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Three months into my pregnancy, I called off my engagement to Theron Kensington. He frowned, looking at me. "What kind of tantrum is this? Is this just because my mother told you to get rid of the baby for now?" "Yes." He let out an impatient sigh. "Fine. Just go home and rest. I'll talk to my mother." I didn't reply, and he didn't care, turning away to answer a call from his assistant. "Book two tickets to the Bahamas," he said. "I'm taking her out to relax this weekend." That "her" wasn't me. He hung up and said we would talk another time. But what he didn't know was that the baby in my belly had already been confirmed. It was twins. From then on, we would go our separate ways and no longer entangle with each other. I dialed the phone. "Aunt Corinne, help me arrange the move abroad." Since his family didn't want the child. The child would take my last name and have absolutely nothing to do with the Kensington Family ever again. "Elara, it's Valerie Winslow. Theron gave me your WhatsApp. He said I should keep you company when I have time." The notification lit up my screen the exact second I ended the call with Aunt Corinne. A contact request. I stared at the screen for a long moment. I didn't accept. I went right back to packing. Maeve Gallagher walked in just as I was slipping my prenatal records into my passport. She paused in the doorway. Her eyes swept the dismantled living room before landing on my hands. "You packing?" "Yeah." "Where to?" "Leaving the country." She stepped inside slowly and perched on the edge of the couch. Her gaze dropped straight to my flat stomach. "And the baby?" "Coming with me." "Does Theron know?" "He knows we're done. He doesn't know I'm leaving." "When are you going to tell him?" "I'm not." Maeve's mouth opened. She closed it again, swallowing whatever she was about to say. A few seconds ticked by before she shifted gears. "Why exactly is his mother forcing you to get rid of it?" My hands stopped moving. Mrs. Kensington's exact words echoed in my head. "Elara, I had the birth charts read. This baby's astrological signs clash with Theron's. You cannot keep it. Astrologer Vane said you have to terminate the pregnancy." When I told Maeve, she crushed the tissue in her hand into a tight, angry ball. "She's using astrology as an excuse?" "Yeah." "What did Theron say?" "He said he'd talk to her." I folded a sweater, smoothing out the fabric. "Then he called his assistant right in front of me and booked two tickets to the Bahamas. He's taking Valerie." "Who the hell is Valerie?" "His childhood friend. She moved back from abroad two months ago. He said she needed a getaway to relax." Maeve stared at me. The rims of her eyes turned a violent, glassy red. "You're doing the right thing." My phone vibrated on the mattress. Valerie had switched tactics. A direct text message this time. "Elara, Theron mentioned you haven't had much of an appetite. I made some beef bone broth and left it with the security guard at your gate. Make sure you grab it." I passed the phone to Maeve. She read it, her head snapping up. "He had her bring you soup?" "That's what it says." "Where is he?" "Booking their flight to the Bahamas." Maeve shoved the phone back into my hand. A heavy, suffocating silence filled the room. Half a minute later, she got up. She walked over to the closet and started pulling clothes off hangers, folding them into my suitcase one by one. "What do you need me to do?" "Ship that box of books to Aunt Corinne's place for me." "Done." I flipped open my prenatal checkup records on the bed, staring at the black-and-white ultrasound image. Maeve leaned over my shoulder. "Twins?" "Confirmed this morning." "Does he know?" "No." "You're really not going to tell him?" "He doesn't even want one." I closed the folder. "What difference does it make if I tell him there are two?" Maeve dropped the subject. She finished packing the rest of my things in silence. At the door, she paused, throwing one last look over her shoulder. "Take care of yourself. Call me the second you need anything." "I will." The door clicked shut. I sank back into the couch and rested my hand flat against my stomach. Theron walked through the door at nine that night. He toed off his shoes in the entryway and froze. His gaze locked onto the suitcase sitting by the console table. Two seconds later, he strode into the living room. "Where are you going?" "Staying out for a few days." He dropped onto the cushion beside me. His arm reached out, trying to loop over my shoulders to pull me in. "Still throwing a tantrum? I told you I'd talk to my mother." I didn't lean into him. "Did you tell Valerie to drop off that soup?" His arm stiffened. "She said she wanted to meet you, so I gave her the address. She's a good person. You two should talk more." "You gave our home address to a woman I don't know." "What do you mean you don't know her? I've talked about her a million times. We grew up together." "You didn't ask me." He let out a long, heavy exhale. "Fine. I'll ask you first next time. Just unpack the bag." "Did you cancel the Bahamas trip?" Three seconds of dead air. "Her ticket is already booked. It wouldn't look right to cancel it now." "Then go." I stood up and grabbed the handle of my suitcase. He shot up off the couch and stepped right into my path, blocking the door. "Elara, do you even want this relationship to work anymore?" I looked up, meeting his eyes dead-on. "Theron. Your mother ordered me to abort your child, and you call my reaction a tantrum. You handed my personal contact to another woman, and you think I'm overreacting. You booked two tickets to the Bahamas with her, and you think I'm being unreasonable. So tell me. What actually matters to you?" He didn't have an answer. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and glanced at the screen. A call from Valerie. He looked at the caller ID, then back at me. "She's been having terrible insomnia lately. I need to take this." He swiped to answer and walked out onto the balcony. His voice drifted back through the glass door, soft and patient. "What's wrong? Can't sleep again?" I gripped my suitcase and walked out the front door. I didn't wait for him to hang up. The elevator doors slid shut. I pulled out my phone and fired off a text to Aunt Corinne. "Expedite the visa." Her reply came through a second later. "Understood." ### Chapter 2 "Elara, you are pushing Theron." The call came earlier than expected. I hadn't even finished my hotel breakfast. "Mrs. Kensington." Two seconds of dead silence on the line. "What did you just call me?" "We broke up. It isn't appropriate to call you Mom anymore." "Broke up?" Her voice spiked, laced with pure, offended fury. "You just decide that? What about the baby?" "I thought you didn't want me to keep it." "That was for your own good. Yours and Theron's. Astrologer Vane read the charts—that child’s astrological signs clash with my son's. Keeping it will ruin your marriage." "There is no marriage anymore." "Elara, don't think you can throw a tantrum just because Theron spoils you. Listen to me. Keep the baby, abort it, I don't care. But you will not use it to hold my son hostage." "I'm not threatening him. I left." "Left? Where could you possibly go?" I let the silence hang. She kept talking, looping through the same tired demands—stop making a scene, come home, rein in my temper, Theron was willing to compromise. I let her run out of breath. "Mrs. Kensington, I respect your choice. Please respect mine." I hit end. The phone barely hit the mattress before a knock sounded at the door. I pulled it open, expecting room service. Valerie stood in the hallway. She held an insulated tote bag, her smile perfectly practiced. "Elara. I finally get to see you." I didn't step back. "Theron said you moved out. He asked me to check on you." "There's no need." "Well, I'm already here." She shoved the bag forward an inch. "Herbal chicken broth. Good for the stomach. I simmered it for three hours last night." I kept my hands at my sides. Her smile stayed plastered in place as she set the bag on the carpet by my feet. "I'll just leave it. Drink it whenever you want." I grabbed the door handle, ready to shut it in her face, but she spoke again. "Elara, actually, there's something else." Her voice dropped into a conspiratorial whisper. "Theron is under a lot of pressure right now. With the company, and the fight with you... He stayed at my place until two in the morning last night." My stomach hollowed out. At ten o'clock last night, he had texted me: *I'll pick you up tomorrow.* Right after hitting send, he went straight to her. Valerie's eyes widened slightly, a perfectly calculated backtrack. "Oh, it's not what you think. He just needed someone to talk to. We've been like this since we were kids. You're the only one in his heart, Elara. I keep telling him what a good girl you are, how he needs to cherish you." Every word was wrapped in fake sisterhood. Every word was a knife, carving out her territory, reminding me that she knew him better, longer, deeper. "Thanks." "Elara, don't fight with him anymore, okay? He's bad with words, but he really cares." "Right." "I'll go now. Drink the soup. You're carrying a baby, don't starve yourself." She turned on her heel and walked down the hall. I shut the door and sank onto the edge of the bed. The screen of my phone lit up. A text from Theron. *Did Valerie stop by? She's great. You two should hang out more.* A second bubble popped up. *I'll pick you up after work. Don't run off.* I ignored it. Pulling a piece of hotel stationery from the nightstand, I grabbed a pen and copied down the travel checklist Aunt Corinne had sent me. Visa tomorrow. Flight confirmed the day after. Bank documents sorted this afternoon. My pen stopped. The screen glowed again. A WhatsApp message from Mrs. Kensington. It was a screenshot of a chat between her and Valerie. Valerie: *Mrs. Kensington, Elara isn't doing well today. I'm going over to check on her and talk some sense into her.* Mrs. Kensington: *Good girl. Thank you for the trouble.* Valerie: *No trouble at all. We're all family.* Beneath the image, Theron's mother had added her own commentary: *Look at Valerie. See how sensible she is? If you were even half as easygoing, I wouldn't have to be so hard on you.* I stared at the glowing pixels. Something clicked. Valerie had only been back in the country for two months. Yet Mrs. Kensington called her *good girl*. The polite exchange reeked of a deeply polished, comfortable intimacy. Two months wasn't enough time to build that. This was a relationship that had been cultivated for a long time. I dropped the phone into my bag and walked out. As I crossed the lobby, the front desk receptionist flagged me down. "Ms. Sterling, someone left this for you." A bouquet of pink carnations. I plucked the small card from the center. *Don't be unhappy, Elara. Everything will be fine. —Valerie.* I dropped the card back into the petals. "Throw it in the trash." Pushing through the revolving glass doors into the morning air, I pulled out my phone and texted Maeve. *I need you to look into something. Find out exactly when Valerie started talking to the Kensington family before she moved back.* Maeve's reply came in seconds. *What are you thinking?* I typed back without breaking stride. *I think her two-month timeline is a lie.* ### Chapter 3 "Elara, are you here for your things? I can help you look." Valerie stood in the center of the living room. I froze in the entryway for two slow seconds before stepping inside. "No need. I'll find them myself." A new box of herbal tea sat on the coffee table. From the kitchen, the heavy, savory scent of simmering soup hung in the air. On the fridge door, a bright sticky note caught my eye. The handwriting wasn't mine. *Theron, remember to drink water.* Valerie trailed behind me. "Theron mentioned this morning you might drop by for your stuff, so he asked me to host you. He's tied up at the company and won't make it back for lunch." "He asked you to stay here?" "Yeah. His stomach's been acting up lately, so I put together a dietary plan for him. I need to keep an eye on the soup." I walked into the bedroom and yanked open the nightstand drawer. Property deeds. Birth certificate. Bank books. I pulled them out one by one and shoved them into my bag. Valerie leaned against the doorframe, watching me. "Elara, can I ask you something?" "Yeah." "Are you really leaving Theron?" "Yeah." She dropped her gaze. "Then what about him?" "He has you." Valerie waved her hands frantically. "You're misunderstanding. Theron and I are really just friends. I've had a hard time adjusting since I moved back, and he's been helping me out. I just wanted to repay him." "By living in his house, making him soup, and leaving sticky notes on his fridge?" She stiffened, a flush creeping up her neck. "Elara, I just wrote that casually. It didn't mean anything." I dropped the subject and walked into the closet. I slid the doors open. Theron's clothes hung neatly on the left. The right side, which used to be entirely mine, was mostly bare. Hanging in the empty space were three brand-new outfits, tags still dangling from the sleeves. Definitely not my style. Valerie's voice drifted in from behind me, quiet and timid. "Mrs. Kensington bought those for me. She told me to wear them when Theron and I go out this weekend." This weekend. The Bahamas. His mother bought another woman clothes and hung them in my closet. I reached up, grabbed my last few jackets off the rack, folded them tight, and stuffed them into my bag. I shoved past her and stepped back into the living room. The soup bubbled on the stove. The front door lock clicked, and Theron walked in. His eyes dropped to the heavy bag on my shoulder, shifted to Valerie, and his brow furrowed. "Why didn't you call me when you got here?" "Just grabbing my things." His gaze caught the edge of my birth certificate peeking out of the bag. His face hardened. "What do you need that for?" "Going abroad." "Abroad? Where?" "Haven't decided." "Elara." His voice went dark. "Can you stop pulling these stunts every single day? You're pregnant. You aren't going anywhere." Valerie chimed in right on cue. "Theron, don't yell at Elara. She probably just wants to get away and clear her head." Theron shot her a look. "Valerie, go check the soup." She slipped into the kitchen. He waited until she was gone. "I just found out about the clothes. My mom took it upon herself to do that." "You don't even know what happens in your own home. Your mother buys clothes for another woman, hangs them in my closet, and you have no idea." "I told you I just found out." "And what did you do about it?" He opened his mouth. I waited. Those few seconds of silence, just like last time, were all the answer I needed. "You said you'd talk to her, Theron. What did you talk about? She calls Valerie a good girl, buys her clothes, hangs them in my space, and texts me to learn from her. Is that the result of your talk?" His face tightened. "I'll handle it." "When?" "In the next couple of days." "Aren't you going to the Bahamas in the next couple of days?" He took a sharp breath. Valerie's voice floated out from the kitchen. "Theron, the soup is ready." He called back a quick response, then turned his focus back to me. "Let's meet up tonight and actually talk. Just... don't leave yet." I hoisted the bag higher on my shoulder and walked to the front door. "Enjoy the soup. I'm not hungry." ### Chapter 4 "Elara, did you really think hiding in a hospital would stop me from finding you?" Mrs. Kensington's voice cut through the quiet hum of the obstetrics waiting room. I was just sitting there, waiting for my number to be called. About eight other pregnant women were scattered around the room with their husbands or mothers-in-law. At the sudden outburst, every single head snapped in our direction. I pushed myself to my feet. "Mrs. Kensington. This is a hospital." "I'm perfectly aware of where we are." She marched over, her heels clicking sharply against the linoleum. "I also know you're here for a prenatal checkup. What, you and my son break up, and you still have the nerve to come to a Kensington hospital?" It wasn't a Kensington hospital. But her family had VIP access, and she personally knew the Head of Obstetrics. In her mind, she owned the building. Valerie trailed right behind her, clutching a thermos to her chest with a perfectly crafted look of concern. "Mrs. Kensington, please keep your voice down. There are pregnant women here." Mrs. Kensington dropped her volume, but not her venom. "Elara, let me be blunt. You are not keeping this baby. Astrologer Vane read the charts. The signs clash entirely. If you keep it, you'll ruin Theron's luck." "Mrs. Kensington, Theron and I are done. The baby will take my last name. It has absolutely nothing to do with your family." She froze. Then, a sharp, mocking scoff slipped past her lips. It wasn't loud, but in the dead-quiet waiting room, it sounded like a gunshot. "Your last name?" Her eyes narrowed. "A Kensington child taking your name?" "We were never married. The baby can take my last name." "Are you threatening me?" "I'm stating a fact." She looked me up and down, her gaze scraping over my casual clothes. "Elara, I won't sugarcoat this anymore. Theron and Valerie grew up together. They're a match I've wanted from day one. You just showed up late. It's not that I look down on you, but you two were never meant to be. While we can still handle this with some dignity, get rid of the child. Make a clean break. It's better for everyone." I shifted my gaze to Valerie. She just stood there, staring at the floor, fingers white-knuckling her thermos. If it wasn't true, she would have denied it. She didn't say a word. The husband of a woman sitting two seats away finally had enough. He stood up. "Lady, this is a public space. Do you mind keeping it down?" Mrs. Kensington snapped her head toward him, hitting him with a glare so icy the man physically shrank back a half-step. I took a slow breath, my hand instinctively sliding down to shield my lower belly. "Mrs. Kensington. I am raising this child myself." "You?" Her voice spiked. "With what money? What's your monthly salary? Do you have any self-awareness about where you come from? You're a small-town girl who only survived in this city because Theron pulled you up out of the mud. And now you have the nerve to reject the Kensington family?" The waiting room was dead silent. Every single pair of eyes was glued to us. Valerie finally decided to play peacekeeper. "Mrs. Kensington, please stop. Elara is having a hard time." She turned her doe eyes on me. "Elara, she doesn't mean it like that. Try not to take it to heart, she's just worried about Theron." She tugged gently at the older woman's sleeve. "Come on, let's just go. Let her get her checkup in peace." Mrs. Kensington let herself be pulled away for exactly two steps before she stopped dead. She spun back around, dug into her designer bag, and slapped a piece of paper onto the plastic armrest of the waiting chair. "Three hundred thousand. Get the abortion. Buy yourself some nice supplements for the recovery." I