Provisions and Payback

Sadie pushed forward, her mind consumed by the urgent preparations required to survive the impending Floodfall and the corrosive Acidstorms that would follow in its wake. She pulled her laptop closer, the harsh glow of the screen illuminating her focused expression in the darkened bedroom. She spent thousands of dollars in rapid succession, opening multiple tabs to order heavy-duty dehumidifiers and crates of quicklime heating packs. When the power grid failed and the gas lines ruptured, that quicklime would be their only reliable way to boil water and heat meals in the damp, suffocating dark.

Next came the specialized gear to survive the toxic rain. She filled her digital cart with military-grade gas masks, chemical-resistant protective suits, heavy rubber boots, and professional fire gear. She made sure to secure plenty of child-sized equipment, needing Toby protected at all costs. Watching her digital bank balance dwindle at a terrifying rate, her eyes grew heavy. The glowing numbers on the screen blurred together. She collapsed into an exhausted, restless sleep across her mattress, her mind continuously tallying the massive grocery lists she still desperately needed to fulfill before the world drowned.

The next morning, the aggressive buzzing of her phone jolted her awake. She blinked at the bright screen, squinting at the unknown number flashing across the display. The moment she answered, Bryce’s furious, spit-filled voice erupted through the speaker.

"Sadie, why the hell did you block me—"

Without a single word, Sadie severed the connection. She tapped the screen and blocked the new number, cutting him off before he could form another thought.

Moving with surgical precision, she opened her laptop. She had a loose end to tie up, and she intended to sever it permanently. She logged into her student accounts and systematically dropped the damning video of his motel betrayal into the digital sphere. She refused to stop there. She watched the progress bar on the screen fill with a satisfying, final click as she seamlessly stitched the video alongside a meticulously documented infographic. The image detailed every bank transfer she had made to him, the receipts for paid luxury trips, the expensive amulet he begged for, and the manipulative chat logs where he coaxed her into handing over her cash.

She dropped the explosive file directly into every single college group chat, department forum, and student council board they shared. Their phones would be melting down in seconds, their reputations reduced to ash. As a final touch, she officially submitted her university leave-of-absence request to her advisor. She was shutting the door on Bryce, Tessa, and her old life for good. They were dead to her now.

Leaving the digital carnage behind, she grabbed her keys and drove straight to the Westport farmers' market. The morning air buzzed with the chaotic daily trades of vendors shouting over idling engines, forklifts beeping in reverse, and trucks unloading fresh goods. The sharp, earthy scent of crushed greens and damp soil hung heavy in the air. Blending seamlessly among the crowds, Sadie grabbed a vendor's clipboard and covertly secured a thirty-year supply of fresh produce designed to sustain a family of four. Her spatial storage kept everything in a state of suspended animation, meaning the fresh food would eventually be consumed over the decades without a hint of rot.

She purchased literal mountains of hearty root vegetables and vibrant leafy greens. She systematically ordered five hundred pounds each of tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, broccoli, spinach, and crisp celery. She added two thousand pounds of long-lasting staples like turnips and baby carrots, followed by another thousand pounds of heavy starches—sweet potatoes and russet potatoes. She finished the monumental order with crates of corn, securing four thousand ears of sweet corn along with huge sacks of ginger and garlic to flavor their meals for the rest of their lives.

The vendor tallied the order. She dropped nearly seventy-nine thousand dollars in one brutal swipe of her card.

With less than twenty thousand dollars left to her name, a sharp, cold panic briefly gnawed at the edges of her mind. The money was vanishing faster than she could track, and she still needed meat, dairy, and fruit to round out their survival cache. She forced the panic down, refusing to let it take root. She pivoted immediately, driving her van away from the produce stalls to a massive wholesaler on the edge of the market. She packed the vehicle with hundreds of heavy canned goods, buying three hundred cans each of preserved meat, fish, beans, corn, and fruit. She stacked the cardboard flats herself, her muscles straining as she maximized every inch of the gutted interior, making sure nothing would shift during the drive.

