The room was quiet but Lin Xueying mind wasn't.
She sat on the edge of her bed, listening to the rain tapping gently on the window.
Her heart had stopped racing but something else had settled into in it's place urgency.
Three months.
Three months until the first chaos will start, and that was all the time she had to prepared for everything until the world started to fall.
Disaster won't come in all at once, it will come as dominoes- First the rain for a month, then the floods ,then extreme heat all dead body and crops rot and swallowed, then the plague....then everything else.
Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions. Hurricanes and typhoons. Tornadoes. Wildfires. Floods again. Drought. Landslides. Avalanches. One after another, like the planet itself was trying to erase them.
She stood up and started to walk to her study table, she look for paper or notebook to write down but she couldn't find any, so she started to search around everywhere then she remember she had put all her study material in her closet.
So she walk to her closet and opened.
Inside the closet were old clothes , old study material and notebooks were in corner, where cardboard boxes were stacked haphazardly .
When she try to pick up one of the notebook, she knocked the one of the box and it fell down.
She sat down to pick up the box, when she pick up to put it back something fell down from the box.
It was jade pendent of her mother, she got that from her mother when she was taking her last breath into the hospital after they had gotten into the car accident.
Her father had died on the spot but her mother was still breathing and in her end moment she had given her that pendent.
Now she saw the jade pendant, it look a smooth, round jade pendant the size of a coin, deep green with no carvings, hanging from a frayed red silk cord.
Lin Xueying, suddenly remember her mother saying to her," Ying'er, don't loose it okay. "
"It's mother heirloom passed down from generation, always wear it."
"When the time's right you will get it why?" that time she had promise her mother but with her parents death she had forgotten and put it into the box.
She also remember she had this jade pendant with her in her previous life, but she had lost it somehow and that time she was so busy to being alive and to take care of her brother she didn't even look for it when it got lost.
Now she look at the jade pendent and missed her mother a lot . '"Mother i am sorry for loosing your last memento in my previous life, in this life i will never loose it."
She found the red thread and tie the ends of the cord together then wear it in her necks, it make her feel calm, like her mother is still with her.
After she feel calm she remember what she was going to do, so she carry her notebook and sit on the edge of the bed.
Then suddenly she remember most important thing, 'money'.
After apocalypse it won't worth much, but now that's the important thing.
She look at her mobile banking app then look at the number showing her screen three hundred ninety thousand yuan, sitting in her account'.
It was from her parents life insurance money, she had got the access when she had turned eighteen, but she hadn't use it ,she had kept it for their future and saved till now.
It gonna help for future but not the way she thought it will be.
She closed the banking app and started to write down the stuff she needed to buy - White rice (300+ kg), Vacuum-packed cooked rice (for emergencies)- Instant noodles (bulk cases)-Canned meat (Spam, tuna, braised pork)-Canned vegetables & beans- Dried tofu & sealed bean curd-Compressed military biscuits- Peanut butter & jam- Soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, salt (big bags)-Cooking oil (5L x 10 bottles)- Shelf-stable UHT milk & powdered milk Dried fruit & trail mixes- Energy bars / meal replacement bars- Tea & instant coffee- Multivitamins & iron supplements
-Water bottles (100s of liters)- 20L water drums with sealable lids.
Suddenly their was soft knock on the door, when she look up, she saw her brother standing on the door in sleepy state, "Hao'er?"
"Jiejie... I—I saw fire," he whispered. "There were people screaming... and everything was burning. The roof fell down. I think... I think you were gone."
Her heart clenched.
That nightmare wasn't just nightmare, he had seen it and lived it.
she walk to him and knelt down beside him.
"It's just a dream," she said softly, carrying him towards her bed, "I'm here, Hao'er."
He clung to her shirt without speaking, his fingers small and trembling.
"You were gone," he mumbled against her shoulder. "I tried to find you, but everything was red and hot and you didn't come back."
"I'm right here," she whispered. "I'm not going anywhere not this time."
He pulled back just enough to look at her, eyes watery.
"You said that before too..."
Her breath get caught but she didn't show anything on her face.
"I know," she murmured.
"But this time I remember everything. And this time—I'll protect you, no matter what."
Zhihao nodded slowly, still half-lost in sleep and fear.
She tucked him into her bed, "Do you want to sleep here today?"
"Mm." He gripped her sleeve.
"Don't leave, Jiejie."
"I won't."
She stayed beside him, sitting on the floor with one arm resting gently across his blanket, humming an old lullaby their mother used to sing when the lights went out.
Her notebook lay open behind her, half-forgotten for now.
This was why she was preparing.
Not to survive.
To save him.