- 2 hours ago
You Chose Enlarge, I Chose To Survive ”
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Mi hija y yo stumbledamos a dos sistemas por accidente.
00:04Uno fue el 100x Macro Multiplier.
00:07El otro fue el 100x Micro Minimizer.
00:10Después de un día, el gran deluge se golpeó.
00:12Sin embargo, la tormenta de la ciudad se desplazó.
00:15Todos estaban dentro, sin camino.
00:18Overnight, los recursos se convirtieron la única cosa que está entre la vida y la muerte.
00:22Yo tenía pasta instantánea y panas.
00:24Con el Macro Multiplier, yo estrellé todo el último scrap.
00:28Yo rationed carefully.
00:29Yo scraped through 5 brutal years on a dwindling stockpile.
00:33And the moment the rain finally stopped,
00:35she pushed me off the roof.
00:36If you hadn't stolen my Macro Multi-Malter,
00:38I 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.
00:47She 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.
01:35I 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.
01:48Then, 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.
02:09Oh my god!
02:11It's real!
02:13The Macro Multiplier is actually mine!
02:16I watched her with flat, cold eyes.
02:19This woman.
02:20This 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, and make him fall for
02:52her.
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.
03:00Ava practically bounced out the front door.
03:07Ava, what are you doing here?
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.
03:39I 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.
03:47I 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.
03:56She 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 the 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, I 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.
05:03Babe, 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, but she didn't feel guilty at all.
05:27If I hadn't been reborn, if I hadn't already spent all my money,
05:30she would have killed me again, 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. Going to sleep. You 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.
06:55All 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.
08:19The 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 lights
08:30powered by a generator.
08:31I crouched in the bunker center and looked at the tiny landscape before me.
08:36The 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,
08:45and built a low fence 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.
09:28She 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 and ran the other end along the perimeter of the
09:56garden plot, drilling small holes at intervals so that when I opened the valve, water would flow
10:01evenly 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
10:11and ran it into a separate sealed container, filtered through a layer of filter cotton,
10:16clean enough to water the plants and drinkable in an emergency.
10:19Once that was done, I opened the seed packets and began sowing.
10:22Leafy 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,
10:38and caught Ava mid-argument with Liam's mother.
10:41You only enlarged that much bread? We 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. 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.
11:15Once things settle down, I'll buy you anything you 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. People who only know how to take, will always want more.
11:39That afternoon, I fashioned a set of small storage crocks from the ceramic fragments I'd brought,
11:46sealed them with adhesive, and set them aside to cure, for pickles and fermented vegetables once the
11:52harvest came in. I 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. I scattered a handful
12:07of feed and watched them 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. The sky in the distance
12:19had turned a bruised, heavy gray. The great deluge was almost here. My small world was ready. After a
12:25full night of careful work, the interior of the hidden bunker had been transformed into a miniature farm.
12:31Tiny 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,
12:55but coldly. His 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. Maybe 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. I said nothing. It didn't bother me.
13:21With one hour left until the deluge, I called Ava.
13:25Hey babe, something wrong? Just 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. I wanted her to stop watching my side
13:44of the apartment.
13:47I hung up, opened the control app on my phone, and unlocked the bunker.
13:52The panel slid open silently. I stepped inside. Then I turned the micro-minimizer on myself.
14:29This time we'll be different.
14:32The complaints kept coming for the first few days. Inconvenience, frustration, ordinary irritation at
14:38weather-disrupting schedules. Then the tone shifted. The 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. I tended the farm. I fed the chickens.
14:56I watered the seedlings. Checked the generator output.
15:03I monitored the water levels in the cistern. The routine was simple and absorbing. And the hours
15:10passed without friction. Ava, apparently, had already decided I was dead. Drowned somewhere in
15:15the flood waters. She didn't seem particularly broken up about it. I wasn't broken up about that either.
15:22On the second day, I noticed that several of the chicks had gone quiet and still. They sat hunched
15:28in the corners of the enclosure. Feathers ruffled and dull. Uninterested in the feed I scattered.
