Reborn Before Doomsday: The Ruthless CEO's Regret

The smell of old paper and dust filled Chloe Gates's lungs.

She gasped, a sharp, ragged intake of air that was too loud in the dead quiet of the public library. Her body jerked upright, a violent motion that sent her lukewarm coffee sloshing over the side of the mug. It spilled across the polished surface of the mahogany table.

A few patrons at nearby tables looked up, their faces etched with annoyance.

Chloe ignored them.

Her heart was a frantic drum against her ribs. Her breath came in short, painful bursts. She fumbled for her phone, her fingers clumsy and slick with sweat. The screen lit up, illuminating a date that made the air freeze in her throat.

October 25th.

One day left. Only one day until it's all over.

The confirmation didn't bring relief. It brought a cold, suffocating dread that was horribly familiar. This wasn't a dream. This was real.

As if on cue, a notification banner slid down from the top of the screen. National Weather Service: A severe storm warning has been issued for the tri-state area.

Chloe's vision tunneled. A storm. They called it a storm. She knew it was the gentle whisper before a global scream.

Her gaze drifted to the large window. Outside, people hurried along the sidewalk, their laughter a faint, carefree sound through the thick glass. The peaceful, idyllic scene was a brutal contrast to the images seared into her memory: New York City streets choked with rubble and desperate people, a man bludgeoning another for half a loaf of stale bread.

Her fingernails dug into her palms, the sharp crescents grounding her.

On a television mounted near the ceiling, a news anchor with a plastic smile was joking about the coming weather. "Looks like a good weekend to stock up on beer and board games, folks."

A bitter, humorless smile twisted Chloe's lips. The ignorance was staggering. It was tragic.

A couple of people nearby groaned, complaining that the storm warning would ruin their weekend plans. The chasm between their reality and hers was so vast it felt like a physical weight on her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs.

Then, a vicious cramp seized her stomach.The severe ulcer she'd developed from years of starvation felt like it had traveled back in time with her. She doubled over, a strangled gasp escaping her lips.

The memory was vivid, visceral. Her, on her knees in the frozen wasteland of what was once Central Park, gnawing on tree bark so rotten it turned to mush in her mouth. The desperation. The gnawing, endless hunger.

Her body began to tremble, an uncontrollable tremor starting in her hands and spreading through her entire frame. She bit down hard on her lower lip, the coppery taste of blood a sharp, metallic shock that pulled her back from the edge of the memory.

A calm, detached voice echoed from the library's PA system. "Attention. The library will be closing in fifteen minutes for scheduled system maintenance."

Groans of frustration rippled through the room. Chloe didn't join in. She straightened up, her movements suddenly sharp and efficient. She unzipped her backpack.

She took her things. She stood up and slung her backpack over her shoulder.

As she walked toward the exit, her brain kicked into overdrive, a supercomputer calculating variables and probabilities. She mentally tallied her assets: the trust fund her parents had left her, checking accounts, emergency savings. Every liquid dollar she could access.

Her pace quickened. A list began to form in her mind, Canned goods, dried grains, water purification tablets, antibiotics. The sheer volume of what she needed was overwhelming, and the gnawing hunger was making her light-headed. A wave of dizziness washed over her as she pushed through the library's heavy inner doors and started across the grand marble floor of the atrium.

Her foot caught the edge of a rug, and her body pitched forward, gravity pulling her down toward the unforgiving stone floor. She threw her hands out, a useless instinct. A few seconds later, her face will slam heavily to the ground.

Suddenly, a hand reached out and grabbed her forearm tightly.

It wasn't a gentle catch. It was a vise-like grip, strong and unyielding. The force of it arrested her fall, yanking her back from the brink with a jolt that rattled her teeth. The hand was covered by a black tactical glove, the material cool and professional against her skin.

Her eyes followed the arm up the sleeve of an expensive-looking black trench coat to the man's face.

And her breath stopped.

Jacob Daniels.

Jacob Daniels. Tall and lean, with sharp, handsome features, his rugged edge softened by the gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. His posture was perfectly correct, his expression unreadable-polite enough, yet undeniably cold, with a glint of clinical assessment lurking behind the lenses.

