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Short filmTranscript
00:00My girlfriend and I stumbled onto two systems by pure accident.
00:04One was the 100x macro multiplier.
00:06The other was the 100x micro minimizer.
00:10Three days later, the great debouge hit.
00:12Without warning, torrential rain swallowed the city.
00:15Everyone was trapped inside, no way out.
00:18Overnight, resources became the only thing standing between life and death.
00:22I had instant pasta and packaged bread.
00:25With the macro multiplier, I stretched every last scrap.
00:27I rationed carefully.
00:29I scraped through five brutal years on a dwindling stockpile.
00:33And the moment the rain finally stopped, she pushed me off the roof.
00:36If you hadn't stolen my macro multi-malter, I could have used it to save Liam's family!
00:41Ethan, you're a good person every other way.
00:43You're just so incredibly selfish.
00:45Liam was Ava's childhood sweetheart.
00:46She had asked me to save his family.
00:48I refused.
00:49But this was the deluge.
00:51No one had it easy.
00:52I wasn't about to hand our lifeline to people who had no claim on it.
00:56Then the world went black.
00:57When I opened my eyes, I was back.
00:59Back to the day of the systems.
01:01Back to the very beginning.
01:03This time, Ava moved first.
01:05Her hand shot out and locked onto the macro multiplier before I could blink.
01:09That's when I knew, she'd been given a second chance too.
01:12Please select into systems.
01:14My head was still spinning, thick and slow, like wading through mud.
01:17Hadn't she just pushed me off a roof?
01:19The vertigo took a moment to pass.
01:21Then Ava snapped out of her daze and lunged forward.
01:26Confirmed.
01:27System has been bound to you.
01:28She shot me a triumphant, sidelong look.
01:31The satisfaction in her eyes was barely even hidden.
01:34Cold clarity settled in my chest.
01:36I let out a slow, quiet breath.
01:38In my last life, I saved her.
01:40But she killed me for someone else at last.
01:42She loves Liam that much?
01:43Fine.
01:44This time, I'm not lifting a finger to help her.
01:47Then, I'll take the micro-minimizer.
01:54Confirmed.
01:55System has been bound to you.
01:58Ava could barely contain herself.
02:00She grabbed a glass off the table and activated the macro multiplier.
02:08Oh my god!
02:11It's real!
02:13The macro multiplier is actually mine!
02:16I watched her with flat, cold eyes.
02:19This woman.
02:19This is the woman I nearly destroyed myself protecting.
02:23Babe, now that the macro multiplier is mine, aren't you even a little jealous?
02:27I can enlarge anything I want.
02:29Your micro-minimizer sounds pretty useless, honestly.
02:34What's the difference?
02:35It's just a system.
02:36You wanted it, so you took it.
02:38I genuinely don't mind.
02:41Let her think she's win.
02:43I knew exactly what she was planning.
02:46The moment the deluge hit, she'd swoop in as Liam's savior, bringing food, offering survival,
02:51and make him fall for her.
02:53She didn't get it.
02:54If anyone found out about her system, she'd be the most hunted person in the building.
02:58Everyone would come for her.
02:59Ava practically bounced out the front door and...
03:06Ava?
03:07What are you doing here?
03:11Come on, let's talk inside.
03:14The moment his door clicked shut, I picked up my phone and checked the date.
03:17The 14th.
03:18Three days until the deluge begins.
03:20There's still time.
03:21I got in my car and drove straight to the nearest supermarket.
03:24I emptied the shelves.
03:26Pasta, bread, water, toilet paper, vegetable seeds, vitamins, all the essentials.
03:32On a whim, I grabbed a crate of baby chicks too.
03:35Then, I stopped at a furniture store and bought a full set for my space.
03:38I was building myself a new world.
03:40My apartment was on an upper floor.
03:42In my last life, floodwaters never reached it.
03:45Even at the worst of the deluge, I wasn't leaving.
03:47I was just going to live differently.
03:49I spent until my bank account hit zero.
03:52Ava, meanwhile, hadn't prepared a single thing.
03:55She knew the deluge was coming.
03:56She just wasn't worried.
03:58With the system, she could expand any food source she needed.
04:01So why bother stockpiling?
04:03She was too busy daydreaming.
04:04That evening, Ava came in, looking totally lost in her fantasy.
04:08Babe, hypothetically, if I saved Liam's whole family, do you think he'd be grateful?
04:18No.
04:20Are you kidding me?
04:21Of course Liam would be grateful!
04:23I didn't respond.
04:24I was already scrolling through listings on my phone, finalizing the last few things I needed.
04:29She killed me once.
04:30I'm not giving her a second shot at it.
04:32This time, she's on her own.
04:36Babe, do you have any cash?
04:39Lend me a few thousand.
04:40I want to buy some food.
04:44No.
04:45I just bought a new refrigerator.
04:47My account is empty.
04:52You bought a refrigerator?
04:53Why on earth would you need a new refrigerator?
04:56Because I wanted one.
04:57Is that a problem?
05:00Nah, never mind.
05:01I was just wondering.
05:02Babe, you know those snacks you had stashed in the room?
05:06I gave them away to the elderly residents who live alone in the building.
05:10She looked at me expectantly, waiting to be called generous.
05:13I stared at her.
05:14In one afternoon, Ava got the system she wanted.
05:17Without a word to me, she took all my emergency food and gave it away to strangers.
05:21She knew I had nothing else.
05:23She knew exactly what she was doing.
05:25But she didn't feel guilty at all.
05:27If I hadn't been reborn, if I hadn't already spent all my money, she would have killed me again.
05:32Just more slowly.
05:33Now, watching her look so proud of herself made me sick.
05:36I thought I'd been good to her.
05:37I stood by her, left school to work hard for her, and gave her everything.
05:42I even bought us an apartment and asked for nothing.
05:44Then Liam moved right across the hall.
05:46They grew up in the same village.
05:51Liam's family later got rich and moved away.
06:03When Ava saw him again, she fell for him hard.
06:07In my past life, even during the worst of the deluge.