15:33One had its eyes half closed. My chest tightened. These birds were my primary long-term protein source.
15:39I couldn't afford to lose them. I retrieved the veterinary manual I had quietly packed. A decision
15:45made almost on instinct back when I was loading the cart. Because I had understood, even then,
15:50that anything alive requires maintenance. I crouched beside the sick birds and worked through the checklist.
15:57Red-rimmed eyes. Sticky, abnormal droppings. Lethargy. Loss of appetite. Foul typhoid.
16:05Almost certainly. I located the livestock antibiotics I had packed alongside the first aid kit and the seed
16:11packets. Measured out the correct dosage using the miniature graduated cup I'd included for precisely
16:17this kind of situation. Dissolved it in clean water and installed a fresh trough. Then, I sanitized the
16:23entire enclosure with diluted disinfectant and separated the symptomatic birds into a temporary
16:28isolation area, away from the healthy flock. For the next several days,
16:33I checked on them morning and night, adjusting concentrations, swapping in clean bedding and
16:40fresh water. Slowly, incrementally, the sick birds began to recover. Their eyes cleared.
16:47They started pecking at the feet again. One 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
16:59with full, unselfconscious confidence. The tension in my shoulders finally released. This was what my
17:05past life had given me, if nothing else. The knowledge that preparation is the only insurance that
17:10actually pays out. Every careful decision I had made in those three days before the deluge,
17:15the manual, the medications, the seeds, was already compounding quietly in the background while the
17:21world above me fell apart. With the immediate crisis resolved, I had time to spare. I pulled up the camera
17:27feed. Ava had brought Liam into the apartment. They were sitting in my living room together. Ava with a
17:32smile that barely contained its own triumph, Liam looking slightly distracted, eyes moving.
17:39Do you still have anything left at your place? Not much. Should have stocked up earlier. The first
17:45floor units are already flooded. I can't even get out of the building, and I've got my parents and my
17:49sister to think about. We're running low. Ava, what about your place? Could you spare anything? It's not
17:55just me. There are four of us. Ava laughed softly, reached out, and playfully tapped his chest,
18:00then dragged her finger in small circles against his shirt. Then she leaned in close, bringing her
18:05lips near his ear, and whispered. Seriously? That's actually possible? Don't believe me? Watch.
18:17She turned to the apple sitting on my coffee table and activated the macro multiplier. The apple swelled,
18:23expanding in seconds until it was the size of a small boulder crashing down onto the table's surface
18:28under its own weight. Liam stared at it, then he grabbed her by both shoulders.
18:32Ava, you're a lifesaver. Get over to our place and enlarge everything we have, okay?
18:37Ava dipped her head, a flush spreading across her cheek.
18:40Of course, but I have one small condition. Name it.
18:46You know how I feel about you. If I'm the reason your family makes it through this,
18:50could you maybe feel the same way about me? She covered her eyes with both hands,
18:54too overwhelmed by her own hope to watch his face, which 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. He reached out
19:08and took her hand. What are you even saying? Haven't we always been together? We were inseparable as kids.
19:14Of course I have feelings for you. When 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. I always knew you felt the same way.
19:28What about him?
19:34Him? He 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. Then he steered her toward her room to fetch the rest of the
19:50supplies.
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. I 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. She 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.
21:12When I was done, I photographed the spread, the simmering pot, the marbled beef,
21:17the gleaming surface of the broth, and posted it to my social media.
21:22Howling storm outside. A feast inside. Some 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. Can you bring food back?
21:49I photographed the cold drink in my hand, ice stacked to the rim, condensation beating on the glass,
21:56and 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. Can'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 wine, the 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.
22:36The smell of broth and warm soil and 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. More than enough for years.
23:24Poured the rest of my drink, settled back against the cushions, and let the first episode begin.
23:29When it ended, I set down my glass, picked up my phone, and switched the camera feed to the one
23:35mounted outside Liam's door.
