Chapter 1: The Taste of Flesh
[Serious Note: This story is set on prithvi 090, a planet parallel to our own. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.]
[System Storage – Active]
"Please… stop…"
Jassi's voice was a broken whisper, barely escaping his cracked lips. The pain was no longer sharp—it had become a dull, endless ocean of agony.
He couldn't see. They had taken his eyes first, so he wouldn't have to watch. But he could hear. He could smell.
The wet tearing sounds. The satisfied grunts. The sizzle of flesh over a makeshift fire.
"Don't waste the marrow. That's the best part."
That voice. He knew that voice. He had shared lunch with that voice. Had laughed at office jokes with that voice. Had trusted that voice when the world fell apart.
He was Rohan.
Rohan Mehta. His colleague. His friend. The man who now held Jassi's own rib bone, scraping the last bits of meat from it.
"Jassi… if you could understand… you'd want us to live. Right? It's just meat now."
The last thing Jassi felt before the darkness swallowed him completely was not the pain.
It was the cold realization that in the apocalypse, hunger turned men into monsters faster than any mutation ever could.
---
Jassi's eyes snapped open.
He gasped—a full, ragged lungful of air—and immediately vomited onto the floor.
His body convulsed. His hands clawed at the tiles. But there was no pain. No missing limbs. No burning sensation where they had cut out his eyes.
He was whole.
He was… home.
The familiar cracked ceiling fan. The faded poster of a Bollywood film he'd watched a dozen times. The cheap synthetic bedsheet his mother had bought him before she passed.
And on the wall, a calendar.
March 15, 2026.
Jassi froze. His mind, still foggy from the trauma of death, began to spin.
March 15, 2026. That was…
One month before the end.
The first hypercane would make landfall on April 18. The gravity storms would follow a week later. Then the seismic upheavals. Then the mists—no, not mists. The Unraveling. That's what scientists would later call it. A wave of exotic energy from deep within the Earth's core, rewriting the rules of reality.
In his past life, Jassi had been a nobody. An ordinary office worker with no special resistance. He survived the first wave by sheer luck, hiding in the basement of their company building. But when the food ran out, when the water turned toxic, when the first mutations turned pets into predators…
That's when Rohan had smiled at him and said, "Let's split the last ration, brother."
Jassi had believed him.
He had closed his eyes, trusting his friend to share fairly.
But suddenly his head was beaten by a rod.
Boom
Boom
When he opened them again, he was tied to a pipe, and Rohan was sharpening a kitchen knife.
No more.
Jassi slammed his fist against the floor—and the tiles cracked.
He stared at his hand. At the splintered ceramic beneath his knuckles. There was no pain. Just a dull pressure, like punching a pillow.
[Ding!]
A translucent screen materialized in front of his eyes, glowing with soft blue light. Jassi's breath caught.
He remembered this. Not from his past life—he had never had this before. But somewhere deep in his reborn soul, he knew what it was.
The Sanctuary System.
[System Initialization Complete]
Host: Jassi Singh (Reborn Anomaly – Betrayal Survivor)
Primary Directive: Survive. Evolve. Settle Debts.
[Innate Abilities Unlocked]
1. Sanctum Walk (Lv.1) – Teleport within 40 meters. Line of sight required. Cooldown: 30 seconds.
2. Adamant Vessel (Lv.1) – Passive: +30% physical strength and endurance. Active: "Reinforce" – Superhuman boost for 30 seconds.
[Pocket Dimension – Sanctuary]
Status: Active
Size: 100m² | Time Dilation: 1:24 (1 hour outside = 24 hours inside)
Storage: Empty
Jassi stared at the screen, his hands trembling. Not from fear.
From hunger From Betrayal
Not for food. For revenge.
He had been given a second life. And with it, a weapon unlike anything in the old world. A private dimension where time bent to his will. A body that could shatter tiles with a punch. The ability to blink across a room like a ghost.
Rohan Mehta had no idea what was coming.
But first, Jassi needed to understand his limits. He focused on the Pocket Dimension icon.
Enter? Y/N
He thought *Yes*.
The world twisted. For a single, nauseating moment, Jassi felt like he was falling upward—and then he landed on his feet inside a vast, empty white space.
Silence. Perfect, absolute silence.
No wind. No hum of electricity. Just a rectangular void, roughly the size of a small apartment, with soft white light emanating from no visible source.
Jassi walked to the edge of the space. It was like an invisible wall—smooth, unyielding, with a red boundary at the ground covering the whole dimension . He touched it, and the system displayed a notification:
[Boundary]
Upgrade system to expand Sanctuary. Next expansion: 500m² – Requires 10 System Points.
