scraps since this apocalypse began, while others—real men—build mansions for their in-laws or bend laws to keep their families in luxury. You bring us half-empty cans and expect us to treat you like a king?"

"Scraps?"

Anger twisted into the stomach of Desmond so violently that he almost choked on it. He looked at the crates Vanessa was already dragging further into the safe zone.

"The same scraps that have kept you all going since this apocalypse began?" Desmond yelled, his voice echoing off the bunker walls. 

"That same scrap you begged for at the beginning of the apocalypse when you were starving? That same scrap you hide behind right now? I built all of this! I risked my life in the red zones to find that scrap!!"

"And we never begged you or asked you for any of it, Desmond," Vanessa snapped. Her words struck him to his bones. She stepped back, and a man walked into the frame from the shadows of the room.

Thaddeus Crane.

The heir to the Crane fortune looked like he hadn't spent a single day in the apocalypse. 

His clothes were pressed, and his hair was perfectly styled. He wrapped an arm around Vanessa’s waist, pulling her flush against his side.

"You really don't get it, do you?" Thaddeus smirked at Desmond through the glass. "You were a placeholder. A pack mule. Vanessa needed someone to do the heavy lifting while I was stabilizing my family's assets. Now that the assets are secure, the mule is no longer required."

"Vanessa..." Desmond’s voice was a whisper of pure heartbreak. "You’re with him?"

"She was always with me," Thaddeus laughed.

"She made a mistake by ever thinking that she loved you," Victor added, stepping up beside Thaddeus. "And that narrative is about to be corrected. The cursed one attracts disaster, Desmond. Having you around is a liability we can no longer afford. Better you die out there than bring one of those things back to our doorstep."

Desmond stumbled backward. He saw Tristan, Vanessa’s younger brother, standing in the corner holding up his phone. He was laughing, shifting the angle to make sure he caught Desmond’s terrified face and the approaching beast in the same frame.

"This is going to go viral on the internal servers!" Tristan cheered. "The 'Great Provider' getting eaten by his own 'scraps'!"

Vanessa didn't even look away. She pressed closer to Thaddeus, her face showing a sickening sense of relief. "I should have divorced him months ago. At least this way, it's clean. No paperwork, no drama. Just nature taking its course."

"I loved you!" Desmond screamed, his fingers clawing at the glass. "I gave you everything!"

"And it wasn't enough," Vanessa said. "It will never be enough."

The beast let out a deafening roar, its crystalline claws catching the light. Desmond turned, but he was too slow. The creature’s weight crashed into him, and the last thing he saw through the glass was his wife tilting her head back to kiss Thaddeus Crane while his own blood splashed against the reinforced pane.

Desmond expected the dark. He expected the silence of the grave.

Instead, a searing warmth spread from the center of his chest. It wasn't the heat of a wound, but something ancient. Visions exploded behind his eyes—towering cities built under alien constellations, warriors drawing liquid gold power from cosmic forces, and a massive stone calendar that spun until the dates blurred into a single point.

The bloodline remembers.

The First Civilization's final gift: a consciousness snapping backward through time when killed by dimensional forces.

Desmond gasped, his lungs burning as they pulled in air. He bolted upright, his hand flying to his chest. No blood. No gaping wounds. No crystalline claws.

He looked around, his heart hammering against his ribs. This wasn't the Hawthorne estate. It was his converted storage room—the cramped, dusty space he’d used as an office and a bedroom during the early days. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand.

October 10th, 6:23 AM.

He stared at the screen until the light dimmed. October. 

This was three weeks before the first dimensional rift opened. Three weeks before the world became a hunting ground.

A dull, rhythmic pulse drew his attention to his chest. He pulled his shirt aside and saw it—a glowing, golden sigil flickering over his heart before it faded beneath the skin.

"The Primordial Essence core," he whispered.

In his past life, he was a "late awakener," someone who only gained strength months into the apocalypse by eating the leftovers of others. That’s why the Hawthornes treated him like a dog. But now? His core was already active. The chronic fatigue that had plagued him for years—the feeling of being permanently drained—was gone. In its place was a crystalline clarity.

He didn't waste time on tears. He didn't waste time wondering if it was a dream. The memory of the glass separating him from his "family" was too sharp, too cold.

He sat at his desk and pulled up his banking app. $2,400.

He stared at the number. This was the money he had spent months saving. He had worked two jobs, skipping meals just to make sure Vanessa could have the designer necklace she had pointed out in a magazine. In his previous life, he had given it to her on her birthday, only for her to complain that the gold wasn't "bright enough."

"A birthday gift," Desmond said, a dark laugh escaping his throat. "Yeah, I'll give her a gift she'll never forget."

He logged into his brokerage account. His fingers moved with a phantom memory of the future. He remembered the news reports. He remembered which companies skyrocketed when the rifts started appearing and which ones collapsed.

He moved the entire $2,400 into AegisShield Biotech stock and a specific set of cryptocurrency positions. To any investor today, it looked like suicide. To him, it was a guaranteed 10,000% return in fourteen days.

"AegisShield handles the early containment contracts," he muttered, his eyes narrowed. "By the time the rifts open, these shares will be worth more than the Hawthorne estate itself."

He closed the laptop and sat on the floor, crossing his legs. He closed his eyes and began to draw in the ambient energy of the room, guiding it through the meridians he had seen in his vision. The air in the small room seemed to hum. He could feel his muscles tightening and his bone density increasing. He wasn't just a man anymore; he was a vessel for something older than the apocalypse.

A sharp ‘buzz’ on the desk broke his trance. 

He didn't even have to look to know who it was.

Vanessa: Dinner tonight. Lumière Restaurant. 7 PM. We need to talk.

Desmond stared at the message. "We need to talk." In his past life, those words had sent him into a spiral of anxiety, wondering what he had done to upset her. He would have spent the afternoon polishing his shoes and practicing an apology for a crime he didn't commit.

Now, he just saw a target.

He opened a search engine and typed: Lumière Restaurant Supply Chain.

Lumière wasn't just a restaurant; it was a hub for the elite. They had underground cold storage filled with vacuum-sealed wagyu, high-grade medical-grade spirits, and grains sourced from private farms. In the apocalypse, that basement was worth more than a gold mine.

“Sure.” He responded.