23:36I didn't wait long. Liam'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, wading through calf-deep water that had already made it up to the
23:50second 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 looking for
24:02shortcuts.
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.
24:11She 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. She put her hand on one apple and it swelled up bigger than
24:31a 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 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.
24:55You 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. In exchange, you get 30% of everything Ava produces.
25:1230 is an insult. 50. And 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. I 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. I 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. He was using her as a shield. A resource.
25:48A liability he was already managing. And 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.
26:05Brighter than it had been in days. Almost buoyant. Liam's mother was speaking to her in warm,
26:10honey tones. Entirely unlike the sharpness I'd heard directed at Ava before.
26:14Ava, you're truly something else. With your gift, we don't have to worry about a thing.
26:19What a treasure you are!
26:22You're too kind. Being 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. Then Liam's father jumped in, smooth and warm.
26:39Absolutely. Liam is so lucky to have you. I said to my wife this very morning, that girl is something
26:46special.
26:47You're such a joy to have around. Ava soaked it up like sunlight, beaming, floating. She had no idea the
26:54ground had already shifted entirely beneath her feet. I 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. I was not going to run out of anything.
27:50Ethan, where are you? How do you have vegetables? How are you raising chickens?
27:54Is wherever you are not being affected by the DeLounge at all?
27:57Not at all. She could never have imagined it. I hadn't gone anywhere. I was right here,
28:02on the other side of her bedroom wall. Just a few feet of plaster between two completely different worlds.
28:10That's incredible! Babe, you have to tell me where you are. I'll bring Liam and his family over. We're
28:16practically family already. And it sounds like there's room.
28:20If you manage it, you're welcome to come. What's that supposed to mean?
28:24You don't want us to come? She had grown accustomed to me bending
28:27immediately whenever she asked for anything. This was, evidently, a version of me she hadn't prepared
28:33for. I 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. Pre-made pizza,
28:44cheese, compressed biscuits, canned beef, Italian sausage, Spanish ham. I switched on the fan for
28:50airflow, pulled a pizza from the small countertop oven where it had been warming, and set it on the
28:55table. The crust had gone beautifully golden in the heat. Crisp at the edges, soft in the center. The
29:01cheese melted and bubbling with a deep, rich scent that filled the whole kitchen. I photographed it
29:06and sent the picture to Ava without comment. You have pizza? Babe, tell me where you are right now.
29:17I've been eating stale crackers and rehydrated pastas for days, and 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. She was
29:33desperate to pry my location out of me. I bit into the pizza. The cheese pulled in long, elastic strands.
29:40The crust had exactly the right resistance before it gave way.
29:46Wow. This cheese pull is incredible. Seriously.
29:51Ethan! You make a fair point though, as of genuinely considering it. My supplies do have a limit,
29:57but here's the thing. Your macro multiplier can expand any food source by a factor of a hundred.
30:03If you found me, you could multiply everything I have. We'd be set for years. So, find me. Then just
30:09tell me where you are so I can do exactly that. She never wanted to find me. She just couldn't
30:14stand
30:14the idea of me having something she didn't. Find me yourself. I ended the call.
30:18On the camera feed, Ava stood in the center of my bedroom and screamed. She swept what remained
30:23on the nightstand onto the floor. She kicked the wardrobe. She threw things. The sweetness she had
30:30maintained for so many years, gone in under 10 seconds. Not long after, word spread to the entire
30:35building. Someone had let it slip that the woman in my apartment could enlarge any object by a hundred
30:40fold. As 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 impotent
30:51fury. She had smashed the last decorative item on the shelf. Now she sank to the floor, back against
30:56the wall, chest heaving. Across the room, Liam stood with his arms crossed. His jaw was set,
31:01his brow furrowed, but he didn't move toward her. His eyes were doing something else entirely. Scanning,
31:06calculating, drifting toward the door. In the living room, Liam's mother paced in tight loops, voice low and tense.
31:13What do we do now? The whole building knows. If everyone comes here demanding food, what do we do?