06:11No, I won't do it.
06:12Please, Ethan.
06:13It's Liam's family.
06:14You have the multiplier.
06:15Why won't you help them?
06:16I said no.
06:17How can you be so cold?
06:20She secretly gave away a third of our food to his family.
06:24I found out too late.
06:25She valued a man who gave her nothing more than me.
06:28Who gave her everything.
06:29I was completely done with her.
06:31Fine.
06:32Babe, you're the best.
06:33I just knew you wouldn't be upset over something this small.
06:37I'm tired.
06:38Going to sleep.
06:39You should get some rest too.
06:40I walked into my room and locked the door.
06:44Then I sat down and started planning in earnest.
06:46I had already ordered a compact wind power generator.
06:50Even during the worst storms, I'd have steady electricity.
06:53Everything else was already on its way.
06:56All I needed now was to wait.
06:59Ava thought her system made her untouchable.
07:02She spent a few hundred dollars on snacks and locked them in her room.
07:05She checked the lock twice.
07:07She was afraid I'd steal from her.
07:09She never saw the irony.
07:11I wasn't staying in this apartment at all.
07:13Even shrunken to 1% of my size, someone might still stumble across me here.
07:17I needed a space no one else knew about.
07:19And I had one.
07:20A hidden bunker, built inside my bedroom wall.
07:23I built a secret room in the wall during the renovation.
07:26Ava never knew about it.
07:27Only my phone could unlock it.
07:30She'd never get in.
07:32I also drove 10 miles into the wilderness.
07:34I used the micro-minimizer to shrink fertile soil and trees.
07:38Then stuffed them into a duffel bag.
07:40They'd become my farm and supplies.
07:43I sent all my deliveries to my old farmhouse.
07:47It's in an abandoned village with no one around.
07:49I moved through the empty rooms, using the micro-minimizer on everything.
07:53Furniture, food, seeds, medicine, tools.
07:59Then I looked at the old farmhouse.
08:02It was worn, but still solid.
08:03I minimized it too.
08:07That night, I drove home in the dark, took everything to my room, and stored it in the hidden bunker.
08:13Ava had been so excited these days, thinking she was ready for the apocalypse.
08:17She didn't notice where I went or what I did at all.
08:19The bunker had a full air filtration system.
08:22It could supply clean oxygen for years.
08:24I stored five bottles of mineral water in a small ceramic tank and set up phone-controlled lights powered by
08:30a generator.
08:31I crouched in the bunker's center and looked at the tiny landscape before me.
08:35The farm needed a fence first.
08:37Otherwise, the chicks would peck all the seedlings to death.
08:41I used the straightest branches from the many trees, tied them with wire, and built a low fence around the
08:46soil.
08:47Next, I fixed the wind generator.
08:49A part had come loose.
08:50I tightened it, added a drop of oil, and closed it up.
08:53The blade spun smoothly.
08:54My phone started charging.
08:57I worked past midnight.
08:58Then my phone buzzed.
09:00The motion sensor by my bedroom door had been triggered.
09:02I checked the camera.
09:03Ava was sneaking into my room.
09:05She held a small screwdriver.
09:07She dug through my wardrobe, bookshelf, and desk, muttering angrily.
09:13He must have something hidden.
09:15He bought a whole fridge.
09:17There's extra food.
09:18Why does he get more than me?
09:20Hurry up.
09:21Don't get caught.
09:22Grab something and let's go.
09:23Liam stood in the doorway.
09:25She searched for 20 minutes.
09:27Found nothing.
09:28She kicked the wardrobe and stormed out, cursing under her breath.
09:32I stared at the ransacked room on the camera.
09:34I felt nothing at all.
09:36Good thing I'd already moved everything that mattered.
09:41After daybreak, I started building a small irrigation system.
09:44I cut the miniaturized plastic tubing into appropriate lengths.
09:51Connected one end to the base of the cistern,
09:54and ran the other end along the perimeter of the garden plot, drilling small holes at intervals so that when
09:59I opened the valve, water would flow evenly to each seedling's root zone.
10:03To collect rainwater as a backup, I mounted a small drainage channel along the top of the bunker and ran
10:11it into a separate sealed container, filtered through a layer of filter cotton, clean enough to water the plants and
10:17drinkable in an emergency.
10:19Once that was done, I opened the seed packets and began sowing leafy greens, eggplant, cucumber.
10:25I covered each row with a thin layer of soil, watered it through, and stepped back.
10:34Around midday, I opened the camera feed, pointed at Liam's apartment door, and caught Ava mid-argument with Liam's mother.
10:40You only enlarged that much bread?
10:43We have elderly parents and kids in here.
10:46How is that supposed to last us even a few days?
10:48Get back in your room and bring out everything you've been hoarding and enlarge it.
10:52Or don't bother showing your face at my door again.
10:58Those are my emergency supplies.
11:00If I use everything now, what do we eat later?
11:06Liam appeared behind her, slid his arm around her shoulders.
11:10Ava, come on.
11:11Do what mom says.
11:13Get through this stretch first.
11:15Once things settle down,
11:18I'll buy you anything you want, more than he ever had in that fridge of his.
11:21Two sentences from Liam.
11:23That was all it took.
11:24Ava's expression went soft and yielding, and she nodded.
11:28I put down the camera feed and picked up the small hoe to loosen the soil around the new seeds.
11:33She'll never understand.
11:34People who only know how to take will always want more.
11:38That afternoon,
11:42I fashioned a set of small storage crocs from the ceramic fragments I'd brought,
11:46sealed them with adhesive,
11:47and set them aside to cure,
11:49for pickles and fermented vegetables once the harvest came in.
11:52I vacuum-sealed a portion of the bread and instant pastas against moisture damage,
11:57and arranged them on a dry rack.
12:01The chicks jostled each other at the fence line, pecking at stray grass seeds.
12:06I scattered a handful of feed and watched them scramble for it,
12:09and something in my chest settled a little.
12:13Outside my bedroom window, far above the bunker, a light drizzle had begun.
