The wind howled outside like a thousand starving wolves, clawing at the windows with icy fingers. Inside the dimly lit apartment, Ethan Chen pressed himself against the wall, his teeth chattering so violently he thought they might shatter.
"Please," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the storm. "Mom, just... just one blanket. Anything."
Margaret Chen didn't even look at him. She was bent over the couch where his younger brother lay bundled in every piece of fabric the family owned, blankets, coats, even the living room curtains. Her hands moved with frantic precision, tucking another layer around Dylan's shivering form.
"Are you serious right now?" Margaret's voice cracked like a whip through the frozen air. She whirled on Ethan, her eyes blazing with a fury that burned hotter than any fire they no longer had fuel to make. "You want to compete for attention? Now? Do you have any idea what's happening to your brother?"
Ethan's lips had turned blue. He could barely feel his fingers anymore. "I just need,"
"Dylan has severe hypothermia!" Margaret shrieked, spittle flying from her lips. "And you're standing there whining about being cold? God, I should have known you'd be selfish even now."
Dylan stirred beneath his mountain of coverings, his pale face turning slightly toward Ethan. Even through his discomfort, a small smirk played at the corner of his mouth. "It's okay, Mom. Ethan's always been... sensitive to the cold."
Margaret's expression softened instantly as she looked back at her biological son. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I'm taking care of you." Then her face hardened again as she turned to Ethan. "As for you, I think it's time you learned a proper lesson about priorities in this family."
Before Ethan could process what was happening, Margaret grabbed him by the arm, her grip surprisingly strong despite her age, and dragged him toward the front door.
"Wait," Ethan tried to plant his feet, but the cold had made him weak. "You can't,"
"Can't I?" Margaret yanked the door open. The blizzard outside roared its approval, sending a spray of ice and snow into the apartment. "Maybe a night out there will teach you to appreciate what you have. Maybe you'll finally understand your place."
"Mom, please!" Ethan's voice broke. He was wearing nothing but the thin t-shirt and jeans he'd returned in. Everything else, his coat, his thermal underwear, even his socks, had been stripped from him the moment he'd walked through the door. They'd said Dylan needed them more.
"Don't call me that," Margaret hissed, and shoved him hard.
Ethan stumbled over the threshold and into the arctic night. Behind him, he heard Dylan's weak voice: "After a night out there, he'll come to his senses. And when tomorrow comes, he'll still be my good older brother."
The words were followed by laughter, Dylan's soft chuckle mixing with Margaret's bitter amusement, and then the door slammed shut. The lock clicked with a finality that echoed in Ethan's chest.
For a moment, he just stood there, the wind tearing through his inadequate clothing, the snow already beginning to accumulate on his shoulders. The extreme cold apocalypse had arrived three days ago. The scientists had been wrong about climate change going one direction. Instead, something had triggered a catastrophic shift, plunging the entire northern hemisphere into a freeze that showed no signs of stopping.
He and Dylan had both gone out today, risking the deadly cold to search for supplies in abandoned stores. Ethan had found batteries, canned food, even a portable heater. Dylan had found mostly empty shelves.
But when they'd returned, Margaret had immediately stripped Ethan of everything, his winter gear, his finds, even the clothes beneath, to keep Dylan warm. The injustice of it burned in his chest, though the burn was rapidly being replaced by numbness.
His fingers were already losing feeling. His toes followed. Ethan sank to his knees in the snow outside the apartment building, the white powder soaking through his jeans in seconds. The cold felt like knives stabbing into every inch of exposed skin.
This was how he would die. Frozen outside his own home, cast out by the people he'd spent his entire life trying to please. The people who had never truly wanted him.
Ethan's vision blurred, whether from tears or the onset of hypothermia, he couldn't tell. His thoughts began to drift, memories flickering through his mind like a failing television signal.
He remembered the day Margaret and Robert Chen had brought him home from the orphanage. He'd been six years old, small for his age, with wide eyes that had seen too much abandonment already. Margaret had smiled at him then, a warm smile that had made him believe he'd finally found a family.
"You're going to be so loved," she'd promised, stroking his hair.
For two years, it had been true. Margaret had packed his lunches with extra cookies. Robert had taught him to ride a bike. They'd celebrated his birthdays with cake and presents and hugs that felt real.
Then Dylan was born.
Ethan remembered standing in the hospital hallway, peering through the window at the tiny red-faced baby in Margaret's arms. Robert had placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "You're a big brother now, Ethan. That's a very important job."
At first, the changes had been subtle. Margaret spent more time with the baby, but that was natural, wasn't it? Babies needed constant care. Robert started missing their weekend bike rides, but he was tired from helping with Dylan's night feedings.