just stared at the slip of paper. Trying to process that this was actually happening. A woman was standing in a maternity ward, surrounded by expecting mothers, slapping down three hundred grand to buy the death of her own grandchild. A vicious cramp suddenly tore through my abdomen. I gasped, my hand shooting out to grip the back of the chair to stay upright. Then another wave hit. Harder. Sharper. A triage nurse rushed over. "What's wrong? How many weeks are you?" "Twelve," I forced out through gritted teeth. "Twins." All the color drained from the nurse's face. "Sit down right now. Do not move. I'm paging a doctor." Mrs. Kensington remained standing a few feet away, her check still sitting on the chair. "Oh, please. Stop putting on a show for sympathy." Valerie dropped to a crouch beside me, her hand reaching out to grab my arm. "Elara, don't be scared. You're going to be okay." I violently yanked my arm out of her grip. A doctor sprinted down the hall pushing a wheelchair, barking at me to sit. I slumped into it. Mrs. Kensington was still rooted to the spot, suddenly unsure if she should walk away or stick around to see the damage. Just as the nurse angled the wheelchair toward the corridor, the heavy double doors of the waiting room swung wide open. A woman stepped through. Her sharp gaze swept the room, instantly locking onto my pale face. She crossed the floor in quick, confident strides, crouched in front of my wheelchair, and placed a warm, steady hand over mine. "Elle, I'm here." Aunt Corinne. The second Mrs. Kensington recognized the woman kneeling in front of me, her arrogant mask completely shattered. The blood drained from her face. Her lips moved uselessly for a second. "Ms... Ms. Sterling?" Aunt Corinne didn't even spare her a glance. Behind her, Valerie squeezed her thermos, her usual act completely failing her. For the first time today, she was speechless. Aunt Corinne rose to her full height. She turned to the nurse holding my wheelchair. "Is the Head of Obstetrics in the building? Page them here immediately." The nurse hesitated. Aunt Corinne didn't argue. She simply pulled a sleek business card from her tailored coat and held it out. The nurse read the name, her eyes widened, and she took off running. Slowly, Aunt Corinne turned around. She finally let her gaze settle on Mrs. Kensington. "Mrs. Kensington. If you ever breathe the same air as my niece again, you will find out exactly what it means to be ruined." ### Chapter 5 "Both heartbeats are stable. But absolutely no more emotional spikes." The Head of Obstetrics delivered the verdict while Aunt Corinne stood by the bed, her arms crossed tight over her chest. "Elle," Aunt Corinne said, her voice smooth and unbothered. "Your flight is the day after tomorrow. Do we need to push it back?" "No." "Good. I've already cleared everything with the obstetrics team in Vancouver. You'll head straight to the apartment the second you land." I gave a single nod. Aunt Corinne dragged a chair over and sat. She reached into her bag, pulled out a stack of documents, and slid them across the tray table. "From the lawyers. Full custody and last name change for the babies. Sign this, and legally, they sever all ties with the Kensington family." I didn't hesitate. I flipped to the last page, picked up the pen, and signed my name. She scooped up the papers and walked over to the window, pulling out her phone. Her voice stayed low, but the keywords drifted over the sterile hospital air. Withdraw all capital. Terminate the partnerships. Effective immediately. She made one call after another. When she finally hung up and turned back, her expression hadn't shifted a fraction of an inch. "We were co-investing in a few of the Kensingtons' projects. Not anymore. I just pulled the funding." "Aunt Corinne, you don't have to—" "I'm not doing this to get back at them," she cut in. "It's about making a clean break. You're done with the Kensingtons, which means my money doesn't sit in their accounts. It's a rational business decision." I let it go. There was nothing left to say. Maeve showed up later that afternoon. She froze in the doorway when she spotted Aunt Corinne, offering a stiff, polite "Ms. Sterling," before sliding into the chair next to my bed. She dropped a plastic bag of oranges onto the nightstand. "I looked into it," she said, dropping her voice to a near-whisper. "Valerie didn't just get back two months ago. She flew back six months ago. She's been staying in a Kensington-owned apartment." Maeve paused. "Mrs. Kensington set it up." Six months ago. Right around the time I found out I was pregnant. "She moved into their place the second she landed?" "Handled directly by Mrs. Kensington," Maeve nodded grimly. "Mrs. Kensington's entire attitude toward you flipped the moment you got pregnant. And Valerie popped up next to Theron right around the exact same time." I leaned back against the pillows. The pieces finally clicked into place. It was never about astrological incompatibility. It was never about a bad fortune. It was about Valerie. Mrs. Kensington wanted her son with Valerie, and my babies and I were the obstacles standing in the way. The fortune-telling was a cheap cover story. Valerie was the root of it all. Aunt Corinne, who had been listening quietly by the window, only said one thing. "Elle. Pack your things. We're discharging you tomorrow, and we fly out the day after." "Okay." My phone buzzed on the sheets. Theron. "Heard you went to the hospital. What's wrong? Did my mom go looking for you again?" A minute later, another text. "Which hospital? I'm on my way." I didn't reply. My screen lit up with an incoming call from him. I hit decline and tossed the phone aside. Ten minutes later, one more text. "Don't stoop to my mom's level. She just speaks without thinking." Speaks without thinking. Pulling out a checkbook in the middle of a crowded obstetrics department, trying to buy an abortion in front of dozens of people. Speaks without thinking. Maeve glanced at the glowing screen, let out a harsh scoff, and looked away. We checked out the next morning. Aunt Corinne's car idled right at the hospital entrance. I walked through the sliding glass doors, my overnight bag in hand. The morning sun was blinding. And there was Theron's car, blocking the entrance to the parking lot. The second he spotted me, he threw his door open and jogged over. His eyes darted straight to my stomach before snapping up to my face. "Are you okay? Why weren't you picking up your phone?" "There was nothing to talk about." "I yelled at my mom last night. What she did was out of line." "Yeah." "Just come home with me, okay? I swear to God she won't bother you again." "I'm not going back." "Elara, what exactly is it going to take for you to just sit down and talk to me?" he snapped, his frustration boiling over. The back door of the town car swung open. Aunt Corinne stepped out and planted herself right behind me. Theron stared at her, not placing her face. "And who is this?" Aunt Corinne didn't bother with an introduction. She gave him a cold, sweeping glance, then looked at me. "Get in the car." "Hold on a second." Theron reached out, trying to grab my arm. "Look me in the eye and tell me where you're going." "She doesn't report to you," Aunt Corinne deadpanned. Theron's brow furrowed. It was probably the first time in his life anyone had spoken to him like that. "Are you her family? Look, whatever is going on between Elara and me—" "There is nothing between you and Elle anymore," Aunt Corinne cut him off flatly. "She dumped you. She's raising these kids on her own, and they have absolutely nothing to do with the Kensington family. The fact that I haven't come after your mother for waving a checkbook around to force an abortion means I'm already being generous." All the color drained from Theron's face. "Paid her for an abortion? My mom did what?" "You didn't know?" Aunt Corinne looked at him with sheer pity. "There's a lot you don't know." She yanked the car door open. I slid into the back seat. The engine purred to life. As the car pulled away from the curb, I watched Theron in the rearview mirror. He was frozen in place, bathed in the blinding sunlight, looking like a man who had just taken a bullet and hadn't felt the pain yet. He shrank into the distance, smaller and smaller, until he vanished completely. I sank back into the plush leather, resting a hand gently over my stomach. "Once we get there," Aunt Corinne said softly, staring straight ahead, "you just focus on taking care of yourself." "I will."

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Business tycoon Kane spends years searching for his childhood protector, Summer. He finds her trapped in a miserable marriage, overweight and despondent. Kane forcibly rescues Summer from her pain, supporting her weight loss journey and helping her reclaim a brilliant life.

Chapter 1 The Countdown Ends By pure accident, I traveled back to three days before the apocalypse countdown ended. I traded away all my survival supplies for unwanted shovels and chainsaws. Everyone thought I was preparing to die. Only I knew the truth. Three days later, all humanity would be forcibly transported into a doomsday survival game where every stored resource would vanish instantly. Only tools could save your life. …… 2027 The moment the apocalypse countdown hit zero, a chime rang directly in Riley Carter's skull. "Welcome to the Extreme Cold Survival Game. "Earth no longer exists. This is your new home. This is your grave. "Survival rules are as follows. "1. Each player begins with one campfire. It is your only defense against the cold. If the campfire dies, you will be judged deceased by the system. Not that it matters—without the fire, you won't last anyway. "2. This is a real world. You can die from hunger. From exposure. From animal attack. "3. Supplies stockpiled in your previous world do not carry over. Only items on your person, or in direct physical contact at the moment of transfer, are retained. "4. Struggle to survive. It is your only hope." Riley's heart slammed against her ribs. Supplies didn't carry over? She looked down at herself. Workwear. Intact. And— She was still sitting on the three giant toolboxes. They sat solidly in the snow, dusted with powder, unmistakably here. "Whew." Riley let out a long breath. A white cloud dispersed in front of her face. Pity, though. During her renovations, she'd stocked those boxes with a lot of power tools. The expensive impact driver. The reciprocating saw. In a world with no electrical outlets, once those batteries died, they were just dead weight. But even so. The hand tools. The consumables. The sheer volume of stuff in those boxes—it was a treasure beyond measure in a place like this. Riley forced herself to calm down. She was here. She'd deal with it. Something new lived in her mind now. She concentrated, and a translucent pale-blue screen materialized in front of her eyes. Looked just like a video game HUD. "Personal Panel "Name: Riley Carter "ID: 1120-US "Level: 1 (Standard Survivor) "Strength: 8 (Years of manual labor have made you stronger than average) "Agility: 8 (You've got quick reflexes) "Constitution: 6 (You've been skipping meals lately) "Spirit: 9 (You keep your head when others panic) "Inventory: 16/16 slots (Base capacity)" "Inventory?" Riley studied the sixteen empty squares at the bottom of the display. She reached out, touched one of the toolboxes, and thought the word, "Store." Whoosh. The heavy box vanished. In its place, a tiny icon appeared in the first inventory slot, a miniature "x1" in the corner. "It actually worked." For the first time since arriving, a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Retrieve. Thud. The toolbox landed back in the snow, puffing up powder. No energy cost. No sense of weight. And in that inventory, she could carry anything, regardless of how heavy it was. Later on, when she went scavenging, that would make all the difference. Riley rubbed her stiff, freezing hands together and turned her attention to the campfire at her feet. It was the only warmth in this frozen wasteland. Hovering above the flames, visible only to her, were a few lines of glowing text. "Basic Campfire (Lv.1) "Remaining Burn Time: 05:28:00 "Current Coverage: Radius six feet (Blocks wind and snow) "Upgrade Requirements: Wood x50, Stone x20, Coal x10, Steel x5 "Description: This is your life. Do not let it die. Upgrading expands your safe zone and unlocks additional construction options." "Needs upgrading." Riley frowned. Wood and stone she could probably find. But coal? Steel? Out here in the middle of nowhere? A flash of movement caught her eye. A small wooden box, half-buried in the snow not far from the fire. The starter crate. Had to be. Riley didn't rush. First, she pulled the claw hammer from her belt—the one she always kept there, habit from years of work—and gripped it tight. She scanned the tree line. Listened past the wind. Nothing moved. No sounds but the storm. She walked over quickly, crouched by the box. No lock. She pried the lid open with the claw end of her hammer. Inside, a handful of items. "Obtained: Iron Axe x1 "Obtained: Stale Dark Bread x2 "Obtained: 500ml Bottled Water x1 "Obtained: Kindling x5 "Obtained: Insulated Field Jacket x1 "Obtained: Utility Rope (25ft) "Obtained: Thermal Underwear (Set) x2 Not much. Barely anything. Riley picked up one of the dark loaves. It was rock hard. She examined the jacket—basic, but warm-looking. "So this is what a standard survivor starts with." At least the system had thought of everything. Including the underwear. She'd half-expected to wake up naked in the snow; at least she didn't have to worry about that. She stored everything in her inventory, then shrugged on the field jacket. The temperature shift was brutal. Even those few seconds exposed had left her hands numb. Hypothermia would set in fast out here. Jacket on, she hurried back to the campfire. She pulled the five units of Kindling from her inventory and tossed them onto the flames. The fire roared higher. Warmth flooded over her. "Fuel added. Remaining Burn Time: 10:28:00" Ten hours. If she didn't move fast, in ten hours she'd freeze to death on this ice field. And the game had made it clear—if the fire died, the system would judge her dead. Whether she actually froze or not. Riley lifted her head and scanned the landscape. She was in a sparse coniferous forest. Barely alive trees, crusted with frost, dotted the area not far from her position. "Wood." A slow smile spread across her face. She patted the toolbox beside her. "Other people might have axes. But felling a tree with just an axe takes hours. Exhausts you." She unlatched the box. Pulled out the chainsaw. Checked the battery gauge—full. "I've got a handsaw in here too. And a chainsaw with a full charge." The battery wouldn't last forever. But it would last long enough to give her a massive head start. In this race for survival, that was everything. Chapter 2 The Chainsaw The wind screamed across the open ground, picking up loose snow and flinging it against her goggles like sand. It sounded like static. Riley had pulled her basic work gear from the toolbox before heading out. Now she stood in the snow, surrounded by clusters of thin conifers that looked half-dead already. She took a breath. The air burned going down. "Zzzzzzz—!!!" She squeezed the trigger. The orange-and-black lithium-ion chainsaw in her hands roared to life, the chain spinning so fast it blurred. She buried the teeth in the nearest pine trunk. Wood chips exploded everywhere. Fragrant shavings—still wet with resin—scattered across the pristine snow, stark and yellow against all that white. Five seconds. Crack. The pine tree, thick as her arm, groaned and tilted. Then it fell slow and heavy into a drift, sending up a puff of powder. "God bless modern technology." Riley shook out her wrist—the vibration had numbed her fingers—and allowed herself a small smile. Without that chainsaw, with just the basic iron axe the system had given her, felling a tree frozen solid like this would have taken twenty minutes minimum. And it would have left her soaked with sweat. In subzero temps, sweat was a death sentence. Once your base layers got wet, the moment you stopped moving, your body temperature would plummet. Hypothermia would follow fast. Riley didn't waste time celebrating. She knew the saw in her hands was a hungry machine. She'd brought two spare high-capacity batteries, sure, but until she found a way to recharge them, every second the motor ran was borrowed time. She had to gather as much wood as possible before the batteries gave out. "Zzzzz—Zzzzz—" At the edge of the forest, the chainsaw's snarl rose and fell, shattering the frozen silence. Riley worked like she was possessed. Fell a tree. Move to the next. Fell another. But she had to stay alert—watch for hidden snow pits underfoot, keep adjusting her collar against the wind that kept finding its way down her neck. Her stamina drained faster than she'd anticipated. In extreme cold, body burned through calories just to stay alive. Added walking through knee-deep snow, where every step took three times the energy of walking on pavement, and the math got ugly fast. Pretty soon, Riley was breathing hard. Her breath fogged the inside of her goggles, and she had to keep wiping them clear. "Zzzzz..." She was mid-cut on a tree—didn't even know which number anymore—when the chainsaw's roar stuttered. Died. The chain jammed solid in the wood. A red light blinked at her. Dead battery. Riley yanked the saw free and patted its housing. "Good work, buddy." Genuine regret in her voice. She straightened up and looked around. Pine trunks lay scattered across the snow in every direction. A decent haul. She counted silently. "Twenty-three total." Then the next problem hit her. According to the system, until she actually possessed these logs, they were still just natural resources. That meant they didn't qualify for Inventory storage. She couldn't just snap her fingers and make them disappear. She had to drag them back to camp. Riley grabbed the nearest pine and tried to pull. Heavy. Like, unreasonably heavy. Fresh-cut wood was full of moisture. Add the branches catching in the snow, dragging like anchors, and she felt like she was hauling a dead body through mud. "Huff... huff..." She gritted her teeth, looped rope around the trunk, slung it over her shoulder, leaned forward, and started walking. Inch by inch. The tree line to her campfire was maybe fifty yards. Right now, it felt like fifty miles. By the time she'd wrestled the fourth tree back into the fire's warm radius, she was wrecked. Her legs felt like someone had filled them with concrete. Her lungs burned from hauling freezing air through them. "Can't... can't do more." Riley made the call. She stopped. Those nineteen trees still out there in the snow—they called to her. Tempted her. But if she kept pushing without rest, without fuel for herself, she'd collapse out there. And out there, collapse meant death. She dropped down next to the big wooden crate that had held her starter supplies. It was less than three feet from the campfire. The flames danced orange and red, pumping