12:18The sky in the distance had turned a bruised, heavy gray.
12:21The great deluge was almost here.
12:23My small world was ready.
12:25After a full night of careful work,
12:26the interior of the hidden bunker had been transformed into a miniature farm.
12:31Tiny chicks, their voices barely a whisper,
12:33were already rooting through the grass for insects.
12:36Beyond the farm plot stood my little house.
12:39Every appliance in place, every shelf stocked.
12:43I could finally breathe.
12:45Now all I had to do was wait for the storm.
12:50In the final 12 hours, Ava stayed hidden in Liam's apartment again.
12:54His family tolerated her, but coldly.
12:56His mother didn't hide her dislike.
12:58I heard her complaining to neighbors more than once.
13:02That girl has no shame.
13:04She throws herself at my son every day.
13:06Maybe you'll get a daughter-in-law.
13:09She didn't finish high school.
13:10In her 20s and never worked a real job,
13:13just lived off her boyfriend.
13:14She thinks she can marry into my family?
13:16Not a chance.
13:17I said nothing.
13:18It didn't bother me.
13:21With one hour left until the deluge,
13:23I called Ava.
13:25Hey babe, something wrong?
13:26Just a work thing.
13:27I'll be pulling an all-nighter at the office.
13:29Don't wait up.
13:33Okay, I'll eat alone tonight then.
13:35Bye.
13:35She didn't ask if I'd be safe,
13:37didn't suggest I come home before the rain got worse.
13:40The call was a trick.
13:41I wanted her to think I'd left.
13:43I wanted her to stop watching my side of the apartment.
13:47I hung up, opened the control app on my phone,
13:49and unlocked the bunker.
13:52The panel slid open silently.
13:56I stepped inside.
13:59Then I turned the micro minimizer on myself.
14:27Then I turned the micro minimizer on myself.
14:29this time will be different.
14:32The complaints kept coming for the first few days.
14:35Inconvenience, frustration, ordinary irritation at weather disrupting schedules.
14:40Then the tone shifted.
14:41The humor drained out of the posts.
14:44People started asking questions that didn't have reassuring answers.
14:47My world, by contrast, had never been quieter.
14:52I tended the farm.
14:54I fed the chickens.
14:56I watered the seedlings.
15:00Checked the generator output.
15:03Monitored the water levels in the cistern.
15:06The routine was simple and absorbing, and the hours passed without friction.
15:11Ava, apparently, had already decided I was dead, drowned somewhere in the floodwaters.
15:17She didn't seem particularly broken up about it.
15:19I wasn't broken up about that either.
15:22On the second day, I noticed that several of the chicks had gone quiet and still.
15:27They sat hunched in the corners of the enclosure, feathers ruffled and dull, uninterested in
15:32the feed I scattered.
15:33One had its eyes half closed.
15:35My chest tightened.
15:37These birds were my primary long-term protein source.
15:40I couldn't afford to lose them.
15:41I retrieved the veterinary manual I had quietly packed.
15:44A decision made almost on instinct back when I was loading the cart.
15:48Because I had understood, even then, that anything alive requires maintenance.
15:52I crouched beside the sick birds and worked through the checklist.
15:57Red rimmed eyes, sticky, abnormal droppings, lethargy, loss of appetite, foul typhoid, almost certainly.
16:07I located the livestock antibiotics I had packed alongside the first aid kit and the seed packets.
16:11I measured out the correct dosage using the miniature graduated cup I'd included for precisely this kind of situation.
16:18I dissolved it in clean water and installed a fresh trough.
16:22Then, I sanitized the entire enclosure with diluted disinfectant and separated the symptomatic birds into a temporary isolation area, away
16:29from the healthy flock.
16:31For the next several days, I checked on them morning and night, adjusting concentrations, swapping in clean bedding and fresh
16:40water.
16:41Slowly, incrementally, the sick birds began to recover.
16:45Their eyes cleared.
16:47They started pecking at the feet again.
16:50One by one, they rejoined the flock.
16:53The last sick chick stood up on its own, shook its feathers out, and strutted toward the food trough with
16:59full, unselfconscious confidence.
17:02The tension in my shoulders finally released.
17:05This was what my past life had given me, if nothing else.
17:08The knowledge that preparation is the only insurance that actually pays out.
17:11Every careful decision I had made in those three days before the deluge, the manual, the medications, the seeds,
17:18was already compounding quietly in the background while the world above me fell apart.
17:23With the immediate crisis resolved, I had time to spare.
17:26I pulled up the camera feed.
17:27Ava had brought Liam into the apartment.
17:29They were sitting in my living room together.
17:31Ava with a smile that barely contained its own triumph.
17:34Liam looking slightly distracted, eyes moving.
17:39Do you still have anything left at your place?
17:41Not much.
17:42Should have stocked up earlier.
17:44The first floor units are already flooded.
17:46I can't even get out of the building.
17:48And I've got my parents and my sister to think about.
17:50We're running low.
17:51Ava, what about your place?
17:53Could you spare anything?
17:55It's not just me.
17:56There are four of us.
17:57Ava laughed softly, reached out, and playfully tapped his chest,
18:00then dragged her finger in small circles against his shirt.
18:03Then she leaned in close, bringing her lips near his ear, and whispered,
18:12Seriously?
18:13That's actually possible?
18:15Don't believe me?
18:16Watch.
18:18She turned to the apple sitting on my coffee table and activated the macro multiplier.
18:22The apple swelled, expanding in seconds until it was the size of a small boulder,
18:26crashing down onto the table's surface under its own weight.
18:29Liam stared at it, then he grabbed her by both shoulders.
18:32Ava, you're a lifesaver.
18:34Get over to our place and enlarge everything we have, okay?
18:37Ava dipped her head, a flush spreading across her cheek.
18:40Of course.
18:41But I have one small condition.
18:44Name it.
18:46You know how I feel about you.
18:47If I'm the reason your family makes it through this, could you maybe feel the same way about me?
18:52She covered her eyes with both hands, too overwhelmed by her own hope to watch his face,
18:57which meant she didn't see it.
