Chapter 1 : Eaten Alive

The first crab took his left foot.

Leo Hart didn't scream. He'd spent the first hour screaming, and he'd learned that the noise only attracted more of them.

The raft he'd built-spending his own time and every cent he had-rocked in the black water. The rain was coming down in sheets, cold and acidic, stinging the open cuts on his face. Somewhere in the fog, a motor coughed and then faded away. That was Trent's motor. Trent, the guy who had once shared a bottle of whiskey with Leo and sworn they were brothers until the end.

The motor was carrying away every single bottle of water Leo owned.

"Leo!" Sienna's voice drifted across the waves, sounding thin, sweet, and way too calm. "I'm sorry! You understand, right? You were always such a kind person!"

Kind.

A second crab hauled itself over the edge of the raft. Its shell was as big as a manhole cover, ridged with dark armor, and its claws clicked like heavy shears. A weird, pale light pulsed under its shell. The water had created these things-the same water that had swallowed the cities.

Leo looked at the claws and had one final, clear thought.

If I get one more chance, I am never being kind to anyone ever again.

The claws snapped shut.

Darkness.

Then a sound-something soft and completely ordinary: a phone buzzing against a wooden table.

Leo's eyes snapped open.

Ceiling. White paint, with one brown water stain in the corner that looked vaguely like Italy. Sunlight-real, warm, yellow sunlight-was spilling through the blinds.

He sat up so fast the room started to spin. He immediately grabbed his left foot with both hands.

It was there. Toes, ankle, skin-everything. It was warm.

"Hah," Leo breathed. His voice sounded cracked. "Hah. Hah."

He was in his apartment. There was the cheap couch he'd struggled to drag up three flights of stairs. The coffee table with the ring stains. The cracked laptop. He scrambled to the window and ripped the blinds open.

Blue sky. Cars driving down the avenue. A woman walking a corgi. A delivery guy running a red light on a scooter.

No flood. No storm clouds. No acid rain.

His phone buzzed again. He picked it up, his hand shaking uncontrollably.

Sienna 💕: Babe, did you book the Maldives resort yet?? Trent and Mia are SO excited. Remember you promised you'd cover everything for us! 😘

Under the message, the date glowed in white numbers.

Leo counted. Then he counted again.

Forty-five days.

Forty-five days until the Great Deluge.

He had died on Day 31 of the flood. He had lived through it once, and he remembered every second of it. The ice caps vanishing overnight. The oceans climbing over the coastlines. The first mutants dragging themselves out of the surf. The way a single bottle of clean water became worth more than a human life.

He remembered who he had been in that world: a soft-hearted idiot with a full bank account, handing out supplies to people who smiled at him. People who ate his food, drank his water, and then stole his raft.

Leo stared at Sienna's message.

Then he started to laugh. It was a quiet, ugly sound that didn't reach his eyes.

"Cover everything," he whispered. "Sure. I'll cover everything."

He set the phone face down on the table.

Never again.

(Ding!)

Leo froze.

The sound hadn't come from the phone. It had come from inside his head-crisp and clear, like a bell ringing in an empty cathedral.

A translucent blue panel unfolded in the air in front of him, edged in thin white light.

(Rebirth Anchor confirmed. Host: Leo Hart.)

(Doomsday Ark System, binding... 37%... 68%... 100%.)

(Binding complete. Welcome, Host.)

Leo didn't move. In his last life, he'd read enough web novels on slow nights to know exactly what this was. He'd also never once believed they were actually real.

"System," he said carefully. His voice was steady now. "Explain."

(Golden Finger Module 1: Infinite Stasis Space.)

(Current capacity: 10m x 10m x 10m.)

(Time inside the space is completely frozen. Items stored within do not decay, cool, or change.)

(Capacity expands by 10% for each Evolution Core consumed.)

Leo's eyes narrowed. "Evolution Core. That's what the mutants dropped."

(Correct. Cores will become the primary currency of the new world.)

The panel flickered, and a second window slid open.

(Golden Finger Module 2: The 10,000x Multiplier.)

(Once every 24 hours, Host may select one stack of items in the Stasis Space and multiply it by 10,000.)

(Cooldown: 23:59:58...)

Leo stood perfectly still. The air in the apartment seemed to thin.

Ten thousand times.

His mind started racing. Money was useless in the world to come. Gold would sink. Paper would rot. But water, food, steel, ammo, fuel? Those would be worth more than kings.

He had forty-five days. He had one multiplication every twenty-four hours. And he had a bank account that a certain soft-hearted idiot had spent years filling.

"Test it," Leo muttered.

He walked to the kitchen. On the counter sat a lukewarm cup of instant ramen he'd abandoned the night before; the noodles had gone soft and gray. He picked it up.

Store.

The cup vanished.

Inside his mind, a pocket of pure darkness opened, ten meters in every direction, silent and still. The ramen floated in the center of it-a tiny paper cup in a vast, empty room.

Leo reached for a fresh cup from the cupboard. He poured boiling water from the kettle, watched the steam curl, and thought: Store.

The cup vanished again, the steam frozen mid-curl in the dark.

He waited ten minutes. He paced the apartment. He drank a glass of water, brushed his teeth, and looked at his own face in the bathroom mirror for a long time. Younger. Softer around the eyes. He would fix that.

Then he thought: Take out.

The cup appeared in his hand. The steam was still rising, just as hot as the second he had stored it.

Leo tilted the cup and took a sip of broth.

It was perfect.

He closed his eyes. For the first time since the claws, something in his chest eased.

"Ten minutes," he said quietly. "Still boiling." He opened his eyes, and there was nothing gentle in them. "In a world with no fire and no sun, this is a god's feast."

The phone buzzed again.

Sienna 💕: Babe?? Why aren't you answering?? Don't be like that. I already told Mia you'd pay for the villa upgrade. 🥺

Leo picked up the phone. He looked at the message for exactly three seconds. He didn't feel anger. He didn't feel heartbreak. He felt something much colder and more useful.

She costs more than she's worth.

He typed one word.

Leo: Sure.

A string of delighted emojis came back instantly. He closed the chat and opened his banking app. The balance made his jaw tighten-not from joy, but from calculation.

It was a lot. But it wasn't enough.

"Loans," he said softly. "Credit lines. Every asset I can leverage." He pulled up his contacts and scrolled until he found a name: Marcus Webb, wholesale logistics. A man who owed him a favor, and who owned a warehouse district on the east side of the city.

The system chimed again.

(Quest Hint: The Great Deluge arrives in 45 days. Survivors will need water, calories, and weapons. Hosts who hoard will rule.)

(Reminder: Multiplier cooldown resets in 23:41:12.)

Leo looked at the timer. Twenty-three hours and forty-one minutes.

Then he pulled up a notepad on his phone and began to write, fast and clean.

1. Water. Purification tablets, bottled, industrial tanks.

2. Food. Canned, MREs, hot meals. Fast food chains: bulk.

3. Metal. Steel. Titanium. Copper.

4. Weapons. Find a way.

5. A vehicle that floats.

He stopped at the fifth line and underlined it twice.

Outside, the corgi trotted past, and the scooter boy ran another red light, and the sun shone on a world that had forty-five days to live.

Leo Hart picked up his keys.

"Let it rain," he said.