Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



"If it only takes 48 hours before the outcome is decided, why did it take a month before the world figured out what was going on?" asked Liu Wei.

I tilted my head back and banged it off his chest. Was he always that close? I continued to look at him as I answered his question. "The vaccines were administered in special buildings that contained the people. Since they could site the side effects of the vaccine, the public thought that it was best that they stayed in the facility after they got it. After all, they would be monitored by doctors and nurses at all times. It took a full month before the facilities were overrun by zombies and power users and the people got out."

"Makes sense," said Wang Chao. "Now, it's my turn."

I left the basement to let the boys settle in and went to my room. Although it was still quite warm at the end of August, I still put on a fire in my bedroom fireplace. To me, there was nothing more comforting than a roaring fire. That might be why I developed the ability to start fires. It was always in my genes.

I laid down in bed and turned on the tv on top of the fireplace. Scrolling through the movie and tv show offerings, I picked a monster movie that I knew but somehow got a different spin on it in this world. I was slowly closing my eyes when I heard a gentle knock on my door.

"Come in," I said lazily. It had to be Liu Wei, there was no other possibility.

He opened the door and looked around the room before he spotted my head poking out from under a pile of blankets. Chuckling, he walked over to my bed and sat down on one side. "Took me a while to find you. This house is huge."

"It is," I replied, turning over to look at him. "And it is all mine. You snooze, you lose," I continued, glaring at him like he might try to take it away from me.

"Yes, yes, yes," he said, the smile a seemingly permanent fixture on his face. "It's yours, we wouldn't dream of taking it back."

"That's right," I said, nodding in approval of his words.

"So," he started, making himself comfortable on my king-sized bed, his back leaning against the headboard, his legs stretched out over the covers. "Are you going to tell me who you are?"

I looked at him, confused. It had been almost a year now; he didn't know who I was?

"Li Dai Lu," I replied looking at him. "Did you hit your head or something?"

He chuckled and shook his head. "No," he said. "I want to know who you are."

I paused, thinking through that statement. There were so many possible ways that I could answer that question, but what would be the right one?

Knowing that he might be dead in three days, I opted to tell him the truth and see if he would believe me. "I am someone from a different world that died and woke up here, three years after the start of the apocalypse. After starting my own compound, the Phoenix Compound would you believe it, I was killed by someone I considered to be my best friend, and the over two hundred people I had saved and fed for ten years watched as I was torn apart by a Class 3 horde. I woke up in this body once again, a year before the apocalypse this time. Hopefully, the third time's a charm or I am going to be cranky going through all this again for a fourth time."

I knew I didn't make sense, my brain was too much in a fog to be able to speak clearly, but he should be able to get the gist of it.

He looked at me… and the silence between us went on for a few minutes. The sound of an oversized lizard throwing a temper tantrum came from the tv, breaking up what could have been an awkward atmosphere. The silence continued until my eyes started to drift shut. The stress of the unknown having left my body.

Maybe, just maybe there was some aspect of relief that I had told someone my story, as unbelievable as it might be.

I always annoyed me in transmigration novels where the main character never told anyone that they came from another world. As if the fear of being considered a demon was a major factor in that decision. I thought it would have more to do with not trusting anyone with such a huge secret.

I mean, the most they might think was that I was crazy, and I could live with that.

In my second life, I never told anyone. I pretended to be someone that I was not. There were no merging two souls into the same body or getting all the memories of the previous soul to integrate perfectly into the new setting. People who should have been strangers to the new soul were treated like family in a matter of minutes.

I didn't get that. I was in a completely different world, with no memories that might have helped me, smack dab in what I considered the middle of an apocalypse, alone. With no one around me.

This time, I would be free to be who I was, unapologetically. I would not tiptoe around, saving people and secretly hoping that memories would come flooding back to me. I would no longer hope to come across the long lost family of this body, and for the first time in all my lives experienced that love and joy that only they could give me.

My name was Li Dai Lu, and I would live like the Li Dai Lu that I always wanted to be, not the one that I thought I should be.

----

Liu Wei looked down at the girl slowly falling asleep beside him. The story that she had said was too far-fetched to be the truth, but the look in her eyes when she said it…

He shook his head and the lead back more into the headboard, letting it take the weight of his head as if it would also take the weight off his shoulders. He was the head of his family back in City H, and if there really was an apocalypse coming, then it was his duty to go there and look after his family. Not to mention, there were several other commitments, both legal and illegal that he would have to look after at the same time.

But that wasn't what called to him, it wasn't what he wanted to do. He had always made the excuse to his family that he couldn't take over the industries under his name because he needed to be beside Wang Chao in case the country needed them. He stressed that he couldn't take over the darker organization that had looked to his family for generations for guidance because the Liu's would need a public face to cement their legitimacy.

Then they started to push for marriage and he really had no plans to return. Should he go home after getting the vaccine?

He sighed and looked down again at the small little girl that barely made a bump under all those covers. She was a mystery that fascinated him and unfortunately seemed to fascinate Wang Chao at the same time. Should he step aside and let Wang Chao get what he wanted? He had done it all his life simply because he never cared about the outcome…

But he cared now.

He was the type of man that went all in for what he wanted, and this time would be nothing less. She truly believed that the end of the world would happen on November 1st so he would do whatever he could to get her what she wanted for when it did.

But transmigration? Was such a thing truly possible?

He closed his eyes again as his thoughts whirled around his head. Only to be brought to an abrupt halt when a tiny arm reached across the distance and wrapped itself around his waist.

There was no way that the Li Dai Lu who spent her entire life as a second-generation socialite would drop everything and buy a ranch. There was no way that that Li Dai Lu would know how to raise cattle, or make jams, or do any number of things that the girl laying next to him did. And there was no way possible for the Li Dai Lu of City A to fall asleep next to him without a care.

If he believed in the apocalypse for her, he would believe in transmigration too.

With his thoughts sorted out, Liu Wei fell asleep, relaxed and content for the first time in a while.