18:58The fractional pause, the brief flicker of something cold and calculating behind his eyes.
19:03Before Liam carefully rearranged his expression into something warm and tender,
19:07he reached out and took her hand.
19:09What are you even saying?
19:11Haven't we always been together?
19:12We were inseparable as kids.
19:14Of course I have feelings for you.
19:16When this rain is over, I'm going to marry you.
19:19Ava threw her arms around his neck with a sound caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
19:23I knew it.
19:24I always knew you felt the same way.
19:28What about him?
19:34Him?
19:35He said he was working late.
19:39The way this rain has been going, he's probably drowned by now.
19:44A thin, private smile crossed Liam's face.
19:47Then he steered her toward her room to fetch the rest of the supplies.
19:53I watched all of it through the camera feed, the phone propped against the water cistern,
19:57one hand still resting on the hoe.
19:59I sat with that for a long, quiet moment.
20:10How did I ever fall in love with someone this foolish?
20:13Foolish was one thing.
20:16But this.
20:19The casual cheerfulness with which she had just written off my probable death.
20:23That was something uglier.
20:25She practically sounded hopeful about it.
20:27Not that any of it was my problem anymore.
20:30I was sealed inside a wall, invisible and untouchable, with a working farm, a stocked refrigerator,
20:37and exactly zero reasons to care what was happening on the other side of the plaster.
20:42I went back to the little house, set a pot on the stove, and put together a proper meal.
20:47A steaming feast of spicy broth, thinly sliced Wagyu beef draped over the rim of the pot.
20:54Fresh greens harvested that morning from the garden, silky pastas coiled at the bottom.
21:00The broth came to a rolling boil, the kitchen filled with a deep, rich fragrance.
21:05I pulled a cold drink from the refrigerator, settled in, and ate slowly, savoring every bite.
21:11When I was done, I photographed the spread, the simmering pot, the marbled beef, the gleaming
21:19surface of the broth, and posted it to my social media.
21:22Howling storm outside.
21:24A feast inside.
21:26Some of us are doing just fine.
21:28Her comment appeared within 30 seconds.
21:31Babe, where are you?
21:33Then the messages started rolling in.
21:35Babe, the storm is bad.
21:37Are you okay?
21:38Babe, where are you eating a hot meal?
21:40I want some too.
21:42I've been living on crackers.
21:43Babe, tell me where you are.
21:45I'm trapped.
21:46I can't get out.
21:47Can you bring food back?
21:49I photographed the cold drink in my hand, ice stacked to the rim, condensation beating
21:55on the glass, and sent it to her without a single word.
21:58The broth is hot.
22:00The drink is cold.
22:01Life is good.
22:03My phone rang 30 seconds later.
22:05How are you still eating like this?
22:07She demanded.
22:08Can't you bring something back?
22:09I've been on crackers and instant pastillas for days.
22:13Babe, I'm starving.
22:14I'm so hungry.
22:15She dragged the last few words into a whine the way she always did when she wanted something
22:20and thought being pitiful would work faster than arguing.
22:22But I could hear exactly what was underneath it.
22:25Not hunger.
22:26Not fear.
22:27Indignation.
22:28How dare you have something I don't.
22:31I looked around the bunker.
22:32The steady hum of the generator.
22:34The soft rustling of the chicks in the enclosure.
22:36The smell of broth and warm soil.
22:39And something I took a moment to identify.
22:41Genuine peace.
22:43Still at the office.
22:44I said pleasantly.
22:45They ordered in for the team.
22:47Rain's too bad for me to head home.
22:49Find something in the kitchen you'll manage.
22:51You can't be serious.
22:53Babe, I don't want crackers.
22:55I want...
22:55Sorry.
22:56Can't help you.
22:57I ended the call.
22:58On the camera feed, Ava stared at her phone for a full three seconds.
23:02Then, she hurled it at the wall of my bedroom hard enough to crack the screen.
23:06All that carefully maintained sweetness dropped in an instant.
23:10Gone like it had never existed.
23:12I had suspected for a long time.
23:14Now, I had confirmation.
23:16I opened the tablet.
23:17Navigated to the drama series I've been working through.
23:19I had hundreds of novels, anime, and shows downloaded.
23:23More than enough for years.
23:24Poured the rest of my drink.
23:26Settled back against the cushions.
23:28And let the first episode begin.
23:30When it ended, I set down my glass.
23:32Picked up my phone.
23:33And switched the camera feed to the one mounted outside Liam's door.
23:36I didn't wait long.
23:37Liam's father cracked the apartment door open and peered both ways down the hallway.
23:41Then, he leaned over the railing and waved downward toward the floors below.
23:45Two men came up to the stairwell.
23:47Wading through calf deep water that had already made it up to the second floor.
23:50I recognized one of them.
23:52A man the other residents called Old Simph.
23:54Known throughout the building for his short temper and his appetite for leverage.
23:58His son trailed behind him.
23:59A young man who had spent the better part of his adult life looking for shortcuts.
24:03Liam's father ushered them both inside and dropped his voice.
24:07I've got something to tell you.
24:09The girl from across the hall has a special ability.
24:11She can enlarge any object a hundredfold.
24:15That's how we've been keeping ourselves fed.
24:17Old Smith's eyes sharpened.
24:19His son couldn't contain himself.
24:20No way!
24:21That's real.
24:22Liam's mother chimed in from across the room.
24:24Saw it with my own eyes.
24:27She put her hand on one apple and it swelled up bigger than a washgat.
24:32Our whole family ate off it for an entire day.
24:36Liam appeared from the hallway, expression easy, measured, calculated, and wearing a smile that
24:42didn't quite reach his eyes.
24:45Here's what I'm proposing.
24:47The whole building is going to be desperate soon.
24:51When that happens, they'll start taking what they need by force.
24:55You two are strong.
24:57You know how to handle yourselves.
24:59What I need is someone guarding this door.
25:02Someone who can turn people away and make it stick.
25:04He let that land.
25:06In exchange, you get 30% of everything Ava produces.
