The System's announcement had gone silent, but its final words continued to echo in Jules's mind.
[90 Days Until Global Catastrophe.]
Ninety days.
She had heard warnings before. She had watched the world end before. She had buried the people she loved, only to lose them again in another life.
But this time, she had something she had never possessed in any of her previous lives.
A System.
Jules lays back against the pillow, staring at the ceiling. Her family was downstairs, alive and arguing over breakfast as if the world would remain unchanged forever.
She pressed a trembling hand against her chest.
Eight lives. Eight endings.
And now, a ninth chance.
Her eyes slowly closed, but sleep offered no comfort. The System had given her ninety days to prepare for the end of the world.
It had no idea how many times she had already watched that world die.
As Jules laid on the bed, memories of her past lives resurfaced, darkening her expression. The bedsheets clinging to her sweat-damp skin.
In her first life, the nightmare began during what was meant to be a peaceful family tradition.
It was their annual hiking trip.
The earthquake struck without warning.
The mountain split, and rocks fell from above. Jules's mother stepped forward, her expression firm, knowing what was at stake. Her twin brothers died shielding their younger siblings and mother, while her father used his own body to protect Jules and her little sisters.
When the gas spread through the air, they fell unconscious.
When they woke, the dead remained above them, crushed, broken, and unmoving.
Nine family members had climbed the mountain that morning.
Only seven made it down.
They descended in grief, carrying what remained of their loved ones. Her father carried her mother's body, refusing to leave her behind.
As they descended the mountain in grief, carrying what remained of their loved ones. Her father carried her mother's body, refusing to leave her behind as her chest moved only slightly.
A neighbor attacked bitting into her mother, tearing away the flesh and Tavian struck him with a rock, killing him as they watched there mother's faint breathing cease.
Her sister Selina, who had always been fascinated by supernatural phenomena, stared at the attacker with furrowed brows.
"That's a zombie."
She paused, leaning closer to the dead man.
"Do you smell that? Like a mix of sulfur and decay," she whispered.
Her mother's body began to twitch.
Before anyone could react, Selina snatched the rock from Tavian's hands and struck their mother.
"Sorry, Mother," Selina whispered, tears streaming down her face. "But I can't let you become one of them."
Silence swallowed the family.
Jules stared at her sister, unable to comprehend what she had just witnessed. Her mother was gone. Her sister had been the one to end what little remained of her life.
"What was going on while we were on the mountain?"Tavian whispered
His voice broke as the rest of the family began to cry.
Their father pulled Selina close, and they hurried home, terrified that more of those creatures were waiting for them.
When we turned on the TV, the news left us speechless. The government instructed everyone to stay indoors while they worked to contain the situation and promised food deliveries to those who registered online.
Selina urged them not to trust the government.
"We need to gather food while we still can," she insisted. "We don't know what's happening out there, and we can't depend on anyone to save us."
We didn't listen and trusted them like the fools we were.
We followed government orders, stayed indoors, and waited. That was when fear took its true form.
Food ran out, followed by water.
I survived for three months before starvation claimed my life. I never learned how the world ended.
She didn't know why she was given a second chance.
When Jules awakened for the second time, she found herself 12 hours before the earthquake.
The nightmare was going to repeated itself.
But this time, she remembered.
She remembered the zombie. The government broadcasts. The empty cupboards and the unbearable thirst.
Most importantly, she remembered Selina's warning.
This time, Jules insisted that they prepare.
She urged her family to gather supplies and remain alert. She refused to let them sit helplessly behind locked doors, waiting for a government that might never come.
Yet preparation alone wasn't enough.
This time, she witnessed the apocalypse from the beginning.
The earthquake.
The sleep.
The chaos that followed.
Then came the abilities.
Her family began awakening powers, revealing that the disaster had changed humanity in ways none of them could have imagined.
For a while, Jules believed they might survive.
They survived nearly a year until mutated plants devoured them as they tried to escape Greenvale. I learned how to fear plants not just zombies.
On her fourth rebirth, she returned two days before the apocalypse.
She persuaded her family to stockpile supplies.
They survived three years.
Floods swallowed cities. Extreme heat scorched the land. Blizzards buried what remained of civilization. At times, darkness descended and swallowed the sun, leaving survivors to wonder whether daylight would ever return.
They endured disaster after disaster, believing their base could protect them.
Then, the base they relied on discovered Kaelith's time ability.
Her little brother was taken. The rest of her family was killed.
Once again, Jules lost everything but this time, she understood why.
Abilities could save lives, but they could also turn the people who possessed them into targets.
In my fourth life, I learned to keep secrets.
On her fifth rebirth, she returned five days before the end.
They avoided the base and tried a different path. They trusted someone they shouldn't have which lead to her father's friend betrayed them. Ten months later, they were all dead.
Jules had tried changing their destination, their strategy, and the people they relied on. Yet the ending remained the same.
Trust had become another weakness the world could exploit.
In my fifth life, I learned to guard my trust carefully.
On her sixth rebirth, she returned sixteen days before the apocalypse.
She hoped the extra time would make a difference.
It didn't.
The zombies were stronger and more intelligent.
They survived two years but encountered a King Zombie and there was no escape.
Death followed death.
The timing shifted. Hope surfaced, only to shatter again.
Each rebirth further eroded her sanity. Like a thread slowly unwinding, her sense of self began to fray with every cycle. She felt like a cracked mirror, reflecting broken images of her past, each fracture deepening with every passing end.
She tried everything.
She tried safe houses, remote locations, and constant movement.
The world itself became the enemy.
In my sixth life, I learned that survival wasn't simply about finding a place to hide.
I had to learn how to fight back.
Not until her eighth rebirth did something change.
She met Kian.
He had built a base with his family and understood what it meant to fight for survival. He knew the weight of loss, the exhaustion of constant fear, and the responsibility of protecting the people who depended on him.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Jules met someone who understood her without needing every scar explained.
Together, they protected Kaelith.
Together, they built a haven, using his former base as a foundation.
They survived five years.
It was the longest she had ever lived.
Five years of believing she had finally found a way to keep her family safe. Five years of watching Kaelith grow, of building something that felt like home, of allowing herself to believe that tomorrow might actually come.
For the first time, survival became more than postponing death.
It became a life worth living.
Jules learned who she could trust. She learned what it meant to love someone without constantly preparing herself for the moment they would disappear.
She allowed herself to hope.
And that was what made the ending so cruel.
The base fell.
They were surrounded.
Everything they had built crumbled around them, and the people she had fought so desperately to protect were taken from her once again.
Jules had died eight times, and each rebirth had left her with less hope than before.
Yet this ending hurt the most. Not because death itself was unfamiliar, but because she finally understood what she was losing.
She had found a home.
She had found people she could trust.
She had found a reason to believe that the future might be different.
And then she lost it all.
The memory of the base collapsing was the last thing Jules wanted to remember.
Yet here she was again.
Alive. Young. With her family gathered beneath the same roof.
Downstairs, her brothers were still arguing over breakfast. Her parents were still there. The people she had spent eight lives trying to save were alive, unaware of what awaited them.
Jules opened her eyes.
She couldn't change the past. She couldn't undo the deaths that had followed her through eight lifetimes.
But she could change what happened next.
This time, she would not waste the chance.
Every life had taught her a lesson. She had learned not to wait for rescue, not to underestimate the world, not to expose her family's strengths carelessly, and not to mistake a safe place for a permanent one.
This life has to be different.