"Polly, come to Mommy!"
"Polly, Mommy will never leave you!"
"Shelton Underwood, Belle Bloom, I curse you!"
Covered in the foul slime of zombies and the blood of monsters, Flora Bloom was on high alert, wielding a forged longsword. With just a few swings, she could reap the life of a monster.
But before her eyes, the faces of Shelton Underwood and Belle Bloom twisted into vicious sneers as her daughter, Polly Bloom's, life slowly slipped away, until she was nothing but a cold corpse.
"Flora Bloom."
"Flora Bloom!"
"Flora Bloom, wake up!"
Shoved awake by someone, Flora Bloom shot up abruptly. Her body instinctively fell into a defensive stance as she grabbed the nearest object and hurled it in one direction.
A loud THUMP rang out, and she knew she must have hit her target.
But the voice that followed made her feel that something was wrong.
"Flora Bloom! Are you staging a rebellion?!"
Flora Bloom opened her eyes, her thoughts slowly sharpening from a blur into clarity.
Before her was the enraged face of her university head teacher from before the apocalypse. There was now a red mark on the woman's forehead, presumably from what Flora had just done.
'That's not right. Just a moment ago, zombies and monsters were attacking me. Why has it suddenly gone so quiet?'
Sunlight streamed in from a half-open glass window to the side, dancing across Flora Bloom's body and pulling her swiftly back to reality.
"Hahahaha, has Flora Bloom gone crazy? How dare she throw a textbook at the head teacher? She must want to fail the course, right?"
"It wouldn't be surprising if she's gone crazy! I heard that after a passionate night with that playboy from the bar, she got dumped by Young Master Underwood. Snapping like this is only natural."
"I also heard she's pregnant. I wonder if her parents will disown her when they find out."
"She could have been a princess, but instead she had to debase herself and seduce that playboy from the bar. I mean, sure, I heard he's handsome, but Shelton Underwood is the son of Janton's top leader! He's handsome and rich. For her to have so little self-respect... if it were me, I'd just go kill myself!"
"Sigh, what's the use of us knowing? Young Master Underwood was completely seduced by that bitch. He doesn't believe a word we say!"
Amidst the incessant stream of gossip, Flora Bloom's tense body began to relax for some reason.
From the tenth year of the apocalypse onward, the sun seemed to have abandoned the cursed Earth, slowly drifting away. As a result, Flora Bloom hadn't felt such warm sunlight in a very long time.
She opened her eyes. The sunlight was a bit dazzling, yet it made her eyes well up with tears.
The familiar classroom, the familiar desks and chairs. The words reaching her ears were harsh, yet they sounded so wonderfully familiar.
Remaining in her strange posture, she scanned her surroundings. Once she had confirmed where she was, she carefully climbed down from the desk.
'There's no mistake. This isn't the apocalypse. All these familiar scenes... I'm back.'
These familiar faces, even though every single one held an expression of disdain for her, made her want to cry.
She looked at her head teacher, who was glaring at her from the dais, fuming and saying something. It brought Flora Bloom's thoughts into focus, grounding her in the present.
'Isn't this the very day the apocalypse began?'
She suddenly burst into tears, her sobs so heart-wrenching that the entire classroom fell silent.
She was back. She had returned to the very day the apocalypse began.
Nothing had happened yet. She had a chance to do it all over again.
It was also on this day that she had awakened her superpower. Her younger brother was not yet dead, and her parents had not yet sacrificed themselves. And most importantly...
She suddenly broke into a gentle smile and reached out to caress her flat stomach. Her whole being radiated a maternal glow.
Her Polly hadn't been born yet, which meant that they... they had a second chance.
She couldn't remember the man she'd spent that passionate night with. She only remembered being drugged. Later, she'd heard from others at school that Belle Bloom was the one who did it, but at the time, she refused to believe her own sister could do something like that to her.
That night, she only recalled that he had been incredibly gentle with her. Afterward, the man was gone, and she was left like an abandoned doll, trembling with fear. She couldn't remember who he was and was too afraid to tell anyone.