25:1230 is an insult.
25:1450.
25:15And after the rain stops, the girl keeps working for my family.
25:19Liam held his gaze, glanced at his parents, nodded.
25:2250 it is.
25:23I watched the four of them shake on the deal through the camera feed, my expression unchanged.
25:28I already knew exactly who Liam was.
25:30I had always known, in some peripheral way.
25:32The way he talked down to Ava when he thought no one was watching.
25:35The contempt he barely bothered to conceal.
25:37I had simply never believed she would choose him anyway.
25:40But what I was watching now was something worse than I had imagined.
25:43He wasn't just using her system.
25:45He was using her as a shield.
25:46A resource.
25:48A liability he was already managing.
25:50And he was recruiting outside muscle to control access to her.
25:53As if she were property he owned.
25:55He hadn't considered even for a moment what would happen to Ava if old Simth and his son decided 50
26:00% wasn't enough.
26:02Not long after, I heard Ava's voice through the feed, brighter than it had been in days, almost buoyant.
26:08Liam's mother was speaking to her in warm, honey tones, entirely unlike the sharpness I'd heard directed at Ava before.
26:14Ava, you're truly something else.
26:16With your gift, we don't have to worry about a thing.
26:18What a treasure you are!
26:22You're too kind.
26:23Being able to use the system to help your family, that's exactly what I wanted.
26:30We're going to be family soon after all.
26:33A short silence fell over the room.
26:35Then Liam's father jumped in, smooth and warm.
26:39Absolutely.
26:40Liam is so lucky to have you.
26:42I said to my wife this very morning, that girl is something special.
26:47You're such a joy to have around.
26:50Ava soaked it up like sunlight, beaming, floating.
26:53She had no idea the ground had already shifted entirely beneath her feet.
26:57I switched off the feed and set the phone down.
26:59The chicks had grown considerably, still young, still noisy, still incapable of taking turns at anything,
27:06crowding the trough in a mass of ruffled feathers and loud opinion.
27:09Is that, are those chickens I'm hearing?
27:11Yes, I'm feeding them.
27:13What?
27:15There's a storm flooding the entire city and you're feeding chickens?
27:19I raised them.
27:20The silence that followed had a very particular quality.
27:24That's, how, where did you even-
27:26It's fine, don't worry about it.
27:29The cucumber vines had climbed their trellises overnight and were sending out small yellow flowers.
27:36The leafy greens were coming in on their second harvest.
27:40The eggplant hung in small, deep purple clusters from the vines.
27:44The freezer still had months of meat stored and sealed.
27:47I was not going to run out of anything.
27:51Ethan, where are you?
27:52How do you have vegetables?
27:53How are you raising chickens?
27:55Is wherever you are not being affected by the DeLounge at all?
27:57Not at all.
27:58She could never have imagined it.
28:00I hadn't gone anywhere.
28:01I was right here, on the other side of her bedroom wall.
28:04Just a few feet of plaster between two completely different worlds.
28:10That's incredible!
28:11Babe, you have to tell me where you are.
28:13I'll bring Liam and his family over.
28:15We're practically family already.
28:17And it sounds like there's room.
28:20If you manage it, you're welcome to come.
28:22What's that supposed to mean?
28:24You don't want us to come?
28:25She had grown accustomed to me bending immediately whenever she asked for anything.
28:29This was, evidently, a version of me she hadn't prepared for.
28:33I kicked a chick off my boot, stepped over the fence rail, and walked back toward the house.
28:38My refrigerator was stocked with a solid selection of ready-to-cook meals.
28:42Pre-made pizza, cheese, compressed biscuits, canned beef, Italian sausage, Spanish ham.
28:49I switched on the fan for airflow, pulled a pizza from the small countertop oven where it had been warming,
28:54and set it on the table.
28:56The crust had gone beautifully golden in the heat, crisp at the edges, soft in the center.
29:00The cheese melted and bubbling with a deep, rich scent that filled the whole kitchen.
29:05I photographed it and sent the picture to Ava without comment.
29:26Ava's voice came out in a rush, urgent, frantic, the wheedling beneath the anger, paper thin.
29:32She was desperate to pry my location out of me.
29:35I bit into the pizza.
29:36The cheese pulled in long, elastic strands.
29:40The crust had exactly the right resistance before it gave way.
29:44Wow.
29:46This cheese pull is incredible.
29:50Seriously.
29:51Ethan!
29:52You make a fair point though, as of genuinely considering it.
29:56My supplies do have a limit, but here's the thing.
29:58Your macro multiplier can expand any food source by a factor of a hundred.
30:03If you found me, you could multiply everything I have.
30:05We'd be set for years.
30:07So, find me.
30:08Then just tell me where you are so I can do exactly that.
30:11She never wanted to find me.
30:13She just couldn't stand the idea of me having something she didn't.
30:16Find me yourself.
30:17I ended the call.
30:18On the camera feed, Ava stood in the center of my bedroom and screamed.
30:22She swept what remained on the nightstand onto the floor.
30:25She kicked the wardrobe.
30:27She threw things.
30:28The sweetness she had maintained for so many years, gone in under 10 seconds.
30:33Not long after, word spread to the entire building.
30:36Someone had let it slip that the woman in my apartment could enlarge any object by a hundredfold.
30:41As for who had done the leaking, that required precisely zero guessing.
30:45In the camera feed, Ava stood amid the wreckage of my room, breathing hard, face twisted with
30:50impotent fury.
30:51She had smashed the last decorative item on the shelf.
30:54Now she sank to the floor, back against the wall, chest heaving.
30:57Across the room, Liam stood with his arms crossed.
31:00His jaw was set, his brow furrowed, but he didn't move toward her.
31:03His eyes were doing something else entirely.
31:05Scanning, calculating, drifting toward the door.
31:08In the living room, Liam's mother paced in tight loops, voice low and tense.
31:13What do we do now?
31:14The whole building knows.
31:16If everyone comes here demanding food, what do we do?
31:19We don't have enough for all of them.
