Axiom Stonewill woke to the sound of an engine idling.
It lingered longer than it should have.
Engines were meant to pass. To move. To fade into the background of a morning that believed it belonged to itself. This one did not.
It stayed.
Doors slammed once. Then again.
A voice cut through the cold air outside, sharp with impatience. Another followed, lower, measured, trying to calm the first down.
Axiom lay still in bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling he had known since childhood.
Day three.
The world was still pretending.
But the pretending was getting louder.
He did not move right away.
In his last life, movement without information had been a mistake that killed people. Sometimes entire groups. Sometimes worlds.
He listened instead.
The engine finally shut off. Footsteps crunched against frost. A short argument. The sound of something heavy being dragged.
A delivery.
Not his.
Outside someone else's house.
Axiom exhaled slowly.
The timeline was holding.
The ceiling fan above him was still. His room smelled faintly of detergent and old paper. Morning light slipped through the blinds in thin, harmless lines.
Harmless.
That was the lie.
He pushed himself upright and sat on the edge of the bed, hands resting loosely on his knees. They were steady. Younger than he remembered. No scars. No tremor.
This body had not yet learned how to die.
Good.
He stood, crossed the room, and looked out the window.
Two houses down, a delivery truck was pulling away. A man in a jacket too thin for the weather stood on the porch, signing something on a handheld device. His wife hovered behind him, arms crossed, already annoyed about something that did not matter.
They would be dead in less than a year.
Axiom turned away before the thought could finish forming.
Regret was a luxury for civilizations that survived.
The kitchen was louder than he remembered.
Not because it truly was, but because he had once lived in a world where silence meant safety. Compared to that, overlapping voices felt almost excessive.
"Why do you get the bigger bowl?"
"Because I woke up first."
"That is not how it works."
"It literally is."
Axiom stopped just outside the doorway.
Three figures sat around the table.
Lyra Stonewill leaned back in her chair, one leg hooked over the rung, her posture relaxed to the point of provocation. She was already dressed, hair tied back, eyes sharp and alert. The eldest. The one who noticed patterns before others realized there were patterns to notice.
Seren sat across from her, shoulders squared, spoon paused midair as if she had frozen halfway through a rebuttal. Her expression was focused, almost severe, like she was already preparing arguments for a future she could not yet see.
Nyx occupied the far side of the table, feet dangling, bowl clutched protectively with both hands. She glared at her sisters with the intensity of someone convinced the world was unfair and personally responsible.
Their mother stood at the counter.
Elara Stonewill moved with quiet efficiency, pouring coffee, checking the time, already thinking three steps ahead of the morning schedule. She looked tired in the way only someone responsible for holding everything together ever did.
Alive.
All of them alive.
Axiom felt the weight settle in his chest.
He had carried civilizations on his shoulders before. Entire population clusters. Star systems. Logistics chains that spanned light-years.
None of that compared to this.
"You are staring," Lyra said without looking at him.
Axiom blinked and stepped fully into the kitchen.
"Morning," he said.
Nyx huffed. "He is late."
"It is seven twelve," Seren said. "That is not late."
"It is late for him," Nyx insisted.
Elara turned, coffee mug in hand. Her eyes met his.
For a brief moment, something unreadable passed through her expression.
Then she smiled.
"Good morning," she said. "You sleep alright?"
"Yes," Axiom replied.
It was not a lie.
He sat, accepted a bowl without comment, and ate.
The food tasted like memory. Familiar. Safe.
Dangerously so.
Conversation flowed around him. School schedules. A test Seren was already overprepared for. Lyra complaining about a group project that would inevitably become her responsibility. Nyx announcing, with great seriousness, that she had dreamed about monsters.
Elara listened to all of it, responding where needed, storing everything else away.
Axiom listened too.
In his last life, this table had existed only in fragments. Voices remembered after they were gone. Faces reconstructed from guilt and regret.
Now they were here.
Now they were his responsibility again.
When breakfast ended, routines resumed.
Lyra grabbed her bag and keys. Seren double-checked her notes. Nyx argued about a jacket she absolutely needed and then refused to wear.
Elara moved through it all like gravity, keeping everyone in orbit.
Axiom watched, silent.
The system had not appeared yet.
It would.
But not today.
He returned to his room and closed the door.
The house settled around him.
This was the last stretch of normalcy.
He sat at his desk, opened his laptop, and stared at the blank screen.
In his previous life, the world had ended quietly at first.
No explosions. No warnings.
Just a notification.
[Global System Initialization Pending]
He remembered the exact moment.
The disbelief. The laughter online. The arguments over whether it was a prank, a hack, a marketing stunt.
By the time the first people died, it was already too late.
This time, he would not waste a single hour.
Axiom opened a document and began to type.
Dates. Locations. Names.
Event triggers.
Failure points.
He did not write explanations. He did not write emotions.
Only facts.
Only outcomes.
Three days from now, the first anomaly would appear.
Six days from now, the system would fully descend.
Most people would still be arguing about terms and conditions.
Axiom would be ready.
He leaned back and closed his eyes.
The memory of his death surfaced unbidden.
No heroics. No final stand.
Just exhaustion.
A civilization stretched too thin. A final miscalculation. A collapse that had started decades earlier and only finished when there was nothing left to hold it up.
He had died knowing exactly where he had failed.
That knowledge was the only thing that followed him back.
This time, there would be no improvisation.
No gambling on miracles.
No reliance on individuals burning themselves out for temporary gains.
This time, he would build something that endured.
Axiom opened his eyes.
Outside, the neighborhood continued its quiet routine. Cars passed. Dogs barked. Someone laughed.
The world still believed it had time.
He did not correct it.
He saved the document.
Renamed it.
Stonewill Foundation Log -- Day Three.
And began planning for the end of the world.