The last thing I remembered was the smell of my own blood, coppery and thick, and the grating shriek of the Grue as its talons punched through my ribs. Then, nothing.
Then, lemon-scented laundry detergent.
My eyes opened. A familiar white ceiling swam into focus. A hairline crack snaked from the plastic light fixture toward the window. I knew that crack. I had counted every millimeter of it during the long, silent years in the Westend Depot.
I did not move. I listened. The distant, friendly drone of a lawnmower. The chirp of a bird. Sounds that had become mythical in my memory.
A cold, numerical certainty settled in my gut. This was not a dream. This was the Load.
A transparent, blue-hued screen materialized in the center of my vision, unobscured by anything I looked at.
System Notification: Save Point v1.0
Active Save Point Confirmed.
Timestamp Loaded: 7:02 AM. Day -1 to Threshold Event.
Next Save Authorization: Upon User Termination.
Primary Objective: Survive.
A wave of nausea that had nothing to do with sickness hit me. It worked. The desperate, flickering hope I'd activated a lifetime ago, on the eve of hell, had worked. I had lived twenty-two years in the nightmare. I had died. And I had been returned to my only saved moment: the morning before the world ended.
I sat up. The motion was too fluid, too easy. My body was light, unused. I held my hands in front of my face. They were soft. Unscarred. The knuckles weren't the busted, calloused tools I'd used to build barricades and break apart frozen food tins.
I was sixteen again.
The clock on my nightstand glowed 7:04. The Threshold Event, the Grue Invasion, would begin at 6:17 AM tomorrow. I had twenty-three hours and thirteen minutes.
Twenty-two years of instinct screamed at me to move. Grief, shock, the dizzying joy of seeing my old room—they were luxuries for people with time. I had a schedule.
I swung my legs out of bed and stood. My knees didn't ache. The old fracture in my left shin was gone. The dissonance was staggering. I took a single, sharp breath, locking the chaos inside a mental box. I could fall apart later. If I lived.
My backpack was in the closet, a cheap nylon thing for school books. I emptied it onto the floor, my movements economical. Every second had a purpose. From the bottom drawer of my desk, I retrieved the metal lockbox. The key was still taped beneath the desk. The familiarity of the action was a punch to the throat.
Inside the box: two hundred and seventeen dollars in wrinkled bills, a birthday card from my grandmother, and a multi-tool knife my dad gave me for camping. I took the money. I took the knife. I closed the lid on the card.
Clothing was next. I dressed with a survivor's pragmatism. Dark, durable jeans. A thick cotton t-shirt. A wool blend hoodie, despite the morning's mild spring air. Insulation was key. My sturdy hiking boots, barely worn, laced up tight. The backpack took the money and the knife.
A heavy thud came from downstairs, followed by my father's voice. "Leo! You planning to sleep through first period? Move it!"
The sound froze me. It wasn't a memory. It was real, vibrating through the floorboards. I saw him, clear as day, in his suit jacket, a travel mug in his hand. He would kiss my mom on the cheek, walk out the door, and die under a collapsed pedestrian bridge at 8:42 AM tomorrow, caught in the initial chaos downtown.
The urge to run downstairs, to warn him, to change his fate, was a physical force. It clawed at my ribs.
I closed my eyes. I saw the Westend Depot. I saw Meredith, my second-in-command, her face pale as she handed me our last can of beans. "You make the hard choices, Leo. That's why we're still here." I had learned the brutal calculus of survival. A single change could ripple outward. Saving him might mean missing the acquisition of a critical resource. It might mean I wouldn't be in position to secure the warehouse. It might mean dozens who lived in my first timeline would die.
My father was a variable I could not afford. Not yet.
The decision was ash in my mouth. I turned away from my bedroom door.
I went to the window, slid it up, and climbed out onto the sloping roof over the porch. The shingles were gritty under my palms. I dropped silently onto the dew-wet grass, my young knees absorbing the impact with ease I'd forgotten.
I was out.