out heat that felt like heaven. The shift from frozen to warm made her shiver violently. She pulled off her goggles and thick gloves, set them near the fire to warm up, then—still shaking—pulled the half-empty water bottle from her Inventory. Took a small sip. Then the bread. Two black bricks that looked more like construction material than food. "Crunch." Riley bit off a piece with effort. It was coarse. Tasted like sawdust with a hint of burnt toast. Bitter. But it was calories. Carbs. Fuel for her own fire. She forced herself to chew, swallow. When the food hit her stomach, warmth finally started spreading through her core. The uncontrollable shaking eased. After half a loaf, Riley leaned back against the crate. Her eyelids drooped. Post-exhaustion crash hit her like a wave. The campfire crackled. The wind seemed farther away now. Muffled. She really wanted to sleep... Her head nodded. Her body started sliding sideways. "Wait—" Some animal instinct jolted her awake just before she went under. She pinched her thigh. Hard. Then looked up at the timer floating above the flames. "Shelter Level 1 "Campfire Burn Time Remaining: 06:28:00" Six and a half hours. If she slept too deep, too long, and that fire went out—what then? Even ignoring the obvious—that she'd freeze to death in this hellhole without a heat source—the game rules were clear. When the campfire hits zero, it's game over. "No sleeping. Not allowed." Riley slapped her own cheeks, forced herself upright. She stayed near the fire, but she didn't take off her heavy work clothes. She remembered reading something once, a survival article. "In the late stages of hypothermia, your hypothalamus malfunctions. You get a false sensation of heat. It's called "paradoxical undressing"—people strip down right before they freeze to death." "Okay. Process these four. Keep the fire fed." She pulled a traditional handsaw from the toolbox. Looking at the four thick pine logs on the ground, she almost laughed. Without power tools, breaking these down into burnable pieces would take at least half an hour. Burn the little energy she had left. But what choice did she have? Riley knelt in the snow, positioned the blade against the trunk, and was about to start cutting— A soft white light shot out from the system panel on her chest. It washed over the logs. "Ding! "Detected felled, intact logs within shelter range. "Perform quick recovery?" Riley's hand froze mid-saw. Quick recovery? It took her a second to process. Then relief flooded through her so hard she almost cried. "Yes! Recover!" She didn't hesitate. The next moment, something impossible happened. The four pine trunks—the ones she'd have to saw and split by hand, the ones that represented hours of brutal labor—dissolved into pale blue light particles. Not into dust. Into neat, uniform logs that stacked themselves automatically in her Inventory. The branches, the needles, all the useless parts—purified out of existence. "Recovery successful! "Obtained: Common Wood x20" Riley's eyes went wide, staring at the perfect lumber in her inventory display. Looked like it came straight from a hardware store. "One tree gives five units of wood? "And I don't have to cut it myself?" This changed everything. It meant she only had to handle the felling and the dragging. Once a log crossed into her camp's boundary, the system recognized it as hers. The most time-consuming part—the processing—just... didn't exist anymore. Riley immediately grabbed five units of wood and fed them to the fire. Whoosh. The flames leaped, hungry and grateful. "Fuel added. "Campfire Burn Time Remaining: 12:20:00" "Five logs, five hours..." She did the math fast, looking at the fifteen units still on the ground. If she threw all of those in, that'd be another fifteen hours. Total of twenty-seven. She could sleep like the dead right now, and that fire would still be burning when she woke up. Security. For the first time since the world ended, Riley felt something like security. She selected the remaining wood. Deposited it all. Watched the countdown tick up to a very comfortable "27:20:00". Then her nerves finally let go. She dragged one of the toolboxes into position to block the wind, wrapped the field jacket tight around herself, pulled her hat down over her eyes, leaned back against the warm crate, and let the crackle of the fire pull her under. ***** She didn't sleep long. When she opened her eyes again, the sky was still that same dull gray-white. Impossible to tell if it was morning or afternoon. System clock said three hours. Her body ached. Shoulders and arms especially—felt like she'd gone ten rounds with someone. But her head was clear. She stretched her stiff neck and stood up. The snow seemed lighter. The feathery flakes had tapered off into sporadic icy grains. Riley ate a little more, got some fuel back in the tank, then stepped outside the campfire's warmth. The fire's effect wasn't what she'd expected. It wasn't that the temperature gradually dropped as you moved away. It was sharper than that. Like there was an invisible barrier around the flames. Inside, livable. Outside, the cold hit you like a wall. She wandered a little way off. The cold found every gap in her clothing. She thought about going farther, exploring. But there was nothing visible except that stand of trees she'd already worked. Maybe stuff was buried under the snow, but she couldn't see it. "No proper snow boots. Not going far." Riley glanced at the endless white distance with real regret. "Don't get greedy. Get those nineteen trees first." She turned. Looked at the woods. Her loot was still out there. And now she knew: if she could drag them back into the campfire's circle, the system would cash them out automatically. "Time to work." Riley rubbed her hands together. Let the motivation build. For the next few hours, she became a machine. Drag a tree to camp. Recover it. Go back for another. Repeat. It was boring. Exhausting. But watching those logs turn into numbers in her inventory—that feeling was hard to describe. Satisfying, in a way nothing had been satisfying in a long time. When the last pine trunk crossed into the light and dissolved into particles, Riley just collapsed. Lay flat in the snow and stared at the gray sky. She pulled up her Inventory. The once-empty slots were full now. Stack after stack of wood icons. "Item: Common Wood "Quantity: 80 "Description: Basic survival resource. Can be used for fuel or construction." Eighty units. Plus what was already burning in the campfire. Her day's work had yielded a clean hundred. One unit of wood burned for one hour. Riley looked at the flames dancing in front of her. Felt the heat on her face. Let herself smile, wide and real. "One hundred hours." Four full days. While everyone else was probably still panicking. Crying. Begging. Trying to figure out how to survive their first night in this frozen nightmare... She, Riley, had enough fuel stockpiled to last four days. Which meant: for the next ninety-six hours, unless she actively chose to die, nobody and nothing could put her fire out. She pulled the half-empty water bottle from Inventory. The space must have been insulated somehow—the water was still warm. Almost body temperature. She sipped it. Tasted sweet, even though it was just tap water. "Okay. Next step." Her gaze settled on the "Upgrade" button on the campfire panel. This open-air setup was fine for now. But if she was going to survive long-term, she needed something better. A real shelter. All she needed was a little stone. Some coal. Some steel. Then she could build something worth calling home. Chapter 3 The Trading Game The blizzard howled outside, but within the six-foot radius of the campfire, the air stayed surprisingly warm—like the wind had hit an invisible wall and just couldn't reach. Riley leaned back against the dusty wooden crate, holding the half-empty water bottle in her hand. She stared into the flames for a moment, then focused her attention inward. The pale blue system panel unfolded in front of her eyes again. Now that the immediate crisis was handled, she finally had time to sit quietly and really explore this so-called "Survival System". Beyond the personal stats and inventory, the bottom of the panel had a row of function icons: Server Channel, Friends List, Trading Market, and Crafting Manual. Friends List was empty. No surprise there. She hadn't exactly been a social butterfly back in the old world, and she sure as hell wasn't going to make friends easily in a frozen hellscape where everyone was fighting for their next breath. She tapped into the "Server Channel". A line of numbers appeared in the top left. "Server: US-008 "Current Online: 9911/10000" Ten thousand people started. Less than ten hours in, eighty-nine were already gone. "That doesn't add up." Everyone's starter crate came with a rusty iron axe and five units of wood. Plus the initial fuel the campfire had when they arrived—that alone bought them ten hours minimum, even if they just sat there doing nothing. What the hell did those people do to get eliminated so fast? The channel was moving fast, messages scrolling by every second. Desperation dripped from every line. "Someone help, I'm freezing my ass off out here. This stupid axe can't cut sh*t—every swing just bounces off and rattles my whole arm. Can anyone spare a couple logs? My dad's a senior VP at Walker Group. I'll wire you a million dollars when we get back, I swear." "Wake up, buddy. If your dad's still alive, he's out there chopping trees right now too." "Don't even talk to me. I spotted a wooden crate in the snow earlier, got all excited, ran over—and before I got within ten feet, some white rabbit thing jumped out of a drift. Teeth like needles. Almost took a chunk out of my leg. Missed the crate, wasted all that energy for nothing." "I saw that too! Random crates spawn in the wild. I opened a wooden one and got two chocolate bars and some coal." Reading through the chaos, Riley picked out two keywords, "Random Reward Crates" and "Dangerous Creatures". So this world was deeper than she thought. Wooden crates, copper crates—these randomly spawning resource points were the real way to get ahead. Coal came from crates. That was useful to know. And if coal was in crates, steel probably was too. But something bothered her. According to what people were saying, reward crates weren't exactly rare. So why hadn't she found a single one during her lumber run? She doubted it was just bad luck. Riley exited chat and tapped into the "Trading Market". "Seller: MountainMan88 Item: Stone x2 Wants: White Bread x5" "Seller: LoneWolf_21 Item: Cotton Cloth Wants: Clean Water" "Seller: NotDeadYet Item: Wood x3 Wants: Anything edible" Most people were trading for food and wood. The stuff that kept you alive right now. Things like stone and cloth were getting dumped cheap—nobody had the luxury of thinking long-term. Riley looked at her own inventory. Eighty units of wood staring back at her. Her heart beat a little faster. In this opening phase, where wood literally meant the difference between life and death, the resources in her hands were basically gold bars. "Time to trade," she muttered to herself. "Coal, steel—can't get those from chopping trees. And right now, wood's at maximum value. If I wait, the exchange rate shifts." Even with the chainsaw dead, she still had the handsaw. Less efficient, sure, but she could gather more wood if she needed it. Short-term, she wasn't going to run out. She clicked to post a message in the channel. "System Prompt: Detected that you have not set a virtual ID. Please enter your nickname (cannot be changed after setting)." Riley stared at the blank input box. Naming things was the worst. She sat there for a long time, nothing coming to mind. Finally, she gave up. Couldn't think of anything cool or clever, so she'd just go with something random. Her fingers tapped across the virtual keyboard—SpicyBurger. "Setting successful. ID locked." The prompt closed. Riley posted her message. "SpicyBurger: Selling wood in bulk. Looking for: Coal, Steel, High-calorie food. DM me with offers—what you have and your rate. Good deals go fast, don't sleep on this." For three seconds after the message appeared, the channel went dead silent. Then it exploded. "SpicyBurger? That name's making me hungry, what the hell." "Never mind the name—'wood in bulk'! We got a whale in here! Everyone else is stressing about the next hour and this person's already running a business?" "I need some! My campfire's down to like two hours. I don't know if I actually die when it hits zero but I don't wanna find out." Suddenly, half the channel was scrambling for wood. But then the skeptics crawled out. "Hang on. Everyone started with the same rusty axe. Chopping a tree in this weather takes twenty, thirty minutes minimum. Where's she getting 'bulk' wood from? Sounds like a scam." "InvincibleWarrior: Everybody chill. Look at that ID—sounds like a girl's handle. I'm a grown man, been busting my ass, and I've only got like ten logs saved up. My hands are shredded. Some girl with a food name claims she's got bulk? She's trying to run a game. Scam people out of their stuff." "Iron_Tough: Agreed. Scammers made it through the apocalypse too, I guess. My advice: ignore her. Don't get played. How much wood can a woman chop anyway? Probably can't even lift the axe right, lol." Riley scrolled through the messages, expression flat. She almost laughed. But some people pushed back. "FishHater44: How is it a scam? If she doesn't deliver, you don't complete the trade. Just 'cause you can't chop that much wood doesn't mean nobody can." Riley nodded slightly. That one had a point. But she didn't waste energy arguing in the channel. Instead, she flipped on Do Not Disturb for private messages—only allowing chat requests that included a trade offer. Some people didn't actually care whether she had wood. They just couldn't stand seeing someone else do well. "Ding. Ding. Ding." Private messages started pouring in like rain. Most players weren't idiots. Faced with the very real threat of freezing to death, they'd try anything for a chance. Riley opened the first one. "Windwalker: I got "Coal x3" from a crate. How much wood can I get for it? I can't chop anymore. The wind out here is insane. I tried to throw the coal in my fire but it just kept popping back out. System says my campfire level's too low, won't let me use it. I'm out of wood. My fire's almost dead." Riley thought for a moment. "Three coal for five wood. Deal?" She hadn't known about that restriction. Coal was supposed to be better fuel than wood—didn't expect the game to lock it behind a level gate. The reply came instantly, "Deal. But five wood feels light. It's coal." The guy was conflicted. He knew coal had value, but he was desperate. "I'll make it six. Final offer." Riley wasn't sure about coal's real value yet. Six was her limit. "Fine. Deal." They both dropped their items into the trade window. A moment later, it completed. A flash of white light. Riley's inventory lost six wood. Gained three chunks of coal, each about the size of a small melon. One down. "CrunchyFrog: Hey, I got two "Iron Ingots" from a crate. System calls them "Scrap Steel". Can I get eight wood for them? Trying to stock up enough to sleep through the night." Riley replied, "Sure. Initiate." In just over ten minutes, her wood stockpile dropped significantly. But her inventory filled up with good stuff. "Coal x10 "Stone x23 "Scrap Steel x5 "Raw Meat x2 "White Bread x2 "Basic Torch Blueprint x1" The blueprint was new. The description said it was required for crafting certain items. Seemed useful, so she'd traded for it. Meanwhile, back in the channel, that "InvincibleWarrior" guy who'd been mocking her earlier seemed to notice that people were actually completing trades. His tone got bitter. "InvincibleWarrior: Whatever. She probably got lucky with a high-tier crate. Let's see how long her stock lasts. Once the wood's gone, she'll be begging me to let her join my group." The people who'd successfully traded with Riley popped into the channel to thank her. That might have been fine—except the thanks caused problems. Since Riley had stopped trading for now, most people hadn't gotten anything. And the sky was darkening. Temperature outside the campfire radius was dropping fast. Gathering wood was getting harder. Trading was their only hope. The ones who'd pinned everything on Riley, seeing her stop, started losing it. "You said 'in bulk'! You did like five trades and quit. What are we supposed to do now?" "Keep trading! My fire's almost out. You want us to go chop trees in the dark?" "If you couldn't deliver, why'd you post? Showing off and then hiding." Whether it was coordinated or just genuine rage, the number of people defending Riley in the channel shrank fast. Mostly it was attacks now. Accusations of being irresponsible. Using scarcity tactics. Playing games with people's lives. Riley closed the channel. She couldn't be bothered. In a life-or-death situation like this, people losing it was normal. If she actually had unlimited resources, she'd trade more. But she didn't. And back on Earth, nobody had ever handed her anything out of charity. She wasn't about to start playing savior now. She looked down at the "Basic Torch Blueprint" in her inventory. "Requirements: Wood x10, Kerosene, Scrap Steel x2" Note: Requires Level 2 Workbench to craft." She leaned back against the crate again. Felt the weight of her stockpile pressing back against that lingering sense of unease. In this world, your ID didn't matter. Your gender didn't matter either. What mattered was who held the resources. She looked at what she had left: 36 units of wood. Plus the steel, coal, and stone from trading. Time to plan. Upgrading to a Level 2 campfire required 55 wood. She had all the other materials. For the wood, she'd just have to use the handsaw tomorrow and gather a little more. That settled, she pulled a few more logs from inventory and arranged them on top of the crate, making a small enclosed space. Curled up inside it, she watched the sky outside slowly darken to black. Her eyes grew heavy. She drifted off. Chapter 4 The Culling Riley woke to the kind of soreness that made you reconsider ever moving again. She'd slept like the dead—no dreams, no blizzard, just nothing. When she opened her eyes, the first things she saw were the logs she'd stacked as a windbreak and the steady glow of the campfire. She tried to stretch. Big mistake. Every muscle in her body lit up at once, screaming in protest. "Sh*t." Riley sucked air through her teeth and pressed a hand to her aching shoulder. Her lower back felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to it. Yesterday's work had been too much. She wasn't weak—far from it—but she was still human. The lactic acid had settled in overnight, and now she moved like an arthritic tin man. At least she was alive. She stowed the windbreak logs back in her inventory and looked around. The world hadn't changed. Same dull gray sky. Same swirling snow. Outside the six-foot radius of the fire, the drifts looked deeper than yesterday. The wind had been busy. Riley pulled out the half-empty water bottle and wet her