Chapter 1

Torrential rain swept through the city, submerging neighborhood after neighborhood.

Fortunately, I had always been an extreme prepper.

My stockpiles kept my cousin and me from starving to death while we were trapped in the apartment.

Yet her self-righteous savior complex kicked into overdrive.

She insisted on opening the door to shelter our neighbor—the very man who had brutally bullied me when I was a kid.

"You said it yourself, Zoey, that was years ago when we were kids."

"Everyone deserves a second chance, don't they?"

That very night, that neighbor assaulted and violated me.

After the trauma, I grabbed a knife and forced both of them out into the storm.

A few days later, my cousin led a mob of desperate refugees back to my apartment. They battered down the door.

They looted everything in sight.

In the chaos, I was trampled to death.

Meanwhile, my cousin was hailed as a local disaster hero.

When I opened my eyes again, I marched straight into a self-defense store and asked the clerk:

"Do you have a heavy-duty stun baton? The kind powerful enough to drop a wild boar?"

"You can't blame me for this, Zoey."

"I was just looking out for the community, wasn't I?"

"This is a noble sacrifice. You'll have good karma in your next life."

As she spoke, my cousin Faith brought her heavy boot down on my hand—the hand that was desperately trying to dial 911.

More and more boots trampled over me.

Through the chaos, I heard the sickening crunch of my own bones shattering.

Agonizing pain tore through my entire body, sending me into violent spasms.

Mercifully, the torment didn't last long before my soul detached and floated into the air.

I looked down at my own mangled corpse, internal organs crushed into a bloody pulp beneath their feet.

Around my body, the crowd popped bottles and cheered, celebrating their feast.

I couldn't fathom what sins I had committed in a past life to deserve being torn apart like this.

For days afterward, that pack of animals survived entirely on the food and water I had meticulously stockpiled.

When it was all over, Faith became their celebrated savior.

Local news channels and social media raced to cover her heroic deeds.

As for me? They had tossed my broken body straight out the window, letting the floodwaters sweep me away into oblivion.

Facing the camera crews, Faith offered an embarrassed, humble smile: "I just did what anyone would do."

"When disaster strikes, even a college freshman like me should do her part."

The second the words left her mouth, she put on a fragile, tear-streaked expression.

She wept directly into the lens: "I just hope the internet can help me find my cousin Zoey."

"None of us blame her. Even after what she did..."

In her narrative, I was painted as a shameless, selfish monster.

She claimed I tried to seduce our neighbor, and when he rejected me, I ran out into the storm in bitter humiliation despite everyone trying to stop me.

Overnight, I became public enemy number one, universally reviled.

At first, my mom went to every news station she could find, begging them to investigate the truth and clear my name.

Before long, broken by the vicious cyberbullying and death threats, she locked herself in her apartment and died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

I remember screaming and weeping in front of my mother's spirit, desperate to pull her back.

Nobody could hear me.

I could only watch helplessly as she slipped away before my eyes.

"Seriously, Zoey?"

"Why on earth did you buy so much stuff?"

"Isn't it a total waste if you can't eat it all?"

"Do you have any idea how many families across the country don't even have food on the table right now?"

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my rental.

My cousin Faith was dragging her suitcase around the living room, snooping through every corner.

In my previous life, she had just started college.

My aunt heard I was working in the city and repeatedly asked me to look after her precious daughter.

The very next day, Faith showed up at my doorstep, swaggering in without asking.

She complained constantly, whining about how awful the dorms were and how she couldn't stand living with roommates.

Right now, she was standing with her hands on her hips, arrogantly judging the emergency supplies stacked along my walls.

Even though I had explained multiple times that I was a prepper and these were non-perishable emergency rations with a long shelf life, she still preached her moral nonsense.

"People like you should be sent to work in impoverished mountain villages," she scoffed. "Then you might actually learn what real suffering feels like."

This time around, I didn't bother wasting my breath.

The fact that I didn't snap her neck on the spot was already the peak of my mercy.

"Shut your mouth," I snapped coldly.

"Do you know how many innocent people die every single day?"

"Why don't you go drop dead in their place?"