Apocalypse: Rebirth With An Infinite Storage System

Bang!

The door slammed shut behind her.

Rain poured down in sheets. The sound of that door was a coffin lid falling into place.

In Ivy's arms, her three-day-old daughter weighed almost nothing at all.

On either side of her stood her other two girls--eight-year-old Aria and six-year-old Layla--pressed close together, barefoot. Their tender little feet were already torn open by the gravel, thin red lines threading between their toes, but neither of them cried out. There wasn't time to.

One second they'd been inside. The next, Ivy's husband Adrian and the woman who'd appeared out of nowhere--Maya--had shoved them out the door.

No warning. No explanation. Not even shoes.

"Adrian!"

Bang, bang, bang!

Ivy pounded on the door. Maybe she hit it too hard--the baby stirred against her chest and let out a thin, trembling wail, almost swallowed whole by the rain.

The city outside was already a ruin. Monsters no one could explain had swallowed every corner of it, the grid had collapsed along with everything else, and if this tiny body--three days old, three days of existence in this world--didn't get somewhere warm soon, she would freeze. She would die in her mother's arms.

How was a woman who'd just given birth supposed to accept that?

Ivy had nothing left but a broken, pleading whisper. "Adrian, open the door. Please. Your daughters will freeze out here."

What came back was flat, cold, indifferent. "Those are your daughters. Not mine. I don't need them. Take them and go, Ivy."

This was Adrian. The man she'd loved more than anyone, once known better than she knew herself.

And this was how he looked at them now.

"You can't do this to me, Adrian." Ivy's voice shook, the words dragged out through sobs. "This house is mine. My parents left it to me."

She never talked like this. She'd never wanted to wound his pride--not even a month ago, when she'd learned the truth: that he'd been unfaithful for years, that his son with another woman was older than her own eldest daughter.

Even then, she hadn't said a word like this.

But whoever was behind that door clearly didn't care. Maya's voice drifted out, laced with amusement.

"Ivy, sweetheart, don't be naive. It's the apocalypse now. Whoever can hold onto something, keeps it. This is our home now."

Then came a child's voice--young, but venomous, carrying ten years of quiet contempt.

"Yeah. Why would we waste food on you people? Useless people should just do everyone a favor and die."

What was wrong with this child?

Ivy stood frozen, unable to process what she'd just heard.

She'd been devastated by her husband's affair. She hated Maya for the way she'd waltzed into their lives.

But she had never once blamed the boy. She was the one who'd fought to get Jake into the best school in the neighborhood.

The night he ran a fever, she was the one who sat up with him until dawn.

When the older boys at school cornered him, she was the one who marched into the principal's office and made them answer for it.

She'd told her own daughters, again and again: no matter what, he's your brother.

And now the very hand she'd once offered him was turned against her own children.

Was this--all of this--somehow her doing?

She rested a hand on each of her daughters' heads, her eyes filled with an apology she couldn't voice.

Layla was still young enough to believe in things like family. Still young enough to believe in love.

With trembling fingers, she pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of her soaked pajamas. The rain had already smeared the colors into a blur, but the picture was still recognizable--a tall boy holding the hands of two little girls, drawn in the wobbly, earnest lines of a six-year-old giving it everything she had.

Beneath it, in crooked letters: I love you, Jake.

"Jake... do you really hate us that much? I made you a picture..."

But reality rarely cared what anyone deserved. Adrian's voice came one last time.

"Be realistic, Ivy. The world's changed. The weak just drag everyone else down--that's not cruelty, that's survival. You and those girls consume resources and contribute nothing. And honestly... I never loved you. Maya's the only one I've ever loved. Find somewhere to hide before the monsters find you first."

As if letting them go were some act of mercy.

Ivy would never accept that.

Thud, thud, thud!

She kept slamming her fists against the door, until her knuckles split and bled onto the wood.

Aria couldn't bear to watch her mother carry this alone--she added her small hands to the effort, screaming, trying to shake loose whatever conscience her father had left.

"Dad! Dad! Open the door!"

Layla joined in too, beating the door with both small fists, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe, her strength never faltering.

But no matter how hard they hit, no matter how loud they screamed, the door didn't move.

Not a sound came from inside--as if even acknowledging they existed was too much effort.

Ivy didn't have time to dwell on it. The baby's cries were growing weaker, her small body starting to cool.

Aria and Layla's movements were slowing too, their voices thinning to almost nothing as they sank to the ground. "Mom... are we going to die?"

Ivy dropped to her knees and pulled both girls into her arms, murmuring over and over, "No. No, baby, I'm here. It won't happen."

Her tears fell harder than the rain around them, because she knew--this promise, the one she always made to soothe them, might not hold this time.

She was the one who'd brought her daughters to this. She owed them more than she could ever repay.

A low growl rolled out of the dark.

The sound of death, finally arriving.

It was the one sound no human wanted to hear. It came from somewhere ahead, hidden in the black.

Ivy looked up. A pair of eyes ignited in the rain--red, enormous, as if they'd swallowed every scrap of light around them.

Then a second pair. A third.

Getting closer.

"Mom!"

