Chapter 1

The dream always started the same way.

It was my sister, Sarah, screaming my name. In the dream, she wasn't just yelling, she was wailing, a raw sound of pure terror that made the hair on my arms stand up. Her face, usually composed with that smug, self-satisfied smirk she wore like a second skin, was twisted in horror. She would grab my arm, her nails digging into my flesh, and point to the window.

Outside, the world was ending. Not with a bang, but with a slow, shuffling groan. The dead were walking.

This time, however, I wasn't in the dream. I was wide awake in my own bed, and the screaming was coming from down the hall.

"They're coming! I saw them! They' re coming!"

I heard the frantic thud of my parents' feet as they rushed from their room to hers. My mom' s voice was a high-pitched coo of concern. "Sarah, honey, what is it? Just a bad dream."

"No! It was real! The same dream, but clearer this time! I saw their faces, Mom! Rotting flesh, dead eyes... it' s a prophecy!"

I didn't move. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, my heart a steady, slow drum in my chest. In my previous life, this was the moment I had jumped out of bed. This was when I had run to Sarah's room, full of sisterly concern, ready to tell her it was okay, that dreams weren't real.

That had been my first mistake in a long line of them.

Trying to reason with Sarah had been like trying to stop a tidal wave with a bucket. My logic was met with her tears, my calm with her hysterics. Our parents, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, had sided with her instantly. I was being "insensitive." I didn't understand how "special" and "attuned" Sarah was.

My attempts to stop her from convincing our parents to liquidate their retirement accounts had earned me a slap from my father and a week of the silent treatment from my mother. When I tried to hide the car keys to stop Sarah from driving to a "prepper" convention two states away, she had accused me of trying to get her killed. She claimed my "negative energy" was sabotaging her "survival instincts."

The family had crumbled around her delusion. They lost the house, the savings, everything. And when the predicted apocalypse never came, they didn' t blame Sarah. They blamed me. For not believing. For not supporting them. For being the single crack in their perfect, unified front of madness. In the end, they had cast me out, and I had died alone and forgotten, not from a zombie bite, but from pneumonia in a homeless shelter.

A bitter taste filled my mouth.

But this time, I wasn't dead. I was twenty-two again, lying in my childhood bed, listening to the prelude of the same disaster. It was like getting a second chance, a do-over for a test I had already failed spectacularly. And this time, I knew the answers.

"I saw a sign!" Sarah was shouting now, her voice carrying clearly through the thin walls. "It' s going to start with the birds! The news will report a mass bird death event, right here in our city. That' s the first sign!"

I sat up slowly. I knew about the birds. I had seen the email notification from the city parks department on my laptop last night. They were doing a controlled fumigation of an invasive insect species at the city's largest park today. The notice explicitly warned that it might, unfortunately, affect the local bird population. It was a mundane, bureaucratic event.

To Sarah, it would be a miracle. A confirmation of her prophetic powers.

I heard my dad's voice, hesitant but intrigued. "Bird deaths? What kind of birds?"

"Blackbirds!" Sarah said with absolute certainty. "Hundreds of them, falling from the sky! It will be on the afternoon news!"

My mother gasped. "Oh, my God. Tom, she saw it."

I swung my legs out of bed and walked over to my desk. I opened my laptop and looked at the email again. It didn't specify the type of bird, but the park was famous for its huge flock of grackles, a type of blackbird. It was all lining up perfectly.

Last time, I had run into her room with this email, trying to show them the logical explanation. It had only made them more convinced I was a "non-believer," a saboteur.

This time, I would do things differently.

I closed the laptop. I walked to my door, unlocked it, and stepped into the hallway. The lights were on, casting long shadows. My parents were huddled around Sarah, who was sitting up in her bed, her face pale and her eyes wide with a messianic fervor. She looked like a deranged saint.

They all turned to look at me. My mother' s face was etched with worry for Sarah. My father looked confused, but a flicker of excitement was in his eyes. Sarah' s expression was one of pure, triumphant validation.

"Lily," my mom said, her voice strained. "Sarah had a very, very bad dream."

I looked past them, directly at Sarah. I let a slow, calculated look of awe spread across my face. I widened my eyes, just a little.

"A prophecy?" I whispered, my voice filled with a reverence I did not feel.

Sarah' s self-satisfied smirk, the one I hated so much, finally returned to her face. She nodded slowly, her eyes gleaming. "Yes," she breathed. "It's starting."

I wouldn't stop her. I wouldn't save them. This time, I would watch them burn. And I would bring the gasoline.