31:19We don't have enough for all of them. I let out a quiet exhale, closed the camera feed,
31:24and turned back to the farm. The vegetable beds had come alive. Romaine lettuce spread wide,
31:29its pale inner leaves unfurling toward the light. A row of eggplants hung plump and violet from their
31:34vines. The cucumbers had climbed the trellis I'd built and were sending out delicate tendrils,
31:40their small yellow flowers just beginning to open. The chicks had changed too. The soft,
31:46helpless fuzz of their first days was almost entirely gone, replaced by proper adult feathers,
31:51dark at the tips, iridescent at the edges, proud. They moved with a new kind of confidence now,
31:58heads up, scratching at the soil in long, deliberate strokes. Two of them were locked in a very serious
32:04dispute over a single earthworm. I picked up the small hoe and worked my way along the nearest row,
32:09breaking up the surface crust to let the soil breathe. Then I scooped water from the cistern
32:14with a clay ladle and walked the full length of the bed, letting it fall in a thin, even curtain
32:19over the root zones. Warm, filtered light came in through the special glass panels I'd minimized
32:24and installed in the bunker ceiling. Glass that filtered out the rain and impurities while still
32:28emitting natural light. It fell across my shoulders like something I hadn't felt in a long time.
32:34The wind generator cycled in its steady low hum. The phone showed full charge. I went inside,
32:40took the marinated chicken I'd been preparing overnight out of the refrigerator,
32:44cut it into pieces, and loaded it into the roasting tray. The potatoes went in beside it,
32:50peeled, cubed, edges cut to maximize caramelization. The oven door clicked shut. While it cooked,
32:56I cracked two eggs into a small pot, both 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, and had a bright,
33:07clean soup ready by the time the oven timer chimed. I carried both dishes to the small table outside
33:12the house and ate with the garden in front of me, the chickens moving around my boots. Through the
33:18bunker's ensulated walls, the deluge was just a faint sound, distant static, weather happening
33:24somewhere else entirely. The 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, some carrying
33:35children, some helping elders, all wading through calf deep water. They banged on the door, shouted,
33:40and pressed their palms against it. Liam's mother opened it a crack and blocked the gap.
33:44Why should we give you anything? This is Ava's ability, not ours. She doesn't owe you a thing.
33:52Figure it out yourselves. It didn't work. In a normal world, it might have. But the deluge had
33:58destroyed normal life weeks ago. People were desperate now. They had no patience left. The
34:02knocking turned to pounding. Voices exploded in the hallway. Scared, angry, begging, threatening.
34:08Ava clung to Liam's back, pale as chalk. Back off. There's nothing for you here.
34:21Then someone grabbed a wooden plank and slammed it into the door for him. Liam stepped back,
34:26quietly, 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. She understood
34:44what giving them anything would mean. Once you fed a crowd, the crowd returned, hungrier, bolder,
34:49with more people behind it. But the alternative was the door coming off its hinges, and Liam's family
34:54already shrinking backward. She gave in. She grabbed a single piece of bread from the kitchen counter,
34:59and activated the macromultiplier. The bread swelled, slowly, then rapidly, until it stood nearly waist
35:06height and dense as a vehicle tire. It hit the floor with a heavy thud. The hallway went silent for
35:11approximately three seconds, then every person in it surged forward at once. They tore the bread apart
35:16with their hands, with their teeth. The noise was immediate and overwhelming. A scramble of bodies,
35:21sharp elbows, raw voices. No one waited. No one thought of anyone else. Ava pressed herself
35:28against the wall and watched. Liam's family exhaled with relief, as if they had solved something.
35:33They had solved nothing. The bread was gone in minutes, and the crowd, far from satisfied,
35:38was simply now confident that this door 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.
36:02Enlarge more! Get the crackers from the cabinet! Enlarge those too! Something, anything, just keep them back!
