- 2 days ago
You Chose Enlarge, I Chose to Survive - Full Movie English Sub
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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.
00:07The other was the 100x micro minimizer.
00:10Three days later, the great deluge 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.
00:28I 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.
01:15Thick and slow.
01:16Like 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.
01:29She 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?
01:44Fine.
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.
02:01She grabbed a glass off the table and activated the macro multiplier.
02:16I watched her with flat, cold eyes.
02:19This woman.
02:20This is the woman I nearly destroyed myself protecting.
02:23Babe, now that the macro-multifier 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,
02:49bringing food, offering survival, and make him fall for her.
02:53She didn't get it.
02:54If anyone found out about her system,
02:56she'd be the most hunted person in the building.
02:58Everyone would come for her.
03:00Ava practically bounced out the front door.
03:06Ava?
03:07What are you doing here?
03:11Come on, let's talk inside.
03:14The moment his door clicked shut,
03:15I 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.
03:41My apartment was on an upper floor.
03:42In my last life, floodwaters never reached it, even at the worst of the deluge.
03:47I wasn't leaving.
03:48I was just going to live differently.
03:50I spent until my bank account hit zero.
03:52Ava, meanwhile, hadn't prepared a single thing.
03:55She knew the deluge was coming.
03:57She just wasn't worried.
03:58With a system, she could expand any food source she needed.
04:01So why bother stockpiling?
04:03She was too busy daydreaming.
04:05That 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.
04:37Babe, 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.
05:22She 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
05:31again, just more slowly.
05:33Now, watching her look so proud of herself made me sick.
05:36I thought I'd been good to her.
05:38I 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.
05:47They grew up in the same village.
05:51Liam's family later got rich and moved away.
06:04When 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, it's Liam's family.
06:14You have the multiplier, why won't you help them?
06:16I said no, that's...
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, who gave her everything.
06:29I was completely done with her.
06:31Fine.
06:32Babe, you're the best.
06:34I 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.
06:47I 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.
07:00Ava 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.
07:21Built 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.
08:00Then I looked at the old farmhouse.
08:02It was worn but still solid.
08:04I minimized it too.
08:07That night, I drove home in the dark, took everything to my room, and stored it in the
08:11hidden 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.
08:20The bunker had a full air filtration system.
08:22It could supply clean oxygen for years.
08:25I stored 5 bottles of mineral water in a small ceramic tank and set up phone-controlled
08:29lights powered by a generator.
08:31I crouched in the bunker's center and looked at the tiny landscape before me.
08:35The farm needed a fence first.
08:38Otherwise, 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
08:45fence around the soil.
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.
08:55My 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.
09:04Ava 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, found nothing.
09:27She 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, connected one end to the base of the cistern, and ran
09:54the other end along the perimeter of the garden plot, drilling small holes at intervals so that when I opened
10:00the 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.
10:23Leafy 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.
10:41You only enlarged that much bread? We have elderly parents and kids in here. How is that supposed to last
10:47us even a few days?
10:48Get back in your room and bring out everything you've been hoarding and enlarge it, or don't bother showing your
10:54face at my door again.
10:58Those are my emergency supplies. If I use everything now, what do we eat later?
11:06Liam appeared behind her, slid his arm around her shoulders.
11:10Ava, come on. Do what mom says. Get through this stretch first. Once things settle down, I'll buy you anything
11:19you want, more than he ever had in that fridge of his.
11:21Two sentences from Liam. That was all it took. Ava'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.
11:39That afternoon,
11:42I fashioned a set of small storage crocks from the ceramic fragments I'd brought, sealed them with adhesive, and set
11:48them aside to cure, for pickles and fermented vegetables once the harvest came in.
11:52I vacuum-sealed a portion of the bread and instant pastas against moisture damage, and arranged them on a dry
11:58rack.
12:01The chicks jostled at the fence line, pecking at stray grass seeds. I scattered a handful of feed and watched
12:08them scramble for it, and something in my chest settled a little.