31:21I let out a quiet exhale, closed the camera feed, and turned back to the farm.
31:25The vegetable beds had come alive.
31:27Romaine lettuce spread wide, its pale inner leaves unfurling toward the light.
31:31A row of eggplants hung plump and violet from their vines.
31:35The cucumbers had climbed the trellis I'd built and were sending out delicate tendrils,
31:40their small yellow flowers just beginning to open.
31:43The chicks had changed too.
31:45The soft, helpless fuzz of their first days was almost entirely gone,
31:49replaced by proper adult feathers.
31:51Dark at the tips, iridescent at the edges.
31:54Proud.
31:55They moved with a new kind of confidence now.
31:58Heads up, scratching at the soil in long, deliberate strokes.
32:02Two of them were locked in a very serious dispute over a single earthworm.
32:06I picked up the small hoe and worked my way along the nearest row,
32:09breaking up the surface crust to let the soil breathe.
32:12Then I scooped water from the cistern with a clay ladle and walked the full length of the bed,
32:17letting it fall in a thin, even curtain over the root zones.
32:20Warm, filtered light came in through the special glass panels I'd minimized
32:24and installed in the bunker ceiling.
32:25Glass that filtered out the rain and impurities while still admitting natural light.
32:30It fell across my shoulders like something I hadn't felt in a long time.
32:34The wind generator cycled in its steady low hum.
32:36The phone showed full charge.
32:38I went inside, took the marinated chicken I'd been preparing overnight out of the refrigerator,
32:44cut it into pieces, and loaded it into the roasting tray.
32:48The potatoes went in beside it, peeled, cubed, edges cut to maximize caramelization.
32:54The oven door clicked shut.
32:56While it cooked, I cracked two eggs into a small pot,
32:58both collected that morning, still warm when I'd found them.
33:02Whisked in a splash of water, dropped in a handful of fresh cut greens,
33:06and had a bright, clean soup ready by the time the oven timer chimed.
33:10I carried both dishes to the small table outside the house and ate with the garden in front of me,
33:14the chickens moving around my boots.
33:17Through the bunker's ensulated walls, the deluge was just a faint sound,
33:22distant static, weather happening somewhere else entirely.
33:26The camera feed, when I checked it after dinner, told a different story.
33:30The building had cracked.
33:31Residents flooded the hallway outside Liam's apartment,
33:34some carrying children, some helping elders,
33:37all wading through calf-deep water.
33:38They banged on the door, shouted, and pressed their palms against it.
33:42Liam's mother opened it a crack and blocked the gap.
33:44Why should we give you anything?
33:47This is Ava's ability, not ours.
33:50She doesn't owe you a thing.
33:52Figure it out yourselves.
33:54It didn't work.
33:55In a normal world, it might have.
33:57But the deluge had destroyed normal life weeks ago.
33:59People were desperate now.
34:01They had no patience left.
34:02The knocking turned to pounding.
34:03Voices exploded in the hallway.
34:06Scared, angry, begging, threatening.
34:09Ava clung to Liam's back, pale as chalk.
34:15Back off!
34:16There's nothing for you here.
34:21Then someone grabbed a wooden plank and slammed it into the doorframe.
34:25Liam stepped back, quietly, carefully,
34:27until he was standing behind his mother.
34:31Ava! Do something!
34:34You have the system!
34:36Give them something, anything!
34:38Just make them leave!
34:39Ava stood between the wall and the crowd,
34:41with her hands shaking and her jaw locked.
34:43She understood what giving them anything would mean.
34:45Once you fed a crowd, the crowd returned.
34:48Hungrier.
34:49Bolder.
34:49With more people behind it.
34:51But the alternative was the door coming off its hinges,
34:53and Liam's family already shrinking backward.
34:56She gave in.
34:57She grabbed a single piece of bread from the kitchen counter,
34:59and activated the macro multiplier.
35:01The bread swelled, slowly, then rapidly,
35:04until it stood nearly waist height and dense as a vehicle tire.
35:08It hit the floor with a heavy thud.
35:10The hallway went silent for approximately three seconds,
35:12then every person in it surged forward at once.
35:15They tore the bread apart with their hands,
35:17with their teeth.
35:18The noise was immediate and overwhelming.
35:20A scramble of bodies, sharp elbows, raw voices.
35:24No one waited.
35:25No one thought of anyone else.
35:27Ava pressed herself against the wall and watched.
35:29Liam's family exhaled with relief,
35:31as if they had solved something.
35:32They had solved nothing.
35:34The bread was gone in minutes,
35:35and the crowd, far from satisfied,
35:37was simply now confident that this door was worth coming back to.
35:40The people surged forward again before long.
35:46This time, the demands had escalated.
35:49Water, blankets, clothing.
35:51Ava should come with us.
35:54We've organized on the lower floors.
35:56She'll be safer with us.
35:58Mutually beneficial.
36:09The cabinet was nearly empty.
36:11Every item she enlarged was an item they couldn't replace.
36:14Ava didn't want to.
36:15Ava.
36:18Just this once.
36:20I'll take care of you.
36:22I promise.
36:23She looked at him.
36:25She activated the system.
36:27The crackers expanded.
36:30Before the last of them had finished swelling,
36:34the shoving started before anyone had even gotten a piece.
36:39People clawing at each other,
36:41punching.
36:41One man slamming another hard into the wall,
36:44hard enough to leave a dent.
36:45When it finally gave way,
36:46people poured through the apartment like water finding its level,
36:49lifting couch cushions,
36:51dragging shelves off walls,
36:52pulling cabinet doors from the hinges,
36:54and tossing them aside.
36:56Liam's family retreated to the master bedroom
36:58and turned the lock.
36:59They sat in the dark,
37:00still and silent,
37:01while everything outside was stripped to nothing.
37:04Ava folded herself into the corner of the bedroom,
37:07arms wrapped around her knees,
37:08and stared at her own hands.
37:11The system that had felt like a superpower three weeks ago,
37:14the thing she had bargained and maneuvered and ultimately betrayed a person for,
37:18had become a target painted directly onto her back.
