"Don't do this!" Kristy desperately pleaded to her once best friend Jessica.
Jessica pushed Kristy down the stairs and locked the door.
Kristy hissed from the pain in her ankle. It is definitely swollen, well falling down six stars will do that to you.
'How did I get myself into this situation? My fiancé is sleeping with my now ex best friend and she pushed me into the warehouse.'
'I will be killed for theft if I'm found here. Not to mention I'm a space type user. I can be framed just for my type of power.'
In the beginning of the apocalypse having a space type power was very important but not anymore. 'I'm just shy of being a regular person. No worse now I'm treated like a thief if I get too close to something. This is what paranoid people complain of having a space user close to them because we can store things and no one can see them.'
'The base is under attack. But it is not like I can fight. I'm a space user. More importantly if the base falls I'm stuck to get eaten. If the base doesn't fall, I'll be executed for theft if I'm found in here.'
'I have lived in this base since the beginning of the apocalypse. I have not had to leave but five bases have fallen in the last three months. The zombies keep getting stronger.'
Kristy thought to herself. 'Maybe that will be my excuse for being here. It was my job to grab emergency supplies.'
'My fiancée is the one in charge of the supplies. This is how that bitch got the keys. Will he cover for me if I use this excuse to be here?'
'Jacob has not given me any space crystals sense three months after the apocalypse started. It has been five years now. But space crystals were hard to find and Jacob wanted me to stay here where I'm safe.'
'What bullshit I found some people picked up more than one power by fighting zombies. I have never killed a zombie. Jacob protected me in the beginning all the way here. Now the zombies are too strong to fight to even try for another power.'
Kristy started loading her space with boxes of crystal cores used as currency. 'Well, if they're going to kill me, they will lose their supplies.'
She stood up and looked around the warehouse. This is like the bank. Crystal cores and food what this world runs off of.
'My small space won't even fit a quarter of what is most important to take if the base falls; this excuse could fail at this rate.'
"I haven't upgraded my power in years" Kristy spoke to herself opening one of the boxes of crystal cores after half an hour of searching she found 12 space type cores. 'Well space is a rare power even if it is deemed almost useless now.'
She sat cross legged on the floor ignoring her throbbing ankle and started to absorb the crystal cores. 'This is more than I have ever seen in one time. I have only absorbed three others and those were level one.'
'I'm lucky all these cores are above level four. Shit this one is level six.'
'I hope the space expands enough to make my excuse plausible.'
Kristy had placed all the boxes of zombie cores into her space as she searched for space crystals. 'Next is the food once I have the room.'
This is three bases worth of supplies two of the bases that fell were rerouted here the biggest problem here is food! The zombies get stronger with time, people used to think it was the red rain, it took a few years to see that was not the truth. We people only get stronger by killing zombies. well, there have been a lot of people paying to get in with crystal cores from the new stronger wave of zombies. Otherwise finding twelve cores of space would be impossible.
Last one, the growling outside has gotten louder 'this level six core looks a little off but I feel the connection to it, is it contaminated? It's a little darker than the other space cores?'
Crash! "Evacuate! Rip through them!" The noise was so loud Kristy could hear them scream through the wall of the warehouse.
'My worst nightmare the base has fallen, that must have been the wall that broke. Well contaminated or not, my only chance is to acquire a space I can breathe inside before the zombies get through the warehouse and those walls are not as strong as the perimeter.'
Kristy got up and threw a few boxes of water and food into her space. 'I might need a few days before I can come back out if this works.'
She sat back down and started absorbing the last crystal core sweat dripped from her forehead from the strain of absorbing so much in this stressful environment.
BANG, BANG, BANG
'The zombies have sensed someone in here. It's only a matter of time before they break down the door.'
Kristy finished absorbing the level six crystal and watching the door tried to jump in her space. It didn't work. 'Some space upgrades to support life I thought mine was upgrading since it wasn't growing. I guess it wasn't enough.'
"This is it. I'm not a fighter; I'm going to die. I wish I could go back in time. I would dump the cheating fiancé, the ex-best friend that left me here to die and I would fight and hope to awaken another combat power."
Kristy thought of going back in time as she watched the door deform from the presser. The zombies were coming in then the view shifted. It was like Kristy had pushed the rewind button on an old VCR movie.
She was moving backwards and it was going faster and faster. The speed was making Kristy nauseous so she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She felt something strange happening in her space so she took a look. All the upgrades had done not much to the size of her space; it was as big as a two-car garage. But the corner where the boxes of crystal cores were one box had fallen over when Kristy shoved the food in.
The crystals were being absorbed by the floor of her space! What. 'It stopped getting bigger after the fourth crystal core but I thought it was working on upgrading elsewhere.'
"I wonder what it will do!" Kristy spoke to herself and mentally dumped the other seven boxes full of crystal cores onto the floor of her space."
When she came back out, she was shocked to not be dead yet in fact she was watching a playback in reverse of her life. "Is this life flashes back before you die?"
