Apocalypse Rebirth: Reclaiming My Infinite Space

Ellery's eyes snapped open.

She sucked in a violent, ragged breath, her upper body launching off the mattress. Her hands flew to her throat, her fingers digging frantically into the flesh. She expected to feel the jagged, torn edges of her own windpipe. She expected the hot, thick spray of her own blood. She could still feel the phantom teeth of the mutated creature sinking into her cartilage, tearing her life away in the freezing snow.

But her skin was smooth. Intact. Warm.

Her chest heaved. She dragged her trembling hands down her neck, over her collarbones, feeling the steady, rapid thumping of her own heart.

She blinked through the dim light. The peeling wallpaper. The water stain shaped like a skull on the ceiling. The cheap, rattling window unit. This was her crappy studio apartment in downtown Seattle.

She scrambled to the edge of the bed. Her bare feet hit the freezing hardwood floor. Her legs gave out instantly, but she caught herself on the edge of the nightstand, dragging her body toward the tiny bathroom.

She slammed her palms against the edges of the porcelain sink. She stared into the mirror.

The face looking back at her was young. Her cheeks were full. The horrific, purple frostbite scars that had webbed across her jawline in her past life were completely gone.

She grabbed the faucet handle and cranked it to the left. Freezing tap water gushed out. She cupped her hands, splashing the icy water violently against her face. She did it again. And again. The biting cold stung her cheeks, shocking her nervous system.

This wasn't a dying hallucination. The cold was too real.

Her breathing began to slow. The frantic pounding in her ears faded into a dull roar.

She spun around and lunged for the nightstand. She snatched her smartphone off the charging cable. The screen illuminated her pale face.

November 12th.

Exactly three days before the global deep freeze would hit. Three days before the apocalypse.

Her knees finally buckled. She slid down the side of the mattress, hitting the floor hard. A sound ripped from her throat-a choked gasp that twisted into a low, terrifying laugh.

She was back.

The memory of her final moments flashed behind her eyes. The heavy steel door of the underground bunker slamming shut. The smug, disgustingly satisfied faces of the Burch family looking at her through the reinforced glass as they kicked her out into the negative-fifty-degree wasteland. They had drained her bank accounts, used her blood for transfusions, and then threw her to the monsters when she was no longer useful.

Her laugh died. Pure, unadulterated hatred flooded her veins, making her fingertips go numb.

She spent a full minute digging her nails into her palms, forcing the all-consuming, violent urge to kill back down into the depths of her mind. Revenge wasn't a momentary impulse; it was a precise, calculated execution. She took a slow, deep breath, forcing her facial muscles to relax. She unclenched her jaw. She had to play the part.

Suddenly, the phone in her palm vibrated violently. The default ringtone shattered the silence of the apartment.

Ellery stared at the screen.

Sharon Burch - Mom.

A wave of nausea hit Ellery's stomach. Her knuckles turned stark white as she gripped the phone. She wanted to smash it against the wall. She wanted to drive to their house and burn it to the ground.

She pressed the green accept button and brought the phone to her ear.

"Ellery?"

Sharon's voice came through the speaker, accompanied by a pathetic, exaggerated wheeze.

"Mom? What's wrong?" Ellery asked, injecting a sickening amount of panic into her tone.

"It's my gallbladder, sweetie," Sharon groaned, her voice trembling with fake agony. "The stones... they're blocking the duct. The doctor says I need emergency surgery today. But the insurance... they're refusing to cover the out-of-pocket deductible. It's thirty thousand dollars, Ellery. They won't even prep me for the OR without it."

Ellery's stomach churned. The memories overlapped perfectly. In her past life, she had panicked. She had emptied her life savings-every single penny she had scraped together from working sixty-hour weeks-to save the woman who had adopted her.

She knew exactly where that thirty thousand dollars had gone. It bought her sister, Kendal, a limited-edition designer handbag, and her brother, Cody, a down payment on a used sports car.

Ellery swallowed the bile in her throat.

"Oh my god, Mom. That's terrible," Ellery said, her voice dripping with fake concern.

As she spoke, she pulled the phone away from her ear for a fraction of a second. Her thumb swiped down on the screen, tapping the background call-recording app. A tiny red dot appeared at the top of her screen.

"Which hospital are you at?" Ellery demanded, her voice rising in urgency. "I'm calling out of work right now. I'll drive straight there. I can stay with you in the pre-op room."

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end. Sharon stammered, the fake wheezing momentarily forgotten.

"No! No, honey, you can't," Sharon rushed out. "The... the pre-op area is strictly no-visitors. COVID protocols, you know? They won't let you past the lobby."

Ellery stayed completely silent. She let the dead air stretch. She let the awkwardness and guilt fester on the other end of the line.

"Ellery, please," Sharon's voice shifted, the tone turning sharp, laced with emotional blackmail. "We took you in when you had nothing. We gave you a home when you were just a piece of trash left at the orphanage. I'm in agony here. Are you really going to let me suffer?"

The corner of Ellery's mouth twitched upward into a cold, terrifying smirk.