37:21She had wielded it to buy affection and instead bought a siege.
37:25And in the quiet of that corner,
37:26other memories surfaced,
37:28not of Liam,
37:29of me.
37:29The years I had worked myself down to nothing,
37:32so she could live without worrying about money.
37:37The apartment I had bought before I was 25 because I wanted her to feel stable and secure.
37:42The five years in my past life where I had rationed every meal,
37:46stretched every resource,
37:47refused to break even when she begged me to give our stores away,
37:50because I had understood,
37:51even then,
37:53that survival required making hard choices and holding to them.
37:57She had called me selfish for that.
37:59She had pushed me off the roof for that.
38:01And now,
38:02she was crouching in the dark in a stranger's trashed bedroom.
38:06And all her cleverness and all her beautiful plans had led her here.
38:10The deluge didn't pause.
38:11The rain fell without interruption.
38:13On the lower floors,
38:15water had reached the base of the stairwells.
38:17The building's lobby was fully submerged.
38:19The air in the locked bedroom smelled of wet plaster and mildew and fear.
38:23The macro multiplier had grown unpredictable,
38:26sometimes failing to activate at all,
38:28other times stuttering halfway through enlargement.
38:31Whatever it was drawing from,
38:32it was running low.
38:33Liam was the first to say it directly.
38:38This is your fault!
38:40If you hadn't been showing it off,
38:42none of this would have happened!
38:44Ava stared at him.
38:46You're the one who asked me to use it.
38:48You're the one who-
38:49I asked you to help us,
38:51not to advertise yourself to the entire building!
38:53His voice was flat and final,
38:56carrying nothing of the warmth.
39:00We're out of food.
39:01We've got half the building camped outside the door.
39:04And now you can't even get the system to work reliably!
39:07We're going to die here.
39:11Because of you.
39:12Liam's mother stepped in without missing a beat.
39:14I said from the beginning that you weren't right for my son.
39:17A girl like you,
39:18no degree,
39:19no real job,
39:20no prospects.
39:21I should have said something sooner.
39:23You're the one who brought this trouble to our door.
39:26This is on you.
39:27Ava looked at the two of them.
39:29The woman who had called her a treasure 24 hours ago.
39:32The man who had promised her marriage.
39:34She saw them clearly,
39:35perhaps for the first time in years.
39:37She was not family to these people.
39:39She had never been a girlfriend,
39:41a partner,
39:42a future daughter-in-law.
39:43She was a resource they had milked until it backfired.
39:46And now she was a liability,
39:48they needed someone to blame.
39:50She had been exactly that from the very beginning.
39:52The rain didn't relent.
39:54Water seeped under the bedroom door
39:55and spread across the floor
39:57in a dark,
39:58growing sheet.
39:59The air turned thick and heavy,
40:00soaking into clothes and skin.
40:02Liam's father had been coughing since the second week.
40:05A deep, wet cough that wouldn't stop.
40:07Now he could barely get out of bed.
40:08Liam's mother followed days later,
40:10vomiting,
40:11chills,
40:11and fever.
40:12Too weak to stand.
40:13They ran out of clean water early.
40:15They drank whatever pooled on the floor,
40:17strained through whatever fabric they could find.
40:19It wasn't enough.
40:20Ava watched them waste away from across the floor.
40:22She felt no satisfaction.
40:24No grief.
40:25Only a deep,
40:26hollow exhaustion.
40:27Like she'd finally reached the end of something
40:29she'd been trapped in far longer than she'd known.
40:31She tried to leave.
40:33The water in the hallway was waist deep.
40:34The crowd outside had grown even more desperate
40:36and unpredictable.
40:38There was no safe way out.
40:39She activated the macro multiplier one last time,
40:42trying to enlarge a wooden plank
40:43into something she could float on.
40:45Nothing happened.
40:46She tried again.
40:47The system was gone.
40:48Its power had burned out completely,
40:50leaving no trace,
40:51no warmth,
40:52nothing she'd once taken for granted.
40:54I watched it all on the camera feed,
40:56sitting cross-legged on the floor of my small shelter.
40:58A cup of tea cooled beside me.
41:00Then I sat down my phone,
41:01walked out to the enclosure,
41:03and scattered the evening feed.
41:04My small farm had settled into something I could only call genuinely good.
41:09The chickens had settled into a routine.
41:11Scratching in the morning,
41:12dust bathing in the afternoon.
41:14They laid steadily now.
41:15Three or four eggs before noon.
41:17I had more than I could eat fresh,
41:18so I tried recipes I'd never had time for.
41:21A light sponge cake,
41:22soft boiled eggs with vinegar salt,
41:24slow cooked custard that set golden and smooth overnight.
41:27I'd expanded the farm twice,
41:29adding more compact topsoil and rotating crops.
41:32Tomatoes, herbs, and a small citrus tree.
41:34It had fruited faster than I expected,
41:36with clusters of tiny, sharp tart fruit.
41:39The little house had been refurbished room by room,
41:41with the time and materials I had.
41:43A proper desk,
41:44bookshelves along one wall,
41:45a reading corner,
41:46with the lamp angled just right.
41:48I read in the evenings,
41:49I gardened in the mornings,
41:51I cooked every meal with real attention.
41:53Through the camera feed,
41:54the world above me told a different story.
41:56The deluge had passed the one-year mark.
41:58Conditions in Liam's apartment were deteriorating fast.
42:01Liam's father was gone.
42:03Malnutrition and the persistent respiratory illness
42:05had taken him in his sleep.
42:07The room still smelled of flood water and mildew.
42:09Liam's mother was fading fast too.
42:12By the first anniversary of the deluge,
42:14Liam was barely recognizable.
42:16The easy confidence that had defined him,
42:18his polished composure,
42:20casual arrogance,
42:21was gone.
42:22He was gone.
42:23His face sharpened.
42:24High cheekbones,
42:25hollow,
42:26lifeless eyes.
42:27He moved slowly.
42:28He barely spoke.
