Chapter2
I took a deep breath and forced myself to loosen my grip on the steering wheel. My knuckles were white from the excessive force, and my palms were covered in cold sweat.
The timeline has changed. In my dream, Marcus knocked on my door on Thursday evening, but it's only Monday! My defenses aren't even fully in place, and the truck is crammed with supplies. I can't let them suspect anything.
I took out the car key, opened the car door , and pretended to have just returned.
“Hey! Eli! My good brother!” Marcus spotted me with sharp eyes. He immediately threw away the half-smoked cigarette in his mouth, crushed it with his toe, and walked towards me with open arms. Lisa was chewing gum behind him, while her brother was kicking the corner of the wall boredly.
"What are you doing here?" I stood calmly in front of the SUV's trunk. "I remember we made it very clear on the phone ten minutes ago that I'm not available here."
Marcus's hand froze in mid-air, but he quickly laughed and shamelessly leaned forward: "Don't be like that, buddy. The landlord kicked us out, and we really have nowhere to go. Look, we've brought our luggage. Besides, your apartment is so big, can't we just borrow the sofa in the living room for a few nights?"
As he spoke, his gaze swept past my shoulder and landed on the completely flattened rear suspension of my car. My large SUV looked like a bloated beast, with the outlines of boxes of gas masks and industrial duct tape vaguely visible through the rear window.
"You went to buy supplies?" Marcus raised one eyebrow, a strange glint in his eyes.
"The house is leaking and the walls are moldy, so I'm preparing for a complete renovation." My mind raced, and the lie slipped out: "I bought some waterproofing paint and soundproofing panels, along with a bunch of other miscellaneous building materials. It's full of dust and has a pungent formaldehyde smell right now."
"Renovation?" Lisa stepped forward, eyeing the SUV suspiciously. "Are you kidding me? Who would renovate a house at this time of year?"
“That’s why I said you can’t stay here.” I went along with it, softening my tone and trying to sound reassuring. “Listen, Marcus, I know you’re in trouble. As a brother, I can’t just watch you end up on the streets. How about this, there’s a hotel in the next block , I’ll pay for a week’s stay in a suite for you. Once my house is renovated and aired out, you can move in for a few more days. How does that sound?”
I thought the offer was tempting enough—a free hotel , and no need to squeeze into a dusty "construction site" with me. As soon as I got them out of there, I drove my car into the underground garage and welded my gate shut with steel plates.
Marcus and Lisa exchanged a glance. His gaze turned extremely strange in that instant; it wasn't gratitude, but rather a mockery and coldness that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
“Wow, a hotel suite. You’re quite the generous ‘brother,’ Eli.” Marcus chuckled sarcastically, his tone suddenly becoming somewhat erratic. “For renovating this house, you even prepared hundreds of cases of water and compressed biscuits? These days, do you need gas masks for renovations?”
My heart skipped a beat.
When I parked the car, the window wasn't fully rolled up, and he saw something in the gap between the back seats!
"Those are dust masks used during renovations. As for the water, it was just on sale at the supermarket." I tried to remain calm, pulled out my phone from my pocket, and immediately opened the hotel booking app, wanting to get things done quickly. "Anyway, I'll book rooms for you right now. You can take your luggage and head over there immediately..."
I lowered my head slightly and slid my finger across the screen .
This is the most fatal mistake I've ever made in my life.
That dream prepared me mentally for the end of the world, but I underestimated how impatient human malice could be on the eve of the apocalypse.
"Bang!"
A nauseating thud came from the back of my head without warning.
I felt a blinding white light explode before my eyes, as if the whole world had been stuffed into a giant blender. My phone slipped from my hand and crashed onto the asphalt with a "thud," the screen shattering into a spiderweb pattern.
"You are indeed a good man, Eli. It's a pity that good men always die first."
Just a second before I completely lost consciousness and my body slumped to the ground, Marcus's cold and malicious voice rang in my ears. I vaguely heard the crisp sound of a metal wrench falling to the ground.
...
When I woke up again, I smelled a pungent smell of dust and a faint smell of rust.
The excruciating pain in the back of my head felt like a drill was drilling into it. I couldn't help but let out a muffled groan and instinctively reached out to touch the wound.
“Struggling won’t help, buddy. This rope is the strongest one I picked out at the hardware store.”
I suddenly opened my eyes, and my vision gradually came into focus.
I was sitting in the middle of the living room of my apartment. My hands were tied behind my back to the chair back, the rough nylon rope digging deep into my flesh, and my feet were also tightly bound to the chair legs.
Marcus was comfortably nestled in my leather sofa, fiddling with my car keys. Lisa and her brother were ransacking my kitchen and bedroom, scattering the few emergency supplies I'd recently moved in all over the place.
I gritted my teeth, cold sweat trickling down my forehead.
I made thorough preparations for the spore apocalypse, but I never expected that the biggest variable before the disaster would be this demon that broke in three days earlier than the scheduled deadline.
