The sky burned green the night I died.
Not the soft, ethereal green of auroras I'd seen in pictures from the old world, but a sickly neon stain smeared across the low clouds above the base walls, reflected in the oily sheen of the Descent Mist that clung to everything like breath to a mirror.
The Mist had been gone from the open air for years now—sealed, tamed, the scientists had claimed.
They'd been wrong.
"Evie! North gate! Now!"
Alex's voice cracked in my earpiece, sharp over the overlapping screams and gunfire. "The wall's compromised—"
Static swallowed the rest, but I was already moving.
Boots pounded the corridor as I ran past the infirmary, past the clinic I'd built with my own hands, stocked with medicinal herbs I'd grown from mutated seeds, traded from other worlds. Past the sleeping pods where my people—my family—had once believed they were safe.
The sirens were a constant wail now, matched to the deep, throbbing roar of something outside the walls. Something huge. Something intelligent enough to test.
An impact tore through the metal skeleton of the base, dust sifting down from the ceiling. The lights flickered, then steadied. Somewhere, a child was sobbing. Somewhere else, a man was praying.
My base—once a quiet farming stronghold carved out of the apocalypse, now a fortress—was coming apart.
I sprinted across the command deck. The giant holographic map of our territory was a bleeding-jewel mess—red on all edges. Zombie clusters pushing in waves; mutated wolves slipping between; pockets of panicking civilians flashing as yellow dots.
"Status!" I snapped.
My youngest, Lily, looked up from the console, face streaked with sweat and soot. Her fingers, glowing faintly with an emerald shield-sheen, hovered over the controls. She was only seventeen but her barriers had saved us more times than I could count.
"Stage Three and Four zombies at every gate," she said hoarsely. "Two Stage Fives confirmed. The one at the north wall—Mom, it's a Lord-class. It's…learning from every volley we fire."
Of course it was. Eight years into the Mist Era, evolution had learned to run.
"Where's your brother?" I demanded.
"South gate," she said. "With Dad. He—"
The floor bucked again. I grabbed the edge of a table as the overhead lights exploded in a chain, plunging half the room into darkness. Emergency panels snapped on, staining everything a harsh red.
My husband's voice returned to my ear, a ragged breath.
"Evie. Can you hear me?"
"I'm here." I pushed through the half-lit chaos, pulse a drumbeat in my temples. "I'm coming to you. Hold the line."
A heavy silence. Then Alex said, strangely quiet, "Maybe you shouldn't."
I stopped.
It wasn't what he said. It was how he said it—flat, almost relieved, like something finished instead of begun.
For a heartbeat, the sounds of the failing base dulled, as if someone had put hands over my ears.
"…Repeat that," I said.
"Forget it." He laughed, and I heard the echo of gunfire in the background. "North gate's overrun. You'll never make it here in time. Get to the core. Lock down the System. You can turn this around."
The System.
My System.
The interface that had appeared in my mind on the first day of the Mist, cold and clinical and impossibly powerful. The one I had hidden as long as I could, then weaponized. The one that let me build this sanctuary, cross worlds, turn mutated poison into medicine.
And the one everyone—humans, zombies, even the government remnants—would kill to own.
"I'm not leaving you," I said. "Or the kids."
Silence again.
Then another voice cut through the channel, bright and sharp as glass.
"Auntie, always so heroic."
My chest went cold.
"Claire," I whispered.
My cousin's voice—once familiar from childhood holidays, later from tense leadership councils—had taken on a lazy amusement over the last few years. It was worse over the comms now, filtered, too cheerful.
"Why are you on this channel?" I demanded.
"I'm everywhere you left me an opening," she said. "You really shouldn't reuse encryption keys from your first base, Auntie. Nostalgia is dangerous."
Lily's head snapped up from the console, eyes wide. "Mom—she's pinging our internal network. How—"
"Shut it down," I said, even as dread pooled in my gut. "Cut all external—"
"You don't have time for that," Claire interrupted. "You really don't have time for anything except listening."
On the battle map, one of the red clusters at the south gate suddenly shifted. Parted, like a curtain.
Through the static of my husband's feed, I heard something else now: not the chaos of a battle, but a strange, organized quiet.
"Alex?" My voice scraped. "Answer me. Where. Are. You?"
Finally, he sighed.
"At the south gate," he said. "Holding the line, like always."
"Put me on visual," I said.
A soft click, and then the overhead display flickered, shifting from the abstract map to a feed from his visor cam.