He turned back to the center of the room and concentrated. A small table materialized—no, he willed it into existence. The system explained:
[Sanctuary Creation]
Any non-living matter stored in Sanctuary can be manifested or dismissed at will. Objects cannot leave Sanctuary unless carried by the host.
Jassi smiled. A cold, thin smile.
He thought of the office pantry. The locked supply closet where the company kept emergency rations. The security room where the guards stored their batons and, if he remembered correctly, a few old rifles from a retired contractor.
In his past life, those supplies had been looted within days of the first disaster.
In this life…
He had a month.
---
[Ding! System Quest Generated]
Quest: The First Cut
Objective: Ensure Rohan Mehta experiences desperation before the first hypercane makes landfall.
Progress: 0/3 supply caches sabotaged
Reward: Sanctuary expansion + Time dilation upgrade
Failure: Rohan gains a temporary luck boost
Jassi dismissed the quest window. He would deal with Rohan soon enough.
But first, he needed to test his body.
He exited the Sanctuary—another twist of reality, and he was back in his bedroom, kneeling on the cracked tiles. The clock on his wall showed that only a few seconds had passed.
He stood up and walked to the kitchen. A cheap metal ladle hung by the stove. Jassi picked it up, focused on his Adamant Vessel skill, and activated Reinforce.
Immediately, he felt power flood his muscles. His veins pulsed. His vision sharpened. He squeezed the ladle's handle—and the metal bent like soft clay.
He released the skill. The power faded, leaving a faint ache in his bones, but no real fatigue.
Thirty seconds of superhuman strength, he thought. Enough to break bones. Enough to punch through a door. Enough to make sure that when I find Rohan, he won't be able to run.
But he wouldn't kill him. Not yet. Death was too quick. Too merciful.
Rohan had made Jassi into food.
Jassi would make Rohan watch as the world starved him, froze him, crushed him with gravity, and drove him mad with isolation.
And only then—when Rohan was begging for the same mercy he had denied—would Jassi decide.
---
The doorbell rang.
Jassi's entire body went rigid. His fists clenched. His breath stopped.
That sound. He remembered that sound.
In his past life, it had been Rohan, standing at his door with a smile and a lie: "Jassi, brother, we need to stick together. Let me in. I've got food."
Jassi had opened the door.
He had died for it.
Slowly, silently, he walked to the door. He didn't look through the peephole. He didn't need to. He already knew who it was.
But this wasn't the apocalypse yet. This was one month before. The world was still normal. The laws still applied.
He couldn't kill Rohan now. Not without going to prison and losing his chance to prepare.
So he would play the role. The polite neighbor. The trusting fool.
For now.
Jassi unlocked the door and pulled it open.
Standing there, in a cheap blue polo shirt and carrying a bottle of whiskey, was Rohan Mehta. His smile was warm, his eyes friendly, his posture relaxed.
Behind him, barely visible in the hallway, stood two other figures: Mrs. Savita Sharma, the elderly widow from the third floor, and her son Kunal, a hulking man with dead eyes.
The same Kunal who had held Jassi down while Rohan cut.
"Jassi!" Rohan beamed. "There you are, brother! I've been calling you all morning. Your phone's off?"
Jassi forced his face into a neutral expression. His jaw ached from the effort of not snarling.
"Battery died," he said. His voice sounded normal. Calm. "What do you want?"
Rohan laughed, clapping a hand on Jassi's shoulder. The touch made Jassi's skin crawl, but he didn't flinch.
"Can't a friend just check in? Look, I was thinking—times are getting weird, right? The news is talking about strange storms forming off the coast. Earthquakes in places that never had them. I don't know about you, but I'm scared."
He held up the whiskey bottle.
"I thought we could have a drink. Talk about… preparing. You know, together."
Jassi looked past Rohan at Mrs. Sharma and Kunal. The old woman smiled sweetly. Kunal said nothing. He just stared at Jassi's apartment like he was already measuring it.
Together.
In his past life, Jassi had heard that word and felt hope.
Now he heard it and tasted his own flesh.
He stepped aside and gestured into his home.
"Sure, Rohan. Come in."
Rohan's smile widened. He walked past Jassi, followed by the Sharma's.
As the last of them entered, Jassi glanced at the calendar on his wall one more time.
March 15, 2026.
Thirty days.
Thirty days until the world burned.
And when it did, Rohan Mehta would learn that some men don't come back from the dead empty-handed.
Jassi closed the door.
---
[End of Chapter 1]