12:13Outside my bedroom window, far above the bunker, a light drizzle had begun.
12:17The sky in the distance had turned a bruised, heavy gray. The great deluge was almost here. My small world
12:24was ready.
12:25After a full night of careful work, the interior of the hidden bunker had been transformed into a miniature farm.
12:30Tiny chicks, their voices barely a whisper, were already rooting through the grass for insects.
12:36Beyond the farm plot stood my little house. Every appliance in place, every shelf stocked.
12:43I could finally breathe. Now all I had to do was wait for the storm.
12:50In the final 12 hours, Ava stayed hidden in Liam's apartment again. His family tolerated her, but coldly.
12:56His mother didn't hide her dislike. I heard her complaining to neighbors more than once.
13:02That girl has no shame. She throws herself at my son every day.
13:07Maybe you'll get a daughter-in-law.
13:09She didn't finish high school. In her 20s and never worked a real job, just lived off her boyfriend.
13:14She thinks she can marry into my family? Not a chance.
13:18I said nothing. It didn't bother me.
13:21With one hour left until the deluge, I called Ava.
13:25Hey babe, something wrong?
13:26Just a work thing. I'll be pulling an all-nighter at the office. Don't wait up.
13:33Okay. I'll eat alone tonight then. Bye.
13:35She didn't ask if I'd be safe. Didn't suggest I come home before the rain got worse.
13:40The call was a trick. I 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, and unlocked the bunker.
13:52The panel slid open silently.
13:56I stepped inside.
14:00Then I turned the micro-minimizer on myself.
14:05I left my door and left my door.
14:08I left the door.
14:10I got it.
14:29This time will be different.
14:32The complaints kept coming for the first few days, inconvenience, frustration, ordinary
14:37irritation 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.
14:48My world, by contrast, had never been quieter.
14:52I tended the farm, I fed the chickens, I watered the seedlings, checked 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 flood waters.
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 the
15:32feed I scattered.
15:33One had its eyes half closed.
15:35My chest tightened.
15:36These 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, a decision made almost on instinct back
15:47when I was loading the cart, because I had understood, even then, that anything alive requires maintenance.
15:51I crouched beside the sick birds and worked through the checklist, red-rimmed eyes, sticky, abnormal droppings, lethargy, loss of
16:02appetite, foul typhoid, almost certainly.
16:07I located the livestock antibiotics I had packed alongside the first aid kit and the seed packets,
16:12measured out the correct dosage using the miniature graduated cup I'd included for precisely this kind of situation,
16:19dissolved 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,
16:37adjusting concentrations, swapping in clean bedding and fresh water.
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.
16:54The 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.
17:04This was what my past life had given me, if nothing else, the knowledge that preparation is the only insurance
17:10that actually pays out.
17:11Every careful decision I had made in those three days before the deluge, the manual, the medications, the seeds,
17:19was 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, Liam looking slightly distracted, eyes moving.
17:39Do you still have anything left at your place?
17:42Not much.
17:43Should 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.
17:52Ava, 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, then dragged her finger in
18:02small 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?
18:17Watch.
18:17She 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.
18:30Then 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.
18:42But 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,
18:50could you maybe feel the same way about me?
18:52She covered her eyes with both hands,
18:54too overwhelmed by her own hope to watch his face.
18:57Which meant she didn't see it.
18:58The fractional pause.
19:00The 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.
19:24I knew it.
19:24I always knew you felt the same way.
19:28What about him?
19:34Him?
19:35He said he was working late.
19:40The 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,
20:34with 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,
20:45and 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,
21:18the gleaming surface of the broth, and posted it to my social media.
21:22Howling storm outside, a 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.
21:36Babe, the storm is bad. Are you okay?
21:38Babe, where are you eating a hot meal?
21:40I want some too. I've been living on crackers.
21:44Babe, tell me where you are. I'm trapped. I can't get out.
21:48Can you bring food back?
21:50I photographed the cold drink in my hand, ice stacked to the rim,
21:54condensation beating on the glass, and sent it to her without a single word.