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 slammed another hard into the wall, hard enough to leave a dent. When it finally gave
36:46way, 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, still and silent,
37:01while everything outside was stripped to nothing. Ava folded herself into the corner of the bedroom,
37:07arms wrapped around her knees, and stared at her own hands. The system that had felt like a super power
37:13three weeks ago, the 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,
37:29had become of me. The years I had worked myself down to nothing, so she could live without worrying about
37:34money.
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, stretched every resource, refused to
37:48break even when she begged me to give our stores away. Because I had understood, even then, that survival
37:53required making hard choices and holding to them. She had called me selfish for that. She had pushed me
37:59off the roof for that. And now, she was crouching in the dark in a stranger's trashed bedroom. And all
38:06her cleverness and all her beautiful plans had led her here. The deluge didn't pause. The rain fell
38:12without interruption. On the lower floors, water had reached the base of the stairwells. The building's
38:17lobby was fully submerged. The air in the locked bedroom smelled of wet plaster and mildew and fear. The
38:24macro multiplier had grown unpredictable, sometimes failing to activate it all, other times stuttering
38:29halfway through enlargement. Whatever it was drawing from, it was running low. Liam was the first to say it
38:35directly.
38:38This is your fault. If you hadn't been showing it off, none of this would have happened. Ava stared at
38:45him.
38:46You'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. His voice was flat and final,
38:56carrying nothing of the warmth. We're out of food. We've got half the building camped outside the door.
39:04And now you can't even get the system to work reliably. We're going to die here.
39:11Because of you. Liam's mother stepped in without missing a beat. I said from the beginning that
39:16you weren't right for my son. A girl like you, no degree, no real job, no prospects.
39:21I should have said something sooner. You're the one who brought this trouble to our door.
39:26This 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,
39:42a future daughter-in-law. She was a resource they had milked until it backfired. And now she was a
39:47liability they needed someone to blame. She had been exactly that from the very beginning.
39:52The rain didn't relent. Water seeped under the bedroom door and spread across the floor in a dark,
39:58growing sheet. The air turned thick and heavy, soaking into clothes and skin. Liam's father had
40:03been coughing since the second week. A deep, wet cough that wouldn't stop. Now he could barely get
40:08out of bed. Liam's mother followed days later, vomiting, chills, and fever. Too weak to stand.
40:13They ran out of clean water early. They drank whatever pooled on the floor,
40:17strained through whatever fabric they could find. It wasn't enough. Ava watched them waste away from
40:22across the room. She felt no satisfaction. No grief. Only a deep, hollow exhaustion.
40:27Like she'd finally reached the end of something she'd been trapped in far longer than she'd known.
40:32She tried to leave. The water in the hallway was waist deep. The crowd outside had grown even more
40:36desperate and unpredictable. There was no safe way out. She activated the macro multiplier one last time,
40:42trying to enlarge a wooden plank into something she could float on. Nothing happened. She tried again.
40:47The system was gone. Its power had burned out completely, leaving no trace, no warmth. Nothing
40:52she'd once taken for granted. I watched it all on the camera feed, sitting cross-legged on the floor
40:57of my small shelter. A cup of tea cooled beside me. Then I sat down my phone, walked out to
41:02the
41:02enclosure, and 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, dust bathing in the
41:13afternoon. They laid steadily now. Three or four eggs before noon. I had more than I could eat fresh,
41:18so I tried recipes I'd never had time for. A light sponge cake, soft boiled eggs with vinegar salt,
41:24slow-cooked custard that set golden and smooth overnight. I'd expanded the farm twice, adding
41:29more compact topsoil and rotating crops. Tomatoes, herbs, and a small citrus tree. It had fruited faster
41:35than I expected, with clusters of tiny, sharp, tart fruit. The little house had been refurbished room by
41:41room with the time and materials I had. A proper desk, bookshelves along one wall, a reading corner
41:46with the lamp angled just right. I read in the evenings, I gardened in the mornings, I cooked every
41:52meal with real attention. Through the camera feed, the world above me told a different story. The deluge
