Little Fires Everywhere

"Ma, Samson promises. Samson is going to repent; I won’t be a thug anymore. I'm going to find a real, honest job. So please, Ma, don't come back to haunt me, okay?" Samson knelt, tears streaming down his face, though his expression still looked like someone ready to pick a fight with the Angel of Death. Bejo held out an umbrella. "Boss, it’s almost sunset. We need to go collect the 'protection money' from the cafe owner," he said. "Hey, Bejo! I just promised Ma that I’ve repented. You little devil! Do you want my mother to rise from her grave because of what you just said, huh?!" Samson stood up. His towering height, nearly two meters, made Bejo instinctively jump back three steps. "But Boss, our stomachs aren't exactly followers of the repentance movement," Bejo squeaked, trembling. Samson wiped his fierce face. "From this second on, call me Samson the Protector. I’m going to find honest work. Anything! As long as I'm not shaking people down anymore." A wealthy woman looked Samson up and down, scrutinizing him. "Your body is quite large. It just so happens I need a new guard dog. I just fired the old one because he was afraid of cockroaches." Samson was ready to explode. "Hey, lady! You think I—" "Fifty million a month. Meals are provided, and you get an Italian suit for a uniform. Interested?" the woman interrupted, handing him a gold-plated business card. Samson fell silent. He then whispered under his breath, "Ma, this is honest work, right? Just being a guard dog for a billionaire."

On the day their daughter died… Lyra chose to comfort another child. Brandon spent seven years loving a woman who slowly stopped loving him back. He endured the coldness, the humiliation, and the pain of watching another man and his son replace him and his daughter inside their own home. Still, he stayed. Because he believed that even if Lyra no longer loved him… she would always love Maggie. He was wrong. On Maggie’s sixth birthday, Lyra abandoned her sick daughter to celebrate another child instead. When Maggie collapsed in Brandon’s arms, Lyra still refused to believe the truth. “You used your own daughter to manipulate me!” she screamed in disgust. Meanwhile, Maggie’s tiny body trembled violently as her failing heart slowly gave up. “Lyra… please…” Brandon begged brokenly. “I’ll kneel if I have to. Just take us to the hospital…” But Lyra looked at her dying daughter with cold disappointment. “I’m ashamed of both of you.” Then she abandoned them on the side of the highway. As Brandon desperately carried his little girl toward the hospital, Maggie smiled weakly through her tears. “Daddy… don’t cry anymore. When I reach Heaven, I’ll ask God to send someone who will love you better than Mommy did.” Moments later, her tiny hand slipped away forever. That was the moment Brandon Hale died too. The gentle husband who forgave everything disappeared forever, replaced by a man driven only by grief, revenge, and the truth behind his wife’s betrayal. But when Lyra finally realizes the horrifying mistake she made… It’s already too late. “Brandon… I’m sorry…” she sobbed at his feet. “I never wanted Maggie to die…” Brandon stepped away from her trembling hands, his eyes empty and cold. “It’s too late.”

In the first apocalypse timeline, he trusted the wrong people, gave away what little he had, and was betrayed when food became more valuable than human life. Death came quietly—without heroism, without meaning. Then time rewound. Kyle wakes minutes before the world collapses, reborn with all his memories intact—and a system no one else possesses: the Infinite Supplies System. Food. Water. Weapons. A private Paradise Space untouched by ruin. But abundance comes with a rule carved in cold logic: nothing is free. Supplies can only be unlocked through Emotional Function Points. As cities fall and boys’ survivor zones are wiped out, a sealed girls’ campus becomes an island of desperation. Kyle alone can move freely through the apocalypse. He doesn’t force obedience. He waits. Hunger does the work. Cleaning earns meals. Labor earns water. Emotion—fear, shame, gratitude, desire—determines how much. Six girls stand at the center of this fragile balance: a campus beauty hiding terror behind smiles, an ice-cold strategist who refuses to beg, a fallen heiress desperate to reclaim control, an arrogant provocateur who thrives on chaos, a kind healer who sacrifices herself too easily, and a hardened survivor who refuses to be owned. Between them, alliances form and fracture. Submission becomes strategy. Strategy becomes betrayal. Kyle’s relationships with them are never simple. He is their provider, their ruler, their shield—and, increasingly, their moral problem. As the system rewards cruelty more efficiently than kindness, Kyle begins to realize a terrifying truth: the system doesn’t care about survival. It cares about consumption. When outside survivor factions finally make contact and the system escalates beyond Kyle’s control, he is forced to choose—declare himself sovereign over a starving world, or challenge the very system that keeps everyone alive. And the system is already watching how he decides.