Reborn After My Husband Left Me to Die

Ivy's POV:

There were only eleven weeks left before the zombie outbreak.

And the first thing I did after being reborn was tell the person I trusted most in this world everything that was going to happen.

By the time I drove to Grandma's house, almost the entire street was dark.

Only the porch light above her front door was still on.

Just like always.

No matter how late I came home, she always left a light on for me.

The moment I parked, the door opened.

Grandma stood there in her robe, her glasses still pushed up into her hair. She had probably been reading.

She took one look at my face, swallowed whatever she had been about to say, and simply stepped aside to let me in.

"Sit down first."

I didn't try to pretend I was fine.

Ever since leaving Damon's place, I had spent the entire drive forcing myself to think about what I needed to do next.

But the moment I sat down at the dining table I had known since childhood and smelled the familiar scent of tea from the kitchen, all the exhaustion I had been holding back suddenly crashed over me.

Grandma didn't question me right away.

She put the kettle on first.

Only after sitting down across from me did she ask,

"Did you tell Damon about the baby?"

I shook my head.

"No."

"I didn't even get the chance. He asked me for a divorce first."

"And there's already another woman."

Even I was surprised by how calm I sounded when I said it.

Maybe after seeing a city overrun by zombies and being eaten alive, finding out my husband had cheated on me suddenly didn't seem quite as terrifying.

Grandma, however, wasn't nearly as calm.

Her expression immediately darkened.

"So you signed?"

"I did."

I looked down at the table, my fingers instinctively moving to my stomach.

"I can't use this baby to beg him to stay."

Besides, I already knew what would happen if I begged him.

But that wasn't what I had come here to tell her.

I had come to tell Grandma about the apocalypse.

"Grandma, there's something else I need to tell you."

"Just hear me out before you decide I've lost my mind."

She frowned, but nodded anyway.

So I told her the most important part.

I didn't retell every detail of how I died.

I didn't describe every zombie or how terrifying they looked.

I simply told her that in eleven weeks, an uncontrollable infection would break out across the city.

The infected would attack the living, and society would collapse almost immediately.

And in my previous life, I had died in that disaster.

I told her I remembered the streets burning.

I remembered people running for their lives.

I remembered those things that could no longer even be called human chasing after them.

Most importantly, I remembered the date.

Eleven weeks.

And everything that happened tonight had already begun matching what I remembered.

Damon would come home with divorce papers.

He would be in a hurry to end our marriage.

And there would be another pregnant woman by his side.

Things that had once existed only in the future were now happening one after another.

But the more I spoke, the colder I felt when I saw Grandma's expression.

She didn't interrupt me.

She didn't laugh.

But I knew that careful look in her eyes all too well.

She didn't believe me.

She was worried something was wrong with me.

When the kettle finally let out a sharp whistle, she stood up almost as if she were grateful to have something else to do.

She turned off the heat and stood with her back to me for a moment.

When she finally turned around again, her voice had softened.

She didn't accuse me of lying.

She simply thought I had gone through too much in one night.

Divorce.

Pregnancy.

Betrayal.

She thought the emotional shock had been too much, and my fear had turned itself into an incredibly vivid nightmare.

"Sometimes when people go through something traumatic, the brain can make their worst fears feel completely real."

As I listened, my heart slowly sank.

"But it wasn't a dream."

Even now, if I closed my eyes, I could still remember the pain of the zombie biting into my leg.

And I remembered Damon standing on the other side of the iron gate, doing nothing.

Grandma still shook her head.

She told me that if none of it had happened yet, I couldn't decide that the entire world would become like that in eleven weeks just because of one nightmare.

She said maybe I was simply terrified of losing the life I had now.

Maybe the divorce had magnified every insecurity I was already feeling.

Maybe the pregnancy was making me more emotional than usual.

Every explanation sounded reasonable.

So reasonable that if I hadn't actually died once already, I might have believed them too.

I opened my mouth, ready to argue again, but stopped.

Because I had no proof.

From Grandma's perspective, I was a woman whose husband had just asked for a divorce, who was pregnant, and who had suddenly started claiming that a zombie outbreak would begin in eleven weeks and that I had already died once in the future.

It did sound insane.

"Okay."

"Maybe I'm just too stressed."

Grandma visibly relaxed.

She stood up and hugged me.

She told me to stay here tonight.

No matter what happened with Damon, I wasn't alone.

I didn't argue anymore.

But as I leaned against her shoulder, I already knew the truth.

She didn't believe me.

...

After returning to the room I used to stay in, I didn't even change my clothes.

I lay straight down on the bed and stared at the familiar ceiling.

Eleven weeks.

It used to sound like a long time.

Now it suddenly felt terrifyingly short.

Because if the future really unfolded the way I remembered, there was far too much I needed to prepare.

Food and water were only the basics.

Medicine.

Fuel.

Weapons.

A secure shelter.

Backup power.

And defenses strong enough to actually keep zombies out.

More importantly, I could never again place my survival in Damon's hands.

In my previous life, I hadn't run to his estate until the disaster had already begun.

I thought the high walls and iron gates would keep me safe.

And I thought three years of marriage would at least be enough for him to save me once.

Instead, I died outside his gate.

This time, I already knew how it would end.

So his estate couldn't be part of my plan from the very beginning.

I sat up, turned on the lamp beside the bed, and pulled a pen and paper from the drawer.

Then I began writing down everything I could still remember.

The approximate date of the outbreak.

The areas where the first signs of chaos appeared.

The order in which the power and water systems failed.

Which roads would eventually become completely blocked.

And which supplies would become the hardest to find.

Some of my memories were already blurry.

But that was fine.

I didn't need to remember every minute of the future.

I only needed to start preparing eleven weeks before everyone else.

When I finished writing, my hand once again rested over my stomach.

Grandma didn't believe me.

Damon definitely wouldn't believe me.

As for everyone else, if I ran outside right now and told them zombies were coming in eleven weeks, they would probably send me to a doctor even faster than Grandma would.

So I wouldn't tell anyone.

At least not yet.