42:29With no food left,
42:30they scraped lime plaster from the walls
42:32to quiet their hunger.
42:33It wasn't living.
42:34It was just surviving.
42:36Each morning,
42:37Ava sat by the window and watched the rain.
42:39Quiet,
42:40finally accepting it would never stop.
42:41In her better moments,
42:43she turned over the memory
42:44she couldn't stop returning to.
42:45In the reading room,
42:47I was working through the backlog of books
42:48I had always meant to get to
42:50and never had.
42:51I'd made a small study in one corner of the house.
42:54Shelves,
42:54a workbench,
42:55a lamp angled just right.
42:57After dinner,
42:58I read,
42:58philosophy,
42:59agriculture,
43:00history,
43:01guides.
43:02I taught myself woodworking from a manual,
43:04finishing two pieces from early minimized timber,
43:07a stool,
43:07a narrow side table under the lamp.
43:09When the deluge hit its third year,
43:11the camera feet across the hall went still.
43:14Flood water had risen too high to survive.
43:15Liam's mother was the last to move.
43:18Then she stopped.
43:19The camera showed Liam,
43:20alone,
43:21motionless in water that covered most of the bedroom floor.
43:24He hadn't made it.
43:25Ava was in the far corner,
43:26still too.
43:27Her face was dry on the grainy feed.
43:29Tears shed long ago,
43:30but they lingered in her set jaw,
43:32her tilted head,
43:34unspoken.
43:34None survived the storm.
43:36Each paid the full price for their choices.
43:38I closed the feed.
43:39No satisfaction,
43:41no grief,
43:41only the quiet calm of finally letting go of something long over.
43:45I set the phone face down.
43:47Beyond Liam's door,
43:48the hallway held only dark water and slow decay.
43:51I turned to the garden.
43:52The cherry tree,
43:53transplanted last year with the micro-minimizer,
43:55tended through two growing seasons,
43:57bowed under clusters of deep red fruit,
43:59catching the simulated light from the ceiling.
44:01The cherry tree bore heavy, glowing fruit.
44:04Each cluster bowed the branches,
44:06lit from above by the ceiling panel's soft glow,
44:08as if they held light inside them.
44:10Newly hatched chicks,
44:11the second generation born in the bunker,
44:13trailed their mother along the vegetable bed,
44:15learning their small world in quick, purposeful steps.
44:18Their down was fresh snow white,
44:20bright against the dark soil.
44:22A few days later,
44:23the camera covering the interior of my old apartment
44:25registered movement for the first time in months.
44:27Three men waded through waist-deep water in the hallway,
44:30wearing the same clothes they'd had for weeks.
44:32They reached Liam's broken door
44:34and shouldered her way inside.
44:35Last survivors.
44:36I could see it in their movements.
44:38The sharp economy,
44:39the flat eyes that no longer expected good.
44:41Whatever they'd lived on was gone.
44:43I watched as they searched,
44:45methodically.
44:46Mattresses upended,
44:47cabinets torn open,
44:48furniture checked.
44:49One found Ava's neat stack of empty tin cans,
44:52organized by size.
44:53He stared,
44:54then let them clatter into the water.
44:56Another found the oversized Apple 4,
44:58the one Ava had enlarged for Liam,
45:00back when the system worked.
45:01It had dried black,
45:02but was still unmistakably huge.
45:04What did these people have?
45:06Where's the food?
45:07There's nothing here!
45:09Something's wrong with this.
45:11Way too big.
45:13The rumors.
45:15You think someone could really enlarge things?
45:20If she could make food bigger,
45:21where is it?
45:22Why is there nothing left?
45:26They searched for 20 more minutes
45:28and found nothing useful,
45:29only rotted clothes and a rusted knife.
45:31On the way out,
45:32the tall man kicked apart the table
45:34Ava had used for demonstrations.
45:36The wood went off,
45:37dull and final,
45:38like a sentence ending.
45:41I hadn't moved from my chair.
45:43I reached up into the cherry tree
45:44beside my terrace
45:45and plucked a small cluster.
45:47The skin was warm from the light.
45:49The flesh was dense,
45:50sweet under a clean,
45:52bright tartness
45:52that lingered on my tongue.
45:54In another life,
45:55I used to drive across the city
45:56for the best cherries
45:57because she once said she liked them.
46:00I brought them home every week.
46:02Later,
46:02I found out she'd given most to Liam.
46:05Now,
46:05I grew them myself
46:06and I didn't have to share a single one.
46:10I washed and pitted the extra cherries,
46:13simmering them with sugar
46:14until they turned jewel dark red.
46:16I poured them into glass jars,
46:18sealed them,
46:19and lined them on the shelf
46:20with pickles and fermented sauces.
46:21The great deluge had been a crucible.
46:24It had burned away everything fake.
46:26For the next two years after that,
46:28the rain continued
46:28and I didn't need it to stop.
46:30For the next two years,
46:31the rain continued
46:32and I didn't need it to stop.
46:34I watched the chickens
46:35raise their second and third generations.
46:37I tended the vegetable beds,
46:39planting,
46:40harvesting,
46:40composting,
46:41rotating.
46:42The orchard grew,
46:43a pear tree,
46:44a fig tree,
46:45heavy with sweet fruit all summer.
46:47I learned woodworking,
46:49weaving,
46:49building.
46:50I kept everything running.
46:51I watched seedlings become trees.
46:53I thought sometimes of my parents.
46:55They'd always wanted me to learn
46:57to take care of myself,
46:58truly,
46:58completely,
46:59without leaning on anyone.
47:01Now I understood.
47:02That was the most real kind of love.
47:04The quiet,
47:05structural kind
47:05that holds everything else up.
47:07In the fifth year of the deluge,
47:09the ceiling light brightened earlier
47:10at a new angle.
47:12The change grew clearer each week.
47:14One morning,
47:15I woke to silence.
47:16Real silence.
47:17Not the bunker's muffled hush,
47:19but pure absence.
47:20The rain had stopped.
47:22I lay still,
47:23listening.
47:24Then I knew,
47:24it was time.
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