Aria and Layla screamed together, throwing themselves against Ivy's sides on instinct.

The footsteps kept coming. The first shape emerged from the darkness--a rotting giant, easily sixteen feet tall, arms thick as tree trunks, its nails worn down into blades of black. It moved slowly, deliberately, as if nothing in this world was worth hurrying for.

Ivy's body hadn't recovered from giving birth three days earlier, and she'd spent whatever strength she had left pounding on that door.

She had nothing. No weapon. No strength. But she was a mother, and she spread her arms and stood between the thing and her children anyway.

"Aria, Layla--behind me, now!"

But the monster was faster. Before Ivy could react, a massive hand closed around Aria and wrenched her off the ground.

Eight years old, and she weighed nothing to it--light as a scrap of paper, small arms flailing, reaching again and again for a mother who could no longer answer.

"Mom, help me! I don't want to die! Mom! Mom!"

Ivy ran for her, but the distance was impossible--so short it should have meant nothing, and yet she couldn't cross it.

All she could do was watch the monster raise her daughter toward its open jaws, and scream as she ran.

"Don't! Please, don't hurt her! Aria! Don't be scared, Mom's coming, Mom's right here--"

Crack.

It was such a small sound. That was what made it unbearable--something so quiet, from something so massive.

That tiny, careless motion had taken Aria. Had taken her daughter from her forever.

"Aria!" Ivy's scream tore out of somewhere words couldn't reach. "No--no, no, no! My baby! I'm sorry! This is my fault, this is all my fault--"

Before she could even finish, fate's hand fell again. The monsters weren't planning to spare anyone.

This time it was Layla's turn.

"Layla! No!"

Ivy's foot slipped and she went down hard, her palms tearing open on the gravel. She forced herself up anyway, stretching her arm out, fingers open toward a distance that meant nothing anymore.

This blow didn't kill Layla outright--the creature held her aloft instead, like a toy it found amusing, before driving a claw through her small shoulder.

Layla's scream ripped through the night.

"Mom, it hurts! Mom!"

Then--the same crack as before. Layla's voice drifted further and further away, until it was gone, and her head fell still. Whatever remained of Ivy's soul went with it.

Ivy couldn't even make a sound anymore.

She didn't believe it. Refused to believe it.

It had happened too fast--the kind of fast that still felt like a nightmare she might wake from.

It wasn't until Jake's voice came from behind the door, bright with excitement, that she understood this was no dream.

"Mom, did you see her face? They got crushed like garbage! That was awesome! Her turn now!"

Maya's voice followed, satisfied. "I saw, sweetheart. Finally some peace and quiet. I couldn't stand all that crying--it was keeping us up."

And through all of it, Adrian said nothing at all.

As if the woman he'd married, the three daughters they'd raised together, had never existed.

Ivy had nothing left to fight with. She sank into the wet, ruined ground and let the giants feed on her, clutching her baby's already-stiffening body to her chest, pressing her lips to that tiny forehead.

Tears fell onto the baby's face, one after another, and no sound came out of her at all.

Ivy didn't know if any god was listening. But if she ever got one more chance--just one--she would never again beg at a locked door, never again grovel for someone else's mercy.

She would take the apocalypse into her own hands and turn it into their apocalypse.

No hesitation. No mercy.

The moment Ivy lost consciousness, the wind, the rain, the low wet sound of the monsters feeding--all of it disappeared.

The world went silent. Silent in a way that felt like something, somewhere, was listening.

Ding!

{Host. I've finally found you.}

"Ivy! I'm talking to you. Zoning out again?"

A voice--familiar, cold, sharp enough to grind against her teeth.

Ivy's eyes flew open. Light hit her like something solid, her pupils snapping shut against it, the world around her breaking apart into fragments--warm orange light, the low hum of voices, a man's mouth opening and closing, the words not yet reaching her.

Where was she? Was she dead? Was this hell, or something else entirely?

Then she felt it. Her hands moved on their own, searching for something to steady herself, and found instead the round, taut curve of her own stomach.

She went rigid. Beneath her palm, something was beating--faint, rhythmic, unmistakably alive.

She took in the room around her. Warm orange light. The beige couch she'd slept on a hundred times. The family photo on the wall. All of it told her the same thing: this was her home. Her living room. The place she'd just been thrown out of.

And there, in front of her, was a face twisted with irritation, lips still moving.

Adrian. The same man who'd stood silent at that door while their daughters screamed, who'd sat in a room filled with Jake's laughter and let it all happen.

She stared at his mouth as it opened and closed, and the memory surged back, precise as a key sliding into a lock. She knew exactly what he was about to say.

Her own lips moved without her permission--barely a whisper, half a beat ahead of him.

"Ivy, you need to sign the house over to me. It's too dangerous out there. Only a man can protect this family."

"Ivy, you need to sign the house over to me. It's too dangerous out there. Only a man can protect this family."

The two voices overlapped perfectly, word for word, not a syllable out of place. The silence that followed was heavy enough to steal the breath from her lungs.

Something in Ivy--something that had been frozen solid since the moment she opened her eyes--came roaring back to life. It was real. Someone, something, had heard her. Heard the broken words she'd screamed into the dark.

