Once communications go dark for good, the entire city sinks into a long, endless silence.
My phone stops receiving messages entirely. The group chat freezes on its final cry for help. Signal bars gone blank. For the first couple of days, I still check my phone every now and then out of habit. Eventually, I just shut it away in a drawer. This world is no longer one you can stay connected to through a phone.
The first great snowfall lasts a full two weeks. Through those two weeks, the sky outside barely brightens at all. The line between day and night is reduced to nothing more than a faint shift in gray on the monitor screens. Snow piles up across the streets, burying car roofs, sealing the lower exits of building after building, and burying countless figures who never made it out in time.
At its coldest, the outdoor temperature drops past minus eighty degrees. At that kind of cold, an ordinary person simply cannot survive outdoors for long.
After two weeks, the storm finally begins to ease, and the temperature climbs slowly back up from its lowest point to somewhere around minus forty or fifty. For an ordinary person, this is still a lethal cold. But it at least gives the few remaining survivors a chance at short-distance movement.
And it's during those very days that I gradually piece together the pattern behind the spore infection in the snow.
It's not the kind of thing that triggers instantly on contact. Brief exposure through clothing can still be treated in time. The real danger is meltwater from the snow, entering through a wound, the nose or mouth, or clinging to skin for a prolonged period. Once dark patches appear on the skin, it means the infection has already taken hold. Based on what I know from my past life, the longest incubation period is roughly seventy-two hours.
So the very first ironclad rule I set for the bunker is that any newcomer must undergo a full seventy-two-hour quarantine. Not a minute less.
A few times I watch survivors emerge from residential buildings, wrapping their bodies in bed sheets, covering their shoes in plastic bags, carrying makeshift tools, trying to reach a supermarket across the street for food. But they've barely made it a short distance before dark shapes begin to stir in the snow around them. Those infected lie half buried in the snowdrift, perfectly still most of the time, as if frozen in place. But the moment they sense footsteps, vibration, body heat, or catch even the faintest sound, they lunge straight at whoever passes by.
The camera feed is quickly swallowed by the storm. I don't keep watching. Some images are better left unseen too clearly. They only make it harder to sleep at night.
At first, the infected act purely on instinct, chasing anything living. A few days later, they start growing sensitive to sound, vibration, and heat. By day seven, the first high-threat variants appear, their movement noticeably faster and stronger.
One of them, drawn in by a heat source, makes its way to the vent near the mall's outer wall.
When the external alarm sounds, I'm in the middle of inspecting the power room. The shrill alert cuts through the air, and for a moment, my heart drops hard. It isn't fear. It's the memory from my past life of that door being broken open, flooding back in an instant.
I immediately switch to the vent camera feed. On screen, the infected is stationed right by the outer wall, pressed close against the metal safety grating.
The next second, it slams into it. Bang. The entire ventilation duct shudders slightly.
I don't move. I just watch the screen.
Bang. A second hit. Bang. A third.
The grating doesn't warp. The filtration system shows no anomalies. The anti-backflow valve holds steady.
Only then do I let out a slow breath. Fortunately, I'd already added a soundproofing layer to the ventilation system, along with a heat exchange unit and a disguised exhaust vent. The air actually released outside stays at a low temperature, and the sound is kept to a minimum. That infected was only drawn by an occasional leak of heat. It never found the real entrance.
In my past life, I never had a single door that could truly hold anyone back. This time, I've built myself a bunker that can truly withstand the apocalypse.
That infected lingers outside for a long while. Eventually, it seems to lose interest and slowly wanders out of camera range.
Over the following days, more and more infected are drawn in by heat sources and the low hum of machinery. Some ram against the door. Some linger near the outer defensive netting. Some wander around the entrance making sounds sharp and grating, like someone dragging something jagged slowly back and forth across the door.
I don't shut off the monitors. And I don't fully mute the sound either, because I have to get used to it. This indifference. It won't grow any quieter just because I'm afraid.
I live by a strict daily routine. I wake up at seven every morning. Check the power. Check the fuel. Check the water cycling system. Check the air filtration. Log the outdoor temperature and the movement patterns of the infected. Then eat, exercise, organize the storage bay, and patrol all three underground levels.
In the first few days, I can barely sleep soundly. The faintest sound in the middle of the night jolts me awake instantly, and I stare at the monitors for a long time. Sometimes, I dream I'm back in my past life. Dreaming of Vivien opening that door. Dreaming of Derek storming in with a crowd behind him. When I wake, I sit in the darkness for a long while, until I've confirmed all three blast doors are locked tight, that the power is running normally, before I let myself lie back down.
Security, it turns out, isn't something that just appears once you have enough supplies. It has to be earned day by day, through confirmation. Confirming the door is still there, the food is still there. Confirming no one will ever push me out into the cold again.
On day ten, I plant the first batch of vegetables on basement level three. Lettuce, scallions, potatoes, a few pots of tomatoes.
As I press the seeds into the growing trays, my hand pauses for a long moment. In my past life, through six months of apocalypse, I barely saw a single true patch of green. Every edible leaf had long since been stripped away by desperate hands. Even the grass in the neighborhood flower beds had been dug up and boiled for food. Back then, a single fresh leaf was rarer than gold.
So when the very first sprout of tender green pokes up from the growing tray, I stand under the grow light and stare at it for a long time. It's tiny, small enough to be crushed by a single fingertip. But in a world where even a cup of hot water can save a life, this small patch of green brings me more comfort than an entire warehouse of canned goods.
Canned food will eventually run out. Fuel will eventually burn away. But as long as seeds can still sprout, this place is more than just a shelter. It's somewhere I can truly go on living.