In her previous life, she had despised the man who took her virginity. But on the very day she discovered her pregnancy and resolved to have an abortion, the apocalypse arrived.
In the apocalypse, an abortion was tantamount to suicide. Without the medical equipment and doctors of the civilized world, a botched procedure could lead to infection, causing you to turn into a zombie.
But giving birth to the child was just as dangerous.
But back then, once Flora Bloom felt that faint, blood-bound connection, once she felt the occasional press of a tiny hand or foot against her belly, she could no longer bring herself to go through with it.
Now that she was reborn, the person she wanted to thank most was, surprisingly, the very man who had given her Polly Bloom. Polly had been her only light during ten years of darkness.
Suddenly, she recalled what had happened right before her rebirth, and her eyes darkened. Her once sunny disposition turned bitingly cold, and everyone in the classroom instantly felt a palpable chill.
Because of Flora Bloom's abrupt change, the entire classroom felt as if it had been plunged into a bone-chilling ice cellar.
'That's not the kind of aura a naive girl is supposed to have!'
'Shelton Underwood. Belle Bloom! Even Heaven itself wouldn't let me die so easily. I'm back. Are you two ready for hell?'
Flora Bloom collected her thoughts and emotions, then walked slowly to the dais, her face devoid of expression.
This was the head teacher's political theory class. Because the lecture hall was large, there was a wireless microphone on the lectern to ensure all the students could hear.
Flora Bloom walked to the lectern, picked up the microphone, and looked down at the students below.
All these youthful, vibrant faces would be gone in less than four hours.
Everyone was about to bid farewell to the safety and carefree innocence of this era and face nature's most brutal punishment for humankind.
"Flora Bloom, what are you doing up there? I know you've been going through some things lately, so I didn't make a fuss about you sleeping in my class."
Flora Bloom glanced at her head teacher. She couldn't quite remember the woman's name, only that on the day the apocalypse began, this normally strict teacher had helped many panicked students escape, only to be pushed into a zombie horde by those very same students in the end.
"Believe me or not, in four hours, the apocalypse will begin. I advise you to use the time you have to stock up on food and find weapons for self-defense. Otherwise, when it happens, even a quick death will be a luxury you can't afford."
After she finished, Flora Bloom dropped the microphone. She gave her head teacher a deep, meaningful look and said as she walked past, "Professor, the world is about to change. Sometimes, your own survival is what matters most."
"Flora Bloom, what are you doing? This is class time!"
Ignoring the jeers and the head teacher's shouts behind her, Flora Bloom strode out of the classroom.
She was no saint; she wasn't going to waste time explaining herself to them. Still, with the apocalypse looming, it would be good if more people survived. This was especially true for the teacher who had once sacrificed herself for her students. Even though such an act was absurdly foolish in the apocalypse, that fleeting moment of kindness was priceless.
She still hoped the professor would manage to live a little longer this time.
Flora Bloom walked through the campus, stroking her abdomen.
There was already a seed inside her, a life linked to her own. Though it had only been two months, this little being already shared a life-bond with her.
"Polly, we didn't die. We came back," she murmured. "This time, Mommy won't let anyone bully you, and I won't repeat my past mistakes. As for those who hurt you... Mommy will make them pay the price."
The campus was bathed in beautiful sunlight. In every corner, students were busy making youthful memories.
How many of them would actually survive the coming apocalypse?
Suddenly, Flora Bloom's hand flew nervously to her wrist. Only when her fingers closed around a thin silver bracelet did she relax slightly and break into a faint smile.
'Thank goodness. The bracelet is still here.'
In her previous life, her dimensional space had been activated when she was injured and her blood dripped onto this very bracelet. As long as she had the bracelet, she still had her space.
Reborn, she had shed the innocence and naivety of her past life. She would no longer treat Shelton Underwood's words as if they were imperial edicts.
'This time, the apocalypse will be your graveyard.'