The south wall came into view—towering plates of repurposed ship steel and scavenged concrete. Floodlights carved the night into harsh white zones and ink-black shadows. On top of the wall, I saw familiar silhouettes: our best fighters, huddled behind makeshift battlements.
And at the base of the wall, in the killing field we had cleared over years, I saw the horde.
Stage Ones and Twos in front—shambling, jerking, already cut down in heaps. Behind them, the bigger shapes of Stage Threes, bone armor glistening, limbs longer, jaws distended. And scattered among them, like malevolent generals, the gray-skinned, blade-eyed forms of Stage Fours, elemental mist leaking from their fingers as they directed the surge.
But there was a gap.
A perfect semicircle of bare earth in front of the main gate.
And in that gap, standing on a pile of corpses like a queen on a dais, was the Lord-class.
It wasn't monstrous in the traditional sense, not anymore. Once, maybe—it had been human. Now it was tall, elongated, skin like marble shot through with oily veins of black. Its eyes were pits of green fire, flickering with something more than hunger.
It lifted its head as if smelling something on the air.
Looking straight up at the camera.
"Evie," Alex said softly. "He's here for the core."
The Zombie Lord's thin lips peeled back in something almost like a smile.
Claire laughed, delighted.
"Of course he is. You fed him, after all."
I felt Lily stiffen beside me. Around us, the command deck fell into a hush, listening.
"I don't know what you think you're doing," I said, very calmly. "But if you've forced a link—if you've broken the ceasefire—every base with any power left will hunt you down."
"Ceasefire?" Claire clicked her tongue. "Is that what you called keeping a starving wolf at your door because it made you feel in control?"
Her voice sharpened.
"You called him here. Every time you cleared zombies from neighboring territory, you left his cores untouched. Every time your kids almost died and he intervened, you paid in rare herbs and beast crystals and Mist-metal. You built a pet monster, Auntie. I just learned how to hold the leash."
On the wall, Alex turned, and for the first time, I saw his face.
The visor had been lifted. His eyes—dark, tired, familiar—met mine through the camera.
There was no madness there. No coercion. Just…decision.
"Evie," he said quietly. "We're out of time. Out of ammo. Out of allies. Your System—"
"Our System," I cut in.
He smiled a little.
"Your System is the only bargaining chip we have left. Claire's people still have food stores. She has manpower, alliances. The only thing she's missing is…"
"Is you," Claire finished, bright. "And your key."
In the command deck, the breath left me in a slow, measured exhale. My fingers curled around the edge of the table until my knuckles went white.
"So this is it," I said. "You made a deal with her. You hand over my System authorization, and she and her pet Lord spare you. And what? You fade into the background? Play the loyal lieutenant in whatever nightmare she builds on my corpse?"
"She'll keep the kids alive," Alex said softly.
My heart stopped.
"What?"
"She promised." He swallowed hard. "Lily, Ryan, your parents, the ones closest to us. She'll need their powers, their reputations. She'll keep them. She just…doesn't need you."
Lily made a small, wounded sound, like air leaving a punctured balloon.
"Dad," she whispered, staring at the screen. "You…you talked to her? Without Mom? You…"
I didn't look at her. I couldn't. My gaze stayed locked on the men on the wall, on the monster in the killing field, on the woman who had once been my cousin now sitting safe in some distant fortress, her voice on my channel like a poison fragrance.
"You believe her," I said. "After everything you've seen. After every promise broken in this world. You believe Claire."
He flinched.
"Evie… We're not what we used to be. You're not just my wife. You're…founder, leader, System Host. You can't trust anyone. You don't let anyone in. I'm tired. They're tired. We all are. Claire—"
"Claire offers an easier cage," I said.
I remembered Claire in the early days, wide-eyed, too soft, clinging to me when the first Mutated Hyena had ripped through our hastily-raised fence. I remembered giving her food when my own family barely had enough. Teaching her how to plant Mist-touched beans that could grow in poisoned soil. Taking her into my base as an ally when her first camp fell, ignoring the whispers: She's ambitious. She's watching you.
Of course she had been.
"She's an opportunist," I said. "And you're a coward."
The word hit him like a slap. For a moment, the old Alex flashed—the one who had negotiated impossible contracts in the old world, who had stared down corrupt officials and cartel remnants with the same cold gaze.
"I did what I had to do to keep us alive," he said.
"So did I." My voice didn't rise, but the air in the room felt thinner. "I bled for these walls. I went to other worlds. I bartered with things that don't belong in human mouths. I watched people die so others could live. All so one day, our children could stand under a clean sky again."
