Chapter 1: Rebirth

Evelyn POV

I woke to sunlight burning through my eyelids.

The white curtain lifted at one corner, spilling light across the foot of the bed where it caught the old wooden chair—this house in Pacific Heights, I'd lived in it for twenty-three years.

But I lay frozen, because the pain in my chest was still there, like someone had reached inside, squeezed my heart, and shoved it back in.

Too quiet. Wrong kind of quiet.

I reached for the tablet on the nightstand, unlocked it with my fingerprint, and the moment the screen lit up, my breathing stopped.

September 28, 2025. Three days until October first.

Three days.

I sank onto the edge of the bed, my mind flooding like a broken levee with another life—the night of October first, countless people collapsing, convulsing, climbing back to their feet with rolled-back eyes, lunging for the nearest living thing.

Then the rain. Ten solid days of torrential downpour, San Francisco submerged like a pot left to boil over, the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge sinking down and never coming back up.

After the rain stopped, people split into three kinds: the rare few who awakened abilities, the majority who turned into zombies, and those like me—no powers, no infection, just dead weight everyone called useless.

I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms. In my past life, I was that dead weight. Couldn't lift, couldn't fight, couldn't even swing a baseball bat without losing my grip.

I thought of Derek Hall.

The man who'd swiped my cards for three years, whose smile was soft as springtime, who handed me over at the Bay Area military bunker without looking back.

Because he'd already moved on to Kayla Bennett—my best friend through four years of college—and Kayla had something in her possession worth more than a crate of ammunition in the apocalypse.

A ring.

Grandma's hand. Bone-thin, cold, trembling, pressing an old-fashioned silver ring into my palm the day she died, a pea-sized piece of green jade set into the band.

I'd thought it was ugly. Tossed it into the bottom of my jewelry box the second I got home. On my birthday, Kayla spotted it and begged to try it on.

I didn't think twice. I gave it to her.

Grandma never took a thing with her when she died, only wanted to leave me something to remember her by, and I handed it off without a second thought.

I bolted upright, bare feet hitting the floor as I lunged for the vanity, dumped the entire jewelry box onto the surface, dug down to the bottom layer, and there it was—the silver ring.

I closed my fist around it, knuckles white.

This life, I've been reborn from the ashes. I'll protect Ethan, protect the people I care about, and survive.

The thought of Ethan sent a tremor through my body, pain crawling up my spine—the agony of being eaten alive by zombies, starting at my calves and working its way up to my throat.

In my past life, during those two months at the bunker, I had no abilities. I could only trade my body for food, and even that got stolen by Derek and Kayla over and over again—until one of Ethan's squad members stumbled across me by chance and told me my brother had been searching for me for weeks.

Right before Ethan could reach me, those two shoved me into a horde to keep their secret safe.

I unclenched my hand. My palm was covered in crescent-shaped marks.

My phone buzzed twice on the nightstand. A text from Derek.

"Baby, did you eat? Three more days till your birthday—I've got a surprise for you."

I stared at the words, nauseated. The so-called surprise would be him dragging over a pack of freeloaders, buying a cake, and wrecking my place all night. Back then I'd fought with Ethan over this guy. Unbelievably stupid.

I typed: "Derek, we're done."

Send. Block number, block account, delete every chat log and photo. Not a trace left.

When it was done, I flopped back onto the bed and exhaled hard. This lifetime, I never want to see that man again.

Then I shot upright again and dialed Ethan's number.

Off.

It was the same in my past life—he didn't call until my birthday, saying he was stranded at LAX and might not make it back in time, and I'd brushed him off in two sentences and hung up.

This time, I will rise from the ashes. I will do everything to protect my brother, guard those I love, and keep on living.

I left the house that same day, taking the property deed, my documents, every bank card, and every piece of valuable jewelry I owned. The Pacific Heights house was what my parents left me. The downtown apartment was Ethan's gift.

Within half a day, I'd mortgaged the house, maxed out every credit card, and hacked into my company's finance system to funnel the money into offshore accounts.

Tens of millions of dollars. Enough to buy myself three years of survival in this world.

I drove to the biggest warehouse supermarket in San Francisco and pushed a cart down every aisle like a lawnmower—instant noodles, self-heating hotpots, flour, rice, compressed crackers, pork, beef, medicine, tents, hazmat suits, flashlights, gasoline.

Until the cart was too full to push.

Standing in the checkout line, I deflated: I didn't have the space yet. Nowhere to put any of this. I still needed to find a safe house, ride out those ten days of rain, but I couldn't stay—I had to find Ethan first.

I picked up a pack of instant noodles and sighed. If only I could put it in the space.

A chime sounded deep in my mind.

"Space activation successful. Space assistant, Jade, at your service."

The silver ring on my finger flashed with a thread of green light.

Congratulations, host has acquired one cubic meter of space. Next upgrade: ten cubic meters. Upgrade requirement: store apocalypse-useful supplies worth over one thousand dollars. Cash does not count. Instant noodles detected: one package, value $2.50.

A cube appeared before my eyes, one meter on each side, about the size of a street trash can. The pack of noodles sat alone in the center.

I froze for two seconds, then nearly laughed out loud—so in my past life, Kayla had the space all along and still stole my food, because this damn threshold was impossible: scraping together a thousand dollars' worth of supplies in the apocalypse was harder than flying.

But right now, just one layer of my cart was worth more than a thousand.

I murmured "instant noodles" under my breath, and the pack reappeared in my hand. Theory confirmed.

I wanted to vacuum the whole cart in right there, but the camera was overhead and people were all around. I swallowed the impulse and started transferring items one bag at a time, steady and unhurried, all while keeping my ears open to the sounds around me.