throat. Then she retrieved the white bread she'd traded for yesterday. Compared to that dense, flavorless black bread, this was practically cake. She tore off small pieces, letting the faint sweetness dissolve on her tongue, and habitually opened the "Server Channel". She stopped chewing. The number in the top left hit her like a physical blow. "Current Online Players: 4968/10000" "Five thousand..." Riley's eyes went wide. In a single night, that number had been cut in half. Five thousand people. Gone. Winked out of existence on this frozen ice field while she slept. "Ding." The system notification cut through her thoughts—cold, emotionless, like it was announcing the weather. "Global Announcement: Congratulations to all survivors for successfully surviving the first day. "This was a culling. Last night eliminated those fools who failed to add fuel to their fires or refused to gather wood. Remember: in this place, tears mean nothing. When you die here, you're dead-dead. "You who remain are the lucky ones. "Grace Period: A five-day 'New Player Support Period' now begins. For the next five days, your initial supply crates will refresh daily with a fixed amount of food. "Special Reward: Each survivor receives one pair of "Standard Issue Snow Boots (Common)". Be grateful for this mercy. Enjoy the game." The words sat there on her screen. Fools. Mercy. The system's tone dripped with contempt. The math was simple. Starting package: five hours of fuel. Initial gift: five units of wood, another five hours. Total ten hours, if you did absolutely nothing. The ones who'd frozen to death last night—they were the ones who'd clung to hope. The ones too scared to move. The ones who'd told themselves someone would save them. Five thousand people. One night. Gone. This wasn't a game. It was a slaughter. In the channel, the survivors who'd made it through were clearly rattled by the numbers too. "Holy sh*t... My friend's icon went dark last night. Does that mean he's dead? Actually dead?" "I can't do this. I don't wanna play anymore, I wanna go home. I swear I'll work today. I'll chop wood, I'll do whatever, just please—" "Everyone move! Don't save your strength! If you die, that's it. No respawns!" Panic spread fast. But almost immediately, the tone shifted. The fear found a target. "That SpicyBurger—if she'd shared more wood yesterday, would so many people have died?" "For real. If she had extra, why not just give it away? Why did it have to be trades? She could've at least loaned some out." "This is what happens when people hoard resources and watch others freeze. Remember that name. Don't trade with her. Ever." Riley frowned. Here we go again. She scrolled up. Sure enough, there it was—that familiar ID: "InvincibleWarrior". He was going hard in the channel. "She's profiting off suffering. That's what some people do. Women like that are the worst—hoarding supplies while people die around them. Wait and see. Someone like her won't last." Riley laughed. Actually laughed out loud. Moral blackmail. In the apocalypse. She typed, "If you want wood, go cut it yourself. I'm not your mommy. No amount of crying in chat is gonna put logs in your inventory. You'd get more done if you just picked up your d*mn axe." The channel went quiet for a second. Then the reasonable voices piped up. "She's right. Nobody owes you anything. Work for it." "Exactly. Just 'cause someone's quiet doesn't mean they're an easy target." In a world where staying alive took everything you had, expecting charity was the dumbest move of all. Riley didn't waste more energy on it. People like that—the more you engaged, the more they thrived. Let him run his mouth. She had bigger things to worry about. She closed the channel and turned to the big wooden crate—her initial supply point. Sure enough, new items had materialized inside. "Bottled Water x3 "White Bread x3 "Fresh Orange Juice x1 "Standard Snow Boots x1" "Orange juice?" Riley picked up the bottle, genuinely surprised. The orange liquid inside sloshed gently. Vitamins. The system was actually giving them vitamins. She pulled off her old shoes—already damp and cold—and swapped into the new boots. They were clunky, sure. But they gripped the snow, and the insulation was real. The chill that had been seeping up through her soles disappeared instantly. Next, she opened her toolbox. Goggles on. Thick cut-resistant gloves. Head-to-toe gear. "Time to work." The channel noise faded from her mind. She had one priority today, and it wasn't arguing with idiots. She picked up the chainsaw and headed back to the tree line. The cold played tricks on batteries. She'd known that, intellectually. But knowing it and feeling it were different things. After just eight trees, the last spare battery gave out. The chainsaw stuttered, died, and went silent in her hands. Riley stared at it. "Son of a b*tch." Chapter 5 Dead Battery Riley stared at the dead chainsaw in her hands and shook her head. Without power, it was just an expensive paperweight. If she wanted more wood, she'd have to do it the old-fashioned way—pick up the axe or the manual handsaw from the toolbox and go to war with frozen timber. But eight more trees were eight more trees. Her stockpile was looking healthy. "First things first. Get these back." She sucked it up, stowed the chainsaw in her inventory, and started hauling. Her body screamed even louder than yesterday. Every muscle felt like it had been replaced with concrete. She dragged each log back one at a time, moving like a zombie. Drag. Rest two minutes. Drag again. The wind howled in her ears. Riley lost track of time, lost track of everything except the mechanical rhythm of work. By the time the sun was high—not that you could really see it through the clouds—she dragged the last log into the campfire's radius. It dissolved into light, absorbed by the system. Riley all but collapsed into the snow. "Acquired: Wood x40" She lay there for a moment, chest heaving, staring at the number in her inventory. A tired smile crept across her face. She had enough. Combined with the coal and steel from yesterday's trades, she had everything she needed for the upgrade. Riley forced herself upright and walked to the campfire. On the floating translucent panel, the "Upgrade" button glowed that tempting gold. "Upgrade Primitive Shelter to Lv.2? "Cost: Wood x50, Stone x20, Coal x10, Scrap Steel x5 "Remaining after upgrade: Wood x16, Stone x3, Coal x0, Steel x0" "Upgrade." Riley took a breath and pressed it. "Hmmmm—!" A blinding white light erupted from the heart of the campfire, swallowing everything. Riley squeezed her eyes shut. No explosion. No thunder. Just a sound like Legos snapping together. A few seconds later, the light faded. Riley opened her eyes. And stopped breathing. The campfire wasn't just a campfire anymore. The rough stone ring had transformed into something neat and intentional—a proper firepit with a stone border for insulation, a place to set things, even a simple steel grate attached to the side. But that wasn't the big news. The heat that used to push back the cold within a six-foot radius now stretched a full fifteen feet. Inside that circle, snow was actively melting, revealing dark frozen soil underneath. In one corner, she spotted a patch of moss stubbornly poking through. Riley spun around. Behind the big wooden crate, a small log cabin stood waiting. It wasn't much—maybe forty feet square, built from rough-hewn logs. Nothing fancy. But it was solid. Four walls and a roof, blocking wind and snow completely. Riley walked over and pushed open the heavy wooden door. Warm air hit her face. Inside was simple: a wooden bed frame piled with dry grass, a crude workbench, a chair, and a small fireplace connected to a chimney that ran up through the roof. Rustic. But right now, it was heaven. Wood and fire. Four walls. A roof. Home. Riley ran her hand along the rough wall. Her eyes stung a little. She wouldn't have to sleep in the open anymore. Wouldn't have to wake up every few hours to check the fire. Wouldn't have to worry about freezing to death in her sleep. Right on cue, the server announcement chimed. Gold text this time, blazing right in the center of everyone's vision. "Server Announcement: Congratulations to player SpicyBurger for being the first to achieve "Level 2 Shelter". Rewards have been distributed." The chat channel, which had been wallowing in fear and despair, exploded. "Holy sh*t? Level 2 already? What does Level 2 unlock? Can you post pics, big shot?" "That's the wood seller from yesterday? No way. Absolute legend." "Carry me please! SpicyBurger, I'll be your loyal follower. I can cook, I can clean, I can—" "Teach us, master! How'd you gather materials so fast? What's your secret?" Compliments. Pleas. Desperate attempts to get noticed. And then, of course, the sour grapes. "InvincibleWarrior: Big deal. Just profiteering off everyone else's suffering. If she'd shared that wood instead of selling it, maybe those five thousand people would still be alive. How does it feel to climb on corpses?" "GodLovesMeFirst: Seriously. Building your success on other people's deaths. Karma's real. She'll get hers." Riley's jaw tightened. If InvincibleWarrior had been standing in front of her right now, she'd have knocked his teeth out. Guys like him—useless themselves, but always ready to tear down anyone who actually accomplished something. Sewer rats. Her private messages exploded too. She'd set it to only accept trade offers, but people had found a workaround—using the "trade note" function to send spam. "Hey beautiful, I'm a personal trainer. Great shape. Wanna see? Hit me with some wood and I'll do a voice call with you!" A photo of some guy flexing in a mirror, shirt off. Riley glanced at it, unimpressed. Decent abs. Pathetic attitude. Dude was clearly strong enough to chop wood—why was he wasting time on this? She'd never mentioned her gender, so most people probably assumed anyone who'd gathered that much wood must be a guy. The messages reflected that assumption. Some women sent selfies too, trying to flirt their way into favor. Didn't matter. Shameless cut across all demographics. From the backgrounds in the photos, everyone seemed to be in different locations. But one thing was consistent: they all had trees nearby. The system must have arranged that—a new player perk. "A bunch of degenerates." Riley's face went cold. She changed her privacy settings to "Friends Only". Then she added a line to her trading post description. "No spam. Send junk, get blocked." Silence. Blessed silence. She took a breath, let the noise drain away, and focused on what mattered. "First-place upgrade reward..." She opened her inventory. Sitting there, glowing faintly purple, was a gift box. She excitedly opened the gift box, only to find that inside was... For more exciting content, please download the "JoyRead" app to continue reading.

It breaks my heart when I see honest Americans rushed into the ER with an A1C level over 9. So many of us are going blind, losing limbs, and ending up on dialysis from Type 2 diabetes. And the worst part is, it is because of a hidden "Metabolic Clog" that starts the moment we cross age 40. My name is Dr. Robert Miller. I am a Board-Certified Endocrinologist specializing in diabetes and metabolic disorders. I have spent over 20 years working with patients who are dealing with severe Type 2 diabetes. I am writing this because I am tired of watching men and women over 40 come through my clinic with an A1C over 9... already losing their vision, already losing feeling in their feet, already fighting wounds that refuse to heal. Let me be blunt: the diabetes industry is valued at $116 BILLION dollars. That is a billion with a B. And most of that money comes from us folks over the age of 40. Once we cross that milestone, our risk of seeing our A1C spiral out of control skyrockets by nearly 50% compared to younger adults. The industry views us as an ATM. They make most of their money selling you metformin and insulin shots to manage the symptoms, but they never tell you how to actually lower the A1C at the cellular level. So they have ZERO incentive to tell you what actually causes your A1C to climb as we age... or how to actually stop the damage. Instead, they dish out basic advice like “eat more protein and avoid carbs”. Knowing that none of that stuff actually fixes the ROOT CAUSE of why your average blood sugar stays so high once you hit middle age. In fact, financial analysts are already projecting that the diabetes industry will be worth $283 billion in the next 10 years. Where will all that growth come from? It will come from the millions of people over 40 whose A1C is creeping into the danger zone right now and they do not even know it. People like us! There is a specific biological reason why we develop a Metabolic Clog as we age. It has nothing to do with willpower. As we age, our bodies lose the ability to process the specific nutrients that keep our "insulin receptors" open. Research from major institutions shows that after we cross age 40, our internal "signal relay" begins to fail. When our metabolic health declines with age, two specific things happen that keep your A1C dangerously elevated. 👉 1. Our Insulin Receptors "Rust" Shut According to studies published in the Journal of Molecular Biochemistry, our cells have a protein called IRS-1 (Insulin Receptor Substrate 1). This protein is like the "doorbell" for our cells. It tells them to open up and let glucose in for energy. As we age, if we lack specific micronutrients, that "doorbell" breaks. The insulin keeps ringing, but nobody inside the house can hear it. This means sugar stays in your blood for months at a time... which is exactly what a high A1C measurement is tracking. 👉 2. The Pancreatic "Plague" When our pancreas sees all this sugar building up, it goes into panic mode. It starts overproducing insulin at five to ten times the normal rate. Every time our pancreas secretes insulin, it also secretes a protein called Amylin. When our system is clogged, our bodies cannot clear the Amylin fast enough. It begins to aggregate into toxic "amyloid plaques" directly within our pancreatic tissue. These plaques physically suffocate our healthy cells. Eventually, our pancreas just gives up, and your A1C hits the point of no return. At this point, your A1C climbs: 7.5%... 8.2%... sometimes over 9%. This triggers Type 2 diabetes, which starts destroying everything. That includes the following: 🔴 1. YOUR VISION High A1C levels mean your blood is thick with sugar 24/7, causing the vessels in your eyes to leak and bleed. At first, we might notice our vision getting a little blurry. Then one day we wake up and realize we can barely see anything anymore. 🔴 2. YOUR KIDNEYS Our kidneys have to filter that high-A1C blood every second of the day. The tiny filtering units (nephrons) get damaged and start failing. At that point, we need dialysis to survive. 3 times a week. 4 hours each session. For the rest of our lives. 🔴 3. YOUR NERVES A high A1C damages the protective coating around your nerve fibers. It starts with tingling in your feet and hands. Then the tingling turns into burning pain. Then we lose feeling entirely. Small injuries turn into ulcers that refuse to heal. 🔴 4. YOUR HEART Unmanaged A1C levels damage our blood vessels and accelerate arterial calcification. In fact, 68% of us over 65 die from heart disease. Now, you might be thinking, "I'll just go buy a bottle of Berberine or Cinnamon from the drugstore." ❌ DO NOT DO THAT. Standard supplements just try to mask your blood sugar. To actually "unclog" a 40+ metabolism and drop your A1C, you need a professional-grade synergy of compounds. That is why I recommend True Nutra Blood Sugar Complex. It is a specific "Complex" because it targets the three stages of metabolic failure: ✅ The Unclogger (Berberine HCL & Panax Ginseng): These flip our "Metabolic Master Switch" (AMPK) to repair the IRS-1 doorbell so your cells can finally pull sugar out of the blood and lower your A1C naturally. ✅ The Transport (Ceylon Cinnamon & Chromium): These act as the delivery trucks, ensuring our cells can actually "grab" the insulin and stabilize our 3-month sugar average. ✅ The Fiber Barrier (Glucomannan): This creates a natural gel in the stomach that slows down sugar absorption, preventing the spikes that send your A1C into the red zone. ✅ The Inflammatory Guard (Turmeric & Bitter Melon): These dissolve the inflammation and plaques that suffocate our pancreas while mimicking the action of insulin. We need the whole team. If we miss one, the "clog" remains and your A1C stays high. What my patients experience within the first 8 weeks: ✅ Week 1 - 2: Post-meal energy crashes disappear. No more falling asleep on the couch after lunch. Energy stabilizes throughout the day. ✅ Week 3 - 4: When they check their daily numbers, they are in a healthy range. 85-95 mg/dL instead of creeping toward the diabetic range. ✅ Week 5 - 6: The body begins to clear out the metabolic fog, and A1C levels start to trend downward into a solidly non-diabetic range. ✅ Week 7 - 8: They feel like they have reclaimed their health. They have "dodged the bullet" that takes out so many people in their 50s and 60s. Now, before I made this post, I reached out to the good folks over at True Nutra to tell them I was going to expose what I am seeing happening to honest Americans over 40 with high A1C levels. They were so moved that they wanted to help get this supplement into the hands of more people who have been ignored by the system. So right now, they have set up a special link where you can get a supply of True Nutra Blood Sugar Complex for just $27.95. That is a massive 69% discount. BUT... it gets even better. You see, True Nutra knows that usually, when one person sees their A1C climbing... they might also have a wife, a husband, or just people they care about who are also at risk. So for a limited time, they are doing a Buy One Get One FREE offer at the same price of $27.95. That means you can get a bottle for yourself and a bottle for your spouse or family member for next to nothing. They are practically giving it away because they know once you see your A1C drop back to a healthy range... you will want to be a customer for life. So if you would like to give it a try... click here to check if it is still available: 👉 https://truenutrahealth.com/products/fb-en-bsc001 I know they sell out pretty quickly, so do yourself a favor and take advantage of the 69% discount + buy one get one free offer before they sell out. And the best part about all this is they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. Which means you can try True Nutra Blood Sugar Complex for 30 days... and if you do not feel a massive difference or see your numbers improve, they will refund every penny. So don't wait until you are diagnosed with diabetes. Don't wait until you are going blind, on dialysis, or losing a limb. We have to take care of our own health because the system isn't going to do it for us. Click the link below to check if True Nutra still has the Blood Sugar Complex in stock: 👉 https://truenutrahealth.com/products/fb-en-bsc001 If they are in stock, grab a bundle. You will be glad you did.