The name detonated in her skull like a depth charge. Her lips trembled. How was this possible? To encounter him here, at the very beginning of her rebirth? In another timeline, in another world, Jacob Daniels was a legend-the Grim Reaper of the Haven stronghold, a top-tier evolved human whose very name made hardened survivors flinch. Untouchable. Worshiped from afar by those who scrabbled in the dirt.

But Chloe Gates loathed him with every fiber of her being.

Three times. Their paths had crossed three times, and each time it had cost her something more precious than gold. One pack of beef stew MRE. Two packs of chicken and rice MRE. Three meals. Three lifelines, ripped away in a world where a single stale cracker could spark a murder.

The memory didn't drift back-it seized her by the throat.

Eight days. She had gone eight days without food, her evolved body finally failing her, her vision graying at the edges. She had fought through a nest of two mutated spiders in a ruined farmhouse, her flesh torn, her bones screaming. She had crawled across a floor layered with dust and debris, every movement an agony, until her trembling fingers closed around a miracle: an unopened MRE pouch, beef stew flavor, tucked in the back of a collapsed kitchen cabinet. She had wept. Actually wept with gratitude, with disbelief that the universe had finally thrown her a scrap of mercy.

She had just torn the package open. The smell of dehydrated beef and gravy hit her nostrils, the most beautiful thing she had ever smelled. She never got to taste it.

The roar of combat had descended on the house like a hurricane-high-level evolved humans tearing into each other right outside.

In the apocalypse, you didn't ask questions. You ran before you became collateral damage or, worse, someone's post-battle protein source. She had bolted, and in her desperate flight, the MRE had slipped from her fingers. From a safe distance, hidden and trembling, she had watched the victors emerge. Jacob Daniels's team. His teammate had scooped up her beef stew like it was nothing. Like it wasn't her eight days of suffering, her salvation. She had passed out from hunger and fury combined, and waking up afterward had felt like a cruel joke.

It happened three times. Three MREs. In the apocalypse, that was three death sentences. Jacob Daniels had never laid a hand on her, never stolen from her directly. But his presence, his battles, his chaos-it had ripped the food from her mouth three separate times. That was the debt he owed. A blood debt. Irreconcilable.

Chloe clenched her fists, staring at his undeniably handsome, undeniably infuriating face. She swallowed. The control she had built over four years of hell trembled.

Then her stomach seized. A brutal, burning cramp that sent a shudder through her entire body.

My MREs. After the third time, I never found another one. I never ate MRE again.

Jacob, you dog.

The tears came. Not delicate, cinematic tears, but a raw, ugly flood. Snot streamed down her face. Every injustice of that dead world, every time she had crouched in the dark with an empty belly and a hollow chest, every ounce of despair she had never been allowed to release-it all came crashing out in a torrent of grief and rage.

"Miss?" Jacob's brow furrowed slightly. His voice held a note of genuine surprise, but his eyes-those cold, analytical eyes-were already cataloging her. Assessing. What was this woman doing? Glaring at him with murderous intent one second, then dissolving into hysterics the next?

He never got the chance to finish the question.

Without warning, the sobbing woman in front of him exploded into motion. It was not a wild, flailing attack. It was a blur of precision violence, honed by years of life-or-death combat in a world without mercy. Straight punch. Hook. Elbow strike.

One second.

Jacob Daniels's gold-rimmed glasses flew from his face. The air was driven from his lungs in a choked grunt. His formidable frame folded, and he crashed onto his knees on the cold marble floor, curled like a shrimp, his analytical mind utterly blank for the first time in his life.

Chloe stood over him, her chest heaving, tears and snot still streaking her face. She looked down at him with the weight of four years of hell behind her eyes.

"This is for what you owe me," she ground out through clenched teeth.

The fire of vengeance cooled, but what rose in its place was not dread-it was a savage, primal satisfaction.

She wiped her tears with her sleeve,ran a hand through her disheveled hair, pulling it back from her face. She feeling lighter than she had in four years. He'd cost her three MREs; she'd only given him a beating. He got off easy. But she was in a hurry to eat, so she would be magnanimous and let him off.

