The world still had its secrets. The news had not yet broken. They still laughed in coffee shops and bickered over inconsequential deadlines. Julyah Anderson watched them through dark sunglasses, expressionless and still. A ghost, among the living.
Two weeks. That was all the time she had left. The first sky would shatter in twelve days.
The meteor shower would come with no warning, at least, officially. But she had already seen it in her dream. Fire in the night sky. Cities alight, like matches. The end of days.
Julyah did not plan to die like the rest of them.
She began with the assets. Everything she owned, condominiums, bonds, stocks, vehicles—was sold. Her financial consultant worked her through back channels, companies folding quietly under bankruptcy. The coins were exchanged for anonymous gold bars, a good portion of them, the rest spread out across as many accounts as she could forge under as many aliases as she could remember.
When her consultant cocked an eyebrow over her transactions, she only laughed and said, "Family paranoia. We're all a little eccentric." He did not pry again.
She stopped returning texts, allowing the pile of concerned messages to stack up in her inbox. Friends. Old classmates. Nosy exes circling like buzzards after the funeral. She gave no explanations, only absences. It was easier this way. There would be no one left to follow.
Under different names, burner phones, she began to acquire what she would need to survive.
First the vehicles:
An RV, kitted out and reinforced for living off-grid: solar panels, water filtration, even a satellite uplink.
An all-terrain 4x4 truck with hidden storage and a lift kit.
A motorcycle she could ditch or haul behind the truck if the roads were clogged.
Each was bought in a different city, under different names, from private sellers who asked no questions so long as the cash was clean.
Then the weapons. Julyah had never owned a gun before, not in earnest, but something in her blood whispered that she would soon have to learn. A combination of licensed firearms and less savory contacts, she obtained:
*Two small 9mm pistols
*A shotgun with custom attachments
*A tactical rifle with night vision
*Knives. Many knives.
She trained at private ranges, telling the instructors that she wanted to feel "empowered" after the loss of her family. They didn't correct her. They liked her precision, her quiet concentration. One even joked to her, "You've got the makings of a ghost operative."
Julyah only smiled, and it did not reach her eyes.
The final purchases would be mundane to most people—but were essential to her:
*Medical kits, surgical equipment, solar chargers, cold packs.
*Pallets of freeze-dried food.
*Clothing with thermal lining.
*Water barrels.
*Fuel reserves.
Every supply was divided into go-bags and hidden across a series of storage lockers on the outskirts of town.
At night, she pored over hand-drawn maps, crisscrossed out routes, memorized code names. The bracelet against her wrist buzzed faintly. Warmed her skin sometimes. Chilled it other nights. It never came off.
She heard his name now and then on the news. Adrian Blackwood. Former special forces. Decorated. Stoic. Dangerous. An independent candidate that was gaining traction, for his brutal honesty and survivalist policies.
The world had not seen it, but Julyah knew he had.
He was already preparing, even if he would not say as much directly.
She would find him before it was too late.
But first, she had to disappear.
Twelve days.
Then eleven.
Then ten.
The sky still seemed normal. The world still turned.
But every breath Julyah took tasted like ash.
And every second she counted down to the war that no one else was ready for.