Chapter 1

My mom was reborn. Reborn one week before the end of the world.

She said that in our last life we'd all died in a scorching apocalypse, so this time we had to act early and change the fate where we were all going to die.

Dad remodeled the house, Mom stockpiled supplies, and I called the admissions office and told them I was giving up my spot.

With the apocalypse coming, all I wanted was for the three of us to stay together.

Once everything was ready, we shut ourselves into our separate insulated rooms. And there we stayed for three years.

Until the night of Mom's birthday, when I risked coming to their door and caught the sound of a violent argument.

"How do you even come up with this stuff? Rebirth, apocalypse. Let me ask you, do you actually plan to keep her locked up her whole life?"

Mom shot back.

"We have to at least wait until Bertie graduates. If she finds out, how is Bertie ever supposed to show her face?"

Bertie was the poor student our family sponsored.

I was so angry I wanted to burst in and confront them, when a row of comments floated across my vision.

【Don't be rash. Your mom faked the rebirth, but the apocalypse is real. Three days from now, six in the morning, temperatures spike everywhere on earth. Go out now and you're walking to your death.】

I pulled my hand back, sulking. Fine, hunker down three more days?

……

I went back to my room and looked over what was in it.

No question about it. If the comments weren't lying to me, in three days this place would be my best shelter.

But why would they do this? What exactly were they so afraid I'd find out?

Three years. How many three-year stretches does a person even get.

The next morning, before they were up, I slipped out of my room.

The living room looked exactly the way it had three years ago. The one thing that had changed: the photo of the three of us on the coffee table was now a photo of them with Roberta Swanson.

In it, Roberta stood at the university gates holding a college acceptance letter, smiling with all the shine of youth.

I let my eyes travel down the photo, and that one look made every hair on my body stand up.

The name on Roberta's acceptance letter was mine!

So this was why my parents had done it. So she could take my name and go to college in my place.

My legs nearly gave out.

Then I heard movement from my parents' room and darted back into mine.

"Don't you think someone's moved that photo?"

Through the peephole, for one instant my mom's eyes locked onto mine, and I almost cried out.

Luckily, she didn't suspect anything.

"I'm probably overthinking it. Come on, let's go. Bertie's bringing her boyfriend home for dinner tonight, we need to get groceries."

The room went quiet soon after, and in that moment I couldn't hold it in anymore. I sobbed my heart out.

Before this, I had come up with ten thousand reasons for them. This was the only one I'd never imagined.

I couldn't believe it. For the sake of one sponsored student, they could lock their own daughter in a room for three years.

What I'd imagined even less was that the university I'd worked so hard to get into had just been handed to someone else.

Once I'd steadied myself I stepped out of the room again, and this time I looked more carefully.

The umbrella stand by the entryway, the towel and toothbrush at the sink, all of them marked as Bertie's.

Anyone walking into my house for the first time would mistake them for the real family of three.

The tears fell again, useless as ever, except this time the comments weren't coddling me.

【Lady, did I spend all that money to watch you cry? Get up and fight back.】

【If you keep moping like this, not even the gods can save you. Go stock up your supplies right now, this second.】

【Let me put it plainly, these few are about to be dead people. Can you save the crying for later?】

The comments cursed dirtier and dirtier, but somehow I really didn't feel so miserable anymore.

They were right. Right now, staying alive was what mattered.

I grabbed my old New Year's money and went straight downstairs.

"Vivi, is that you?"

At the familiar voice, I turned my head like a machine.

It was him!