She watched the signs and look's her fiancé Jacob gave to Jessica. 'This has to have been three years ago. How did it take me so long to notice they were sleeping around?'
'If I had known sooner, I wouldn't have had to be so passive about it. Then again Jacob is the special ice type power and Jessica has the wood type power. My space is almost worse to have than having no power if someone knows about it.'
People loved space in the beginning and hated us as burdens later.
Kristy looked around at the screen in front of her. "This was our escape from the city after the apocalypse started two weeks in, when the power went out."
The rewinding screen seemed to slow down now. "I watched the much younger me waiting for three days in the living room for that cheating fiancé to come rescue me."
Kristy watched herself in reverse as she fell over in the kitchen and was unconscious. "Thank God I was using the oven and not the stove or I would have lit the house on fire. This was when I awakened my space."
Time for the day continued to go backwards then it stopped.
"Excuse me!"
'I heard a voice behind me. I turned to look and I was standing in the middle of the aisle of the grocery store picking out the toppings for my lasagna dinner.'
Kristy moved out of the way, apologizing. "Sorry I was lost in thought there." 'Shit yes lost in thought that last crystal was not space it was time! I didn't even know time had a crystal. I have never heard of time power.' Kristy pulled out her phone and she confirmed the time and the date.
'The apocalypse is starting in eight hours. This is as far back as I can go and lucky me, I'm at the grocery store.'
Kristy went to the front of the store and switched the basket with a cart. She then went to check her space. 'Yes, it is still here, I have my space 8 hours sooner. But what is that?' There was a door on the side of the two-car garage now.
She mentally navigated to the door and had it open she stepped through the door and there was a five-acre grassland with a river flowing through it.
Kristy realized that she had stopped walking in the real world when she saw this. She tried to enter her space with her body and this time it worked. This was the result of the crystals that the space absorbed!
She walked over to the garage and went in it. More than half of the eight boxes of crystal cores were gone; the space gave a feeling of completeness. She can tell that when an energy is used from her space it will absorb more cores.
She mentally thought of creating a pit to put the cores in so they're not in the garage. And she could see where they were moved to. These cores are like a battery for my new type of space!
"Crap, I forgot I just disappeared from the grocery store." Kristy hoped back out of her space. "Well on the plus side the world goes to shit in 8 hrs. so no one will be checking the surveillance videos."
'In twelve hours, there will be a lot of people here taking as much as they can. My credit card has five thousand dollars. I wonder how much I can get in 8 hrs.'
"That's the wrong thought process. My space is bigger now and I have it early." Kristy stepped to the side to think. 'What all do I want in the apocalypse? I have livable land with water and wind magic for air. I want eggs, milk, bacon and vegetables. I have room to farm. But animal feed stores and animals?'
Kristy pulled out her phone and started to google the nearest farms to her. One for chickens, one for cows, one for pigs. And the nearest feed store for them.
'I'm getting ahead of myself. I only have eight hours before everyone passes out.' Kristy headed to the back of the store with her cart. 'This might be noticed but not for a while and I won't be going home so who cares. I saw the GM manager stocking shelves in aisle three so the back storage is unoccupied. Who cares if the stuff goes missing 12 hours early!'
Kristy left the cart by the door to the back stock room of the store and started to touch all the pallets. They were really fast to move since they were all on pallets. "Oh, how convenient."
She noticed that the space now labeled things for her in the storage and there was an option to stop time!
"Yes, for everything perishable stop time" this was awesome time only needed a verbal command and a thought to work. 'This was my wish to go back that saved my life and my habit of talking out loud to myself at times.'
'Since my food won't go bad, let's go to the walk-in fridge' Kristy moved as fast as she could. I don't need to be behind bars when the apocalypse happens. Then again, I'm carrying nothing and space type users are not known yet! Yay me.
'This must be why space got the theft label. But everyone living will be doing it soon. It's not like the owner of this store even lives in this state! Yes, that's true not theft, even if I paid, they couldn't get the money before it's useless.'
Kristy took her cart and walked down the freezer aisle to acquire all the ice cream! When someone was in the aisle with her, she would put the things in the cart and wait for them to leave or move to the next aisle. Yay toilet paper. Napkins all the good stuff.
In the end she spent 15 minutes in the checkout with the few things she put in the cart and as she was paying, she noticed the GM talking adamantly with the manager they had noticed the missing things probably when they went back to get something else to stock.
Kristy pretended not to notice a problem and walked out of the store. 'Have to use the beeper. I mean I parked the car five years ago.' beep beep. 'There is my baby, I have missed you.'
Walking next to the door the whole cart with groceries went into the space. "No need to unload, I might need a cart one day!"
Kristy navigated her way to the feed store. 'I wish I could get more fish, shrimp, crab and lobster but I have nowhere to get it from in such a short time.'
'I would call uncle Richerd to fetch some for me but in my last time here, the power was still working for two weeks, and I learned from my cousin that my uncle and my mom turned into zombies. I can't drive for twenty-three hours to get to them to see them in that state.'
