Reborn Before the Apocalypse I Built a Fortress to Save My Village

After being torn apart by a mutated cat, I jolted awake, consciousness flooding back in fragments.

I stared at my body—completely uninjured—and the realization hit me: I had been reborn.

In my previous life, an unknown planet had released massive quantities of some unidentified element, causing animals on Earth to grow at rates thousands—even tens of thousands—of times faster than normal.

Mutated rats. Mutated cats. Beetles the size of tanks. They overran the entire world in days.

Against those enormous beasts, humans were nothing. Fragile. Helpless.

In just seventy-two hours, Earth was devastated.

I thought of a giant snake, hundreds of meters long, its tail sweeping through a skyscraper like it was made of cardboard. A shiver ran down my spine.

I grabbed my phone and checked the calendar. One month. I had one month before that planet released the elements.

Then I remembered—today was the day the factory was supposed to buy materials. I bolted out of my room.

"Dad, cancel the raw materials order. Take the whole two million and spend it on explosives!"

——

My father froze mid-step, jaw hanging open. It took him a solid ten seconds to recover.

"Are you sleepwalking? What the hell are you talking about?" Nathan Larson shook his head in disbelief. "Son, we run a small fireworks workshop. Two million in explosives—you trying to level this entire mountain range?"

He waved at Linda James to continue the wire transfer. Panic surged through me. I lunged forward and yanked the power cord from the wall. The computer screen went black.

So did my father's expression.

"Alex! Are you done causing problems?" His voice rose sharply. "Today is the deadline for payment. Chinese New Year is coming—if we can't produce the firecrackers, what's the whole staff supposed to do? Starve?"

"Dad, you won't make it to New Year's—"

He didn't let me finish. His palm cracked against the back of my head, eyes blazing red with fury.

"You little bastard! Who are you cursing to die? I'll kill you myself first!"

I ducked and scrambled backward, hands raised in surrender. "Dad—stop—I didn't mean it like that! Just let me explain! One month from now, every animal on the planet will mutate into monsters. None of us are making it to New Year's!"

I told him everything. Every detail from my previous life. The mutations. The death. The collapse of civilization.

He listened in stunned silence.

Then he reached over and knocked on my skull like he was checking if anything was home.

"Have you fried your brain playing video games? Centipedes dozens of meters long? Mosquitoes the size of helicopters?" He snorted. "I think your brain is what mutated. Now get out of my way—I have money to make."

He moved toward the outlet to plug the computer back in. I grabbed his arm.

"Dad, everything I'm saying is true. I lived through it. I died—torn apart by a cat the size of a tiger. I've been given a second chance, and I can't let it happen again. Please. Believe me."

"Believe you? Were you reborn or did you visit the afterlife? Did you see your great-grandma while you were at it?" He yanked his arm free. "Why don't you tell me you ascended to immortality? Bless us! Make us rich overnight!"

Linda rolled her eyes from her desk. "Alex, I'm not trying to lecture you, but all you do is eat and play games like some trust-fund kid. There are dozens of workers here counting on their year-end bonuses. Can you please stop making trouble?"

Lisa Lawrence, the office clerk—fresh out of college, more open-minded—glanced around the room as if searching for something.

"Alex, is this one of those prank challenge videos? You're messing with us for content, right?" She gave me a skeptical look. "But seriously, what you're describing is way too out there."

Before I could respond, the door swung open.

Raymond Larson walked in—my uncle, who had spent his entire life competing with my father over everything. Linda, still treating my outburst as entertainment, repeated what I'd said.

Raymond's face lit up with smug satisfaction, that familiar look of told you so plastered across his features. He looked at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

"This kid's been a mess since he was little. Doesn't understand a thing about the real world." He puffed out his chest. "Not like my son—excellent since childhood, and now he's a company executive. Makes tens of thousands a year!"

I bit my tongue.

What kind of executive only makes tens of thousands? Even our factory workers earned more than that.