She was back. Fifteen days before the apocalypse. Before the virus. Before the screams she knew she'd hear for the rest of her life, however long that turned out to be.

Aria. Layla. Were they here? Alive, somewhere in this house, right now?

She needed to find them. Hold them. Tell them nothing could ever hurt them again. This time would be different. She would burn the world down before she let history repeat itself.

She started to rise from the couch, but a voice cut through her thoughts before she could--not her own, but something clear, flat, edged with an electronic hum, like a notification from a system she'd never signed up for.

Ding!

{Hello, Host. Welcome back.}

Every muscle in Ivy's body locked. The words tumbled out before she could stop them. "Who are you?"

What answered instead was a sharp jolt of pain across her belly.

Thump!

A toy car had slammed straight into her stomach. She sucked in a breath, both arms flying up to shield the bump, the strange voice shoved to the back of her mind.

"Were you even listening to my dad?"

Jake stood three feet away, wearing that particular twist of self-importance only a child raised to believe he was the center of the universe could manage. "My dad's talking to you. It's rude not to listen when he's speaking."

But not this time. Not ever again. Ivy's voice came out low and sharp, her eyes locked on his. "Jake Brooks. Listen carefully. If you touch me or my daughters again--once, just once--I promise you, you'll regret the day you were born."

Silence fell over the room instantly. One sentence was all it took for everyone to understand: this wasn't the Ivy they knew anymore. This one was something a little frightening.

Adrian stepped forward immediately, pulling Jake behind him. "Ivy, have you lost your mind? He's ten years old. What's wrong with you?"

Maya wrapped an arm around Jake, playing the devastated mother to perfection, her other hand resting on her own swollen belly--she was pregnant too, Ivy remembered, with her second child. "Ivy, he was just trying to get your attention. You can't talk to a child like that."

Ivy nearly laughed out loud.

A child? The same one who'd called her daughters "dead weight," who'd suggested feeding them to monsters and laughed while he said it?

Before she could respond, a small, fierce voice cut through the tension. "Don't you dare hurt my mom!"

Ivy turned and finally heard the sound she'd been aching for--Layla, running down the stairs, shaking but resolute, small fists raised as she planted herself in front of Ivy. A second later Aria joined her, chin lifted. "Jake, you need to apologize. You can't treat my mom like that."

They were here. Standing right in front of her, alive. That was all that mattered--there was still time.

Ivy dropped to her knees without a second thought and pulled both girls into her arms, unable to say anything at all. She just held them, trying to carve this moment into her bones, repeating the only words she could manage. "My babies. My babies."

Last time, I couldn't save you. This time, nothing will touch you. The words she couldn't say out loud, she said in her heart instead.

Maya, watching all of this closely, seized her moment--her voice softening on cue. "Jake, your sisters are right. Go apologize." Then, turning to the girls, honey-sweet. "Aria, Layla, you're such good girls. Come here--Jake has candy for you..."

But that trick had already stopped working. Ivy rose quickly, planting herself directly in Maya's path, cutting straight to the point. "You can have the house. But I have one condition."

Her eyes flicked to the calendar on the wall. The countdown had already begun--fifteen days until the apocalypse, nineteen until her due date. Everything needed to be settled fast.

"I'll sell it to you for five hundred thousand dollars. In exchange, Adrian signs the divorce papers. Today."

Adrian's eyes went wide, his voice stumbling. "Ivy... what are you talking about?"

But it was Maya's reaction that gave everything away--a flash of naked hunger, there and gone in an instant. She'd waited years for this, and now Ivy was simply handing it over, asking for nothing but an easy exit and half the house's real value.

"Mom..." Aria's voice was small. "Are you and Dad splitting up?"

Layla clutched at Ivy's hand. "What happens to us? Where will we go?"

Ivy knelt to meet their eyes. "You're coming with me. Trust me. I'll take care of you."

This time, I won't break that promise.

"Okay! Layla and I trust you, Mom." Aria took her sister's other hand, her eyes steady.

That trust nearly cracked something open in Ivy's chest. Her daughters--not even ten years old, with no idea what lay ahead--had chosen to believe her anyway. Nothing had ever meant more.

She pulled them both in tighter than she ever had before.

Adrian, finally shaking off his shock, let out a scornful laugh. "You're about to give birth. Three kids, no money, no plan. You actually think you can handle this on your own?"

Ivy let the moment settle before she answered, her voice calm. "Save it. This is your only chance. Answer now, or I take you to court, the offer's off the table, and you're the ones getting thrown out of my house."

"You--" Adrian wasn't remotely prepared for this version of her. He looked ready to combust.

Maya didn't hesitate for a second. She was already reaching for the papers. "We accept. Adrian, sign. Now."

Jake nodded eagerly. "Yeah! Dad, just sign it! Then it'll just be us! This'll be our house!"

Adrian's eyes moved between Maya, Jake, and Ivy, confusion and unease creeping into his expression. She wasn't the woman he'd spent years learning to control anymore. After all this time, she'd become herself again--proud, unshakeable, radiant.