Chapter 1 The Countdown Ends By pure accident, I traveled back to three days before the apocalypse countdown ended. I traded away all my survival supplies for unwanted shovels and chainsaws. Everyone thought I was preparing to die. Only I knew the truth. Three days later, all humanity would be forcibly transported into a doomsday survival game where every stored resource would vanish instantly. Only tools could save your life. …… 2027 The moment the apocalypse countdown hit zero, a chime rang directly in Riley Carter's skull. "Welcome to the Extreme Cold Survival Game. "Earth no longer exists. This is your new home. This is your grave. "Survival rules are as follows. "1. Each player begins with one campfire. It is your only defense against the cold. If the campfire dies, you will be judged deceased by the system. Not that it matters—without the fire, you won't last anyway. "2. This is a real world. You can die from hunger. From exposure. From animal attack. "3. Supplies stockpiled in your previous world do not carry over. Only items on your person, or in direct physical contact at the moment of transfer, are retained. "4. Struggle to survive. It is your only hope." Riley's heart slammed against her ribs. Supplies didn't carry over? She looked down at herself. Workwear. Intact. And— She was still sitting on the three giant toolboxes. They sat solidly in the snow, dusted with powder, unmistakably here. "Whew." Riley let out a long breath. A white cloud dispersed in front of her face. Pity, though. During her renovations, she'd stocked those boxes with a lot of power tools. The expensive impact driver. The reciprocating saw. In a world with no electrical outlets, once those batteries died, they were just dead weight. But even so. The hand tools. The consumables. The sheer volume of stuff in those boxes—it was a treasure beyond measure in a place like this. Riley forced herself to calm down. She was here. She'd deal with it. Something new lived in her mind now. She concentrated, and a translucent pale-blue screen materialized in front of her eyes. Looked just like a video game HUD. "Personal Panel "Name: Riley Carter "ID: 1120-US "Level: 1 (Standard Survivor) "Strength: 8 (Years of manual labor have made you stronger than average) "Agility: 8 (You've got quick reflexes) "Constitution: 6 (You've been skipping meals lately) "Spirit: 9 (You keep your head when others panic) "Inventory: 16/16 slots (Base capacity)" "Inventory?" Riley studied the sixteen empty squares at the bottom of the display. She reached out, touched one of the toolboxes, and thought the word, "Store." Whoosh. The heavy box vanished. In its place, a tiny icon appeared in the first inventory slot, a miniature "x1" in the corner. "It actually worked." For the first time since arriving, a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Retrieve. Thud. The toolbox landed back in the snow, puffing up powder. No energy cost. No sense of weight. And in that inventory, she could carry anything, regardless of how heavy it was. Later on, when she went scavenging, that would make all the difference. Riley rubbed her stiff, freezing hands together and turned her attention to the campfire at her feet. It was the only warmth in this frozen wasteland. Hovering above the flames, visible only to her, were a few lines of glowing text. "Basic Campfire (Lv.1) "Remaining Burn Time: 05:28:00 "Current Coverage: Radius six feet (Blocks wind and snow) "Upgrade Requirements: Wood x50, Stone x20, Coal x10, Steel x5 "Description: This is your life. Do not let it die. Upgrading expands your safe zone and unlocks additional construction options." "Needs upgrading." Riley frowned. Wood and stone she could probably find. But coal? Steel? Out here in the middle of nowhere? A flash of movement caught her eye. A small wooden box, half-buried in the snow not far from the fire. The starter crate. Had to be. Riley didn't rush. First, she pulled the claw hammer from her belt—the one she always kept there, habit from years of work—and gripped it tight. She scanned the tree line. Listened past the wind. Nothing moved. No sounds but the storm. She walked over quickly, crouched by the box. No lock. She pried the lid open with the claw end of her hammer. Inside, a handful of items. "Obtained: Iron Axe x1 "Obtained: Stale Dark Bread x2 "Obtained: 500ml Bottled Water x1 "Obtained: Kindling x5 "Obtained: Insulated Field Jacket x1 "Obtained: Utility Rope (25ft) "Obtained: Thermal Underwear (Set) x2 Not much. Barely anything. Riley picked up one of the dark loaves. It was rock hard. She examined the jacket—basic, but warm-looking. "So this is what a standard survivor starts with." At least the system had thought of everything. Including the underwear. She'd half-expected to wake up naked in the snow; at least she didn't have to worry about that. She stored everything in her inventory, then shrugged on the field jacket. The temperature shift was brutal. Even those few seconds exposed had left her hands numb. Hypothermia would set in fast out here. Jacket on, she hurried back to the campfire. She pulled the five units of Kindling from her inventory and tossed them onto the flames. The fire roared higher. Warmth flooded over her. "Fuel added. Remaining Burn Time: 10:28:00" Ten hours. If she didn't move fast, in ten hours she'd freeze to death on this ice field. And the game had made it clear—if the fire died, the system would judge her dead. Whether she actually froze or not. Riley lifted her head and scanned the landscape. She was in a sparse coniferous forest. Barely alive trees, crusted with frost, dotted the area not far from her position. "Wood." A slow smile spread across her face. She patted the toolbox beside her. "Other people might have axes. But felling a tree with just an axe takes hours. Exhausts you." She unlatched the box. Pulled out the chainsaw. Checked the battery gauge—full. "I've got a handsaw in here too. And a chainsaw with a full charge." The battery wouldn't last forever. But it would last long enough to give her a massive head start. In this race for survival, that was everything. Chapter 2 The Chainsaw The wind screamed across the open ground, picking up loose snow and flinging it against her goggles like sand. It sounded like static. Riley had pulled her basic work gear from the toolbox before heading out. Now she stood in the snow, surrounded by clusters of thin conifers that looked half-dead already. She took a breath. The air burned going down. "Zzzzzzz—!!!" She squeezed the trigger. The orange-and-black lithium-ion chainsaw in her hands roared to life, the chain spinning so fast it blurred. She buried the teeth in the nearest pine trunk. Wood chips exploded everywhere. Fragrant shavings—still wet with resin—scattered across the pristine snow, stark and yellow against all that white. Five seconds. Crack. The pine tree, thick as her arm, groaned and tilted. Then it fell slow and heavy into a drift, sending up a puff of powder. "God bless modern technology." Riley shook out her wrist—the vibration had numbed her fingers—and allowed herself a small smile. Without that chainsaw, with just the basic iron axe the system had given her, felling a tree frozen solid like this would have taken twenty minutes minimum. And it would have left her soaked with sweat. In subzero temps, sweat was a death sentence. Once your base layers got wet, the moment you stopped moving, your body temperature would plummet. Hypothermia would follow fast. Riley didn't waste time celebrating. She knew the saw in her hands was a hungry machine. She'd brought two spare high-capacity batteries, sure, but until she found a way to recharge them, every second the motor ran was borrowed time. She had to gather as much wood as possible before the batteries gave out. "Zzzzz—Zzzzz—" At the edge of the forest, the chainsaw's snarl rose and fell, shattering the frozen silence. Riley worked like she was possessed. Fell a tree. Move to the next. Fell another. But she had to stay alert—watch for hidden snow pits underfoot, keep adjusting her collar against the wind that kept finding its way down her neck. Her stamina drained faster than she'd anticipated. In extreme cold, body burned through calories just to stay alive. Added walking through knee-deep snow, where every step took three times the energy of walking on pavement, and the math got ugly fast. Pretty soon, Riley was breathing hard. Her breath fogged the inside of her goggles, and she had to keep wiping them clear. "Zzzzz..." She was mid-cut on a tree—didn't even know which number anymore—when the chainsaw's roar stuttered. Died. The chain jammed solid in the wood. A red light blinked at her. Dead battery. Riley yanked the saw free and patted its housing. "Good work, buddy." Genuine regret in her voice. She straightened up and looked around. Pine trunks lay scattered across the snow in every direction. A decent haul. She counted silently. "Twenty-three total." Then the next problem hit her. According to the system, until she actually possessed these logs, they were still just natural resources. That meant they didn't qualify for Inventory storage. She couldn't just snap her fingers and make them disappear. She had to drag them back to camp. Riley grabbed the nearest pine and tried to pull. Heavy. Like, unreasonably heavy. Fresh-cut wood was full of moisture. Add the branches catching in the snow, dragging like anchors, and she felt like she was hauling a dead body through mud. "Huff... huff..." She gritted her teeth, looped rope around the trunk, slung it over her shoulder, leaned forward, and started walking. Inch by inch. The tree line to her campfire was maybe fifty yards. Right now, it felt like fifty miles. By the time she'd wrestled the fourth tree back into the fire's warm radius, she was wrecked. Her legs felt like someone had filled them with concrete. Her lungs burned from hauling freezing air through them. "Can't... can't do more." Riley made the call. She stopped. Those nineteen trees still out there in the snow—they called to her. Tempted her. But if she kept pushing without rest, without fuel for herself, she'd collapse out there. And out there, collapse meant death. She dropped down next to the big wooden crate that had held her starter supplies. It was less than three feet from the campfire. The flames danced orange and red, pumping out heat that felt like heaven. The shift from frozen to warm made her shiver violently. She pulled off her goggles and thick gloves, set them near the fire to warm up, then—still shaking—pulled the half-empty water bottle from her Inventory. Took a small sip. Then the bread. Two black bricks that looked more like construction material than food. "Crunch." Riley bit off a piece with effort. It was coarse. Tasted like sawdust with a hint of burnt toast. Bitter. But it was calories. Carbs. Fuel for her own fire. She forced herself to chew, swallow. When the food hit her stomach, warmth finally started spreading through her core. The uncontrollable shaking eased. After half a loaf, Riley leaned back against the crate. Her eyelids drooped. Post-exhaustion crash hit her like a wave. The campfire crackled. The wind seemed farther away now. Muffled. She really wanted to sleep... Her head nodded. Her body started sliding sideways. "Wait—" Some animal instinct jolted her awake just before she went under. She pinched her thigh. Hard. Then looked up at the timer floating above the flames. "Shelter Level 1 "Campfire Burn Time Remaining: 06:28:00" Six and a half hours. If she slept too deep, too long, and that fire went out—what then? Even ignoring the obvious—that she'd freeze to death in this hellhole without a heat source—the game rules were clear. When the campfire hits zero, it's game over. "No sleeping. Not allowed." Riley slapped her own cheeks, forced herself upright. She stayed near the fire, but she didn't take off her heavy work clothes. She remembered reading something once, a survival article. "In the late stages of hypothermia, your hypothalamus malfunctions. You get a false sensation of heat. It's called "paradoxical undressing"—people strip down right before they freeze to death." "Okay. Process these four. Keep the fire fed." She pulled a traditional handsaw from the toolbox. Looking at the four thick pine logs on the ground, she almost laughed. Without power tools, breaking these down into burnable pieces would take at least half an hour. Burn the little energy she had left. But what choice did she have? Riley knelt in the snow, positioned the blade against the trunk, and was about to start cutting— A soft white light shot out from the system panel on her chest. It washed over the logs. "Ding! "Detected felled, intact logs within shelter range. "Perform quick recovery?" Riley's hand froze mid-saw. Quick recovery? It took her a second to process. Then relief flooded through her so hard she almost cried. "Yes! Recover!" She didn't hesitate. The next moment, something impossible happened. The four pine trunks—the ones she'd have to saw and split by hand, the ones that represented hours of brutal labor—dissolved into pale blue light particles. Not into dust. Into neat, uniform logs that stacked themselves automatically in her Inventory. The branches, the needles, all the useless parts—purified out of existence. "Recovery successful! "Obtained: Common Wood x20" Riley's eyes went wide, staring at the perfect lumber in her inventory display. Looked like it came straight from a hardware store. "One tree gives five units of wood? "And I don't have to cut it myself?" This changed everything. It meant she only had to handle the felling and the dragging. Once a log crossed into her camp's boundary, the system recognized it as hers. The most time-consuming part—the processing—just... didn't exist anymore. Riley immediately grabbed five units of wood and fed them to the fire. Whoosh. The flames leaped, hungry and grateful. "Fuel added. "Campfire Burn Time Remaining: 12:20:00" "Five logs, five hours..." She did the math fast, looking at the fifteen units still on the ground. If she threw all of those in, that'd be another fifteen hours. Total of twenty-seven. She could sleep like the dead right now, and that fire would still be burning when she woke up. Security. For the first time since the world ended, Riley felt something like security. She selected the remaining wood. Deposited it all. Watched the countdown tick up to a very comfortable "27:20:00". Then her nerves finally let go. She dragged one of the toolboxes into position to block the wind, wrapped the field jacket tight around herself, pulled her hat down over her eyes, leaned back against the warm crate, and let the crackle of the fire pull her under. ***** She didn't sleep long. When she opened her eyes again, the sky was still that same dull gray-white. Impossible to tell if it was morning or afternoon. System clock said three hours. Her body ached. Shoulders and arms especially—felt like she'd gone ten rounds with someone. But her head was clear. She stretched her stiff neck and stood up. The snow seemed lighter. The feathery flakes had tapered off into sporadic icy grains. Riley ate a little more, got some fuel back in the tank, then stepped outside the campfire's warmth. The fire's effect wasn't what she'd expected. It wasn't that the temperature gradually dropped as you moved away. It was sharper than that. Like there was an invisible barrier around the flames. Inside, livable. Outside, the cold hit you like a wall. She wandered a little way off. The cold found every gap in her clothing. She thought about going farther, exploring. But there was nothing visible except that stand of trees she'd already worked. Maybe stuff was buried under the snow, but she couldn't see it. "No proper snow boots. Not going far." Riley glanced at the endless white distance with real regret. "Don't get greedy. Get those nineteen trees first." She turned. Looked at the woods. Her loot was still out there. And now she knew: if she could drag them back into the campfire's circle, the system would cash them out automatically. "Time to work." Riley rubbed her hands together. Let the motivation build. For the next few hours, she became a machine. Drag a tree to camp. Recover it. Go back for another. Repeat. It was boring. Exhausting. But watching those logs turn into numbers in her inventory—that feeling was hard to describe. Satisfying, in a way nothing had been satisfying in a long time. When the last pine trunk crossed into the light and dissolved into particles, Riley just collapsed. Lay flat in the snow and stared at the gray sky. She pulled up her Inventory. The once-empty slots were full now. Stack after stack of wood icons. "Item: Common Wood "Quantity: 80 "Description: Basic survival resource. Can be used for fuel or construction." Eighty units. Plus what was already burning in the campfire. Her day's work had yielded a clean hundred. One unit of wood burned for one hour. Riley looked at the flames dancing in front of her. Felt the heat on her face. Let herself smile, wide and real. "One hundred hours." Four full days. While everyone else was probably still panicking. Crying. Begging. Trying to figure out how to survive their first night in this frozen nightmare... She, Riley, had enough fuel stockpiled to last four days. Which meant: for the next ninety-six hours, unless she actively chose to die, nobody and nothing could put her fire out. She pulled the half-empty water bottle from Inventory. The space must have been insulated somehow—the water was still warm. Almost body temperature. She sipped it. Tasted sweet, even though it was just tap water. "Okay. Next step." Her gaze settled on the "Upgrade" button on the campfire panel. This open-air setup was fine for now. But if she was going to survive long-term, she needed something better. A real shelter. All she needed was a little stone. Some coal. Some steel. Then she could build something worth calling home. Chapter 3 The Trading Game The blizzard howled outside, but within the six-foot radius of the campfire, the air stayed surprisingly warm—like the wind had hit an invisible wall and just couldn't reach. Riley leaned back against the dusty wooden crate, holding the half-empty water bottle in her hand. She stared into the flames for a moment, then focused her attention inward. The pale blue system panel unfolded in front of her eyes again. Now that the immediate crisis was handled, she finally had time to sit quietly and really explore this so-called "Survival System". Beyond the personal stats and inventory, the bottom of the panel had a row of function icons: Server Channel, Friends List, Trading Market, and Crafting Manual. Friends List was empty. No surprise there. She hadn't exactly been a social butterfly back in the old world, and she sure as hell wasn't going to make friends easily in a frozen hellscape where everyone was fighting for their next breath. She tapped into the "Server Channel". A line of numbers appeared in the top left. "Server: US-008 "Current Online: 9911/10000" Ten thousand people started. Less than ten hours in, eighty-nine were already gone. "That doesn't add up." Everyone's starter crate came with a rusty iron axe and five units of wood. Plus the initial fuel the campfire had when they arrived—that alone bought them ten hours minimum, even if they just sat there doing nothing. What the hell did those people do to get eliminated so fast? The channel was moving fast, messages scrolling by every second. Desperation dripped from every line. "Someone help, I'm freezing my ass off out here. This stupid axe can't cut sh*t—every swing just bounces off and rattles my whole arm. Can anyone spare a couple logs? My dad's a senior VP at Walker Group. I'll wire you a million dollars when we get back, I swear." "Wake up, buddy. If your dad's still alive, he's out there chopping trees right now too." "Don't even talk to me. I spotted a wooden crate in the snow earlier, got all excited, ran over—and before I got within ten feet, some white rabbit thing jumped out of a drift. Teeth like needles. Almost took a chunk out of my leg. Missed the crate, wasted all that energy for nothing." "I saw that too! Random crates spawn in the wild. I opened a