21:58The broth is hot. The drink is cold. Life 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?
22:10I've been on crackers and instant pastillas for days.
22:13Babe, I'm starving. I'm so hungry.
22:16She dragged the last few words into a whine,
22:18the way she always did when she wanted something,
22:20and thought being pitiful would work faster than arguing.
22:23But I could hear exactly what was underneath it.
22:25Not hunger. Not fear. Indignation.
22:28How dare you have something I don't.
22:31I looked around the bunker, the steady hum of the generator,
22:34the soft rustling of the chicks in the enclosure,
22:37the smell of broth and warm soil,
22:39and something I took a moment to identify.
22:42Genuine peace.
22:43Still at the office, I 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. I want-
22:56Sorry. Can'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, navigated 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.
23:25Poured the rest of my drink, settled back against the cushions,
23:27and let the first episode begin.
23:29When it ended, I set down my glass, picked 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.
23:51I recognized one of them, a 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, a young man who had spent the better part of his adult life
24:02looking for shortcuts.
24:03Liam's father ushered them both inside and dropped his voice.
24:07I've got something to tell you. The girl from across the hall has a special ability.
24:12She can enlarge any object a hundredfold. That's how we've been keeping ourselves fed.
24:17Old Smith's eyes sharpened. His son couldn't contain himself.
24:20No way! That's real.
24:22Liam's mother chimed in from across the room.
24:24I saw it with my own eyes.
24:36Liam appeared from the hallway, expression easy, measured, calculated,
24:40and wearing a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
24:45Here's what I'm proposing. The whole building is going to be desperate soon.
24:51When that happens, they'll start taking what they need by force.
24:56You two are strong. You know how to handle yourselves.
25:00What I need is someone guarding this door. Someone 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. 50.
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.
25:26My expression unchanged. I 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.
25:38I 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, a resource.
25:47A 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.
25:58If old Simth and his son decided 50% wasn't enough.
26:02Not long after, I heard Ava's voice through the feed.
26:05Brighter than it had been in days.
26:07Almost buoyant.
26:08Liam's mother was speaking to her in warm, honey tones.
26:11Entirely 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.
26:19What 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, Liam 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.
27:01Still 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 de lounge 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.
28:30This 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.
29:01The 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.
29:13You have pizza?
29:14Babe, tell me where you are right now.
29:17I've been eating stale crackers and rehydrated pastas for days,
29:20and you're over there with a pizza?
29:22You're being so unfair.
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.
29:45Wow.
29:46This cheese pull is incredible.
29:50Seriously.
29:51Ethan!
29:53You 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 100.
30:03If you found me, you could multiply everything I have.
30:06We'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?
30:43That required precisely zero guessing.
30:46In the camera feed, Ava stood amid the wreckage of my room.
30:49Breathing hard, face twisted with impotent 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?
31:15The whole building knows.
31:16If everyone comes here demanding food, what do we do?
31:19We don't have enough for all of them.
31:21Let 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.
31:32A 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, proud.
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 and installed in the bunker ceiling.
32:26Glass 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.
32:37The phone showed full charge.
32:39I 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.
32:55While it cooked, I cracked two eggs into a small pot, both collected that morning,
33:00still 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,
33:15the chickens moving around my boots.
33:18Through the bunker's insulated walls, the deluge was just a faint sound,
33:21distant 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. Residents flooded the hallway outside Liam's apartment.
33:34Some carrying children, some helping elders, all wading through calf deep water.
33:39They banged on the door, shouted, and pressed their palms against it.
33:42Liam's mother opened it a crack and blocked the gap.
33:45Why should we give you anything? This is Ava's ability, not ours.
33:50She doesn't owe you a thing. Figure it out yourselves.
33:54It didn't work. In a normal world, it might have.
33:57But the deluge had destroyed normal life weeks ago.
34:00People were desperate now. They had no patience left.
34:02The knocking turned to pounding. Voices exploded in the hallway.
34:05Scared, angry, begging, threatening. Ava clung to Liam's back, pale as chalk.