Then came Ethan's ninth birthday. Margaret had forgotten to buy a cake. When he'd reminded her, she'd snapped, "Can't you see I'm busy with your brother? Stop being so selfish."
That word. Selfish. It became the refrain of his life.
Selfish when he asked for help with homework because Margaret was playing with Dylan.
Selfish when he wanted to join the soccer team because the registration fee could buy Dylan new clothes.
Selfish when he dared to get sick because Dylan needed attention.
By the time Ethan turned thirteen, he'd overheard the truth. Late one night, unable to sleep, he'd crept toward the kitchen for water and heard his parents talking in the living room.
"I don't know why we're still keeping him," Margaret had said, her voice thick with wine and frustration. "We have Dylan now. Our real son."
"We can't just send him back to the orphanage," Robert had replied, though his tone lacked conviction. "People would talk. It would hurt our reputation."
"So we're stuck with him? This substitute we only needed because we thought we couldn't have our own children?"
The glass of water Ethan had been holding slipped from his numb fingers and shattered on the floor. The conversation in the living room had stopped abruptly, but no one came to check on him. No one ever did.
After that, Ethan had tried even harder. If he could just be good enough, useful enough, maybe they would love him. He took on every chore without complaint. He worked part-time jobs in high school and gave them half his earnings. He got into a good college on scholarship so they wouldn't have to pay.
Nothing was ever enough.
Now, kneeling in the snow as his body slowly shut down, Ethan finally understood. There was nothing he could have done. He'd been fighting a losing battle from the moment Dylan was born. In their eyes, he would always be the substitute, the placeholder, the one who could be discarded.
The cold was seeping into his bones now. His breathing had slowed. Ice crystals formed on his eyelashes.
If I could live again, Ethan thought desperately, his consciousness fading, I would never waste a single moment on them. I would take everything they value and burn it to ashes. I would watch them beg and suffer the way they've watched me suffer.
If I could live again...
His vision went dark.
Ethan gasped and sat bolt upright, his heart hammering in his chest.
He was warm.
The realization hit him before anything else. Warm. Not freezing. Not dying. He looked down at his hands, flexing fingers that should have been blackened with frostbite. They were whole. Healthy. Moving normally.
"What," he breathed, his voice strange in his own ears.
He was sitting in a bed. His bed. But not the sagging mattress in the cramped room he'd been relegated to after Dylan claimed the larger bedroom. This was his old bed, from years ago, with the blue comforter his younger self had picked out.
Ethan scrambled out of bed, his legs shaky, and looked around. The posters on the wall, the desk cluttered with textbooks, the basketball trophy from middle school before he'd been forced to quit the team, everything was exactly as it had been.
Before.
His phone lay on the nightstand. With trembling hands, Ethan grabbed it and checked the date.
November 3rd.
Two weeks before the apocalypse began. A full seventeen days before he'd been thrown out into the snow to die.
"No," Ethan whispered, then louder, "No. This isn't possible."
But the evidence was undeniable. The calendar on his wall showed November. The weather app on his phone predicted normal autumn temperatures. Outside his window, the trees still had leaves, orange and gold in the afternoon sunlight.
He'd been reborn.
Somehow, impossibly, he'd been sent back in time.
Ethan sank back onto the bed, his mind racing. This was his chance. His second chance. He could prepare for the apocalypse. Buy supplies, find shelter, stockpile everything he'd need to survive. With his knowledge of what was coming, he could position himself to thrive while others scrambled and died.
But first, before anything else, he needed to cut ties with the Chen family.
The thought crystallized in his mind with perfect clarity. In his previous life, he'd wasted precious time and resources trying to help them, trying to earn love that would never come. He'd shared the supplies he'd gathered. He'd risked his life for Dylan. And in return, they'd taken everything from him and left him to freeze.
Never again.
Ethan stood and walked to his closet, pulling out a duffel bag. He began methodically packing his belongings, the few things that actually mattered to him. His laptop. Some clothes. The photo album from his early childhood at the orphanage, the only record of who he'd been before the Chens.
As he packed, memories from both timelines swirled in his head. He knew exactly when the freeze would start, November 20th. He knew which stores would still have supplies and which would be looted first. He knew that the government's emergency shelters would fail within a week, their generators unable to handle the unprecedented cold.
Most importantly, he knew that sentiment and family loyalty meant nothing when survival was at stake.
A knock at his door interrupted his thoughts.
"Ethan?" Margaret's voice called from the hallway. "I need to talk to you about something."
Ethan's hand tightened on the shirt he was folding. That tone. He knew that tone. It was the same one she'd used countless times before, the false sweetness that preceded some new demand or disappointment.
