Chapter 2

I spent two days testing the ring.

I stashed a bottle of water inside and pulled it out three hours later. When I unscrewed the cap, it smelled like a pristine mountain spring, clean and crisp with minerals. I took a sip, and as the water slid down my throat, something deep inside me stirred. Five years of surviving the apocalypse in my past life told me exactly what that feeling was: Perception.

I stored a tactical folding knife and took it out six hours later. The blade now gleamed with a faint, dark sheen. I tested it on a plank of wood, and the blade bit into the timber with a soft hiss, like scissors gliding through wrapping paper. Standard stainless steel couldn't do that.

I stored a case of canned food and pulled it out twelve hours later. The meat inside had a richer color, the fat marbled perfectly. I tossed a small chunk to a neighborhood stray cat. It devoured the meat, stared at me for a solid minute, and then followed me for half a block.

The rules were becoming clear. Anything stored inside the ring was passively upgraded. The longer it stayed in, the higher the quality. The greater the mass, the longer the process took. A single bottle of water took three hours to show changes; a case of canned food took half a day. The upper limit was still a mystery.

It was enough.

I spent the entire next day stocking up. I didn't bother fighting the crowds at the local grocery stores; instead, I hit up a military surplus store on the outskirts of town, a hardware wholesale distributor, and a liquidated outdoor gear warehouse. An apocalypse veteran knows exactly what actually keeps you alive: high-calorie MREs, water purification tablets, antibiotics, solar power banks, a heavy-draw crossbow, and hunting bolts. I stashed the supplies into my spatial ring in batches—food and meds first, water and fuel second, tools and weapons last. Right as I was checking out, the store owner asked if I wanted a satellite Wi-Fi hotspot, mentioning they were on clearance. I threw down some extra cash for it and grabbed an unlocked burner phone. I texted the satellite number to my mom. Only family had it.

Later that afternoon, I tracked down a local off-the-books dealer to finalize my crossbow purchase. He asked why I wasn't stocking up on firearms. I told him I didn't like the noise. In the apocalypse, a gunshot is basically a dinner bell for the undead. A crossbow is silent, and the bolts are reusable.

On the final day, I moved into an abandoned underground pump station on the north side of town. In my past life, no one had ever discovered this place. The structure was solid, the vents were hidden, and it had clear sightlines in all directions. The pump station was up north, while my family's upscale subdivision was down southeast, separated by an old industrial park and a massive, derelict parking lot. I spent my last day reinforcing the main entrance and welding shut any unnecessary access points. I only left one old ventilation shaft in the northwest corner open—you needed airflow deep underground; sealing it completely would be a death trap. Beneath the eastern reservoir was an old drainage pipe that fed into a ditch outside the perimeter wall. I packed it with rubble, leaving only a narrow slit for water to drain.

At 2:00 PM, I stood by the single window that faced the street.

The sky began to turn red. A deep crimson crept up from the horizon. A short, sharp scream echoed from the next block over, then abruptly cut off. A figure stumbled out of the corner convenience store, moving with a jerky, unnatural gait. It lunged at a mail carrier who had just stepped out of his delivery truck, sinking its teeth right into his neck. Blood splattered across the white side-panel of the vehicle.

More figures began pouring out of the alleys.

The apocalypse was here.

My phone buzzed. The signal had dropped to a single bar. It was a text from my mom: "Vic, your brother says something bad is going to happen to the world. Are you regretting your choice yet?"

I didn't reply. I popped the SIM card out, snapped it in half, and tossed it into a metal bucket in the corner. I pulled an MRE from my spatial ring that had been upgrading for three days, tore open the packaging, and slowly ate my meal. Outside, the guttural snarls of the undead echoed through the night. I didn't sleep a wink. Instead, I spent the hours organizing the fragmented memories of my past life—who was worth recruiting, where the hidden supply caches were, and exactly how the zombies would mutate. That intel existed in only one place: my head.

The power and water grids failed on day three. Cell service vanished completely. Millstone was reduced to an isolated island, overrun by parades of the walking dead.

On the evening of that day, the satellite phone rang.

I let it ring three times before picking up.

My mom's voice came through, strained by three days of hunger. "Vic—are you still alive? Do you have any food over there? We don't have anything left in the house, and your brother says—"

She didn't get to finish before the phone was snatched away. Damian's voice exploded through the speaker. "Where are you? You hoarded food, didn't you? Bring it over here right now! We're family!"

"Family." I repeated the word.

I thought back to the exact moment Damian shoved me out in my past life. My dad had stayed completely silent. My mom had just stood there and watched.

"Vic—please—"

I hung up the phone and powered on the satellite Wi-Fi hotspot. The indicator light blinked green—full signal. Then, I opened a messaging app on my burner phone and initiated a video call.

The screen lit up. On Damian's end, I could see the glowing LED of his own satellite hotspot, glaringly bright in the dim living room of their suburban McMansion. I guess he had managed to buy something useful with my stolen lottery money after all. The three of them were huddled on the couch, the curtains drawn tight. Their faces were smeared with grime and sweat, and sitting on the coffee table were three empty tin cans and a kitchen knife. I propped my phone up and pulled an upgraded steak, upgraded water, and a self-heating rice meal from my spatial ring. I tore open the heating pack, poured in the water, and let the steam rise into the frame.

Dead silence fell over the other end of the call.

I picked up a piece of meat with my fork and chewed it slowly.

"You called begging for food. I figured I'd show you my dinner." I raised my right hand and made a fist, pointing the ring on my index finger directly at the camera lens. The smoldering dark fire deep within the obsidian was crystal clear. "This ring—that piece of junk you used to scam me out of my lottery ticket—is a genuine spatial artifact. It can hold a warehouse worth of supplies, it upgrades the quality of food, and it's going to keep me alive through the apocalypse."

Damian's expression froze. It was the look of a man utterly shattered, realizing he had personally handed over a priceless treasure to the person he looked down on the most. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

My mom stared at the screen, her eyes turning red. My dad's gaze shifted from confusion to something far darker.

"You traded a literal godsend for twenty million pieces of useless paper. Now tell me—who's the real sucker?"

Damian suddenly lunged at his phone. "That belongs to me—"

I ended the call. I finished the last bite of my meal and stored the utensils back into the spatial ring. I opened my palm, and a hair-thin arc of blue electricity danced across my fingertips before fizzling out. My lightning Awakening from my past life was returning, fueled by the constant wash of energy from the ring. It was still weak. It just needed time.

I slung the crossbow over my shoulder and picked up my machete. The upscale subdivision was one of the most densely populated areas, meaning it would be crawling with zombies. If I didn't clear them out, they would eventually wander through the industrial park and stumble upon my pump station. Rather than waiting for them to come knocking on my door, I was going to take the fight to them.