Jake Miller woke up dead.
That was his first thought. He was dead, and dead people don't have alarm clocks, and dead people don't have sunlight in their bedroom that smells like laundry detergent and his mom's coffee from downstairs.
His alarm was playing "Sunflower" by Post Malone. The same song that had been his alarm for two years. The same song that had been playing on Monday morning, September 21st, the day before everything ended.
He sat up too fast and his shoulder screamed.
No — not screamed. It burned. He grabbed his right shoulder, expecting blood, expecting torn meat, expecting the teeth of the alpha male still locked in his chest. There was nothing. His Lincoln High JV basketball t-shirt was intact. His skin was intact.
But his palm wasn't.
He turned his right hand over.
Four thin, white lines ran diagonally across his palm, from the base of his index finger to the fat of his thumb. They were perfect. Surgical. Scar tissue, but fresh. The skin around them was pink and hot. When he touched them, they pulsed.
Those were claw marks. The pregnant female in the hallway had swiped at him when he pushed Maya behind him. He remembered the weight of her paw, the black claws.
He was not dead. He was back.
On his desk, his phone lit up. 6:31 AM. Monday, September 21st.
The apocalypse happened on Tuesday, September 22nd at 5:47 PM.
He had 35 hours.
"Jake! You're going to be late!" his mom shouted from downstairs. Same as yesterday. Same exact cadence.
Jake got out of bed. His legs felt like someone else's legs. The house was too normal. Too safe. The hallway carpet was soft. The photo of him and his dad at Yellowstone when he was ten — his dad was still alive in that photo, smiling, holding a fish — was still crooked on the wall.
He walked into the kitchen. His mom, Linda, was in her nurse scrubs, pouring coffee, scrolling on her phone. She looked up.
"You look like you saw a ghost," she said.
"Mom," he said. His voice came out hoarse, like he'd been screaming. He had been screaming. "Don't go to work tomorrow."
She blinked. "What?"
"Tomorrow. Tuesday. Don't go to the hospital. Don't leave the house. Lock the doors. And stay away from Lincoln. All of you. Don't go near the school."
Linda put her coffee down slowly. "Jake, what are you talking about?"
How do you tell your mother that you watched a hundred seven-foot lions that stand like humans tear your high school apart? How do you tell her you died holding a freezer against a cafeteria door?
"The rain," he said. "There's going to be a flood. The road at Bear Creek is going to wash out. The cell towers are going to die. And the animals — from the conservation land — they're coming down."
It sounded insane even to him. She reached out and touched his forehead. Her hand was cool.
"You don't have a fever. Did you have a nightmare?"
"Yes," he said. "It was very real."
She smiled, tired. "Baby, I have a double shift tomorrow. We need the money. And you have school. You have a math test, remember?"
The math test. Mr. Evans. Tuesday, fourth period. Jake had died during sixth period prep. He never took the test.
He didn't argue. He knew from movies — no one ever believes the time traveler on the first day.
He went to school.
Lincoln High on Monday was offensively normal. The sun was out. It was 72 degrees. The football team was running drills on a dry field. The parking lot was empty of lions and full of beat-up Hondas and trucks with YETI stickers. Kids were laughing, throwing a frisbee, complaining about the cafeteria pizza.
Jake walked through the front doors and his body flinched. He could see exactly where the alpha would stand tomorrow. He could see where Mr. Henderson's body had been. He could see the spot on the lockers where Principal Davis had bled out.
"Miller! You good?" It was Coach Barnes, holding a clipboard. "You look like you're about to puke."
"I'm good, Coach."
He went to first period. English. Mrs. Whitaker was talking about The Great Gatsby. Jake couldn't hear her. He was watching the window. At 5:47 PM tomorrow, something would stand outside that window.
He pulled out his notebook and started writing. Not notes on Gatsby.
_TIMELINE:_
_MONDAY 9/21 - Normal. Sun. Power on._
_4:12 PM TUESDAY - Power dies. North wing emergency lights red._
_5:47 PM TUESDAY - Rain changes. First lion stands up at Room 14 Window 2._
_6:02 PM - Parking lot full. 100+. All standing._
_6:17 PM - Fire alarm pulled. Principal Davis on PA, then dies._
_6:30 PM - Hallway. Pregnant female. Mimic._
_6:47 PM - Cafeteria doors break. I die._
He stared at his list. The girl next to him, Maya Chen — Maya, who had died next to him holding the same door — leaned over.
"Are you writing fanfiction in English? That's so disrespectful to Fitzgerald," she whispered.
Jake looked at her. Maya Chen. Junior. Art club. Always had paint on her jeans. Tomorrow she would be holding a freezer with him, crying silently, asking if they were going to make it.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," she said, confused.
"If I told you something crazy, would you believe me?"