Just as the store workers finished loading the last heavy boxes into her gutted van, her phone rang.

"Sadie, we just landed!" Diane’s voice crackled through the speaker, carrying the familiar static of the airport terminal. "We'll be at your apartment complex in about thirty minutes."

Overwhelmed by a sudden wave of relief, Sadie gripped the steering wheel tight. Her parents, Gareth and Diane, had finally arrived. She redirected them straight to the Westport market, instructing them to meet her near the south entrance by a quiet side street.

She parked her supply-cramped van and waited. Twenty minutes later, a cab pulled up to the curb. Gareth and Diane stepped out. They looked exactly as they did in her most cherished memories, their faces unburdened by the horrors of the apocalypse she had lived through. Her throat tightened, the phantom memories of burying their corroded remains threatening to choke her, but she swallowed the grief back.

She guided them to her vehicle. When her parents finally climbed into the gutted interior of her van, they froze. The back seats were stripped out, the space piled high with towering stacks of supplies, heavy boxes, and survival gear. A single metal stool sat wedged between the cargo for Gareth to sit on.

Diane settled into the passenger seat, her face tightening with maternal worry. She reached out, taking her daughter's hands. Her palms were soft and warm, a jarring contrast to the blistered, acid-burned skin Sadie remembered from the end of the world. Diane’s eyes scanned Sadie from head to toe to check for injuries. Suddenly, Diane froze. Her jaw dropped. She reached out, her fingers trembling as she pointed at Sadie's cheek.

"Sadie... your birthmark! Where did it go?"

From the back, Gareth leaned in, a deep frown creasing his forehead. He stared, equally unsettled by the flawless, unscarred skin where the dark, jagged blemish used to sit. "Did you have surgery to remove it? No... it looks too natural. Skin doesn't heal that perfectly."

Tears welled up in Sadie’s eyes. The familiar, long-lost warmth of her parents broke through the hardened, apocalyptic exterior she had built up over the past two days. She offered a trembling, deeply emotional smile.

"Dad," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "Remember how you used to tell me that birthmark was a gift from the divine? It looks like you were right."

Gareth and Diane exchanged a confused, worried glance.

Ensuring the surrounding street was deserted and the van's windows were rolled up tight, Sadie locked eyes with them. Her voice dropped to a serious, commanding whisper. "Watch closely."

She turned around and placed her open palm flat against a towering stack of canned food piled high in the back of the van. In the blink of an eye, half the heavy cans vanished into thin air, absorbed silently into her spatial storage.

Diane gasped, her lungs hitching in her chest. She recoiled, her hands frantically patting the empty air where the heavy boxes had just been. She leaned over the center console, searching the floorboards for hidden trapdoors or secret compartments. "Sadie... is this some kind of magic trick?"

Sadie merely smiled calmly, shaking her head. She reached out again. She focused her mind, tapping the small metal stool Gareth was sitting on. The stool disappeared in a flash, dropping her father into an awkward, stunned crouch on the floor of the van.

He froze in place, speechless. His hands hovered in the air, his eyes wide with disbelief as he stared at the empty space between his boots.

With another fluid wave of her hand, Sadie summoned the items back. The towering stack of heavy cans and the metal stool reappeared exactly as they were before, the metal legs of the stool clanking softly against the floorboards.

Leaning in close, Sadie whispered the impossible truth to them. "Yesterday morning, the birthmark vanished. In its place, I got this. It’s a portable, private spatial dimension. Only I can see it, and time inside stands still. Whatever I put in stays exactly the same when I take it back out."

To unequivocally prove her claim, she reached into the void of her space. She pulled out a serving of Macaroni Deli noodles she had stored the previous day.

Thick, piping hot steam instantly curled off the pasta. The rich, savory aroma of the hot meal filled the cramped van as if it had just been pulled straight from a boiling pot.

Gareth and Diane remained frozen in absolute shock, staring at the steaming food.