My Cruel Family's Cold Apocalypse

My mother left me to freeze to death.

Her lover and my brother helped.

They stole my supplies. My food. My generators.

All for an apocalypse only I knew was coming.

The last thing I felt was the ice in my veins.

Then… I woke up.

It's seven days before the world ends.

My family is waiting for me, smiling.

This time, I’m not bringing supplies.

I’m bringing hell.

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1

I once worked for a discreet overseas climate research firm. It was there I discovered an imminent catastrophe we called the “Extreme Cold Apocalypse,” and I quit on the spot.

But before I left, I was bound by company regulations and a strict non-disclosure agreement. I had to keep this terrifying knowledge to myself.

After getting off the plane, I took a cab back to the house I owned in the suburbs of Pennsylvania. I hoped to convince my mother, Peggy Reed, and my younger brother, Mason Reed, to join me in the shelter I’d prepared, where we could hoard supplies and ride out the apocalypse.

My mother, Mason, and his wife, Chloe, were all visibly shocked to see me.

For years, while living abroad, I had faithfully sent money home to cover all their expenses. They were living, rent-free, in a house registered under my name.

The three of them had been living a life of leisure at my expense, and it was clear my return was an unwelcome disruption.

I glanced into what used to be my room and found it cluttered with junk.

When my mother saw me, her face fell. “Why are you back so suddenly?”

Chloe was looking down, scrolling on her phone. She glanced up, a sly look in her eyes as she decided to test the waters.

“Ava, I saw on the news that your research company is going through massive global layoffs. You didn't get fired, did you?”

At her words, Mason paused his game and turned to stare at me.

News of the layoffs at my company had indeed gone viral recently.

Clearly, they had all seen it.

Not wanting to reveal the real reason for my return, I went along with their assumption, claiming I’d been laid off and was home for good.

This time, my mother’s expression completely collapsed. Still, she put on a show of being happy, cooking a few dishes to welcome me home.

Back then, I was naive, blinded by a desperate hope for familial love. Exhausted from jet lag and believing I had a week to prepare, I decided to rest. After dinner, I went to a guest room and slept until dawn.

But I woke to the horrifying sensation of being dragged across the floor.

The person dragging me was our neighbor of many years, David Davies.

As I opened my mouth to scream, he shoved a filthy rag into it.

My mother glared at me, her eyes cold as ice. “You ungrateful brat! Can’t believe you lost your job and still have the nerve to come crawling back! There’s no room for you here!”

“You're going to give us your bank passwords and the deeds to all your properties! Once we have everything, then we’ll think about letting you go.”

A foolish glimmer of hope ignited within me. Unable to speak, I just looked at her pleadingly, trying to convey that I’d agree to anything just to get out of there.

But those bastards locked me in the unheated basement. The emergency generators and heating equipment I'd ordered on my credit card were all delivered right to them. And what was my reward? They locked me in the frigid basement to die on the very first day of the apocalypse. I could hear the hum of the heating system upstairs as my life slowly seeped away in the biting cold.