As Laura trudged up the stairs of her worn-down apartment building, the weight of the boxes strained her muscles. Each step seemed heavier than the last, but she forced herself to keep moving. She had to. There was no time for fatigue or hesitation; the apocalypse waited for no one. She dropped the first box just inside her apartment door, the dull thud echoing through the quiet hallway.
Her mind buzzed with a mix of urgency and dread. She had set up two alarms for a reason—this wasn't some paranoid impulse. The first alarm would ring shortly before the system notification prompted everyone to choose their class. It was a crucial decision that many would make hastily, unaware of the consequences. The second alarm was set to go off just before 13:00, moments before the world tore open and descended into chaos. Every device would go dead after that—phones, computers, even the power grids—plunging the world into darkness, panic, and confusion.
But for now, she still had hours to prepare.
After depositing the last of the boxes inside her apartment, she closed the door and leaned against it, catching her breath. The small room felt cramped now, with the cardboard boxes piled near the walls.
She eyed her new supplies with a sense of satisfaction mixed with sadness. Bottled water, canned food, protein bars, basic first aid supplies, and an assortment of knives and other makeshift weapons—she'd spent nearly all her saved tuition on these essentials. It was a high price, but one she would gladly pay a thousand times over if it meant having a head start in the days to come.
Her gaze drifted to the lone window on the far side of the room. Outside, the sun was setting, casting long shadows across the street below. It was a typical evening; people bustled about, cars honked, and distant laughter floated up from somewhere down the block. It was all so... normal. As if the world wasn't about to end.
Laura's chest tightened with a bitter ache. This familiar, mundane world would soon be ripped away. The people she saw on the streets had no idea of the horrors that awaited them. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. There was no point in dwelling on it. She had lived through this once already, and she knew that nothing she could say or do would prepare these people for what was coming.
Still, she had tried to make a difference. She had whispered a warning to the cashier at the shopping mall, advising her to choose one of three classes: Elemental Mage, Healer, or Archer.
The woman's polite smile had faded, her brow creasing with concern, but Laura had offered no further explanation. She couldn't. Trying to explain the impending apocalypse to someone who hadn't seen it with their own eyes was impossible.
The classes she had suggested weren't random choices. She had picked them based on their potential for survival. Elemental Mages could harness powerful spells that could change the tide of battle, but they needed to manage their mana carefully. Healers were invaluable, their ability to mend wounds making them some of the most sought-after individuals in the chaos. Archers, while not as formidable, had the advantage of distance. Staying away from direct danger was a crucial tactic in the early days of the apocalypse when most people had no idea how to fight.
As she moved to unpack her supplies, Laura's thoughts drifted back to those early days. She remembered the chaos, the fear, the utter confusion that swept through the city as rifts opened in the sky and unleashed horrors that should not have existed.
People scrambled to survive, and many died before they even understood what was happening. The lucky few who had managed to choose a suitable class early on had a fighting chance. The others… well, their chances were slim at best.
Shaking off the dark thoughts, Laura focused on the task at hand. She arranged the canned foods in her bathroom as her too. Had no place for a kitchen, stacked the bottled water in the corner, and carefully stored the knives where they would be easily accessible.
She had already learned the hard way how valuable preparation was. The apocalypse was like a game, and she was a player who had been given the rare opportunity to restart from the beginning—with the knowledge of every mistake she'd made.
One reason why she'd gone out of her way to purchase this much goods in advance was a benefit that came with the classes. While the Hoarder class allowed one the ability to store things in great quantity for future use, other classes offered small inventory spaces and Laura knew her inventory would be enough to hold over seventy percent of what she's purchased.
After all, she knew what came after the apocalypse. A food war. People would break into the houses of others to secure food. She didn't want that.
After finishing with the supplies, she sat at the edge of her bed, glancing at the clock. It was just past 18:00. The first alarm was still hours away. Time seemed to drag painfully slowly, each second ticking by with an unbearable weight. She couldn't just sit around and wait; it made her feel restless, trapped. She needed to do something, anything, to keep herself occupied.
Her eyes fell on the phone resting on her bedside table. Hesitation gnawed at her. There were people she could reach out to—friends and her old university classmates.
Her parents had died to a robbery when she was twelve and her relatives? They didn't have her time. She could try to warn them, prepare them for what was coming. But what would she say? Even if she told them the truth, they wouldn't believe her. They would think she had gone mad.
Laura's fingers tightened around the phone, her heart aching at the thought of all the people she had once known. Many of them had perished in the apocalypse, and she hadn't been able to save them then.
Her hands shook as she turned the phone over, setting it back down on the table. She couldn't go through that again. She had to be strong.
She rose from the bed, pacing the room. It was hard to resist the urge to reach out to someone—anyone—and share the burden she carried. The only person she could tell it all that would believe her, was missing. Nowhere to be found.
Laura vowed to stay focused. She had a plan. "Stick to the plan," she told herself. If she could change her own fate, she could help others along the way. She wasn't a hero, not yet, but she was determined to be better prepared this time.
Laura found herself standing before the mirror again, staring at her reflection. Her younger face looked back at her, unmarked by scars or age. But in her eyes, there was a fire—a determination born from knowing what awaited her. "I won't let it end the same way," she whispered. "This time, I'll be ready."