She didn't wait for a response. She strode away, her steps fast and sure, melting into the crowd of gawking patrons. The brief satisfaction was gone, replaced by the screaming, urgent demand of her body. Food. Now.

Jacob slowly pushed himself to his feet. He brushed the dust from the knee of his slacks, his movements deliberate. His eyes, cold and sharp as a hawk's, were locked onto her retreating figure until she disappeared around a corner.

He touched his side, the spot below his ribs already blooming with a deep, throbbing ache. He pulled out a sleek, encrypted smartphone and dialed a number from memory.

"I need eyes on this location," he said, his voice a low command. "Pull all surveillance footage from the public library atrium, last ten minutes. I want an identity on a female, early twenties. "

After hanging up the phone, Jacob picked up his glasses. His murderous intent gradually dissipated.

An invisible net began to tighten around Chloe, but she was already consumed by a more immediate threat.

She pushed through the glass door of a 7-Eleven, the cheerful chime of the bell a jarring contrast to the violence of the last few minutes. The shelves were a kaleidoscope of bright packaging, a symphony of sugar, salt, and fat that made her mouth water uncontrollably.

Her first stop was the refrigerated section. She grabbed two large bottles of soda, twisted the cap off one, and drank deeply, not stopping until half the bottle was gone. The cold, sugary liquid was a shock to her system, a jolt of pure energy that momentarily staved off the dizziness.

She moved through the aisles like a predator, her eyes scanning the shelves. Chips, chocolate bars, beef jerky. She tore open a bag of jerky and began to eat, chewing with a desperate intensity, the salty, tough meat a balm to her frayed nerves.

She reached for a can of soup on a high shelf. As her fingers brushed against the cool metal, a strange warmth bloomed on the inside of her right wrist.

She froze.

Slowly, she lowered her arm and looked down. Faintly visible against her skin, like a ghost of a tattoo, was a delicate, silver hexagram.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, hopeful rhythm. It couldn't be.

She closed her eyes, focusing her entire consciousness on the mark. An image exploded in her mind, not a memory, but a destination. A vast, silent, gray space stretched out before her, empty and infinite.

The Experimental Sub-dimensional Unit. The ESU.

Her one piece of impossible, future technology. Her greatest asset. It had come back with her.

A wave of lightheadedness, this time from pure, unadulterated joy, washed over her. Her hands trembled, not from weakness, but from the sudden, staggering realization of what this meant. Her plan, her ambitious, desperate plan, was no longer just possible. It was inevitable.

She snapped her eyes open. Her gaze swept over the small, cluttered convenience store with a new perspective. This wasn't just a stopgap. This was a treasure trove.

She strode to the front counter, where a bored-looking clerk was scrolling through his phone. She slapped a half-eaten bag of jerky down.

The clerk looked up, annoyed. "Just this?"

Chloe took a deep breath, the air tasting sweet with possibility. "No," she said, her voice steady and clear. She gestured with a sweep of her arm, encompassing the entire store. "I want everything."

The clerk stared at her, then let out a short, derisive laugh. "Yeah, okay. Funny."

Chloe didn't smile. She reached into her backpack, pulled out a bank card, and slapped it on the counter.

Her voice dropping to a cool, business-like tone. "Lock the door. I want every single item in this store boxed up. Now."

The clerk's jaw dropped. His eyes, wide with disbelief. The sneer vanished, replaced by a look of stunned awe. He fumbled to his feet, knocking over his stool in his haste.

"Yes, ma'am," he stammered, his hands shaking as he reached for the 'Sorry, We're Closed' sign. "Right away, ma'am."

As he scrambled to find boxes, Chloe watched the shelves begin to empty. A profound sense of power settled over her. This was just the beginning. A mere appetizer.

The real feast was waiting in the industrial parks and wholesale warehouses across the city. She pulled out her phone and opened the Uber app. She had a lot of shopping to do.

The Uber arrived in minutes, a beat-up Prius that smelled of pine air freshener and stale coffee. Chloe climbed into the back seat, gave the driver the address of the industrial district, and watched the library district fade in the rear window.