"Thinking of my cousin, I should probably warn him." Kristy pulled out her phone. It rang twice before the line picked up. "Hey Matty, get somewhere where it's good to talk, and sit down. I have something to tell you that is going to sound nuts but I'm completely serious."
"Ok, just a sec I'm sitting on the couch. Wait let me guess you won the lottery and are giving me a share" Matty snarked. Matty was hard working and he was a good kid. He picked up a part time job as a mechanic while finishing his first year of college. but he liked to party, and some friends he was traveling with were not so good. Kristy hadn't heard from him once the phones went down.
There were two people in the feed store manning the register. She passed them with her cart.
"No Matty I didn't win the lottery and I am not pranking you when I say I have just come back in time and in seven and a half hours from now the whole world will be going through a zombie apocalypse!"
"Shit you have got to be kidding me! I thought you were going to say something serious. If the apocalypse was going to happen. You would be calling your mom, not me." Matty was laughing.
"I will call her to tell her I love her in seven hours. Matty, I don't just know the apocalypse is coming. I have lived there for five years. Last time you were the only one to call me from our family. Both of our parents and your sister don't survive the change. I can never see them again!" Kristy was crying now and Matty was breathing heavily on the other line he could hear her crying and knew she wasn't joking.
"What do you need me to do?" Matty was serious now. Kristy will never say that her family was going to die as a joke. She is the most serious person about staying healthy because she never wants to lose another person. Even if what Kristy says is crazy it would never come out of her mouth in this way unless she thought it was true.
"Get yourself a weapon, ammo, enough food for three days. I'll be there by then to get you. And take the family to the most expensive restaurant you can put on your credit card." 'Spend time with them Matty I'm not there to do it. Your credit cards won't be worth anything in eight hours anyway enjoy the time you have.' Kristy thought as she gave directions.
"Just make sure you're in a secure room by yourself at 7:45pm laying down the whole world gets knocked unconscious for a few hours then you either wake up a survivor or they stand up as the undead. Be careful Matty."
"What about James and Jessica? They are coming with you?" Matty asked about my Fiancé.
"That cheating scumbag starts sleeping with Jessica in two years. I found out about it when Jessica locked me in a storage room during a zombie raid and left me there to be eaten alive. I'm not going near them this time." Kristy was seething, the anger she had been holding back was fuming out now.
"Got it you probably have more experience at this point. I will give the best meal to our loved ones. Then wait for you at home." Matty was trying to keep his voice from cracking. 'Kristy diffidently believes this is true and if it is he will lose his family when the world goes to shit. Life is not fun when you find out your family will die in a few hours and there is nothing you can do to stop it.'
"Don't go off with your friends this time Matty. In two weeks, the phones will stop working. I never heard from you again and don't know what your life was like but I'm worried." Kristy poured her heart out on the phone while throwing many things for chickens in the cart. Her cart was full but the store was too small to just take it.
"Ok I'll keep in touch on the drive, call you later Matty." I told him.
"Yes, I have things to do now. Call reservations and come up with an excuse to go out to eat at least it's a Saturday and everyone is off work. Maybe I'll tell them I won the lottery." Matty laughed at his bad joke.
"Matty, last time, all you told me was that they were zombies. I don't know if they were bitten before you found them or if they didn't survive the change. If you can think of an excuse to spread them out in different rooms. They might survive. Well, it's a thought if possible."
"I'll leave it to you since I don't know. but if they don't make it, I don't want to stress them beforehand. Ok I'll hang up now." Kristy put the phone back in her purse and looked at the teller.
Both of the employees were looking at her. One cleared his throat. "If the apocalypse is going to happen, why are you here?"
"I want to eat eggs in the Apocalypse so I need to feed the chickens." Kristy saw no point in trying to hide it; they heard her whole conversation.
The guy at the register started to ring things up. "If I can show you that the apocalypse is coming, can I empty your store?" Kristy smiled at them.
"If what you're saying is true, I have no job in seven hours, so yes take it all.'' The man in the red sweater told Kristy, smiling. He was sure he found an amusing person, at least the day was not so boring.
"Are you watching?" Kristy posed for them to pay attention, reached for a large bag of chicken feed and put it in her space for them to see a 35-pound bag of feed disappear.
"Do it again!" the second guy asked, not yet believing his eyes. The first guy in the red sweater was already taking off his apron to leave.
Kristy pointed to her shopping cart still half full and then made it disappear.
"The store is all yours I have things to do." he looked panicked but, in the end, 'I was left in a now empty store since I don't really know what I need. And didn't want to waste time figuring it out right now.'
'I just put everything I could touch in my space except the mice. I don't want those. But they even had baby chickens and rabbits in the store.'
Chickens check, rabbits not on the list but check and so cute. This store even had seeds for vegetables! Kristy looked at her phone, six and a half more hours. time to go to the farm.