Chapter 1
“May 15th: A merciless deluge. The heavens unleashed a torrential flood, submerging vast swathes of the world. Dams crumbled, riverbanks shattered, and the shadow of pestilence crept closer.”
“May 23rd: A blistering drought. The sun scorched the earth without reprieve, global temperatures soaring to an unbearable 109°F. Fields of crops turned to ash, and livestock fell in countless heaps.”
“May 26th: A savage blizzard. A bone-chilling frost swept through, plunging northern regions into an arctic grip overnight. Power grids and communication lines collapsed in the icy silence.”
“May 27th: Clear…”
Ethan Cole snapped the journal shut, his face a mask of stoic detachment as he stared out the window.
Today was the 27th. Gone were the chaotic, unearthly tempests of recent days, replaced by a surreal calm, the sky radiant with an almost mocking serenity. The streets below buzzed with a fragile, post-catastrophe joy, as if the world could forget its wounds so easily. For days, relentless disasters had pummeled agriculture, livestock, and human existence itself into submission.
No, it wasn’t just one nation. The entire globe had been besieged by an onslaught of calamities: tsunamis that swallowed coasts, tornadoes that tore through cities, volcanoes spewing molten fury, hurricanes that ravaged without mercy. This planet, cradle to billions, had turned feral, revealing a demonic wrath, like a child in a violent tantrum.
By cautious estimates, millions had perished in these few days, with countless others vanished into the chaos. This was no ordinary crisis—it was the greatest cataclysm in recorded history.
Yet, today, the storm relented. The skies cleared, and the disasters that had tormented humanity dissolved as if they’d never been. Before nature’s unrelenting wrath, humanity—once so brazen—had cowered like trembling rodents, reduced to whispered prayers. Now, with the sun blazing, people spilled onto the streets, clinging to this fleeting moment of reprieve.
The dead were gone, but the living endured.
Through the window, Ethan watched the fleeting smiles on the faces below, his lips curling into a faint, bitter smirk. It was a smile heavy with sorrow, shadowed by dread, and laced with resignation—utterly devoid of hope or ease.
Only he knew what loomed on the horizon. Those disasters were but a grim overture. Humanity, the self-proclaimed pinnacle of intelligence, which trampled lesser creatures and slaughtered its own for profit, was about to face true terror.
In less than three hours, an eclipse would shroud the world in darkness for seven days. In that suffocating void, humanity would grapple not only with isolation and shadow but with death itself.
The end was coming.
An energy storm would rip open the fabric of reality, birthing rifts that spewed creatures beyond imagination. Hideous insectoids with chittering mandibles, ravenous zombies lurching with insatiable hunger, winged wyverns shrieking with bloodlust, gluttonous ogres tearing flesh with glee, and other grotesque, alien entities would descend. The earth would become a sprawling abattoir, and humans, its helpless prey.
And that was only the beginning.
The dead—whether freshly slain by disaster or long entombed—would claw their way back to life. Dragging tireless, rotting husks, they would hunt and devour anything that breathed. Ants, cockroaches, grasshoppers—once insignificant enough to crush underfoot—would swell into monstrous horrors. A mosquito, now thick as a man’s arm, could drain a human to a leathery corpse with a single bite.
Beasts once tamed by human arrogance—caged in zoos or carved for feasts—would revert to primal savagery. Aging elephants would sprout shaggy fur and curved tusks gleaming with menace. Defanged serpents would shed their skins, reborn as coiling behemoths stretching thirty feet. Bears and tigers, once hunted or humiliated, would mutate into titans, their flesh impervious to bullets or shells.
In a single night, the genetic chains binding every species would shatter. Humanity, once the planet’s tyrant, would be reduced to fodder, prey, or worse—playthings for the depraved whims of monstrous beasts.
For some, this was the darkest of times. The world crumbled, economies dissolved, and the once-invincible tycoons and rulers became carrion for predators. Celebrities and socialites, stripped of their gilded shields, were reduced to groveling tools of base desires. The elite, the brilliant, the beautiful, the proud—those who once ruled in peacetime—lost their swagger. Unprepared for survival, they were the first to fall.
Yet, for others, this was a twisted dawn. The genetic upheaval spared no one. A handful of fortunate souls mutated, unlocking powers of invisibility, flight, mastery over flame or water, or even dominion over beasts. Before the collapse, they might have been dropouts, disillusioned workers, or scavengers sifting through society’s refuse.
Once scorned and shunned, they rose as the “Evolved,” towering over ordinary humans in their quest for survival and sustenance. The idols they once worshipped from afar—on screens or in fevered dreams—now knelt at their feet, reduced to broken shadows of their former glory.
In a single day, the world’s order was rewritten.
Some lived, yet longed for death.
Some died, yet…
“What a strange fate,” Ethan whispered, spreading his hands and staring at his unmarred arms, a flicker of something—regret, resolve—rippling in his gaze.
Rebirth?
He had endured over a decade in the apocalypse, one of the “fortunate” gifted with extraordinary powers. Yet, that dark era had carved scars into his soul and flesh. When the world fell, so did the illusion of human virtue. Civilization’s trappings—honor, kinship, love—were shredded by laws and books rendered obsolete.
In the apocalypse, humanity’s mask of decency dissolved. Survival demanded betrayal—lovers turned blades on each other, parents devoured their young, siblings fought to the death over scraps. A moldy crust of bread could spark a lover’s murder. A starving father might roast his child. A single weapon could ignite fratricide. Selfishness, competition, and the rule of the strong became the only truths.
Ethan had learned this lesson too late.
Darkness took time to root. Even history’s vilest murderers were once innocent babes. In the apocalypse’s early days, Ethan, despite his powers, clung to his humanity. He rescued the weak, aided the desperate—only to be repaid with treachery.
This was a world where the strong feasted on the weak.
Betrayed, ambushed, and broken by countless wounds, Ethan finally saw the world’s cruel truth—but too late. Missed opportunities and crippling injuries had stalled his power, sealing his fate to be consumed in a stone forest by ravenous insects and beasts.
Yet, fate was capricious.
Who could have foreseen his rebirth, cast back to the eve of the apocalypse?
As chaotic memories surged through his mind, Ethan closed his eyes. His greatest asset in this second life wasn’t his combat prowess, his knowledge of monstrous weaknesses, or the locations of hidden treasures.
It was his clarity about this world.
Unlike those who would stumble into this new era, Ethan—
He needed no time to embrace the darkness.