Another impact shook the base, closer now. The map flickered, then steadied. Red sprawled over green.
Lily wiped at her face, hands shaking, eyes rimmed pink. "Mom," she whispered. "The Lord—it's calling more. It's pulling in everything from the forest buffer. If we don't activate the inner shields in the next two minutes, they'll breach the residential sector."
"Evie." Alex's voice. "The System core. It's still manual authentication, right? Neural imprint, direct contact. You have to be there in person to reset authorization."
I knew where this was going before he finished.
"You want me to go down there," I said softly. "To the innermost chamber. Alone. Unlock the System. And what—hand the key to Claire, when she arrives with your escort?"
"It's the only way," he said. "She can't touch it without you. Once she has it, she has a way to coordinate bases, to ration resources, to—"
"To rule the bones of the world," I finished.
On the wall, the Lord tilted its head, staring up with that eerie stillness. Its fingers flexed, claws glinting.
Mist began to gather around it, coalescing from nothing.
"Five minutes," Claire said cheerfully. "Less, if he gets impatient. Auntie, I do like you. I really do. I'll even let you live. A comfortable little prison. A garden, maybe. Somewhere you can grow your plants and pretend the world didn't end twice. Just…step away from the throne. You were never meant for it anyway."
Lily choked.
"Mom—don't go down there. Don't you dare go down there. We can fight, we—we still have the—"
Her shield flickered as another tremor ran through the structure, this one sharper, like something had bitten deep into the foundation.
I had spent eight years in this world learning to make impossible choices.
This one was…easier than most.
"Lily," I said quietly. "Route all remaining power to the inner barrier."
She stared. "But if we do that, the outer walls—"
"Will fall faster," I agreed. "Which means the civilians in the outer ring won't be slowly chewed through when the ammo runs dry. They'll die quickly when the Lord breaches. It's kinder."
She shook her head, tears flying. "Don't talk like that—"
"Look at me."
She did.
My daughter's eyes were Alex's, dark brown and steady when she wasn't breaking. But the stubborn set of her jaw—that was mine.
"Route the power," I said. "Then take whoever you can physically drag and go to Sublevel Three. The seed vault. You remember the back passage to the eastern tunnel?"
She nodded shakily.
"You and Ryan will lead an evacuation." I forced my voice to stay even. "Through the old mining shafts, to the river. You know the route. You've trained for it."
"We planned that for worst-case scenarios," she whispered.
"This is a worst-case scenario."
"And you?"
I smiled.
"I'm going to have a talk with a god and a traitor."
"Mom—"
But I was already moving, shoving away from the table, striding toward the elevator at the back of the command deck.
"Evie," Alex said. "Evie, wait. You can still—"
"Still what?" The doors hissed open. I stepped inside and hit the panel for Sublevel Zero—the deepest, most protected chamber, where the System core hummed in the dark.
"Give you what you want?" I said. "Hand you the only thing that will ever make this world more than a cemetery, after you sold me to the wolves?"
Behind me, I heard Lily's broken whisper: "Don't go, don't go, don't go—"
The doors began to close.
I turned at the last second, meeting her gaze across the chaotic room.
"I love you," I said. "Remember that. When you rebuild, when you hate me for dying like this, when you think you could have saved me if you'd tried harder—I love you. That's all."
The doors slid shut, cutting off her cry.
Darkness swallowed me as the elevator plunged.
The hum of the base's dying power-grid vibrated through the walls. I listened to it with a strange, detached calm. Somewhere above, things were breaking, people were screaming, Alex was talking himself into believing he had no choice.
I had been naive, once, in the first years. I had believed that blood was thicker than desperation. That shared history could anchor loyalty.
Eight years had taught me otherwise.
Blood was just another resource in the apocalypse.
The elevator shuddered to a halt. The doors opened onto a corridor lined with matte-black metal, bulletproof and blast-resistant. The inner sanctum. No cameras here. No observers, save one.
I walked to the end of the hallway, to the circular chamber pulsing with soft white-blue light.
The System core floated in the center of the room, a sphere the size of a car engine, ringed with concentric metallic bands that spun slowly, inscribed with runes that weren't from any Earth alphabet.
In my mind, a familiar interface flickered.
[SYSTEM CORE DETECTED]
[HOST: EVELYN SHEN]
[AUTHORITY: PRIMARY]
[WARNING: EXTERNAL THREAT LEVEL - CRITICAL]
[MAIN QUEST: SURVIVE] – STATUS: FAILED (PENDING)
"For once," I murmured, stepping closer, "you're honest about my odds."
