Scorched Earth: Reborn with a System

I was reborn, but the memory of my last death still lingered in my mind.

One second I was in the warehouse, pounding on the scorching iron door, smoke flooding my throat, flames licking at my back.

The next second I was sitting in front of the security company's monitoring console, air-conditioning blowing cold air straight into my face.

The time on the screen read: 9:47 AM. An orange heat warning had already been issued, but the real disaster was still six hours away.

I looked down at my hands. No burns, no blisters. Knuckles intact, palms clean. But I remembered the bloodstains they had left on that iron door.

Then I saw it.

A patch of numbness, about the size of a fingernail, suddenly spread at the corner of my right eye—like an ice chip pressed against the skin. After the numbness faded, a translucent gray panel floated there—suspended in my field of vision, moving with my eye movements. I closed my eyes. It was still there. Opened them again. It faded slightly but didn't disappear.

On it were several gray bars, each labeled with a word. Strength. Agility. Endurance. Perception. Intelligence. The bars varied in length; the fullest was Endurance, the shortest Agility. The edges of the bars had a faint silver sheen, like pencil shading rubbed with an eraser, leaving behind a barely visible glint.

I stared at the Endurance bar for a long time.

The foundation I had built over six years as a firefighter was still there, and my body hadn't completely deteriorated after I retired and switched to security work.

But endurance alone hadn't been enough to pry open that iron door—bolted from the outside. I knew who had bolted it. We had served together in the fire department for six years, then worked as partners at the security company for another two. I had looked at that face for eight years—long enough to recognize every one of his smiles, including the last one. The corner of his mouth had curled upward when he closed that iron door.

Now was not the time for memories.

I stood up and made a mental list. I had two things to do within six hours: get the spare keys to the fire station, and find a building suitable for single-person defense. A third thing—identifying all threats—would take time and couldn't be completed before the apocalypse hit. I would do the first two first.

On the monitoring room wall hung the building's fire evacuation map. After two years, I could walk every corridor with my eyes closed. I opened my locker, grabbed the emergency pack, a flashlight, and two bottles of water. I opened the supervisor's drawer—on the key ring hung three spare keys labeled for the fire station. The company had taken over the city's fire facility maintenance contract, so the keys were in our hands. In the previous life, he had gotten to them first. In this life, I got to them first.

I slipped the keys into my pocket and walked out of the security company. The heat hit me like a wall. The morning sun was already abnormally scorching, but the people on the street didn't seem to mind. A line was forming outside the convenience store for ice cream, and a few kids were playing with water around a fire hydrant.

I started the truck and drove toward the fire station.

The rolling shutter was half open. That black pickup was parked at the entrance—I knew that truck; it had accompanied me on dozens of fire calls. The bed was piled high with cardboard boxes—water storage tanks, first-aid kits, cases of compressed biscuits—being methodically loaded by two people. The water tanks were on the bottom, the compressed biscuits stacked on top—ordinary hoarders wouldn't prioritize these two items first. Only someone who knew the heat apocalypse was coming would choose water and shelf-stable food first. He was wearing a faded dark blue T-shirt, his hair cut shorter than last week. He moved boxes with a focused efficiency, like someone racing to meet a deadline. She stood behind him handing boxes up, a light-colored dress, movements practiced.

My hands tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles pressing against the leather with a faint squeak. Then I released my grip and ran the calculation in my head. Water storage tanks, first-aid kits, compressed biscuits—he knew the heat was coming. Or someone had told him.

The fire station was already taken. A head-on confrontation wasn't wise. I needed another building—high walls, an independent well, a barrier that could hold back a crowd.

Before I retired, I had passed by Collingwood Prison once. During a nearby grass-fire rescue, the fire truck had driven past its gates. It had been closed five years earlier due to budget cuts: high walls, watchtowers, independent well, cold storage insulation. Every wall told me: this was built for single-person defense.

I shifted gears, turned around, and drove toward the suburbs.

The prison gate was ajar. The padlock had been pried open, the chain dangling from the handle. I pushed the door open, the hinges screeching with rust, then examined the lock's damage—a thin layer of dust on the pry marks, at least three days old. Someone had been here, but not today.

The exercise yard was empty, the concrete bleached white by the sun. The main building entrance stood open, the shadows in the corridor beyond like a solid wall. I spent an hour walking the perimeter, confirming the walls were intact. One watchtower window was broken, but the structure was sound. The generator room was on the west side of the main building—an old diesel engine, the tank empty, but the unit looked usable. Behind the kitchen was a cold storage room, no refrigerant, but the insulation remained. I spotted the entrance to the underground cistern; the latch was rusted shut and would need tools.

After surveying the perimeter, I sketched a defensive blueprint in my notebook. By the third stroke, the panel in my right eye flickered again—a faint warmth, as if someone had held a finger near my temple for a second. The gray bars hadn't changed, but the silver edges had brightened slightly. I kept sketching, and the warmth faded after I finished plotting the watchtower firing angles and the tripwire positions at the main gate. I didn't know what it was doing. But I knew that after drawing that map, I had a new understanding of every wall in the prison—the information I already had had rearranged itself in my mind into a more efficient order.

Day one of the apocalypse, I was the only living person in this prison.

At dusk I stood at the top of the watchtower. The city lights went out one by one; the first black column of smoke rose from the southeast, then the second. No sirens, no fire trucks. Cell signal dropped to one bar; the news feed was still advising citizens to reduce outdoor activity—then the signal cut out too.

The heat wave rolled in from the horizon, carrying the smell of burning rubber.

I looked down at my hands. No burns, no blisters. But these hands remembered the heat of the flames.

In the distance, a searchlight glowed from the direction of the fire station. He was preparing for something too.

I stared at that light for a long time, then closed the watchtower window.