"Of course not, Mom," Ellery said softly into the microphone. "I'll wire the money right now. Just text me the account details."

"Oh, thank god," Sharon breathed out.

She didn't even say thank you. The line went dead instantly.

Ellery lowered the phone. Her eyes were as cold as the arctic ice that would soon cover the city.

She opened her mobile banking app. The screen loaded, displaying her hard-earned savings. Thirty thousand, two hundred and twelve dollars.

She stared at the numbers. She wasn't going to give them a single dime. Instead, she was going to use this exact lie to drain every last drop of blood from the Burch family before the world ended.

Ellery sat cross-legged on her unmade bed. She opened the app store on her phone and typed "Crypto Portfolio Simulator" into the search bar.

She downloaded the highest-rated app, the one designed to let users practice day-trading with fake money. Once it installed, she opened the interface and navigated to the custom coin settings.

She typed in a fake ticker symbol: NovaCoin.

She inputted her real bank balance-thirty thousand dollars-as the initial investment. Then, her fingers flew across the screen, adjusting the backend algorithms. She manipulated the line graph, forcing it into a steep, aggressive upward spike. She made it look like NovaCoin had surged five hundred percent in the last twelve hours.

The fake portfolio balance updated instantly. One hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars.

She took a screenshot, making sure the massive green numbers were front and center.

She opened her text messages and clicked on the group chat labeled Burch Family.

She attached the screenshot and began typing rapidly.

Mom, I am so, so sorry. I tried to wire the thirty thousand for your surgery, but I can't access the funds. A client at my firm gave me an inside tip on a private liquidity pool for a new token. I put all my savings in to try and double it so I could pay for your post-op care too. It exploded overnight, but the funds are hard-locked for a twenty-four-hour vesting period. I can't withdraw anything until tomorrow.

She hit send.

She tossed the phone onto the mattress, stood up, and walked into the tiny kitchen to pour herself a glass of water.

Less than thirty seconds later, the phone began to vibrate violently against the bedsheets. The screen lit up with an incoming call.

Ellery leaned against the kitchen doorframe, sipping her water. She stared at the caller ID. Earl Burch. Her adoptive father.

She let it ring. She let it ring until it almost went to voicemail.

On the fourth consecutive call, she finally set her glass down, walked over, and picked it up. She took a deep breath, forcing a slight pant into her voice as she swiped the green button.

"Hello?" she answered, sounding breathless.

"Is that screenshot real?!" Earl's gruff, frantic voice exploded through the speaker. He didn't even ask about his wife's supposed emergency surgery.

Ellery lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper. "Dad, keep it down. Yes, it's real. It's a closed-door tip from a Wall Street whale my boss works with."

"Oh my god!" Sharon's voice shrieked in the background. Her fake, sickly wheeze was completely gone. She sounded like she had just won the lottery.

There was a scuffle on the other end of the line.

"Ellery!" Kendal's shrill voice pierced the speaker. Her younger sister had snatched the phone. "Can you put my trust fund in there? If it's doing a five-x return, I could buy that condo in Malibu!"

Ellery paused. She counted to five in her head, letting the silence build the desperation.

"I don't know, Kendal," Ellery said, her tone heavy with reluctance. "This pool is strictly for institutional investors. They don't take retail money. I barely got in because of my client."

"Bullshit!" Cody, her younger brother, yelled from somewhere in the room. "You better get us in, Ellery! If you hold out on us, I swear to god I'll come over there and smash your car windows!"

Ellery let out a long, heavy sigh directly into the microphone. She made it sound like she was carrying the weight of the world, forced into a corner by her demanding family.

"Fine," Ellery said quietly. "But the only way it works is if the money comes from my account. I'm already registered as a VIP node. You'll have to wire everything to my primary checking account, and I'll inject it into the pool as a single lump sum."

She kept her eyes dead and emotionless as she recited her bank routing and account numbers.

"I'm going to the bank right now," Earl barked into the phone. "I'm pulling the early withdrawal on my 401K. Don't you dare lock that pool until my money is in!"

The call disconnected.

Ellery dropped the phone. She walked over to her small desk, opened her laptop, and logged into her online banking portal.

Then came the waiting. Ellery knew an early 401K withdrawal required manager approval and heavy paperwork. The rest of the day was an agonizing wait. She paced the apartment, her eyes darting to the screen every few minutes.

Fifteen minutes later, the first deposit hit. Fifty thousand dollars. Kendal's education trust fund.

Ten minutes after that, a wire transfer for twenty thousand dollars appeared. Cody's emergency savings.

Finally, the screen refreshed.

A massive wire transfer cleared. Eight hundred thousand dollars. She couldn't believe Earl had managed to pull it off so quickly. He must have paid an exorbitant price in fees and penalties, or called in a serious favor at his bank's executive branch just to expedite the wire.

Along with a few smaller savings transfers, the total balance sat at a staggering one point one million dollars.

Ellery didn't hesitate for a single second.