For years, I had thought of the System as a tool—aloof, transactional. It gave quests, I completed them. It opened portals, I walked through. I bartered, I built, I healed.
Now, as the base shuddered and the air tasted like the beginning of the end, I wondered what it had wanted for me all along.
Survival? Growth?
Or just data.
Unbidden, another window blinked into being.
[OPTIONAL PROTOCOL AVAILABLE:]
[TIMELINE RECURSION]
[WARNING: COST IRREVERSIBLE]
[CONFIRM Y/N?]
I stared.
"…You're kidding," I whispered.
All this time. Eight years of blood and loss. And only now did it reveal this?
"Why?" I asked the empty air. "Why now? Because you're about to lose your precious Host? Because there's more to learn if you rewind me like a broken tape?"
No answer. Just the faint, cold hum of the core.
"Evie." Alex's voice crackled faintly in my ear. The interference down here was worse, full of static. "They're…almost through. Last chance. Do this, and we all live. You, me, the kids—"
He was still saying "we."
I reached out and laid my hand on the core.
It was warm. Warmer than I expected. Almost…alive.
"Timeline recursion," I repeated softly. "If I accept this, I go back. How far?"
Lines of text cascaded across my vision.
[RECENT SAVE POINTS UNAVAILABLE]
[GLOBAL ANOMALY: THE DESCENT MIST - INITIALIZATION]
[EARLIEST AVAILABLE BRANCH: T - 73 DAYS BEFORE EVENT]
[UPON RECURSION:]
– HOST RETAINS PARTIAL MEMORIES
– SYSTEM FUNCTIONS: LIMITED UNTIL MIST INITIALIZATION
– EXTERNAL ENTITIES: UNAFFECTED
Seventy-three days.
Two and a half months before the Mist first crawled down from the upper atmosphere, swallowing cities in silence, turning neighbors into monsters.
Back to before the world broke.
I could see myself as I had been then: tired from juggling work and home, worrying about my parents' blood pressure and my kids' grades, fighting about money with Alex late at night. Blind to the shadow already pooling over everything.
Back when my greatest fear had been losing my job.
"Protocol cost?" I asked.
There was a pause, as if the System were…considering. Or pretending to.
[COST: CURRENT TIMELINE TERMINATION]
[ALL ENTITIES IN PRESENT BRANCH: ERASED]
[DATA ARCHIVED]
Of course.
I closed my eyes.
Above, I could almost feel it: the Lord tearing through the last barriers, the mental command radiating from its core as it directed lesser zombies into our choke points. I could hear Lily's voice, screaming defiance, her shields flaring. Ryan's fire cracking the air. The dozens of people I had led and failed.
If I stayed, I could seal the core. Maybe I could drag the Lord into a trap, take it with me in a final detonation. A noble, cinematic end.
And then Claire would still be out there, with her growing army and her gift for siphoning power from any source, willing or not. The government bunkers would fall, one by one. The last, flickering lights of human civilization would gutter out.
If I went back, all of this—every person in this timeline—would be gone like smoke.
"Data archived," I murmured. "Is that what we are to you?"
No answer.
"Mom," Lily's voice whispered in my memory. "Don't go."
If I went back, I could stop Alex from ever making this choice. Or I could leave him before he had the chance. I could shift our base location, avoid allying with Claire, cut off her rise before it began.
I could prepare.
This time, I knew the shape of the Mist. The way the world would fracture. The way people would show their teeth.
This time, I would not waste energy on anyone who saw me as a step to a throne.
I opened my eyes.
"System," I said. "Initiate Timeline Recursion protocol."
[CONFIRM?]
"Yes."
[LAST CHANCE TO ABORT]
"Do it."
The core flared, a sudden, searing white that filled the chamber, filled my skull, filled the world.
Somewhere far above, the Zombie Lord screamed, an inhuman sound of denial, as if it could feel the thread of reality snapping.
My body burned, then froze, then shattered into a billion points of light.
For a heartbeat—just one—I saw everything: branching timelines like roots in the dark, looping, coiling, intersecting. I saw other worlds, other skies, a marketplace under twin suns, a forest of glass trees whispering secrets in the wind.
And then I was falling, faster than thought, through myself.
The last thing I heard was Lily's voice, not in my ear but in my bones.
"Find us," she whispered. "Find us sooner this time."
Darkness rushed up.
Everything ended.
Everything began.