SEVEN DAYS BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS

Chapter Two: Seven Days

I called the number back before the shock could even settle in my chest.

Three rings, then a flat mechanical voice telling me the number was not in service. I tried it again and again but same result. I opened a tracing app I used to use for work, typed in the digits, and watched it spin uselessly until it gave up and returned nothing at all.

“Who are you,” I whispered at the screen, as if it could hear me. It answered on its own.

UNKNOWN: You have six days and nineteen hours.

My hand went cold around the phone. Nobody knew that number. Nobody knew that countdown, not the exact hour, not the exact minute. I had done that math myself, alone, in the dark, three years into a war that hadn’t even started yet.

I typed back fast, my thumbs clumsy with adrenaline. Who is this? How do you know that? No reply came. The message just sat there on the screen, three words heavier than anything I had read in my entire second life.

I made myself put the phone down. Whoever they were, panic would not help me. I had six days and nineteen hours, and I intended to use every one of them.

I grabbed a notebook from my desk and started writing, my handwriting jagged with urgency. Food that wouldn’t spoil. Water purification tablets. Antibiotics, painkillers, bandages, anything I could get without a prescription and a few things I would have to get without permission. Batteries, A hand crank radio. Fuel canisters. A decent blade, since guns would draw attention I couldn’t afford yet. Warm clothing that could survive rain and worse. Seeds, because eventually the shelves would be empty and the ground would be all that was left.

Last time, I had fought for scraps because I hadn’t known any better. This time I knew exactly which store shelves would be stripped bare by Thursday and which ones nobody would think to touch until it was too late.

I emptied my savings account that morning. Then I sold my laptop, my good boots, a gold bracelet my mother had given me for my last birthday, anything that could be turned into cash fast. By afternoon I was hauling bags of supplies into my room and stacking them against the wall like a wall of my own.

My mother stood in my doorway watching me duct tape a box shut, her arms crossed, her face somewhere between worried and furious.

“You sold your laptop,” she said. “For canned beans and flashlights.”

“I need them.”

“For what, Veyra? What is going on with you?”

I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t tell her the truth, not because I didn’t want to, but because I knew exactly how it would sound. Crazy and Broken. The kind of thing that got a person locked up for observation while the clock kept running.

“I just need you to trust me,” I said instead. “Please.”

She didn’t budge, But she let it go, because that was who she was, and I hated myself a little for using that against her.

Neriah showed up an hour later, letting herself in the way she always did, and stopped dead in the doorway at the sight of my room.

“Okay,” she said slowly, stepping over a case of bottled water. “Either you’re starting a bunker cult or you know something I don’t.”

“Both, kind of.”

“That’s not funny.”

Last time, I had fought for scraps because I hadn’t known any better. This time I knew exactly which store shelves would be stripped bare by Thursday and which ones nobody would think to touch until it was too late.

I emptied my savings account that morning. Then I sold my laptop, my good boots, a gold bracelet my mother had given me for my last birthday, anything that could be turned into cash fast. By afternoon I was hauling bags of supplies into my room and stacking them against the wall like a wall of my own.

My mother stood in my doorway watching me duct tape a box shut, her arms crossed, her face somewhere between worried and furious.

“You sold your laptop,” she said. “For canned beans and flashlights.”

“I need them.”

“For what, Veyra? What is going on with you?”

I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t tell her the truth, not because I didn’t want to, but because I knew exactly how it would sound. Crazy and Broken. The kind of thing that got a person locked up for observation while the clock kept running.

“I just need you to trust me,” I said instead. “Please.”

She didn’t budge, But she let it go, because that was who she was, and I hated myself a little for using that against her.

Neriah showed up an hour later, letting herself in the way she always did, and stopped dead in the doorway at the sight of my room.

“Okay,” she said slowly, stepping over a case of bottled water. “Either you’re starting a bunker cult or you know something I don’t.”

“Both, kind of.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking.” I looked at her and something in my face must have told her I was serious, because the teasing dropped out of her voice completely.

“Vey. You’re scaring me.”

“I need you to trust me,” I said, the same words I’d given my mother, but this time I meant them differently. Neriah wasn’t just someone I loved. She was someone I had lost once already, and I was not going to lose her again. “Just for a while. No questions. Can you do that?”

She studied me for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Okay. No questions. But you owe me answers eventually.”

“I promise.”

It was the only promise I intended to keep no matter what it cost me…

~~~~~~

That night, once the house had gone quiet, I took my mother’s car and drove out past the edge of town toward an old maintenance road that most people didn’t know existed. I remembered the bunker from my last life, remembered it too well, because survivors had found it weeks too late, after the supplies inside could have saved a dozen people who died waiting.

This time, I intended to get there first. The steel door was supposed to be sealed, locked behind a keypad only a handful of government contractors had ever known about. Instead, I found it standing half open, the lock housing torn apart like something had ripped it loose with bare hands.

My stomach dropped. I stepped inside anyway, flashlight shaking in my grip. The shelves that should have been full were half empty. Crates lay open on the floor, their contents scattered and picked over. Someone had been here, and recently. I crouched and found fresh boot prints pressed into the dust, prints leading deeper into the bunker and then back out again.

Near the doorway, a small dark stain marked the concrete. Blood, not old but fresh.

Beside it, scratched into the metal wall like it had been carved there on purpose, was a symbol I had never seen in either of my lives. Three curved lines crossing through a broken circle.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

UNKNOWN: You shouldn’t have gone there.

I spun around so fast my flashlight beam swung wild across the walls, and that was when I saw him standing in the doorway, silent, watching me the way a predator watches something it has already decided to kill.

A weapon rose in his hand, level and steady, pointed straight at my chest…“I’m not joking.” I looked at her and something in my face must have told her I was serious, because the teasing dropped out of her voice completely.

“Vey. You’re scaring me.”

“I need you to trust me,” I said, the same words I’d given my mother, but this time I meant them differently. Neriah wasn’t just someone I loved. She was someone I had lost once already, and I was not going to lose her again. “Just for a while. No questions. Can you do that?”

She studied me for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Okay. No questions. But you owe me answers eventually.”

“I promise.”

It was the only promise I intended to keep no matter what it cost me…

~~~~~~

That night, once the house had gone quiet, I took my mother’s car and drove out past the edge of town toward an old maintenance road that most people didn’t know existed. I remembered the bunker from my last life, remembered it too well, because survivors had found it weeks too late, after the supplies inside could have saved a dozen people who died waiting.

This time, I intended to get there first. The steel door was supposed to be sealed, locked behind a keypad only a handful of government contractors had ever known about. Instead, I found it standing half open, the lock housing torn apart like something had ripped it loose with bare hands.

My stomach dropped. I stepped inside anyway, flashlight shaking in my grip. The shelves that should have been full were half empty. Crates lay open on the floor, their contents scattered and picked over. Someone had been here, and recently. I crouched and found fresh boot prints pressed into the dust, prints leading deeper into the bunker and then back out again.

Near the doorway, a small dark stain marked the concrete. Blood, not old but fresh.

Beside it, scratched into the metal wall like it had been carved there on purpose, was a symbol I had never seen in either of my lives. Three curved lines crossing through a broken circle.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

UNKNOWN: You shouldn’t have gone there.

I spun around so fast my flashlight beam swung wild across the walls, and that was when I saw him standing in the doorway, silent, watching me the way a predator watches something it has already decided to kill.

A weapon rose in his hand, level and steady, pointed straight at my chest…