wooden one and got two chocolate bars and some coal." Reading through the chaos, Riley picked out two keywords, "Random Reward Crates" and "Dangerous Creatures". So this world was deeper than she thought. Wooden crates, copper crates—these randomly spawning resource points were the real way to get ahead. Coal came from crates. That was useful to know. And if coal was in crates, steel probably was too. But something bothered her. According to what people were saying, reward crates weren't exactly rare. So why hadn't she found a single one during her lumber run? She doubted it was just bad luck. Riley exited chat and tapped into the "Trading Market". "Seller: MountainMan88 Item: Stone x2 Wants: White Bread x5" "Seller: LoneWolf_21 Item: Cotton Cloth Wants: Clean Water" "Seller: NotDeadYet Item: Wood x3 Wants: Anything edible" Most people were trading for food and wood. The stuff that kept you alive right now. Things like stone and cloth were getting dumped cheap—nobody had the luxury of thinking long-term. Riley looked at her own inventory. Eighty units of wood staring back at her. Her heart beat a little faster. In this opening phase, where wood literally meant the difference between life and death, the resources in her hands were basically gold bars. "Time to trade," she muttered to herself. "Coal, steel—can't get those from chopping trees. And right now, wood's at maximum value. If I wait, the exchange rate shifts." Even with the chainsaw dead, she still had the handsaw. Less efficient, sure, but she could gather more wood if she needed it. Short-term, she wasn't going to run out. She clicked to post a message in the channel. "System Prompt: Detected that you have not set a virtual ID. Please enter your nickname (cannot be changed after setting)." Riley stared at the blank input box. Naming things was the worst. She sat there for a long time, nothing coming to mind. Finally, she gave up. Couldn't think of anything cool or clever, so she'd just go with something random. Her fingers tapped across the virtual keyboard—SpicyBurger. "Setting successful. ID locked." The prompt closed. Riley posted her message. "SpicyBurger: Selling wood in bulk. Looking for: Coal, Steel, High-calorie food. DM me with offers—what you have and your rate. Good deals go fast, don't sleep on this." For three seconds after the message appeared, the channel went dead silent. Then it exploded. "SpicyBurger? That name's making me hungry, what the hell." "Never mind the name—'wood in bulk'! We got a whale in here! Everyone else is stressing about the next hour and this person's already running a business?" "I need some! My campfire's down to like two hours. I don't know if I actually die when it hits zero but I don't wanna find out." Suddenly, half the channel was scrambling for wood. But then the skeptics crawled out. "Hang on. Everyone started with the same rusty axe. Chopping a tree in this weather takes twenty, thirty minutes minimum. Where's she getting 'bulk' wood from? Sounds like a scam." "InvincibleWarrior: Everybody chill. Look at that ID—sounds like a girl's handle. I'm a grown man, been busting my ass, and I've only got like ten logs saved up. My hands are shredded. Some girl with a food name claims she's got bulk? She's trying to run a game. Scam people out of their stuff." "Iron_Tough: Agreed. Scammers made it through the apocalypse too, I guess. My advice: ignore her. Don't get played. How much wood can a woman chop anyway? Probably can't even lift the axe right, lol." Riley scrolled through the messages, expression flat. She almost laughed. But some people pushed back. "FishHater44: How is it a scam? If she doesn't deliver, you don't complete the trade. Just 'cause you can't chop that much wood doesn't mean nobody can." Riley nodded slightly. That one had a point. But she didn't waste energy arguing in the channel. Instead, she flipped on Do Not Disturb for private messages—only allowing chat requests that included a trade offer. Some people didn't actually care whether she had wood. They just couldn't stand seeing someone else do well. "Ding. Ding. Ding." Private messages started pouring in like rain. Most players weren't idiots. Faced with the very real threat of freezing to death, they'd try anything for a chance. Riley opened the first one. "Windwalker: I got "Coal x3" from a crate. How much wood can I get for it? I can't chop anymore. The wind out here is insane. I tried to throw the coal in my fire but it just kept popping back out. System says my campfire level's too low, won't let me use it. I'm out of wood. My fire's almost dead." Riley thought for a moment. "Three coal for five wood. Deal?" She hadn't known about that restriction. Coal was supposed to be better fuel than wood—didn't expect the game to lock it behind a level gate. The reply came instantly, "Deal. But five wood feels light. It's coal." The guy was conflicted. He knew coal had value, but he was desperate. "I'll make it six. Final offer." Riley wasn't sure about coal's real value yet. Six was her limit. "Fine. Deal." They both dropped their items into the trade window. A moment later, it completed. A flash of white light. Riley's inventory lost six wood. Gained three chunks of coal, each about the size of a small melon. One down. "CrunchyFrog: Hey, I got two "Iron Ingots" from a crate. System calls them "Scrap Steel". Can I get eight wood for them? Trying to stock up enough to sleep through the night." Riley replied, "Sure. Initiate." In just over ten minutes, her wood stockpile dropped significantly. But her inventory filled up with good stuff. "Coal x10 "Stone x23 "Scrap Steel x5 "Raw Meat x2 "White Bread x2 "Basic Torch Blueprint x1" The blueprint was new. The description said it was required for crafting certain items. Seemed useful, so she'd traded for it. Meanwhile, back in the channel, that "InvincibleWarrior" guy who'd been mocking her earlier seemed to notice that people were actually completing trades. His tone got bitter. "InvincibleWarrior: Whatever. She probably got lucky with a high-tier crate. Let's see how long her stock lasts. Once the wood's gone, she'll be begging me to let her join my group." The people who'd successfully traded with Riley popped into the channel to thank her. That might have been fine—except the thanks caused problems. Since Riley had stopped trading for now, most people hadn't gotten anything. And the sky was darkening. Temperature outside the campfire radius was dropping fast. Gathering wood was getting harder. Trading was their only hope. The ones who'd pinned everything on Riley, seeing her stop, started losing it. "You said 'in bulk'! You did like five trades and quit. What are we supposed to do now?" "Keep trading! My fire's almost out. You want us to go chop trees in the dark?" "If you couldn't deliver, why'd you post? Showing off and then hiding." Whether it was coordinated or just genuine rage, the number of people defending Riley in the channel shrank fast. Mostly it was attacks now. Accusations of being irresponsible. Using scarcity tactics. Playing games with people's lives. Riley closed the channel. She couldn't be bothered. In a life-or-death situation like this, people losing it was normal. If she actually had unlimited resources, she'd trade more. But she didn't. And back on Earth, nobody had ever handed her anything out of charity. She wasn't about to start playing savior now. She looked down at the "Basic Torch Blueprint" in her inventory. "Requirements: Wood x10, Kerosene, Scrap Steel x2" Note: Requires Level 2 Workbench to craft." She leaned back against the crate again. Felt the weight of her stockpile pressing back against that lingering sense of unease. In this world, your ID didn't matter. Your gender didn't matter either. What mattered was who held the resources. She looked at what she had left: 36 units of wood. Plus the steel, coal, and stone from trading. Time to plan. Upgrading to a Level 2 campfire required 55 wood. She had all the other materials. For the wood, she'd just have to use the handsaw tomorrow and gather a little more. That settled, she pulled a few more logs from inventory and arranged them on top of the crate, making a small enclosed space. Curled up inside it, she watched the sky outside slowly darken to black. Her eyes grew heavy. She drifted off. Chapter 4 The Culling Riley woke to the kind of soreness that made you reconsider ever moving again. She'd slept like the dead—no dreams, no blizzard, just nothing. When she opened her eyes, the first things she saw were the logs she'd stacked as a windbreak and the steady glow of the campfire. She tried to stretch. Big mistake. Every muscle in her body lit up at once, screaming in protest. "Sh*t." Riley sucked air through her teeth and pressed a hand to her aching shoulder. Her lower back felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to it. Yesterday's work had been too much. She wasn't weak—far from it—but she was still human. The lactic acid had settled in overnight, and now she moved like an arthritic tin man. At least she was alive. She stowed the windbreak logs back in her inventory and looked around. The world hadn't changed. Same dull gray sky. Same swirling snow. Outside the six-foot radius of the fire, the drifts looked deeper than yesterday. The wind had been busy. Riley pulled out the half-empty water bottle and wet her throat. Then she retrieved the white bread she'd traded for yesterday. Compared to that dense, flavorless black bread, this was practically cake. She tore off small pieces, letting the faint sweetness dissolve on her tongue, and habitually opened the "Server Channel". She stopped chewing. The number in the top left hit her like a physical blow. "Current Online Players: 4968/10000" "Five thousand..." Riley's eyes went wide. In a single night, that number had been cut in half. Five thousand people. Gone. Winked out of existence on this frozen ice field while she slept. "Ding." The system notification cut through her thoughts—cold, emotionless, like it was announcing the weather. "Global Announcement: Congratulations to all survivors for successfully surviving the first day. "This was a culling. Last night eliminated those fools who failed to add fuel to their fires or refused to gather wood. Remember: in this place, tears mean nothing. When you die here, you're dead-dead. "You who remain are the lucky ones. "Grace Period: A five-day 'New Player Support Period' now begins. For the next five days, your initial supply crates will refresh daily with a fixed amount of food. "Special Reward: Each survivor receives one pair of "Standard Issue Snow Boots (Common)". Be grateful for this mercy. Enjoy the game." The words sat there on her screen. Fools. Mercy. The system's tone dripped with contempt. The math was simple. Starting package: five hours of fuel. Initial gift: five units of wood, another five hours. Total ten hours, if you did absolutely nothing. The ones who'd frozen to death last night—they were the ones who'd clung to hope. The ones too scared to move. The ones who'd told themselves someone would save them. Five thousand people. One night. Gone. This wasn't a game. It was a slaughter. In the channel, the survivors who'd made it through were clearly rattled by the numbers too. "Holy sh*t... My friend's icon went dark last night. Does that mean he's dead? Actually dead?" "I can't do this. I don't wanna play anymore, I wanna go home. I swear I'll work today. I'll chop wood, I'll do whatever, just please—" "Everyone move! Don't save your strength! If you die, that's it. No respawns!" Panic spread fast. But almost immediately, the tone shifted. The fear found a target. "That SpicyBurger—if she'd shared more wood yesterday, would so many people have died?" "For real. If she had extra, why not just give it away? Why did it have to be trades? She could've at least loaned some out." "This is what happens when people hoard resources and watch others freeze. Remember that name. Don't trade with her. Ever." Riley frowned. Here we go again. She scrolled up. Sure enough, there it was—that familiar ID: "InvincibleWarrior". He was going hard in the channel. "She's profiting off suffering. That's what some people do. Women like that are the worst—hoarding supplies while people die around them. Wait and see. Someone like her won't last." Riley laughed. Actually laughed out loud. Moral blackmail. In the apocalypse. She typed, "If you want wood, go cut it yourself. I'm not your mommy. No amount of crying in chat is gonna put logs in your inventory. You'd get more done if you just picked up your d*mn axe." The channel went quiet for a second. Then the reasonable voices piped up. "She's right. Nobody owes you anything. Work for it." "Exactly. Just 'cause someone's quiet doesn't mean they're an easy target." In a world where staying alive took everything you had, expecting charity was the dumbest move of all. Riley didn't waste more energy on it. People like that—the more you engaged, the more they thrived. Let him run his mouth. She had bigger things to worry about. She closed the channel and turned to the big wooden crate—her initial supply point. Sure enough, new items had materialized inside. "Bottled Water x3 "White Bread x3 "Fresh Orange Juice x1 "Standard Snow Boots x1" "Orange juice?" Riley picked up the bottle, genuinely surprised. The orange liquid inside sloshed gently. Vitamins. The system was actually giving them vitamins. She pulled off her old shoes—already damp and cold—and swapped into the new boots. They were clunky, sure. But they gripped the snow, and the insulation was real. The chill that had been seeping up through her soles disappeared instantly. Next, she opened her toolbox. Goggles on. Thick cut-resistant gloves. Head-to-toe gear. "Time to work." The channel noise faded from her mind. She had one priority today, and it wasn't arguing with idiots. She picked up the chainsaw and headed back to the tree line. The cold played tricks on batteries. She'd known that, intellectually. But knowing it and feeling it were different things. After just eight trees, the last spare battery gave out. The chainsaw stuttered, died, and went silent in her hands. Riley stared at it. "Son of a b*tch." Chapter 5 Dead Battery Riley stared at the dead chainsaw in her hands and shook her head. Without power, it was just an expensive paperweight. If she wanted more wood, she'd have to do it the old-fashioned way—pick up the axe or the manual handsaw from the toolbox and go to war with frozen timber. But eight more trees were eight more trees. Her stockpile was looking healthy. "First things first. Get these back." She sucked it up, stowed the chainsaw in her inventory, and started hauling. Her body screamed even louder than yesterday. Every muscle felt like it had been replaced with concrete. She dragged each log back one at a time, moving like a zombie. Drag. Rest two minutes. Drag again. The wind howled in her ears. Riley lost track of time, lost track of everything except the mechanical rhythm of work. By the time the sun was high—not that you could really see it through the clouds—she dragged the last log into the campfire's radius. It dissolved into light, absorbed by the system. Riley all but collapsed into the snow. "Acquired: Wood x40" She lay there for a moment, chest heaving, staring at the number in her inventory. A tired smile crept across her face. She had enough. Combined with the coal and steel from yesterday's trades, she had everything she needed for the upgrade. Riley forced herself upright and walked to the campfire. On the floating translucent panel, the "Upgrade" button glowed that tempting gold. "Upgrade Primitive Shelter to Lv.2? "Cost: Wood x50, Stone x20, Coal x10, Scrap Steel x5 "Remaining after upgrade: Wood x16, Stone x3, Coal x0, Steel x0" "Upgrade." Riley took a breath and pressed it. "Hmmmm—!" A blinding white light erupted from the heart of the campfire, swallowing everything. Riley squeezed her eyes shut. No explosion. No thunder. Just a sound like Legos snapping together. A few seconds later, the light faded. Riley opened her eyes. And stopped breathing. The campfire wasn't just a campfire anymore. The rough stone ring had transformed into something neat and intentional—a proper firepit with a stone border for insulation, a place to set things, even a simple steel grate attached to the side. But that wasn't the big news. The heat that used to push back the cold within a six-foot radius now stretched a full fifteen feet. Inside that circle, snow was actively melting, revealing dark frozen soil underneath. In one corner, she spotted a patch of moss stubbornly poking through. Riley spun around. Behind the big wooden crate, a small log cabin stood waiting. It wasn't much—maybe forty feet square, built from rough-hewn logs. Nothing fancy. But it was solid. Four walls and a roof, blocking wind and snow completely. Riley walked over and pushed open the heavy wooden door. Warm air hit her face. Inside was simple: a wooden bed frame piled with dry grass, a crude workbench, a chair, and a small fireplace connected to a chimney that ran up through the roof. Rustic. But right now, it was heaven. Wood and fire. Four walls. A roof. Home. Riley ran her hand along the rough wall. Her eyes stung a little. She wouldn't have to sleep in the open anymore. Wouldn't have to wake up every few hours to check the fire. Wouldn't have to worry about freezing to death in her sleep. Right on cue, the server announcement chimed. Gold text this time, blazing right in the center of everyone's vision. "Server Announcement: Congratulations to player SpicyBurger for being the first to achieve "Level 2 Shelter". Rewards have been distributed." The chat channel, which had been wallowing in fear and despair, exploded. "Holy sh*t? Level 2 already? What does Level 2 unlock? Can you post pics, big shot?" "That's the wood seller from yesterday? No way. Absolute legend." "Carry me please! SpicyBurger, I'll be your loyal follower. I can cook, I can clean, I can—" "Teach us, master! How'd you gather materials so fast? What's your secret?" Compliments. Pleas. Desperate attempts to get noticed. And then, of course, the sour grapes. "InvincibleWarrior: Big deal. Just profiteering off everyone else's suffering. If she'd shared that wood instead of selling it, maybe those five thousand people would still be alive. How does it feel to climb on corpses?" "GodLovesMeFirst: Seriously. Building your success on other people's deaths. Karma's real. She'll get hers." Riley's jaw tightened. If InvincibleWarrior had been standing in front of her right now, she'd have knocked his teeth out. Guys like him—useless themselves, but always ready to tear down anyone who actually accomplished something. Sewer rats. Her private messages exploded too. She'd set it to only accept trade offers, but people had found a workaround—using the "trade note" function to send spam. "Hey beautiful, I'm a personal trainer. Great shape. Wanna see? Hit me with some wood and I'll do a voice call with you!" A photo of some guy flexing in a mirror, shirt off. Riley glanced at it, unimpressed. Decent abs. Pathetic attitude. Dude was clearly strong enough to chop wood—why was he wasting time on this? She'd never mentioned her gender, so most people probably assumed anyone who'd gathered that much wood must be a guy. The messages reflected that assumption. Some women sent selfies too, trying to flirt their way into favor. Didn't matter. Shameless cut across all demographics. From the backgrounds in the photos, everyone seemed to be in different locations. But one thing was consistent: they all had trees nearby. The system must have arranged that—a new player perk. "A bunch of degenerates." Riley's face went cold. She changed her privacy settings to "Friends Only". Then she added a line to her trading post description. "No spam. Send junk, get blocked." Silence. Blessed silence. She took a breath, let the noise drain away, and focused on what mattered. "First-place upgrade reward..." She opened her inventory. Sitting there, glowing faintly purple, was a gift box. She excitedly opened the gift box, only to find that inside was... For more exciting content, please download the "JoyRead" app to continue reading.