34:15Back off. There's nothing for you here.
34:21Then someone grabbed a wooden plank and slammed it into the door frame.
34:25Liam stepped back, quietly, carefully, until he was standing behind his mother.
34:39Ava stood between the wall and the crowd, with her hands shaking and her jaw locked.
34:43She understood what giving them anything would mean.
34:46Once he fed a crowd, the crowd returned, hungrier, bolder, with more people behind it.
34:51But the alternative was the door coming off its hinges, and Liam's family already shrinking backward.
34:55She gave in. She grabbed a single piece of bread from the kitchen counter and activated the macro multiplier.
35:01The bread swelled, slowly, then rapidly, until it stood nearly waist height and dense as a vehicle tire.
35:08It hit the floor with a heavy thud. The hallway went silent for approximately three seconds.
35:12Then every person in it surged forward at once. They tore the bread apart with their hands, with their teeth.
35:18The noise was immediate and overwhelming. A scramble of bodies, sharp elbows, raw voices.
35:23No one waited. No one thought of anyone else. Ava pressed herself against the wall and watched.
35:29Liam's family exhaled with relief, as if they had solved something. They had solved nothing.
35:34The bread was gone in minutes, and the crowd, far from satisfied, was simply now confident that this
35:39door was worth coming back to. The people surged forward again before long.
35:46This time, the demands had escalated. Water, blankets, clothing. Ava should come with us.
35:54We've organized on the lower floors. She'll be safer with us. Mutually beneficial.
36:09The cabinet was nearly empty. Every item she enlarged was an item they couldn't replace. Ava didn't want to.
36:15Ava, just this once. I'll take care of you. I promise. She looked at him. She activated the system.
36:28The crackers expanded. Before the last of them had finished swelling.
36:34The shoving started before anyone had even gotten a piece. People clawing at each other,
36:41punching. One man slamming another hard into the wall. Hard enough to leave a dent. When it finally
36:46gave way, people poured through the apartment like water finding its level. Lifting couch cushions,
36:51dragging shelves off walls, pulling cabinet doors from the hinges, and tossing them aside.
36:56Liam's family retreated to the master bedroom to turn the lock. They sat in the dark,
37:00still and silent, while everything outside was stripped to nothing.
37:04Ava folded herself into the corner of the bedroom, arms wrapped around her knees,
37:08and stared at her own hands. The 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. She had wielded it to buy affection,
37:23and instead bought a siege. And in the quiet of that corner, other memories surfaced. Not of Liam,
37:29of me. The years I had worked myself down to nothing, so 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. The five
37:43years in my past life where I had rationed every meal, stretched every resource, refused to break even
37:48when she begged me to give our stores away. Because I had understood, even then, that survival required
37:54making hard choices and holding to them. She had called me selfish for that, she had pushed me off the
38:00roof for that. And now, she was crouching in the dark in a stranger's trashed bedroom, and all her
38:06cleverness and all her beautiful plans had led her here. The deluge didn't pause. The rain fell without
38:12interruption. On the lower floors, water had reached the base of the stairwells. The building's lobby was
38:18fully submerged. The air in the locked bedroom smelled of wet plaster and mildew and fear. The macro
38:24multiplier had grown unpredictable, sometimes failing to activate at all, other times stuttering halfway
38:29through enlargement. Whatever it was drawing from, it was running low. Liam was the first to say it directly.
38:38This is your fault! If you hadn't been showing it off, none of this would have happened!
38:44Ava stared at him. You're the one who asked me to use it! You're the one who-
38:49I asked you to help us! Not to advertise yourself to the entire building!
38:53His voice was flat and final, carrying nothing of the warmth.
39:00We're out of food! We've got half the building camped outside the door! And now you can't even
39:05get the system to work reliably! We're going to die here. Because of you.
39:12Liam's mother stepped in without missing a beat. I said from the beginning that you weren't right for my
39:16son. A girl like you, no degree, no real job, no prospects. I should have said something sooner.