41:57had passed the one-year mark. Conditions in Liam's apartment were deteriorating fast. Liam's father was
42:02gone. Malnutrition and the persistent respiratory illness had taken him in his sleep. The room still
42:07smelled of flood water and mildew. Liam's mother was fading fast too. By the first anniversary of the
42:14deluge, Liam was barely recognizable. The easy confidence that had defined him, his polished
42:19composure, casual arrogance, was gone. He was gone, his face sharpened, high cheekbones, hollow,
42:26lifeless eyes. He moved slowly, he barely spoke. With no food left, they scraped lime plaster from the walls to
42:32quiet their hunger. It wasn't living, it was just surviving. Each morning, Ava sat by the window and
42:38watched the rain, quiet, finally accepting it would never stop. In her better moments, she turned over
42:43the memory she couldn't stop returning to. In the reading room, I was working through the backlog of
42:48books I had always meant to get to and never had. I'd made a small study in one corner of
42:53the house, shelves,
42:54a workbench, a lamp angled just right. After dinner, I read, philosophy, agriculture, history, guides. I taught
43:02myself woodworking from a manual, finishing two pieces from early minimized timber, a stool, a narrow side table
43:09under the lamp. When the deluge hit its third year, the camera feet across the hall went still. Flood water
43:14had
43:14risen too high to survive. Liam's mother was the last to move, then she stopped. The camera showed Liam, alone,
43:21motionless in water that covered most of the bedroom floor. He hadn't made it. Ava was in the far corner,
43:26still too. Her face was dry on the grainy feed. Tears shed long ago, but they lingered in her set
43:32jaw,
43:32her tilted head, unspoken. None survived the storm, each paid the full price for their choices. I closed
43:39the feed. No satisfaction, no grief, only the quiet calm of finally letting go of something long over.
43:45I set the phone face down. Beyond Liam's door, the hallway held only dark water and slow decay.
43:51I turned to the garden. The cherry tree, transplanted last year with the microminimizer,
43:55tended through two growing seasons, bowed under clusters of deep red fruit, catching the simulated
44:00light from the ceiling. The cherry tree bore heavy, glowing fruit. Each cluster bowed the branches,
44:06lit from above by the ceiling panel's soft glow, as if they held light inside them. Newly hatched chicks,
44:11the second generation, born in the bunker, trailed their mother along the vegetable bed,
44:15learning their small world in quick, purposeful steps. Their down was fresh snow white, bright
44:20against the dark soil. A few days later, the camera covering the interior of my old apartment
44:25registered movement for the first time in months. Three men waded through waist-deep water in the
44:29hallway, wearing the same clothes they'd had for weeks. They reached Liam's broken door and shoulder
44:34to the inside. Last survivors, I could see it in their movements, the sharp economy, the flat eyes that no
44:40longer expected good. Whatever they'd lived on was gone. I watched as they searched, methodically.
44:46Mattresses upended, cabinets torn open, furniture checked. One found Ava's neat stack of empty tin
44:51cans, organized by size. He stared, then let them clatter into the water. Another found the oversized
44:57apple core, the one Ava had enlarged for Liam, back when the system worked. It had dried black,
45:02but was still unmistakably huge. What did these people have? Where's the food? There's nothing here!
45:09Something's wrong with this. Way too big. The rumors. You think someone could really enlarge things?
45:20If she could make food bigger, where is it? Why is there nothing left?
45:26They searched for 20 more minutes and found nothing useful, only rotted clothes and a rusted knife.
45:31On the way out, the tall man kicked apart the table Ava had used for demonstrations. The wood
45:36went off, 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,
45:58because she once said she liked them. I brought them home every week. Later, I found out she'd given
46:03most to Liam. Now, 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
46:21sauces. The great deluge had been a crucible. It had burned away everything fake. For the next two
46:27years after that, the rain continued, and I didn't need it to stop. For the next two years, the rain
46:32continued, and 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
46:56always wanted me to learn to take care of myself, truly, completely, without leaning on anyone. Now
47:01I understood. That was the most real kind of love. The quiet, structural kind that holds everything else up.
47:07In 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.
Comments