Axiom Stonewill woke to the sound of an engine idling.
It lingered longer than it should have.
Engines were meant to pass. To move on. 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 and steadier, 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 the fastest way to die. Sometimes as an individual. Sometimes as a leader. Sometimes as an entire group that trusted the wrong timing.
He listened instead.
The engine outside finally shut off. Footsteps crunched against frost. A brief argument. The scrape of something heavy being dragged across concrete.
A delivery.
Not his.
Outside someone else's house.
Axiom released a slow breath.
The timeline was holding.
The ceiling fan above him was still. His room smelled faintly of detergent, dust, and old paper. Morning light slipped through the blinds in thin, harmless lines.
Harmless.
That was the lie mornings told.
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 old fractures that never healed correctly. No tremor from neural overload.
This body had not yet learned how to break.
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 trivial.
They would be dead in less than a year.
Not because they were foolish.
Because they were normal.
Axiom turned away before the thought could deepen.
Regret was a luxury for civilizations that survived.
He moved through his morning routine with practiced efficiency.
Wash. Dress. Check the time.
No wasted motion.
The mirror reflected a face that was both familiar and distant. Younger. Softer. The sharp lines of exhaustion had not yet carved themselves into his features.
Only the eyes were the same.
Eyes that had watched cities starve while supply routes collapsed.
Eyes that had learned, too late, that courage meant nothing without logistics.
He looked away.
This was not the time for ghosts.
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 excessive. Almost indulgent.
"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, 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. She was already thinking about consequences, even if she did not yet have the language for them.
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 before. Entire population clusters. Logistics chains that spanned systems. Strategic burdens that crushed people far stronger than him.
None of that compared to this table.
"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. A flicker of concern. Or intuition.
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 archived footage and guilt.
Now they were here.
Now they were his responsibility again.
He assessed them without emotion.
Lyra would adapt quickly. Too quickly. She would take risks unless restrained.
Seren would endure. She would carry weight silently until it crushed her.
Nyx would survive if protected long enough to grow.
Elara would sacrifice herself first if no one stopped her.
None of them were ready.
That was why he would say nothing.
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 it.
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 sirens. No warnings.
Just a notification.
[Global System Initialization Pending]
He remembered the disbelief. The laughter online. The arguments over whether it was a prank, a hack, a marketing stunt. Influencers debated sponsorships while governments debated jurisdiction.
By the time the first people died, it was already too late.
His own death had not been heroic.
No final stand. No dramatic sacrifice.
Just exhaustion.
A delayed supply convoy. A decision made minutes too late. A collapse that propagated faster than anyone could respond to.
He had known the exact point of failure.
That knowledge was the only thing that followed him back.
This time, he would not gamble.
He would not improvise.
He would not rely on miracles.
Axiom opened a document and began to type.
Dates. Locations. Names.
Money flows. Supply bottlenecks. Early casualties he could not prevent.
He marked what could be changed.
He marked what could not.
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 already be moving.
He saved the document.
Renamed it.
Stonewill Foundation Log -- Day Three.
Pre-Civilization Planning Archive.
Outside, the neighborhood continued its quiet routine.
The world still believed it had time.
Axiom did not correct it.
He began planning for the end of the world.