"Come in," he said, his voice steady.
The door opened and Margaret entered, followed by Robert. Both of them wore expressions that Ethan recognized all too well. Apologetic but not sorry. Concerned but not caring.
"Sweetheart," Margaret began, and Ethan had to suppress a bitter laugh at the endearment. "We need to talk about something important. It's about Dylan."
Of course it was.
"What about Dylan?" Ethan asked, continuing to fold his clothes.
Margaret exchanged a glance with Robert. "Well, you know Dylan has been seeing that girl, Jessica, for a few months now."
Ethan's hands stilled. Jessica. His girlfriend. Or rather, the girl who had been his girlfriend until three days ago in the original timeline, when she'd suddenly broken up with him via text message. He'd been devastated, unable to understand what he'd done wrong.
Now, apparently, he was about to find out.
"I know Jessica," Ethan said carefully. "She's my girlfriend."
"Yes, well," Robert cleared his throat uncomfortably. "That's the thing. Dylan has developed feelings for her. Real feelings. And after talking with her, it seems she feels the same way about him."
The room fell silent. Ethan stood there, a shirt still clutched in his hands, staring at his adoptive parents. In his previous life, this moment had broken something in him. He'd begged, cried, asked how they could do this to him. Dylan had smirked from the doorway, Jessica had looked away guiltily, and Margaret had told him he was being dramatic.
"We know this is difficult," Margaret continued, her voice taking on that practiced sympathetic tone she used when she wanted to appear reasonable. "But Dylan really cares about her. And you know how sensitive he is. We can't bear to see him heartbroken."
"What about me?" The question came out flat, emotionless.
Margaret blinked. "What?"
"What about my heartbreak?" Ethan set the shirt down carefully. "You're asking me to just step aside so Dylan can have my girlfriend. What about how I feel?"
"Oh, Ethan," Margaret sighed, as if he were a child throwing a tantrum. "You've always been so dramatic about these things. You'll find another girl. But Dylan, he's never felt this way about anyone before. This is special for him."
Something in Ethan's chest, some last fragile thread of hope he hadn't realized he'd still been carrying, snapped.
In that moment, staring at the people who had raised him, fed him, housed him, and never once truly loved him, Ethan felt a cold clarity settle over him. It was almost peaceful, this final serving.
"You're right," he said quietly.
Margaret's face lit up with relief. "Oh, I knew you'd understand. You're such a good,"
"I want to terminate my adoption."
The words fell into the room like stones into still water. For a long moment, no one moved. No one even seemed to breathe.
"What?" Robert said finally.
Ethan met his eyes calmly. "I want to terminate my adoption with the Chen family. Immediately. I'll move out, we'll make it legal, and you'll never have to worry about me again. Dylan can have Jessica. He can have everything. I'm done."
Margaret's mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Shock flickered across her face, followed by something that looked almost like panic, before settling into cold calculation. "Ethan, you can't be serious. Where would you even go? What would you do? You have nothing without us."
"I'll figure it out."
"This is ridiculous," Robert interjected. "You're upset, we understand, but you're talking about throwing away your entire future over a girl,"
"This isn't about Jessica," Ethan interrupted, his voice hard. "This is about me finally understanding something I should have realized years ago. I don't belong here. I never did. You made that very clear."
"We've given you everything," Margaret's voice rose, the sympathetic mask slipping. "A home, an education, a family. And this is how you repay us? By being selfish and ungrateful?"
There it was again. Selfish. The word that had defined his entire existence in this house.
"If wanting to leave a family that's never wanted me is selfish," Ethan said, "then yes, I'm selfish. Let's make it official."
He walked past them, out of his room, and down the stairs. Behind him, he could hear Margaret and Robert arguing in hushed, frantic whispers. Let them argue. It didn't matter anymore.
In the living room, Dylan sat on the couch, Jessica perched beside him. They sprang apart when Ethan appeared, guilt written across both their faces.
"Ethan," Jessica started, her voice small. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to happen this way, it's just,"
"Save it," Ethan said. He looked at Dylan, really looked at him. The golden child. The precious son. The one who had stolen everything and never once felt a moment of remorse. "You can have her. You can have all of it. I'm leaving."
Dylan's guilty expression flickered into something else. Satisfaction. "Come on, man. Don't be like this. After you cool down, we can still be brothers. We can,"
"No," Ethan said flatly. "We can't. We never were."
He turned and walked toward the front door. Behind him, Margaret came rushing down the stairs. "Ethan! Ethan, stop! We need to discuss this properly!"
But Ethan was already out the door, breathing in the cool November air. It felt like freedom.