The suburb was a portrait of doomed peace. Sprinklers hissed. A neighbor waved from her porch. I gave a tight, unfamiliar smile and kept walking, my pace fast and purposeful. I had no car. I wouldn't risk trying to steal my dad's; the confrontation would waste time. The Harris Hardware Warehouse was 6.3 miles away. I could make that in under two hours at a forced march. My body might protest later, but it didn't know the agony I was used to.
The journey was a surreal parade of ghosts. The corner store where Old Man Miller would be trampled tomorrow. The park where the first Grue Spawn would erupt from a tear in the playground asphalt. I saw it all superimposed on the sunny, normal scene.
My mind worked, listing priorities.
Secure the Location. The warehouse was my primary objective. Its steel shutters and concrete construction had withstood the initial waves. It contained non-perishable tools, camping gear, and, critically, a fleet of industrial generators and propane tanks.
Initial Procurement. With my limited capital, I needed high-impact items: a quality water filter, bolt cutters, a hand-crank radio, and as many chemical light sticks as I could carry. Food could be scavenged later from predictable locations, but tools were gold.
Intelligence. I needed to confirm the timeline was identical. A news report, a traffic incident—anything to validate my memories were accurate.
At a bus stop, I used a dollar of my precious cash for a local paper from a vending machine. The date was correct. The headlines were mundane. A city council dispute. A sports victory. The obituaries were short. I scanned them, my heart hammering. No unexpected names. The timeline was holding.
I walked on, the backpack growing heavier with distance. The downtown skyline came into view, glittering innocently. That was where the Central Breach would open. That was where the screaming would start.
By 9:30 AM, I stood before the Harris Hardware Warehouse. It was a monstrous, windowless block of a building on the industrial edge of the city. A "For Lease" sign was plastered to its chain-link fence. It looked abandoned. I knew it was mostly empty, save for the forgotten inventory in its back storage bays.
This was it. My first base. The cornerstone of my second chance.
The main gate was padlocked. I glanced around. The street was deserted. From my backpack, I pulled the multi-tool. The wire cutters were small, insufficient. I'd need the bolt cutters inside.
But I remembered another way.
Twenty-two years ago, a skinny kid named Leo had explored this area. There was a section of fence around the back, near the loading docks, where the chain-link had rusted and pulled away from its post.
I walked the perimeter, my eyes scanning. And there it was. A gap, just wide enough for a determined teenager to squeeze through. It was still here. The first real confirmation that my past and this present were aligned.
I slipped through, the metal snagging my hoodie. I was in.
The back lot was paved with cracked asphalt, littered with pallets and plastic wrap. The sheer size of the warehouse, now that I was up close, was reassuring. It was a fortress.
I approached a smaller personnel door. It was locked, deadbolted from the inside. Standard. But the frame was old. I took a step back, assessed it, then drove my boot heel just above the knob. The jamb splintered with a sound like a gunshot in the quiet. The door swung inward, groaning.
Darkness and the smell of dust, oil, and concrete greeted me. I stepped inside, letting my eyes adjust.
Rows of towering, empty shelving units receded into the gloom. A few skylights far above let in dusty shafts of sunlight. It was cavernous. It was perfect.
I allowed myself one moment. One deep, shuddering breath in the cool, still air. I was ahead of the curve. I had a location.
The blue System screen flickered, updating.
Primary Objective: Survive.
Sub-Objective: Secure Base of Operations.
Status: In Progress.
Then, a new line of text scrolled across the bottom of the screen, plain and devastating.
Note: Save Point integrity is temporally anchored. Significant deviation from recorded personal historical actions may cause destabilization. Proceed with caution.
I stared at the words. Recorded personal historical actions. My blood ran cold. It wasn't just about knowing the future. The System was tracking my choices against the ghost of the boy I had been. How much could I change before this second chance unraveled?
The journey had just become infinitely more complicated. I had twenty-two hours left. And now, I wasn't just fighting the future. I was fighting my own past.