Chapter 2

I stared at the door as it kept gently swaying, sitting there for a full dozen seconds before I finally moved my hand away from my chest.

No bullet hole. No blood. The office didn’t even smell of smoke.

Yet the images from the last second were still stamped in my head: the searchlight, the muzzles, Vanessa’s face.

I stood up. My legs felt weak, as if my body hadn’t caught up with reality.

The cup on the desk had been smashed only moments ago. The water on the floor hadn’t dried.

Ten minutes earlier, Vanessa and I had argued, and she’d stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

Ever since I’d established this base, she’d been trying to convince me to leave—leave these “deadweights” behind.

I’d explained it to her more than once. When the outbreak first began, we could still scavenge water and food from abandoned convenience stores and supermarkets without worrying about the next meal.

But that time was gone. The apocalypse had dragged on for too long, and whatever supplies were left in the open had already been stripped clean. Building a base wasn’t some idealistic fantasy—it was step one of survival. We had to stay together, build a stable order, and create something sustainable, or we’d never make it.

Vanessa called it all excuses.

Then she slammed the door and left.

I remembered it perfectly.

In my last life, I’d thought it was just another fight. I’d assumed she’d be back by nightfall at the latest.

Instead, what I found was her backpack and a smear of blood. And months later, I died with her standing among the enemy, watching me get executed.

This time, I wasn’t going to wait.

I pushed the office door open, and the sounds of the factory rushed into my ears all at once.

Someone was hammering steel plates in the yard. Someone was hauling buckets at the water tower. Someone carried disassembled generator parts one by one to the workbench.

In the hallway, two kids ran toward the warehouse with a wooden crate between them. Halfway there, Nora stopped them, said something in a low voice, and the kids obediently set the crate down and began sorting the gauze inside.

Nothing had happened yet.

That blood-soaked night from my last life hadn’t fallen on this place. This was still the factory base I knew.

I stood on the second-floor corridor and looked around once. Strangely, my heartbeat steadied.

Vanessa said I was feeding a pack of useless mouths. She was wrong.

Everyone here—old or young, injured or healthy—was working.

Some handled water purification. Some kept the generator running. Some repaired the fence. Some rotated night patrols. Some carried guns and went out scavenging for medicine and fuel.

We weren’t an army, but we weren’t a crowd of freeloaders living off charity either.

The real mistake wasn’t that I’d taken people in.

The real mistake was that I’d made the rules too loose.

I had just reached the stairwell when Ryan came up toward me.

He carried a coil of wire, sweat pouring down his forehead, his left leg still wrapped in an old bandage. When he saw me, he froze for a moment—probably because my face looked worse than it should have.

“Are you okay?” he frowned. “I was about to come find you. Vanessa is gone. The guard said she left through the east gate with her pack. Do you want me to send people after her?”

I looked at him, and another image flashed through my head: Ryan crawling back out of the drainage ditch, raising his pistol toward Vanessa—and getting his skull blown open.

I closed my eyes briefly, forced the memory down, and spoke steadily.

“No. Don’t look for her.”

Ryan blinked. “Don’t?”

“She didn’t get lost,” I said. “She chose to leave.”

His frown deepened, as if he wanted to argue, but he swallowed it.

Vanessa was my girlfriend. She was also one of the earliest members of the base, involved in plenty of key work. Her sudden departure wasn’t just personal—it could shake morale and stability.

I saw his concern, so I made it clear.

“There’s no point chasing someone who wants to go,” I said. “What we need to do isn’t persuade her to come back. It’s to protect the people who stayed.”

Ryan stared at me for a few seconds, then nodded. He didn’t press for details, only asked, “Should I tell the patrol team to keep the east gate closed for now?”

“Keep it open,” I said. “But starting today, every entry and exit gets logged—time, headcount, destination, what they take out, what they bring back. Everything.”

I paused. “And the gate keys don’t hang on a hook anymore. Put them away. Handovers require two people present.”