"Depends. How crazy?"
"If I said tomorrow during the storm, a hundred lions that walk like humans are going to surround the school and kill everyone, would you stay home?"
Maya stared at him for a long second. Then she snorted. "Is this your new way of asking a girl to skip school? Because it's creative, but no."
He smiled despite himself. It hurt. "Yeah. It was worth a try."
"You okay? You look weird. Like you didn't sleep for a week."
"I didn't," he said honestly. "I died last night."
She laughed. "Same, bro. Same."
Second period. Third period. Lunch.
Jake tried the office. Principal Davis was there, alive, eating a sandwich, going through bus schedules.
"Mr. Davis, can I talk to you? It's important."
Davis, a big man with a mustache, waved him in. "Miller, if this is about the vending machine eating your dollar again, I'm not —"
"It's about tomorrow. The storm. The conservation fence behind the school is broken. When it floods, predators are going to come down. We need to close school tomorrow. Full closure."
Davis frowned. "Jake, the district decides closures, not me. And the forecast is just rain. We've had rain before. We don't have lions in Bozeman. Mountain lions are shy. They avoid people."
"They won't be shy tomorrow," Jake said. "They stand up."
Davis paused, sandwich halfway to his mouth. "They... what?"
"They stand on two legs. Like humans. Seven feet tall. A hundred of them."
Davis looked at him for a long time. Then he sighed, not unkindly. "Jake, are you... are you getting enough help? At home? After your dad? If you need to talk to the counselor —"
There it was. The look. The _this kid is losing it_ look.
"Never mind," Jake said. "Sorry."
He walked out.
By fourth period, he realized no one would believe him. He was a 17-year-old kid with no proof, talking about upright lions. They would send him to the counselor. They would call his mom. They would waste his 35 hours.
So he stopped trying to save the school.
He started trying to save what he could.
After last bell, he didn't go home. He went to Murdoch's Ranch & Home Supply.
He had $187 in his checking account from mowing lawns. He spent it all.
He bought: a fire axe ($45), 50 feet of paracord ($12), a heavy-duty hunting knife ($35), two emergency radios that didn't need cell towers ($50 for both), a big bottle of bear spray ($40), and a first-aid kit that actually had sutures and not just Band-Aids ($25). He stole a box of road flares when the clerk wasn't looking. He felt guilty for three seconds, then remembered the feel of teeth in his chest.
Then he went to his dad's shed. His dad had died two years ago — heart attack — but his stuff was still there. His old Remington 870 shotgun, locked in a case. His dad had taught Jake to shoot it at bottles when he was 14. The key was taped under the workbench. Jake knew because he'd found it yesterday, which was tomorrow, which was confusing.
He took the shotgun. He took the box of shells — only 12-gauge birdshot, not slugs, but better than nothing. He took his dad's old Carhartt jacket, heavy canvas, something that could take a claw.
He went home and barricaded his bedroom.
He nailed his bookshelf against the window that faced the woods. He put the radios on the charger. He laid out the axe, the knife, the bear spray, the shotgun, the flares. He looked at his palm. The four scars were glowing faintly now, in the dim room. If he turned the light off, they actually gave off a weak, amber light, like embers.
At 9 PM, his mom knocked. "Jake? What are you doing in there? It sounds like you're building something."
"Homework project!" he shouted.
"Are you okay?"
"No," he said, quietly, so she couldn't hear.
At 11 PM, he tried to sleep. He couldn't. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the cafeteria.
At 2:17 AM, Tuesday, September 22nd, the rain started.
Exactly on time.
Jake sat up. The scars on his palm flared hot.
It had begun again.
He got up, put on the Carhartt jacket, slid the knife into his belt, slung the shotgun over his back, and grabbed the axe. He looked at his phone. No signal already. The storm had killed the tower early.
He looked at his bedroom door. His mom was asleep down the hall. Safe, for now. The lions didn't come into town on the first night. They stayed at the school.
He had a choice. He could stay here, barricaded, safe, let Lincoln High die again, let Maya die again, and live.
Or he could go back.
He touched his palm. The scars pulsed, in time with his heartbeat.
In the hallway, the pregnant female had bled on him. Her black-red blood had touched his scars. And something had woken up. He hadn't understood it when he died. But now, back in time, he could feel it. Like a second heartbeat in his blood. Like claws waiting under his fingernails.
The lions' blood was supposed to turn people. But he had died with it in him, and come back. His body hadn't turned.
It had adapted.
He opened his bedroom window, climbed onto the roof, and looked toward Lincoln High, a mile away. Even through the rain, he could see the red emergency lights starting to flicker in the north wing.
The parking lot was empty. For now.
In fifteen minutes, it would be full.
Jake jumped off the roof into the rain, and ran toward Dangerous School, to die a second time — or to finally awaken.