Chapter 1

 "The apocalypse is coming! We're all going to die!"

Early morning, my wife's brother Kyle's hysterical voice rang out, accompanied by constant pounding on doors. "Everyone! Immediately! Right now! Get downstairs!"

My eyes snapped open.

I found myself not in a cold basement being eaten by my wife's family, but lying in a comfortable, soft bed with my wife beside me.

I had been reborn!

My phone showed: exactly 30 days until the extreme cold arrived.

In my past life, Kyle had a dream one month before the frozen apocalypse. Upon waking, he claimed he'd had an "apocalyptic revelation"—that God told him extreme cold was coming, and when it arrived, he would awaken a spatial ability to "store items."

My wife's family forced me to drain all my savings to stockpile supplies for the apocalypse.

Though I didn't believe in the apocalypse, under pressure I used all my assets to purchase doomsday supplies.

But that idiot Kyle, while I was diligently stockpiling, went around bragging to everyone.

He posted photos on social media, boasted to his drinking buddies at bars, even brought people to the house to show off the supplies, arrogantly claiming that when the apocalypse came, he'd become the Doomsday King with his spatial ability and these supplies.

Then on apocalypse day, Kyle did awaken a spatial ability—with a capacity of three cubic meters.

Smaller than a wardrobe.

His "massive supplies" couldn't even fit inside.

On the third day of extreme cold, his "friends" broke in and looted all the food and fuel. We could only eat rats and tree bark.

By day ten, when even the rats and bark were gone, my wife's family decided to kill and eat me first, then venture out to find hope.

I still remember their reason for killing me—

"If you'd built more secret supply caches back then, we wouldn't be starving now."

As my father-in-law Bill Crawford pulled the knife from my throat, my wife Britney crouched beside me saying "start with the legs, there's more meat there," while her mother Susan discussed whether to save my liver...

"What the hell is Kyle doing?" My wife got up irritably and kicked me to vent her frustration, pulling me from my memories.

I ignored her, just sat on the bed, staring at her with unfamiliar eyes.

The kind of look you'd give a piece of meat with a slaughter date stamped on it.

Britney seemed to sense something, lifting her eye mask to look at me. "What's your problem?"

"Nothing." I threw off the covers and got out of bed. "I'm going to wash my face."

"Weirdo." She rolled over and started getting dressed.

I walked into the master bedroom's bathroom and locked the door behind me.

I turned on the cold water tap, frantically washing my face with near-freezing water.

The face in the mirror gradually became clear—thirty-two years old, ordinary brown hair, gray-blue eyes, unremarkable features.

A typical lower-middle-class code monkey, the perfect "ATM" in the Crawford family's eyes.

"I've had enough." I said in a low voice to the mirror, the murderous intent in my eyes growing stronger.

But I wouldn't kill them directly.

I would continue playing the stupid ATM on the surface, stockpiling flashy apocalypse garbage for them, and let Kyle continue showing off, attracting those thugs.

Meanwhile—

I would build a frozen shelter that belonged only to me.

I would sit in my warm bunker during the extreme cold, watching through surveillance cameras as the Crawford family tore each other apart in hunger.

I wanted to watch them break down.

I wanted to watch them despair.

I wanted to watch them repeat everything they did to me in my past life.

Except this time, they'd do it to each other.

The me in the mirror smiled cruelly.

Just then, there was an impatient knock on the bathroom door.

"Hurry up, Allen. Kyle's getting impatient." Britney had already dressed and was urging me.

"Coming." I turned off the tap, took a deep breath, then headed downstairs to the living room with Britney.