Chapter 4: The Storm Comes

chloe

Just past midnight, the timer refreshed to 130 minutes.

I stared, then nearly laughed. The space countdown reset by two hours every day, and the total could accumulate without limit. In my past life, the watch had been taken by Derek before the hurricane hit, so I'd never had the chance to test this logic. For the first time since my rebirth, I held a card I could actually play again and again.

I set my strategy at once: no entering the space unless absolutely necessary. Hoard the time, spend it in concentrated bursts when the deep cold or earthquakes came. With food in hand and a sanctuary to flee to, I felt a new confidence about the coming disaster—and that confidence quietly loosened my grip on the question of the "last missing thing."

I slept through the night. In the morning, a phone call woke me: the window-and-door crew had arrived, earlier than promised.

Drills and jackhammers rang through the 45th-floor corridor. I oversaw the work while keeping an eye on the hallway. The neighbor's door never opened, but the light beneath it came on within the first minute. I jotted a note: 4501, fast reaction, keep watching.

To avoid complaints and trouble, anyone who cracked their door to look got money. They took it and said nothing. Two and a half hours later I paid the balance and sent the workers off, then pressed my palm against the reinforced steel pillar. It didn't budge. Good enough.

My phone buzzed. Derek Vaughn.

I stared at the name for three seconds and didn't answer. A message followed, inviting me to a hurricane party—ending with: Isabella will be there. She keeps asking about you.

The moment I saw that message, alarm bells went off in my head. I couldn't help but wonder — in my last life, how had Isabella known the pocket watch had a space inside it? From the look of it, she seemed to have known about it all along.

Judging by Derek's tone, he knew nothing; That phone call and that message — she must have egged Derek on to send them too.. I let out a cold laugh. Those two had toyed with me in my past life and dumped me into an ice pit. This time, we'd settle accounts！

I didn't reply, and I didn't block him either — I need to learn his movements from the messages he sends. I grabbed my keys, and left. The watch was bound to my bioelectric field now. No one could take it from me.

On the road, a weather alert popped up. Leviathan had been upgraded to a Category 5, and landfall was moved up to 9:00 p.m. tonight.

In my past life, it landed the next morning. Twelve hours earlier. My actuary instincts made the call in under a second: my three days of heavy buying had caused a tiny butterfly effect, nudging the storm onto a slightly different path. I drew a deep breath, reordered my priorities, and kept driving.

I parked in the library lot's northwest corner—the camera there had been awaiting repair for ages. Inside, I quickly gathered books on emergency medicine, tactics, and hydroponics. In the blind spots between shelves, they vanished into my palm one by one. In the past life, this library flooded to the second floor. These weren't stolen books—I was merely keeping them safe.

My phone buzzed again. Derek. I pressed "decline," no hesitation.

Around two in the afternoon, the rental company called: the shop was closing for the storm; the truck had to be back by three. I said fine.

But I didn't reach the lot until 3:50—fifty minutes late. The storm's leading edge made the parking awning shriek. The clerk anxiously returned my two-thousand-dollar deposit, told me to "get home and hide," and yanked down the shutters. I folded the cash and tucked it into my wallet. On day one of the apocalypse, bank cards would die; cash would hold out another week, and after that came barter.

Back in my apartment, I fired up every device, three phone running at once: offline maps, emergency and tactical medicine manuals, radio frequency databases, hydroponics tutorials, gun disassembly videos. Every byte, survival data at maximum efficiency.

Mid-download, the shopping app pinged—the cold-weather gear had reached the distribution hub, due for delivery by 6:00 p.m.

I froze. Now I remembered. I finally knew what I'd been missing.

The items I ordered on the first day to keep out the cold were supposed to arrive at my doorstep yesterday afternoon, but due to a delay in shipment, they will now be delivered to a pickup point at six o'clock this evening. I called the courier company. On the other end of the line, the wind was howling. "The storm is too bad — there's no way to deliver to your door. We'll have to wait until it passes… but you can go pick it up yourself."

I hung up and looked outside. A streetlamp housing was torn free, tumbling through the air; the treetops leaned in one direction so visibly it looked like the whole city bowing the same way.

That ice pit in my past life—minus seventy degrees. Without cold-weather gear, a person loses consciousness in three minutes. I could not give up this shipment.

I stood, pulled on the Kevlar vest, grabbed the watch, a pistol, and cash, and left.

I finally found a cab and reached the pickup point as the wind grew strong enough to unsteady anyone. Packages were piled in a mountain. It took me ten minutes to find the wide, flat hard case on the third shelf against the wall, labeled: CHLOE WREN, APT 4512, THE APEX TOWER.

I turned toward the door, box in my arms—when the wind shifted without warning. A sharp, directed shove threw me sideways, driving me toward the wall.

A hand caught my forearm precisely, hauling me out of that collision path.

My feet found the ground. I looked up. Close-cropped hair, a sharp jawline, black tactical tee, over six feet, a faded scar across his wrist. He braced against the doorframe, stance planted, face betraying no surprise—only a professional, level assessment.

"The storm's here," he said, his voice cutting clean through the wind. "Carrying that box makes you a target."

I went back inside and opened the ride app. No drivers. I stood there.

He collected his last few packages, paused at the door, and turned to me. Two seconds—I felt him completing a quick top-to-bottom evaluation.

"Where do you live?"

I'd done mine too: low threat, high capability, trust probability above average. "The Apex Tower, 45th floor. Could you give me a lift? I'll pay."

"No trouble."

The Hummer's passenger door opened to reveal a little girl, four or five. Pink hoodie, hands neatly on her knees, wide eyes watching me—wariness laced with a stillness beyond her years. The back seat was stacked with supplies. The man said briefly, "Sit on the lady's lap." The girl slid down, back held ramrod straight. I wedged my gear box at my feet, settled in, and she climbed onto my lap, gripping the seatbelt with both hands.

"What's your name?"

"…Zoey." Barely a whisper.

I adjusted the seatbelt and said nothing more.

The Hummer rumbled to life, headlights blazing. At 5:58 p.m., Elysium's sky was already midnight-dark. Rain streaked horizontally through the streetlights. Billboards boomed like drums in the wind. Somewhere high on a glass tower, something was ripped from its roots, spun through the air, and smashed into a parking lot.

I glanced down at the watch. A hundred and thirty minutes of accumulation waited quietly, like a loaded gun.

Outside, Elysium entered its first night of the end of the world.