39:23You're the one who brought this trouble to our door. This is on you.
39:27Ava looked at the two of them. The woman who had called her a treasure 24 hours ago.
39:32The man who had promised her marriage. She saw them clearly, perhaps for the first time in years.
39:37She was not family to these people. She had never been a girlfriend, a partner, a future daughter-in-law.
39:43She was a resource they had milked until it backfired. And now she was a liability they needed
39:49someone to blame. She had been exactly that from the very beginning. The rain didn't relent. Water
39:54seeped under the bedroom door and spread across the floor in a dark, growing sheet. The air turned
39:59thick and heavy, soaking into clothes and skin. Liam's father had been coughing since the second week.
40:05A deep, wet cough that wouldn't stop. Now he could barely get out of bed. Liam's mother followed days
40:10later. Vomiting, chills, and fever. Too weak to stand. They ran out of clean water early. They
40:15drank whatever pooled on the floor, strained through whatever fabric they could find. It wasn't enough.
40:20Ava watched them waist away from across the room. She felt no satisfaction. No grief. Only a deep,
40:26hollow exhaustion. Like she'd finally reached the end of something she'd been trapped in far longer than
40:31she'd known. She tried to leave. The water in the hallway was waist deep.
40:34The crowd outside had grown even more desperate and unpredictable. There was no safe way out.
40:39She activated the macro multiplier one last time, trying to enlarge a wooden plank into
40:44something she could float on. Nothing happened. She tried again. The system was gone. Its power
40:49had burned out completely, leaving no trace, no warmth, nothing she'd once taken for granted.
40:54I watched it all on the camera feed, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my small shelter.
40:58A cup of tea cooled beside me. Then I sat down my phone, walked out to the enclosure,
41:03and scattered the evening feed. My small farm had settled into something I could only call,
41:08genuinely good. The chickens had settled into a routine. Scratching in the morning,
41:12dust bathing in the afternoon. They laid steadily now. Three or four eggs before noon. I had more
41:17than I could eat fresh, so I tried recipes I'd never had time for. A light sponge cake, soft boiled
41:23eggs
41:23with vinegar salt. Slow-cooked custard that set golden and smooth overnight. I'd expanded the farm twice,
41:29adding more compact topsoil and rotating crops. Tomatoes, herbs, and a small citrus tree. It had
41:35fruited faster than I expected, with clusters of tiny, sharp, tart fruit. The little house had been
41:40refurbished room by room, with the time and materials I had. A proper desk, bookshelves along one wall,
41:45a reading corner, with the lamp angled just right. I read in the evenings. I gardened in the mornings.
41:51I cooked every meal with real attention. Through the camera feed, the world above me told a different
41:56story. The deluge had passed the one-year mark. Conditions in Liam's apartment were deteriorating
42:01fast. Liam's father was gone. Malnutrition and the persistent respiratory illness had taken him in
42:06his sleep. The room still smelled of flood water and mildew. Liam's mother was fading fast too.
42:12By the first anniversary of the deluge, Liam was barely recognizable. The easy confidence that had
42:17defined him, his polished composure, casual arrogance, was gone. He was gone, his face sharpened,
42:24high cheekbones, hollow, lifeless eyes. He moved slowly, he barely spoke. With no food left, they scraped
42:31lime plaster from the walls to quiet their hunger. It wasn't living, it was just surviving. Each morning,
42:36Ava sat by the window and watched the rain, quiet, finally accepting it would never stop. In her better
42:42moments, she turned over the memory she couldn't stop returning to. In the reading room, I was working
42:47through the backlog of books I had always meant to get to and never had. I'd made a small study
42:52in one
42:53corner of the house. Shelves, a workbench, a lamp angled just right. After dinner, I read philosophy,
43:00agriculture, history, guides. I taught myself woodworking from a manual, finishing two pieces
43:05from early minimized timber. A stool, a narrow side table under the lamp. When the deluge hit its third
43:11year, the camera feet across the hall went still. Flood water had risen too high to survive. Liam's
43:16mother was the last to move. Then she stopped. The camera showed Liam, alone, motionless in water that
43:22covered most of the bedroom floor. He hadn't made it. Ava was in the far corner, still too. Her face
43:28was dry on
43:28the grainy feed. Tears shed long ago, but they lingered in her set jaw. Her tilted head, unspoken.