Chapter 1 The Countdown Ends By pure accident, I traveled back to three days before the apocalypse countdown ended. I traded away all my survival supplies for unwanted shovels and chainsaws. Everyone thought I was preparing to die. Only I knew the truth. Three days later, all humanity would be forcibly transported into a doomsday survival game where every stored resource would vanish instantly. Only tools could save your life. …… 2027 The moment the apocalypse countdown hit zero, a chime rang directly in Riley Carter's skull. "Welcome to the Extreme Cold Survival Game. "Earth no longer exists. This is your new home. This is your grave. "Survival rules are as follows. "1. Each player begins with one campfire. It is your only defense against the cold. If the campfire dies, you will be judged deceased by the system. Not that it matters—without the fire, you won't last anyway. "2. This is a real world. You can die from hunger. From exposure. From animal attack. "3. Supplies stockpiled in your previous world do not carry over. Only items on your person, or in direct physical contact at the moment of transfer, are retained. "4. Struggle to survive. It is your only hope." Riley's heart slammed against her ribs. Supplies didn't carry over? She looked down at herself. Workwear. Intact. And— She was still sitting on the three giant toolboxes. They sat solidly in the snow, dusted with powder, unmistakably here. "Whew." Riley let out a long breath. A white cloud dispersed in front of her face. Pity, though. During her renovations, she'd stocked those boxes with a lot of power tools. The expensive impact driver. The reciprocating saw. In a world with no electrical outlets, once those batteries died, they were just dead weight. But even so. The hand tools. The consumables. The sheer volume of stuff in those boxes—it was a treasure beyond measure in a place like this. Riley forced herself to calm down. She was here. She'd deal with it. Something new lived in her mind now. She concentrated, and a translucent pale-blue screen materialized in front of her eyes. Looked just like a video game HUD. "Personal Panel "Name: Riley Carter "ID: 1120-US "Level: 1 (Standard Survivor) "Strength: 8 (Years of manual labor have made you stronger than average) "Agility: 8 (You've got quick reflexes) "Constitution: 6 (You've been skipping meals lately) "Spirit: 9 (You keep your head when others panic) "Inventory: 16/16 slots (Base capacity)" "Inventory?" Riley studied the sixteen empty squares at the bottom of the display. She reached out, touched one of the toolboxes, and thought the word, "Store." Whoosh. The heavy box vanished. In its place, a tiny icon appeared in the first inventory slot, a miniature "x1" in the corner. "It actually worked." For the first time since arriving, a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Retrieve. Thud. The toolbox landed back in the snow, puffing up powder. No energy cost. No sense of weight. And in that inventory, she could carry anything, regardless of how heavy it was. Later on, when she went scavenging, that would make all the difference. Riley rubbed her stiff, freezing hands together and turned her attention to the campfire at her feet. It was the only warmth in this frozen wasteland. Hovering above the flames, visible only to her, were a few lines of glowing text. "Basic Campfire (Lv.1) "Remaining Burn Time: 05:28:00 "Current Coverage: Radius six feet (Blocks wind and snow) "Upgrade Requirements: Wood x50, Stone x20, Coal x10, Steel x5 "Description: This is your life. Do not let it die. Upgrading expands your safe zone and unlocks additional construction options." "Needs upgrading." Riley frowned. Wood and stone she could probably find. But coal? Steel? Out here in the middle of nowhere? A flash of movement caught her eye. A small wooden box, half-buried in the snow not far from the fire. The starter crate. Had to be. Riley didn't rush. First, she pulled the claw hammer from her belt—the one she always kept there, habit from years of work—and gripped it tight. She scanned the tree line. Listened past the wind. Nothing moved. No sounds but the storm. She walked over quickly, crouched by the box. No lock. She pried the lid open with the claw end of her hammer. Inside, a handful of items. "Obtained: Iron Axe x1 "Obtained: Stale Dark Bread x2 "Obtained: 500ml Bottled Water x1 "Obtained: Kindling x5 "Obtained: Insulated Field Jacket x1 "Obtained: Utility Rope (25ft) "Obtained: Thermal Underwear (Set) x2 Not much. Barely anything. Riley picked up one of the dark loaves. It was rock hard. She examined the jacket—basic, but warm-looking. "So this is what a standard survivor starts with." At least the system had thought of everything. Including the underwear. She'd half-expected to wake up naked in the snow; at least she didn't have to worry about that. She stored everything in her inventory, then shrugged on the field jacket. The temperature shift was brutal. Even those few seconds exposed had left her hands numb. Hypothermia would set in fast out here. Jacket on, she hurried back to the campfire. She pulled the five units of Kindling from her inventory and tossed them onto the flames. The fire roared higher. Warmth flooded over her. "Fuel added. Remaining Burn Time: 10:28:00" Ten hours. If she didn't move fast, in ten hours she'd freeze to death on this ice field. And the game had made it clear—if the fire died, the system would judge her dead. Whether she actually froze or not. Riley lifted her head and scanned the landscape. She was in a sparse coniferous forest. Barely alive trees, crusted with frost, dotted the area not far from her position. "Wood." A slow smile spread across her face. She patted the toolbox beside her. "Other people might have axes. But felling a tree with just an axe takes hours. Exhausts you." She unlatched the box. Pulled out the chainsaw. Checked the battery gauge—full. "I've got a handsaw in here too. And a chainsaw with a full charge." The battery wouldn't last forever. But it would last long enough to give her a massive head start. In this race for survival, that was everything. Chapter 2 The Chainsaw The wind screamed across the open ground, picking up loose snow and flinging it against her goggles like sand. It sounded like static. Riley had pulled her basic work gear from the toolbox before heading out. Now she stood in the snow, surrounded by clusters of thin conifers that looked half-dead already. She took a breath. The air burned going down. "Zzzzzzz—!!!" She squeezed the trigger. The orange-and-black lithium-ion chainsaw in her hands roared to life, the chain spinning so fast it blurred. She buried the teeth in the nearest pine trunk. Wood chips exploded everywhere. Fragrant shavings—still wet with resin—scattered across the pristine snow, stark and yellow against all that white. Five seconds. Crack. The pine tree, thick as her arm, groaned and tilted. Then it fell slow and heavy into a drift, sending up a puff of powder. "God bless modern technology." Riley shook out her wrist—the vibration had numbed her fingers—and allowed herself a small smile. Without that chainsaw, with just the basic iron axe the system had given her, felling a tree frozen solid like this would have taken twenty minutes minimum. And it would have left her soaked with sweat. In subzero temps, sweat was a death sentence. Once your base layers got wet, the moment you stopped moving, your body temperature would plummet. Hypothermia would follow fast. Riley didn't waste time celebrating. She knew the saw in her hands was a hungry machine. She'd brought two spare high-capacity batteries, sure, but until she found a way to recharge them, every second the motor ran was borrowed time. She had to gather as much wood as possible before the batteries gave out. "Zzzzz—Zzzzz—" At the edge of the forest, the chainsaw's snarl rose and fell, shattering the frozen silence. Riley worked like she was possessed. Fell a tree. Move to the next. Fell another. But she had to stay alert—watch for hidden snow pits underfoot, keep adjusting her collar against the wind that kept finding its way down her neck. Her stamina drained faster than she'd anticipated. In extreme cold, body burned through calories just to stay alive. Added walking through knee-deep snow, where every step took three times the energy of walking on pavement, and the math got ugly fast. Pretty soon, Riley was breathing hard. Her breath fogged the inside of her goggles, and she had to keep wiping them clear. "Zzzzz..." She was mid-cut on a tree—didn't even know which number anymore—when the chainsaw's roar stuttered. Died. The chain jammed solid in the wood. A red light blinked at her. Dead battery. Riley yanked the saw free and patted its housing. "Good work, buddy." Genuine regret in her voice. She straightened up and looked around. Pine trunks lay scattered across the snow in every direction. A decent haul. She counted silently. "Twenty-three total." Then the next problem hit her. According to the system, until she actually possessed these logs, they were still just natural resources. That meant they didn't qualify for Inventory storage. She couldn't just snap her fingers and make them disappear. She had to drag them back to camp. Riley grabbed the nearest pine and tried to pull. Heavy. Like, unreasonably heavy. Fresh-cut wood was full of moisture. Add the branches catching in the snow, dragging like anchors, and she felt like she was hauling a dead body through mud. "Huff... huff..." She gritted her teeth, looped rope around the trunk, slung it over her shoulder, leaned forward, and started walking. Inch by inch. The tree line to her campfire was maybe fifty yards. Right now, it felt like fifty miles. By the time she'd wrestled the fourth tree back into the fire's warm radius, she was wrecked. Her legs felt like someone had filled them with concrete. Her lungs burned from hauling freezing air through them. "Can't... can't do more." Riley made the call. She stopped. Those nineteen trees still out there in the snow—they called to her. Tempted her. But if she kept pushing without rest, without fuel for herself, she'd collapse out there. And out there, collapse meant death. She dropped down next to the big wooden crate that had held her starter supplies. It was less than three feet from the campfire. The flames danced orange and red, pumping out heat that felt like heaven. The shift from frozen to warm made her shiver violently. She pulled off her goggles and thick gloves, set them near the fire to warm up, then—still shaking—pulled the half-empty water bottle from her Inventory. Took a small sip. Then the bread. Two black bricks that looked more like construction material than food. "Crunch." Riley bit off a piece with effort. It was coarse. Tasted like sawdust with a hint of burnt toast. Bitter. But it was calories. Carbs. Fuel for her own fire. She forced herself to chew, swallow. When the food hit her stomach, warmth finally started spreading through her core. The uncontrollable shaking eased. After half a loaf, Riley leaned back against the crate. Her eyelids drooped. Post-exhaustion crash hit her like a wave. The campfire crackled. The wind seemed farther away now. Muffled. She really wanted to sleep... Her head nodded. Her body started sliding sideways. "Wait—" Some animal instinct jolted her awake just before she went under. She pinched her thigh. Hard. Then looked up at the timer floating above the flames. "Shelter Level 1 "Campfire Burn Time Remaining: 06:28:00" Six and a half hours. If she slept too deep, too long, and that fire went out—what then? Even ignoring the obvious—that she'd freeze to death in this hellhole without a heat source—the game rules were clear. When the campfire hits zero, it's game over. "No sleeping. Not allowed." Riley slapped her own cheeks, forced herself upright. She stayed near the fire, but she didn't take off her heavy work clothes. She remembered reading something once, a survival article. "In the late stages of hypothermia, your hypothalamus malfunctions. You get a false sensation of heat. It's called "paradoxical undressing"—people strip down right before they freeze to death." "Okay. Process these four. Keep the fire fed." She pulled a traditional handsaw from the toolbox. Looking at the four thick pine logs on the ground, she almost laughed. Without power tools, breaking these down into burnable pieces would take at least half an hour. Burn the little energy she had left. But what choice did she have? Riley knelt in the snow, positioned the blade against the trunk, and was about to start cutting— A soft white light shot out from the system panel on her chest. It washed over the logs. "Ding! "Detected felled, intact logs within shelter range. "Perform quick recovery?" Riley's hand froze mid-saw. Quick recovery? It took her a second to process. Then relief flooded through her so hard she almost cried. "Yes! Recover!" She didn't hesitate. The next moment, something impossible happened. The four pine trunks—the ones she'd have to saw and split by hand, the ones that represented hours of brutal labor—dissolved into pale blue light particles. Not into dust. Into neat, uniform logs that stacked themselves automatically in her Inventory. The branches, the needles, all the useless parts—purified out of existence. "Recovery successful! "Obtained: Common Wood x20" Riley's eyes went wide, staring at the perfect lumber in her inventory display. Looked like it came straight from a hardware store. "One tree gives five units of wood? "And I don't have to cut it myself?" This changed everything. It meant she only had to handle the felling and the dragging. Once a log crossed into her camp's boundary, the system recognized it as hers. The most time-consuming part—the processing—just... didn't exist anymore. Riley immediately grabbed five units of wood and fed them to the fire. Whoosh. The flames leaped, hungry and grateful. "Fuel added. "Campfire Burn Time Remaining: 12:20:00" "Five logs, five hours..." She did the math fast, looking at the fifteen units still on the ground. If she threw all of those in, that'd be another fifteen hours. Total of twenty-seven. She could sleep like the dead right now, and that fire would still be burning when she woke up. Security. For the first time since the world ended, Riley felt something like security. She selected the remaining wood. Deposited it all. Watched the countdown tick up to a very comfortable "27:20:00". Then her nerves finally let go. She dragged one of the toolboxes into position to block the wind, wrapped the field jacket tight around herself, pulled her hat down over her eyes, leaned back against the warm crate, and let the crackle of the fire pull her under. ***** She didn't sleep long. When she opened her eyes again, the sky was still that same dull gray-white. Impossible to tell if it was morning or afternoon. System clock said three hours. Her body ached. Shoulders and arms especially—felt like she'd gone ten rounds with someone. But her head was clear. She stretched her stiff neck and stood up. The snow seemed lighter. The feathery flakes had tapered off into sporadic icy grains. Riley ate a little more, got some fuel back in the tank, then stepped outside the campfire's warmth. The fire's effect wasn't what she'd expected. It wasn't that the temperature gradually dropped as you moved away. It was sharper than that. Like there was an invisible barrier around the flames. Inside, livable. Outside, the cold hit you like a wall. She wandered a little way off. The cold found every gap in her clothing. She thought about going farther, exploring. But there was nothing visible except that stand of trees she'd already worked. Maybe stuff was buried under the snow, but she couldn't see it. "No proper snow boots. Not going far." Riley glanced at the endless white distance with real regret. "Don't get greedy. Get those nineteen trees first." She turned. Looked at the woods. Her loot was still out there. And now she knew: if she could drag them back into the campfire's circle, the system would cash them out automatically. "Time to work." Riley rubbed her hands together. Let the motivation build. For the next few hours, she became a machine. Drag a tree to camp. Recover it. Go back for another. Repeat. It was boring. Exhausting. But watching those logs turn into numbers in her inventory—that feeling was hard to describe. Satisfying, in a way nothing had been satisfying in a long time. When the last pine trunk crossed into the light and dissolved into particles, Riley just collapsed. Lay flat in the snow and stared at the gray sky. She pulled up her Inventory. The once-empty slots were full now. Stack after stack of wood icons. "Item: Common Wood "Quantity: 80 "Description: Basic survival resource. Can be used for fuel or construction." Eighty units. Plus what was already burning in the campfire. Her day's work had yielded a clean hundred. One unit of wood burned for one hour. Riley looked at the flames dancing in front of her. Felt the heat on her face. Let herself smile, wide and real. "One hundred hours." Four full days. While everyone else was probably still panicking. Crying. Begging. Trying to figure out how to survive their first night in this frozen nightmare... She, Riley, had enough fuel stockpiled to last four days. Which meant: for the next ninety-six hours, unless she actively chose to die, nobody and nothing could put her fire out. She pulled the half-empty water bottle from Inventory. The space must have been insulated somehow—the water was still warm. Almost body temperature. She sipped it. Tasted sweet, even though it was just tap water. "Okay. Next step." Her gaze settled on the "Upgrade" button on the campfire panel. This open-air setup was fine for now. But if she was going to survive long-term, she needed something better. A real shelter. All she needed was a little stone. Some coal. Some steel. Then she could build something worth calling home. Chapter 3 The Trading Game The blizzard howled outside, but within the six-foot radius of the campfire, the air stayed surprisingly warm—like the wind had hit an invisible wall and just couldn't reach. Riley leaned back against the dusty wooden crate, holding the half-empty water bottle in her hand. She stared into the flames for a moment, then focused her attention inward. The pale blue system panel unfolded in front of her eyes again. Now that the immediate crisis was handled, she finally had time to sit quietly and really explore this so-called "Survival System". Beyond the personal stats and inventory, the bottom of the panel had a row of function icons: Server Channel, Friends List, Trading Market, and Crafting Manual. Friends List was empty. No surprise there. She hadn't exactly been a social butterfly back in the old world, and she sure as hell wasn't going to make friends easily in a frozen hellscape where everyone was fighting for their next breath. She tapped into the "Server Channel". A line of numbers appeared in the top left. "Server: US-008 "Current Online: 9911/10000" Ten thousand people started. Less than ten hours in, eighty-nine were already gone. "That doesn't add up." Everyone's starter crate came with a rusty iron axe and five units of wood. Plus the initial fuel the campfire had when they arrived—that alone bought them ten hours minimum, even if they just sat there doing nothing. What the hell did those people do to get eliminated so fast? The channel was moving fast, messages scrolling by every second. Desperation dripped from every line. "Someone help, I'm freezing my ass off out here. This stupid axe can't cut sh*t—every swing just bounces off and rattles my whole arm. Can anyone spare a couple logs? My dad's a senior VP at Walker Group. I'll wire you a million dollars when we get back, I swear." "Wake up, buddy. If your dad's still alive, he's out there chopping trees right now too." "Don't even talk to me. I spotted a wooden crate in the snow earlier, got all excited, ran over—and before I got within ten feet, some white rabbit thing jumped out of a drift. Teeth like needles. Almost took a chunk out of my leg. Missed the crate, wasted all that energy for nothing." "I saw that too! Random crates spawn in the wild. I opened a wooden one and got two chocolate