The storm rattled the windows hard enough that I thought the glass might shatter. Lightning cracked over Austin's skyline, plunging the street into light, then shadow, then light again. Neighbors cursed the power outages, dogs barked, and kids cried.
I sat at my kitchen table, alone, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee gone cold hours ago. My fingers were thick and scarred, not the kind you get from construction or farm work. Gun oil and desert sand leave their own kind of permanent marks.
Sixteen years in uniform. Special Operations. Different patches on the arm, same flag on the shoulder. Some things I'll never talk about — not because I can't, but because it doesn't matter anymore. People thank you for your service, then they move on. Veterans move on too, if they're lucky.
Problem is, I never trusted the word "lucky."
That's why the basement looked the way it did. Shelves lined with cans, water filters, medical gear, spare parts, rolls of duct tape. Not some doomsday nut-job's bunker. Just enough to sleep at night knowing I wouldn't be the first to starve if the world went sideways.
And in my gut, I always knew it would.
The storm should've been the worst thing that night. But it wasn't.
A voice — cold, mechanical, clinical — slipped into my skull like someone had wired a radio into the back of my head.
> [Survival Protocol Activated.]
Choose a Scenario: Fallout • 7 Days to Die • The Last of Us.
Warning: This choice is permanent.
I blinked. My pulse spiked. My first thought: aneurysm. Stroke. PTSD flashback. But the words didn't fade, didn't distort. They hovered at the edges of my vision like a heads-up display from some videogame I hadn't played.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered, rubbing my eyes. But when I opened them, the words were still there.
> Choose.
Three names. Three nightmares.
Fallout. Nuclear fire and radiation sickness. I'd seen enough of what uranium did to kids overseas. No.
7 Days to Die. Endless hordes, sprinting in waves. Unrealistic, chaotic. I'd last longer than most, but still a death sentence.
The Last of Us.
That one made me pause. Because Cordyceps wasn't fiction. It was a real fungus. Took over insects, rewired their brains until their bodies became spore factories. I'd read obscure papers during deployments, long nights trying not to think about missions. Most scientists laughed at the idea of it mutating into humans. I didn't.
I stared at the words, jaw tight. If this was some hallucination, fine. But if it wasn't…
"Realistic enough to kill me," I said under my breath.
The letters flared bright.
> [Confirmed: The Last of Us Selected.]
Timeline Placement: Five Years Before Outbreak.
System Integration: Partial.]
I shoved my chair back, heart hammering in my chest. Five years? Outbreak?
My instincts screamed to grab my rifle from the safe, gear up, prepare for contact. But the voice kept going.
> [Tutorial Quest Activated.]
Objective: Stockpile 30 days of clean water.
Reward: Basic Blueprint – Improvised Bandage.
I stood in the middle of the kitchen, storm roaring outside, trying to make sense of it. PTSD didn't give you quest logs. Brain damage didn't hand you hydration checklists.
Slowly, my breathing steadied.
This wasn't panic. This wasn't combat. This was opportunity.
The Army taught me one truth I'd never shake: survival doesn't belong to the strongest. It belongs to the most prepared. To the men who plan before the first bullet is fired, who build fallback routes no one else sees.
And if I really had five years…
Then maybe, just maybe, I could outlast the end of the world.
I grabbed my jacket from the hook, the storm hammering harder as I stepped outside. Rain soaked me instantly, but it didn't matter.
The countdown had already begun.