She navigated to the transfer tab. She selected the entire balance and routed it directly to an obscure, high-yield checking account she had opened at a completely different credit union across the state.

She watched the primary account balance drop to zero point zero zero.

She picked up her phone, opened the family group chat, and typed one final message.

Funds received and injected into the pool. Waiting for the payout.

She went to the chat settings and toggled the Mute Notifications switch. She didn't care about the frantic messages they were sending about buying yachts and mansions. She had their money. Now, she needed to survive.

Ellery stared at the seven-figure balance on her laptop screen. There was no joy in her chest. Only a suffocating sense of urgency.

Her stomach suddenly let out a loud, hollow growl. The physical vibration reminded her that this young, healthy body desperately needed fuel.

She pushed her chair back and walked into the cramped kitchen. She yanked the refrigerator door open. The harsh yellow light illuminated a depressing sight: a carton of expired milk and half of a rock-hard, stale bagel wrapped in plastic.

She grabbed the bagel, tore off the plastic, and took a bite. It scraped against the roof of her mouth, but she chewed mechanically, forcing it down her throat. Her brain was already moving a million miles a minute.

She pulled open a drawer, grabbed a yellow legal pad and a thick black Sharpie, and sat back down at the tiny dining table.

At the very top of the page, she pressed the marker down hard and wrote: SHELTER. She underlined it twice, the ink bleeding through the cheap paper.

Her mind violently snapped back to the third year of the apocalypse. The deep freeze. The endless, bone-crushing cold that turned human breath into ice crystals instantly.

She remembered shivering uncontrollably in a filthy corner of the bunker, her lips cracked and bleeding. And she remembered Kendal walking past her, wearing a brand-new, pristine designer puffer jacket that smelled like fresh laundry.

Ellery's eyes narrowed. She remembered exactly what was hanging around Kendal's neck that day. A dull, worn-out gold necklace emitting a faint, almost imperceptible warm glow.

Kendal had flaunted it. She had crouched down, shoving the necklace in Ellery's face, bragging about the magical, infinite space hidden inside the metal. A space that held entire warehouses of food. A space where she could grow fresh strawberries while the rest of the world starved to death.

Ellery's grip on the Sharpie tightened so hard the plastic casing creaked. The tip of the marker pierced the yellow paper, leaving a jagged black hole.

She would never forget that necklace. It wasn't Kendal's. It was hers.

It was the only thing wrapped in her blankets when she was abandoned at the orphanage steps. It was the only physical tether to her real bloodline. But on Kendal's sixteenth birthday, Sharon had ripped it from Ellery's neck, claiming it was too "ugly" for Ellery to wear and gifting it to Kendal as a joke.

Ellery slammed her fist onto the table. The stale bagel bounced off the wood. She hated her past self. She hated how weak she had been, handing over a literal god-tier survival tool just to keep the peace in a house that hated her.

She closed her eyes. She mapped out the exact location of the necklace. It was sitting in Kendal's pink velvet jewelry box on her vanity.

She immediately scrapped the idea of breaking into the house to steal it. Kendal was a hysterical, paranoid brat. If she noticed it missing, she would call the cops. A police investigation three days before the end of the world would completely derail Ellery's hoarding schedule.

She opened her eyes. She grabbed her phone and opened the browser, typing furiously. High-end jewelry replica shops Seattle.

She scrolled past the cheap tourist traps and found exactly what she needed. An underground studio in the arts district that specialized in creating flawless, indistinguishable fakes for wealthy socialites who didn't want to wear their real diamonds in public.

She grabbed her trench coat off the back of the chair, snatched her car keys, and bolted out the door.

She drove her beat-up Honda Civic through the slick, rain-soaked streets of Seattle. The sky was an oppressive, bruised purple.

She parked illegally, shoved open the heavy glass door of the studio, and bypassed the display cases entirely. She walked straight to the back workbench where a jeweler with a jeweler's loupe over his right eye was polishing a ring.

Ellery pulled out her phone and showed him a rough sketch she had drawn of the old gold crest necklace.

The jeweler squinted at it and shook his head. "Custom mold. Ancient engraving. That'll take two weeks minimum."

Ellery didn't argue. She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out two thick stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills she had just withdrawn from the bank, and slammed them onto the workbench.

"Change of plans," Ellery said, her voice flat and commanding. "I don't need a replica. I need the most obnoxious, flashy, massive fake diamond necklace you have in this store. Right now."

The jeweler's eyes widened at the cash. He instantly dropped the ring, turned around, and spun the dial on a hidden wall safe.

He pulled out a black velvet tray. Resting in the center was a thick, gold-plated chain holding a massive, flawlessly cut cubic zirconia pendant. It looked like a chandelier.

Ellery stared at the tacky, blindingly bright piece of junk. A cold smile touched her lips. It was perfect. She knew Kendal's desperate, new-money aesthetic better than anyone.

She shoved the cash toward the jeweler, grabbed the velvet box, and shoved it into her pocket.

She walked back out into the freezing rain. She stood on the wet pavement, pulled out her phone, and dialed Kendal's number. It was time to make a trade.