43:35None survived the storm. Each paid the full price for their choices. I closed the feed. No satisfaction,
43:41no grief. Only the quiet calm of finally letting go of something long over. I set the phone face down.
43:47Beyond Liam's door, the hallway held only dark water and slow decay. I turned to the garden. The cherry tree,
43:53transplanted last year with a micro-minimizer, tended through two growing seasons,
43:57bowed under clusters of deep red fruit, catching the simulated light from the ceiling. The cherry
44:02tree bore heavy, glowing fruit. Each cluster bowed the branches, lit from above by the ceiling panel's
44:07soft glow, as if they held light inside them. Newly hatched chicks, the second generation born in the
44:13bunker, trailed their mother along the vegetable bed, learning their small world in quick, purposeful
44:17steps. Their down was fresh snow white, bright against a dark soil. A few days later, the camera covering the
44:24interior of my old apartment registered movement for the first time in months. Three men waded
44:28through waist-deep water in the hallway, wearing the same clothes they'd had for weeks. They reached
44:33the loose broken door and shouldered over inside. Last survivors, I could see it in their movements,
44:38the sharp economy, the flat eyes that no longer expected good. Whatever they'd lived on was gone.
44:43I watched as they searched, methodically. Mattresses upended, cabinets torn open, furniture checked.
44:50One found Ava's neat stack of NT10 cans, organized by size. He stared, then let them clatter into the
44:55water. Another found the oversized Apple 4, the one Ava had enlarged for Liam, back when the system
45:00worked. It had dried black, but was still unmistakably huge. What did these people have?
45:06Where's the food? There's nothing here! Something's wrong with this. Way too big. The rumors.
45:15You think someone could really enlarge things? If she could make food bigger, where is it? Why is
45:23there nothing left? They searched for 20 more minutes and found nothing useful, only rotted clothes
45:30and a rusted knife. On the way out, the tall man kicked apart the table Ava had used for demonstrations.
45:35The wooden knife, dull, and final, like a sentence ending.
45:41I hadn't moved from my chair. I reached up into the cherry tree beside my terrace and plucked a small
45:46cluster. The skin was warm from the light. The flesh was dense, sweet under a clean, bright tartness that
45:53lingered on my tongue. In another life, I used to drive across the city for the best cherries, because
45:58she once said she liked them. I brought them home every week. Later, I found out she'd given most to
46:04Liam.
46:05Now, I grew them myself, and I didn't have to share a single one.
46:10I washed and pitted the extra cherries, simmering them with sugar until they turned jewel dark red.
46:16I poured them into glass jars, sealed them, and lined them on the shelf with pickles and fermented sauces.
46:22The great deluge had been a crucible. It had burned away everything fake. For the next two years after
46:27that, the rain continued, and I didn't need it to stop. For the next two years, the rain continued,
46:32and I didn't need it to stop. I watched the chickens raise their second and third generations.
46:37I tended the vegetable beds, planting, harvesting, composting, rotating. The orchard grew. A pear tree,
46:44a fig tree, heavy with sweet fruit all summer. I learned woodworking, weaving, building. I kept
46:50everything running. I watched seedlings become trees. I thought sometimes of my parents. They'd always
46:56wanted me to learn to take care of myself, truly, completely, without leaning on anyone. Now I
47:01understood. That was the most real kind of love. The quiet, structural kind that holds everything else
47:07up. In the fifth year of the deluge, the ceiling light brightened earlier, at a new angle. The change
47:13grew clearer each week. One morning, I woke to silence. Real silence. Not the bunker's muffled hush,
47:19but pure absence. The rain had stopped. I lay still, listening. Then I knew it was time.
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