Ryan’s eyes shifted. “Why the sudden crackdown?”

Because I’d died once.

Because I’d watched you all fall one by one.

I couldn’t say that.

I looked down at the busy yard and said slowly, “Do you know Marcus?”

Ryan’s expression tightened. “That armed gang? They’re far from us.”

I shook my head. “Not anymore. I got word they’ve been moving around our area. It’s only a matter of time before they find us.”

Ryan fell silent for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll handle it.”

As he turned to go, I stopped him again. “Call Nora, Harry, Miller, and everyone responsible for patrol and the warehouse. Meet in the workshop. Half an hour. We’re holding a briefing.”

This time Ryan didn’t ask why. He just went downstairs.

I walked down the corridor. At the infirmary door, I saw Nora changing the bandage on a teenager.

Nora was the first person I’d ever saved. Back then, she’d been carrying a case of antibiotics and was a breath away from being bitten.

Vanessa had told me to wait until the dead finished the job and then take the antibiotics. I hadn’t listened. That was our first real split.

Farther ahead, by the kitchen door, the cook cut baked hardtack into portions, stuffed them into cloth bags, and handed them to the patrol heading out.

A mechanic crouched by the hinge of the west gate, wrench in one hand and steel plate in the other, adding a second reinforcement strip.

I stood there for a few seconds, and something heavy settled in my chest.

These people weren’t burdens.

They were the skeleton of this factory.

Before long, the workshop filled up.

Nearly all the core members were there: Ryan, Nora, Harry, Miller, Albert who ran the warehouse, Lopez who managed the generator, and two scouts from the scavenging team.

They looked at me with surprise. I rarely called everyone together.

I didn’t waste time.

“Starting today,” I said, “the rules of this base change.”

The room went quiet.

“First: the food store, ammo cache, and gate access all move to two-person handover. Not because we’re paranoid. Because if one person goes down, the other can still hold the line.”

“Outside, it’s not just the dead.” I let that sink in. “There are people like Marcus. They don’t need us to make a major mistake. They only need one weak seam, and they’ll pry it open.”

At the name, several faces darkened. Everyone had heard the port-district stories.

I kept going. “Second: we restructure the guard posts. Double watch at night. Daily-changing passcodes. Without the passcode, even our own people don’t approach key zones.”

“Third: we build a reserve team. Anyone who can shoot, and anyone who can’t shoot well but can run and carry—train in batches. During the day you do your jobs. If something hits, in five minutes you need to know exactly where you stand, who you listen to, and what section you hold.”

Miller looked up. “And number five?”

“Evacuation drills,” I said. “Not because we plan to abandon the base. Because everyone needs to know when to hold and when to fall back—where to go, how to move the kids, who escorts supplies, who stays behind. When it comes to it, the ones who run blindly die first.”

Silence held for a few seconds.

Ryan nodded first. “I’m in. We should’ve done this earlier.”

Nora spoke next. “I’ll redo medication access for the infirmary. Who can take what, I’ll write it down.”

Albert hesitated, then nodded as well. “I’ll split the warehouse keys into two. I’ll keep one and give one to Ryan.”

Harry put his pipe back between his teeth and bared a grin. “Then I’ll take another look at the west wall. If we’re going to hold, we’ll hold properly.”

The mood shifted.

Not because I gave a stirring speech, but because they understood what it meant: I wasn’t turning the base into a cold barracks. I was making sure that when we got hit, we wouldn’t be relying on luck.

After the meeting, I sent everyone back to their work and climbed the stairs to the rooftop alone.

Evening wind rolled over the wasteland.

Outside the wall, several wrecked cars sat skewed near the road as makeshift obstacles, and two patrol silhouettes moved slowly along the perimeter.

Farther out lay the old highway and a toppled billboard, the road disappearing into a low layer of haze.

The wind carried dust from the open land.

I knew Vanessa wouldn’t truly vanish.

Sooner or later, she would come back.

And this time, before she reached out her hand, I would have the blade hidden.