bars and some coal." Reading through the chaos, Riley picked out two keywords, "Random Reward Crates" and "Dangerous Creatures". So this world was deeper than she thought. Wooden crates, copper crates—these randomly spawning resource points were the real way to get ahead. Coal came from crates. That was useful to know. And if coal was in crates, steel probably was too. But something bothered her. According to what people were saying, reward crates weren't exactly rare. So why hadn't she found a single one during her lumber run? She doubted it was just bad luck. Riley exited chat and tapped into the "Trading Market". "Seller: MountainMan88 Item: Stone x2 Wants: White Bread x5" "Seller: LoneWolf_21 Item: Cotton Cloth Wants: Clean Water" "Seller: NotDeadYet Item: Wood x3 Wants: Anything edible" Most people were trading for food and wood. The stuff that kept you alive right now. Things like stone and cloth were getting dumped cheap—nobody had the luxury of thinking long-term. Riley looked at her own inventory. Eighty units of wood staring back at her. Her heart beat a little faster. In this opening phase, where wood literally meant the difference between life and death, the resources in her hands were basically gold bars. "Time to trade," she muttered to herself. "Coal, steel—can't get those from chopping trees. And right now, wood's at maximum value. If I wait, the exchange rate shifts." Even with the chainsaw dead, she still had the handsaw. Less efficient, sure, but she could gather more wood if she needed it. Short-term, she wasn't going to run out. She clicked to post a message in the channel. "System Prompt: Detected that you have not set a virtual ID. Please enter your nickname (cannot be changed after setting)." Riley stared at the blank input box. Naming things was the worst. She sat there for a long time, nothing coming to mind. Finally, she gave up. Couldn't think of anything cool or clever, so she'd just go with something random. Her fingers tapped across the virtual keyboard—SpicyBurger. "Setting successful. ID locked." The prompt closed. Riley posted her message. "SpicyBurger: Selling wood in bulk. Looking for: Coal, Steel, High-calorie food. DM me with offers—what you have and your rate. Good deals go fast, don't sleep on this." For three seconds after the message appeared, the channel went dead silent. Then it exploded. "SpicyBurger? That name's making me hungry, what the hell." "Never mind the name—'wood in bulk'! We got a whale in here! Everyone else is stressing about the next hour and this person's already running a business?" "I need some! My campfire's down to like two hours. I don't know if I actually die when it hits zero but I don't wanna find out." Suddenly, half the channel was scrambling for wood. But then the skeptics crawled out. "Hang on. Everyone started with the same rusty axe. Chopping a tree in this weather takes twenty, thirty minutes minimum. Where's she getting 'bulk' wood from? Sounds like a scam." "InvincibleWarrior: Everybody chill. Look at that ID—sounds like a girl's handle. I'm a grown man, been busting my ass, and I've only got like ten logs saved up. My hands are shredded. Some girl with a food name claims she's got bulk? She's trying to run a game. Scam people out of their stuff." "Iron_Tough: Agreed. Scammers made it through the apocalypse too, I guess. My advice: ignore her. Don't get played. How much wood can a woman chop anyway? Probably can't even lift the axe right, lol." Riley scrolled through the messages, expression flat. She almost laughed. But some people pushed back. "FishHater44: How is it a scam? If she doesn't deliver, you don't complete the trade. Just 'cause you can't chop that much wood doesn't mean nobody can." Riley nodded slightly. That one had a point. But she didn't waste energy arguing in the channel. Instead, she flipped on Do Not Disturb for private messages—only allowing chat requests that included a trade offer. Some people didn't actually care whether she had wood. They just couldn't stand seeing someone else do well. "Ding. Ding. Ding." Private messages started pouring in like rain. Most players weren't idiots. Faced with the very real threat of freezing to death, they'd try anything for a chance. Riley opened the first one. "Windwalker: I got "Coal x3" from a crate. How much wood can I get for it? I can't chop anymore. The wind out here is insane. I tried to throw the coal in my fire but it just kept popping back out. System says my campfire level's too low, won't let me use it. I'm out of wood. My fire's almost dead." Riley thought for a moment. "Three coal for five wood. Deal?" She hadn't known about that restriction. Coal was supposed to be better fuel than wood—didn't expect the game to lock it behind a level gate. The reply came instantly, "Deal. But five wood feels light. It's coal." The guy was conflicted. He knew coal had value, but he was desperate. "I'll make it six. Final offer." Riley wasn't sure about coal's real value yet. Six was her limit. "Fine. Deal." They both dropped their items into the trade window. A moment later, it completed. A flash of white light. Riley's inventory lost six wood. Gained three chunks of coal, each about the size of a small melon. One down. "CrunchyFrog: Hey, I got two "Iron Ingots" from a crate. System calls them "Scrap Steel". Can I get eight wood for them? Trying to stock up enough to sleep through the night." Riley replied, "Sure. Initiate." In just over ten minutes, her wood stockpile dropped significantly. But her inventory filled up with good stuff. "Coal x10 "Stone x23 "Scrap Steel x5 "Raw Meat x2 "White Bread x2 "Basic Torch Blueprint x1" The blueprint was new. The description said it was required for crafting certain items. Seemed useful, so she'd traded for it. Meanwhile, back in the channel, that "InvincibleWarrior" guy who'd been mocking her earlier seemed to notice that people were actually completing trades. His tone got bitter. "InvincibleWarrior: Whatever. She probably got lucky with a high-tier crate. Let's see how long her stock lasts. Once the wood's gone, she'll be begging me to let her join my group." The people who'd successfully traded with Riley popped into the channel to thank her. That might have been fine—except the thanks caused problems. Since Riley had stopped trading for now, most people hadn't gotten anything. And the sky was darkening. Temperature outside the campfire radius was dropping fast. Gathering wood was getting harder. Trading was their only hope. The ones who'd pinned everything on Riley, seeing her stop, started losing it. "You said 'in bulk'! You did like five trades and quit. What are we supposed to do now?" "Keep trading! My fire's almost out. You want us to go chop trees in the dark?" "If you couldn't deliver, why'd you post? Showing off and then hiding." Whether it was coordinated or just genuine rage, the number of people defending Riley in the channel shrank fast. Mostly it was attacks now. Accusations of being irresponsible. Using scarcity tactics. Playing games with people's lives. Riley closed the channel. She couldn't be bothered. In a life-or-death situation like this, people losing it was normal. If she actually had unlimited resources, she'd trade more. But she didn't. And back on Earth, nobody had ever handed her anything out of charity. She wasn't about to start playing savior now. She looked down at the "Basic Torch Blueprint" in her inventory. "Requirements: Wood x10, Kerosene, Scrap Steel x2" Note: Requires Level 2 Workbench to craft." She leaned back against the crate again. Felt the weight of her stockpile pressing back against that lingering sense of unease. In this world, your ID didn't matter. Your gender didn't matter either. What mattered was who held the resources. She looked at what she had left: 36 units of wood. Plus the steel, coal, and stone from trading. Time to plan. Upgrading to a Level 2 campfire required 55 wood. She had all the other materials. For the wood, she'd just have to use the handsaw tomorrow and gather a little more. That settled, she pulled a few more logs from inventory and arranged them on top of the crate, making a small enclosed space. Curled up inside it, she watched the sky outside slowly darken to black. Her eyes grew heavy. She drifted off. Chapter 4 The Culling Riley woke to the kind of soreness that made you reconsider ever moving again. She'd slept like the dead—no dreams, no blizzard, just nothing. When she opened her eyes, the first things she saw were the logs she'd stacked as a windbreak and the steady glow of the campfire. She tried to stretch. Big mistake. Every muscle in her body lit up at once, screaming in protest. "Sh*t." Riley sucked air through her teeth and pressed a hand to her aching shoulder. Her lower back felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to it. Yesterday's work had been too much. She wasn't weak—far from it—but she was still human. The lactic acid had settled in overnight, and now she moved like an arthritic tin man. At least she was alive. She stowed the windbreak logs back in her inventory and looked around. The world hadn't changed. Same dull gray sky. Same swirling snow. Outside the six-foot radius of the fire, the drifts looked deeper than yesterday. The wind had been busy. Riley pulled out the half-empty water bottle and wet her throat. Then she retrieved the white bread she'd traded for yesterday. Compared to that dense, flavorless black bread, this was practically cake. She tore off small pieces, letting the faint sweetness dissolve on her tongue, and habitually opened the "Server Channel". She stopped chewing. The number in the top left hit her like a physical blow. "Current Online Players: 4968/10000" "Five thousand..." Riley's eyes went wide. In a single night, that number had been cut in half. Five thousand people. Gone. Winked out of existence on this frozen ice field while she slept. "Ding." The system notification cut through her thoughts—cold, emotionless, like it was announcing the weather. "Global Announcement: Congratulations to all survivors for successfully surviving the first day. "This was a culling. Last night eliminated those fools who failed to add fuel to their fires or refused to gather wood. Remember: in this place, tears mean nothing. When you die here, you're dead-dead. "You who remain are the lucky ones. "Grace Period: A five-day 'New Player Support Period' now begins. For the next five days, your initial supply crates will refresh daily with a fixed amount of food. "Special Reward: Each survivor receives one pair of "Standard Issue Snow Boots (Common)". Be grateful for this mercy. Enjoy the game." The words sat there on her screen. Fools. Mercy. The system's tone dripped with contempt. The math was simple. Starting package: five hours of fuel. Initial gift: five units of wood, another five hours. Total ten hours, if you did absolutely nothing. The ones who'd frozen to death last night—they were the ones who'd clung to hope. The ones too scared to move. The ones who'd told themselves someone would save them. Five thousand people. One night. Gone. This wasn't a game. It was a slaughter. In the channel, the survivors who'd made it through were clearly rattled by the numbers too. "Holy sh*t... My friend's icon went dark last night. Does that mean he's dead? Actually dead?" "I can't do this. I don't wanna play anymore, I wanna go home. I swear I'll work today. I'll chop wood, I'll do whatever, just please—" "Everyone move! Don't save your strength! If you die, that's it. No respawns!" Panic spread fast. But almost immediately, the tone shifted. The fear found a target. "That SpicyBurger—if she'd shared more wood yesterday, would so many people have died?" "For real. If she had extra, why not just give it away? Why did it have to be trades? She could've at least loaned some out." "This is what happens when people hoard resources and watch others freeze. Remember that name. Don't trade with her. Ever." Riley frowned. Here we go again. She scrolled up. Sure enough, there it was—that familiar ID: "InvincibleWarrior". He was going hard in the channel. "She's profiting off suffering. That's what some people do. Women like that are the worst—hoarding supplies while people die around them. Wait and see. Someone like her won't last." Riley laughed. Actually laughed out loud. Moral blackmail. In the apocalypse. She typed, "If you want wood, go cut it yourself. I'm not your mommy. No amount of crying in chat is gonna put logs in your inventory. You'd get more done if you just picked up your d*mn axe." The channel went quiet for a second. Then the reasonable voices piped up. "She's right. Nobody owes you anything. Work for it." "Exactly. Just 'cause someone's quiet doesn't mean they're an easy target." In a world where staying alive took everything you had, expecting charity was the dumbest move of all. Riley didn't waste more energy on it. People like that—the more you engaged, the more they thrived. Let him run his mouth. She had bigger things to worry about. She closed the channel and turned to the big wooden crate—her initial supply point. Sure enough, new items had materialized inside. "Bottled Water x3 "White Bread x3 "Fresh Orange Juice x1 "Standard Snow Boots x1" "Orange juice?" Riley picked up the bottle, genuinely surprised. The orange liquid inside sloshed gently. Vitamins. The system was actually giving them vitamins. She pulled off her old shoes—already damp and cold—and swapped into the new boots. They were clunky, sure. But they gripped the snow, and the insulation was real. The chill that had been seeping up through her soles disappeared instantly. Next, she opened her toolbox. Goggles on. Thick cut-resistant gloves. Head-to-toe gear. "Time to work." The channel noise faded from her mind. She had one priority today, and it wasn't arguing with idiots. She picked up the chainsaw and headed back to the tree line. The cold played tricks on batteries. She'd known that, intellectually. But knowing it and feeling it were different things. After just eight trees, the last spare battery gave out. The chainsaw stuttered, died, and went silent in her hands. Riley stared at it. "Son of a b*tch." Chapter 5 Dead Battery Riley stared at the dead chainsaw in her hands and shook her head. Without power, it was just an expensive paperweight. If she wanted more wood, she'd have to do it the old-fashioned way—pick up the axe or the manual handsaw from the toolbox and go to war with frozen timber. But eight more trees were eight more trees. Her stockpile was looking healthy. "First things first. Get these back." She sucked it up, stowed the chainsaw in her inventory, and started hauling. Her body screamed even louder than yesterday. Every muscle felt like it had been replaced with concrete. She dragged each log back one at a time, moving like a zombie. Drag. Rest two minutes. Drag again. The wind howled in her ears. Riley lost track of time, lost track of everything except the mechanical rhythm of work. By the time the sun was high—not that you could really see it through the clouds—she dragged the last log into the campfire's radius. It dissolved into light, absorbed by the system. Riley all but collapsed into the snow. "Acquired: Wood x40" She lay there for a moment, chest heaving, staring at the number in her inventory. A tired smile crept across her face. She had enough. Combined with the coal and steel from yesterday's trades, she had everything she needed for the upgrade. Riley forced herself upright and walked to the campfire. On the floating translucent panel, the "Upgrade" button glowed that tempting gold. "Upgrade Primitive Shelter to Lv.2? "Cost: Wood x50, Stone x20, Coal x10, Scrap Steel x5 "Remaining after upgrade: Wood x16, Stone x3, Coal x0, Steel x0" "Upgrade." Riley took a breath and pressed it. "Hmmmm—!" A blinding white light erupted from the heart of the campfire, swallowing everything. Riley squeezed her eyes shut. No explosion. No thunder. Just a sound like Legos snapping together. A few seconds later, the light faded. Riley opened her eyes. And stopped breathing. The campfire wasn't just a campfire anymore. The rough stone ring had transformed into something neat and intentional—a proper firepit with a stone border for insulation, a place to set things, even a simple steel grate attached to the side. But that wasn't the big news. The heat that used to push back the cold within a six-foot radius now stretched a full fifteen feet. Inside that circle, snow was actively melting, revealing dark frozen soil underneath. In one corner, she spotted a patch of moss stubbornly poking through. Riley spun around. Behind the big wooden crate, a small log cabin stood waiting. It wasn't much—maybe forty feet square, built from rough-hewn logs. Nothing fancy. But it was solid. Four walls and a roof, blocking wind and snow completely. Riley walked over and pushed open the heavy wooden door. Warm air hit her face. Inside was simple: a wooden bed frame piled with dry grass, a crude workbench, a chair, and a small fireplace connected to a chimney that ran up through the roof. Rustic. But right now, it was heaven. Wood and fire. Four walls. A roof. Home. Riley ran her hand along the rough wall. Her eyes stung a little. She wouldn't have to sleep in the open anymore. Wouldn't have to wake up every few hours to check the fire. Wouldn't have to worry about freezing to death in her sleep. Right on cue, the server announcement chimed. Gold text this time, blazing right in the center of everyone's vision. "Server Announcement: Congratulations to player SpicyBurger for being the first to achieve "Level 2 Shelter". Rewards have been distributed." The chat channel, which had been wallowing in fear and despair, exploded. "Holy sh*t? Level 2 already? What does Level 2 unlock? Can you post pics, big shot?" "That's the wood seller from yesterday? No way. Absolute legend." "Carry me please! SpicyBurger, I'll be your loyal follower. I can cook, I can clean, I can—" "Teach us, master! How'd you gather materials so fast? What's your secret?" Compliments. Pleas. Desperate attempts to get noticed. And then, of course, the sour grapes. "InvincibleWarrior: Big deal. Just profiteering off everyone else's suffering. If she'd shared that wood instead of selling it, maybe those five thousand people would still be alive. How does it feel to climb on corpses?" "GodLovesMeFirst: Seriously. Building your success on other people's deaths. Karma's real. She'll get hers." Riley's jaw tightened. If InvincibleWarrior had been standing in front of her right now, she'd have knocked his teeth out. Guys like him—useless themselves, but always ready to tear down anyone who actually accomplished something. Sewer rats. Her private messages exploded too. She'd set it to only accept trade offers, but people had found a workaround—using the "trade note" function to send spam. "Hey beautiful, I'm a personal trainer. Great shape. Wanna see? Hit me with some wood and I'll do a voice call with you!" A photo of some guy flexing in a mirror, shirt off. Riley glanced at it, unimpressed. Decent abs. Pathetic attitude. Dude was clearly strong enough to chop wood—why was he wasting time on this? She'd never mentioned her gender, so most people probably assumed anyone who'd gathered that much wood must be a guy. The messages reflected that assumption. Some women sent selfies too, trying to flirt their way into favor. Didn't matter. Shameless cut across all demographics. From the backgrounds in the photos, everyone seemed to be in different locations. But one thing was consistent: they all had trees nearby. The system must have arranged that—a new player perk. "A bunch of degenerates." Riley's face went cold. She changed her privacy settings to "Friends Only". Then she added a line to her trading post description. "No spam. Send junk, get blocked." Silence. Blessed silence. She took a breath, let the noise drain away, and focused on what mattered. "First-place upgrade reward..." She opened her inventory. Sitting there, glowing faintly purple, was a gift box. She excitedly opened the gift box, only to find that inside was... For more exciting content, please download the "JoyRead" app to continue reading.

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