CHAPTER 25: FALSE COMFORTS

The message came in just after dawn.

We’re leaving this morning. Still time to change your mind.

Don’t forget, when we are dead and buried, Nadia’s the only one you have left.

Seraphina read it once and set her phone face-down on the desk. She didn’t reply to her mother’s message... she had no idea how to.

That last part was her favorite line. You would think that she was 80 years old with the amount that she spoke about her upcoming death. But that was what happened when you had six siblings die before their 40th birthday.

Outside her dorm window, the campus was already more than half-empty. Students who had waited until the very last minute dragged suitcases across salted pavement, hugging friends goodbye in the cold. Inside, her room was still and dim, the only sound the low hum of the heater as it fought off the creeping chill of late December.

Her father’s schedule had been the perfect excuse. He had a new project, one that would drag him back into the office immediately after Christmas. The kind of deadline that demanded structure, order, and no detours. He didn’t have time for sentiment. Never had.

Seraphina could still remember the clipped tone of his last message: If we don’t leave by nine, we’ll hit traffic at the border. I’m not spending Christmas stuck in neutral.

And her mother, of course, had followed with guilt instead of warmth.

You may not care now, but you’ll miss her someday.

When we’re gone, Nadia’s the only one you’ll have left.

As if Nadia ever felt the same way. Seraphina knew that her mother treated both of them the same way, so if she had heard something a hundred million times, then so had her sister.

But it seemed that in her past life, only Sera truly took those words to heart.

Picking up her phone again, she ignored the text message and pulled up the NBSA website. She waited until the border cams updated and watched the feed as her parents’ plates passed through the crossing into Country M.

There were no delays. No calls. No one was turning back to come get her. They were gone.

Then, and only then, did she finally exhale.

------

The cabin was exactly as she’d left it: dark, still, and silent under a pale winter sky. There was only about a foot or so of snow, enough to make it look like Christmas while not being so think that you couldn’t go anywhere. The gravel crunched beneath her boots as she walked to the door and unlocked it with numb fingers.

Inside, the air was dry. Clean. Bare.

No clutter. No decorations. No signs of family. Because there had never been any.

She locked the door behind her and set her bags on the floor, rolling her shoulders slowly as she took in the space. This was hers. The only place she didn’t have to fake expressions or pretend she missed things she never wanted.

Now that everyone was gone, she could finally begin preparing for the end of days.

Her first stop was the kitchen. She opened every cupboard, one by one.

A couple of mugs. Half a container of salt. A single can of soup from the old cabin owners. Her unplugged refrigerator stood like a blank wall, too clean and too empty.

She didn’t need any of it, not really.

But if someone showed up—a neighbor, a supply worker, a seasonal check-in—this would look suspicious. Making her way to the kitchen table, she tore a sheet from an old notebook, and started her list.

Canned food

Crackers

Rice

Instant coffee

Shelf-stable milk

Bottled water

Vitamins

Matches

Battery lanterns

Emergency candles

Space heaters

First-aid kits

Cough medicine

Painkillers

She added a second column:

Wool blankets

Spare coats

Gloves

Boots

Toothpaste

Soap

Toilet paper

Anyone who lived out here needed to be prepared. People would expect it. Hunters, fishermen, retirees, survivalists—they would all have backup supplies and preparations made if the power went out. If she had too little, it would raise questions. If she had too much, it would look paranoid. But if she had just enough? No one would look twice.

That’s what mattered.

Not comfort.

Not care.

But the perception of those around her. That was always the only thing that mattered.

Sera turned on the tap, ran it until it stopped sputtering, then filled a kettle and lit the stove. Steam curled from the spout in lazy spirals. She poured boiling water into a cup and carried it to the window, watching the bare trees ripple in the wind.

The snow wasn’t bad yet... it wouldn’t be for another eleven months or so.

But when it came, it would come hard. Over 190 centimeters would fall in City H in a single day. The ocean would freeze into a solid white mass. Roads would vanish. Power lines would snap. Cities would go quiet.

She hadn’t been here the first time around; she had been with her sister instead. But they had heard rumors...the storm had hit from out of nowhere, catching everyone off guard.

However, she would be prepared for it. The only question that still nagged her was whether she would warn her parents or not.

Putting down her glass of hot water, she walked around the main floor of the cabin. The storage room was still mostly empty. A few tools lined the walls, neatly hung: a rust-free hatchet, some coiled rope, a snow shovel. She flipped the light on and stared at the space like it was a crime scene to be staged.

She added a third column to her list:

Hunting rifle

Ammunition

Skates

Cross-country skis

Snowshoes

Animal traps

Firewood

Propane tanks

Gasoline

Fishing line

Winter climbing rope

A person who lived here—who lived well out here—would have all these things. Not just to survive, but to defend themselves. That’s what neighbors would expect if they ever knocked on her door.

And if no one ever came?

All that much better.

By nightfall, the cabin had begun to take shape. A few boxes were brought out, and a couple of supplies were pulled from her dorm room. Just enough to make the place looked lived in.

She stood outside on the porch with a thick sweater pulled over her shoulders, sipping the now-lukewarm water. Her breath fogged the air. The trees stood motionless, the wind gone still.

Eleven months.

That was all the time the world had left.

And she would spend every day of it making sure that when the lights went out, she’d be the only one left standing.