It began with a spreadsheet.
Clean. Color-coded. Obsessive.
Each item listed, prioritized by tiers of survival: Essential, Tactical, Long-Term, and Psychological Stability.
Julyah didn't shop anymore, she hunted.
For six days, she zigzagged across the outer neighborhoods of the city, avoiding malls and major chains, using delivery and storage codes for independent wholesalers and warehouse auctions. No loyalty cards. No names. Cash and bland, unremarkable clothing that passed for nondescript with truckers and prepper dads who studied her politely.
The containers came first, five of them, shipped under the alias "J. Anderson Logistics." Each the size of a small bedroom, industrial-grade, climate sealed, and insulated on the inside. She left them at four rural addresses and one underground rental facility two hours north.
Then the food.
One crate, all long-term storage: Vacuum-sealed packages of meats, beef, venison, turkey, all individually flash frozen and packaged for ten-year shelf life.
Rice by the 50-pound sack.
Pasta, lentils, pinto and black beans.
Pallets of canned vegetables, fruits, soups.
Dozens of high-calorie protein bars, military rations MREs, powdered milk stacked in bricks.
Another crate of salt, sugar, honey, spices. No use being too pragmatic. Salt could cure and preserve. Honey never went bad.
From an out-of-state seed bank, she ordered a full set of non-GMO heirloom vegetable seeds—the hardy kind that could be replanted year after year, not the fragile hybrids at grocery stores. Lettuce, kale, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, corn, soy, medicinal herbs. Labeled, organized, wrapped in moisture-proof foil and placed into temperature-regulated storage boxes.
The next list was colder.
First-aid kits—real ones.
Military grade tourniquets, surgical antiseptics, wound staplers, sutures, burn gels, quarantine masks, N95s.
Antibiotics purchased through a veterinary loophole: amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, doxycycline.
Water purification tablets by the kilo.
Two industrial water filters that could be used to make sewage potable.
Then fire.
Barrels of gasoline, sealed and stored with stabilizers.
Propane tanks, all sizes.
Batteries, solar panels, crank-powered flashlights.
Chargers. Radios. Emergency beacons. EMP-proof bags.
Each with duplicates, then duplicates of the backups.
Cold-weather gear, even though the forecast said this winter would be mild. She didn't believe it.
Insulated coats, waterproof boots, gloves, socks, thermal layers in all sizes. If she had to take in people, children, injured survivors, she wouldn't let cold be the thing that finished them.
The weapons cache grew, too.
Tactical knives in all sizes and styles.
A machete.
Four more handguns.
Two rifles, with custom sights.
More ammunition than she could carry at once, packaged carefully in labeled cases.
She'd started sleeping with one pistol under her pillow and another taped to the inside of her kitchen sink.
But not everything she packed was for killing.
In one corner of one storage container, a weathered wooden box of books, old ones. Not just for knowledge, but for sanity.
Manuals on survival, farming, off-grid medicine.
Diagrams on how to set a bone, how to birth a child, how to build a water wheel. Edible plants. Field guides.
A dog-eared novel or two she couldn't bear to leave behind, in case there were still nights she could read by firelight.
By the seventh day, her body ached and her knuckles were bruised from lifting crates. Her apartment looked abandoned, furniture sold to fund another supply run. She hadn't looked in a mirror in days.
But the bracelet still pulsed, faintly, always.
She took that as a sign she wasn't alone. Not truly.
Adrian was out there.
Moving, preparing. And if she was right, soon they'd meet.
Just not before the sky burned.