The cold air bit through Raven's sleeves as she leaned back against the Ironhowl's side panel, the scent of smog and snow clinging to the city's edges. Across the parking lot, a plastic bag danced weakly in the gutter, caught on slush and wind. She'd already secured the clothes. Her breath hung in the air like fogged glass as she watched traffic crawl past—more military transports, more shut doors, more closed signs. People were already shutting themselves inside, hoping comfort could outlast collapse.
By early afternoon, she'd done more than most would in a week. The Ironhowl X4 was hers. Fuel and generators were en route, already locked into delivery chains. Clothing—practical, long-lasting, inconspicuous—where tagged and prepped for shipment. While everyone else clung to their routines, she was moving pieces into place like a general laying out the first assault.
But survival wasn't just about power and gear.
It was about food.
She climbed into the driver's seat, turned the ignition, and let the Ironhowl rumble to life beneath her. Her fingers tapped against the steering wheel as she opened her phone, and pulled up the restaurant distribution contacts. Then DoorDash. Then GrubHub. Then five bulk ordering sites her father's company used for catered events.
She didn't hesitate.
Cold cuts. Hot trays. Sandwich platters. Sub boxes. Pizzas. Pasta bowls. Wrap assortments. Rotisserie chicken. Macaroni. Bagged sides. Bottled sauces. Sauced trays. Party wings. Snack trays. Steam-sealed soups.
She added them all.
Raven routed everything to the Salvatore Procurement warehouse. The same place her generators and fuel were heading. The same warehouse her father used for weapons, medicine, and black-market goods. The employees wouldn't question a catering order—she'd placed hundreds like it before. Corporate morale lunches. Emergency meetings. Holiday giveaways. She handled the details. She took the calls. She managed the invoices yet she still received the beatings.
And she never ate.
She stared at the confirmation emails as they stacked up, blinking slowly. Brandon always grabbed the biggest plate. Clarissa always picked over the top cuts of beef and tossed the rest. Jason spilled juice on the napkins and laughed like a goblin. Victoria sipped from her wine glass and said Raven was lucky to be trusted with errands.
Raven had stood in the back, stomach empty, hands frozen, watching them devour meals she coordinated—tasting nothing but her own silence.
That was over now.
She ordered more. Another round. Double it. She layered redundancies in the system to bypass food delivery caps. If it was hot, boxed, frozen, or sealed—it was coming. She didn't care if it fed fifty people or five hundred. Every sandwich was another day of freedom once the world burned.
She dropped the phone onto the passenger seat and shifted into drive.
The gas stations came next.
She hit six by the time the sun began its slow, red crawl toward the horizon. She pulled the Ironhowl up beside every station with its lights still on and walked in with sharp, flat eyes and a wallet that never ran out.
She cleared out entire shelves.
Chips first. Not the cheap puffed air ones, but dense, bag-heavy stock: kettle-cooked, corn, ridged, seasoned. High salt. High fat.
Then candy bars. Protein bars. Trail mixes. Chocolate. Honey-roasted peanuts. Marshmallow blocks. Peanut butter packs. Snack cakes. Jerky.
Coolers came next—sports drinks, bottled sodas, energy drinks, canned coffee, teas with more sugar than flavor. Raven knew what fuel felt like. It wasn't gourmet.
Calories were the real currency of the apocalypse.
People forgot that. They stocked ammo and gas but left their bodies to starve on multivitamins and beans. You couldn't run on rice. You couldn't fight on dry oats. You needed sugar. Salt. Fats. Caffeine. You needed the kind of energy that let you go three days on the edge and still keep swinging.
She took bottled water by the case. Instant noodles by the shelf. Granola boxes. Dried pasta. Cheap cheese sauces in packets. Whatever she couldn't fit in the Ironhowl, she had the clerks box up and mark for industrial delivery. One name—Salvatore Procurement—cleared every question.
No one asked why the daughter of one of the richest arms dealers and grocery store owners in Manhattan was buying like the world was ending.
By the time she returned to the warehouse, the first food shipments were arriving. She watched as forklifts hauled insulated crates through steel doors while delivery vans circled the loading dock like vultures. Staff moved like clockwork—clipboards, scanners, thermometers. Raven stayed out of sight, her SUV tucked behind a support pillar as she observed from the shadowed edge.
Raven saw a new notification from the Apocalypse Ascendancy System.
She looked at it with a smile on her face.
[Notice: Sanctuary Temporal Stasis Function Activated.]
- All perishables transferred to Sanctuary will be preserved indefinitely.
- Frozen, chilled, and heated items retain full condition upon withdrawal from the system storage.
- Time within Sanctuary remains static relative to Earth when pertaining to food and similar products. Spoilage: 0%.
Raven exhaled once through her nose and popped Ironhowl's rear hatch.
She'd loaded her SUV with a full haul—everything the gas stations didn't ship directly. She opened the System's storage interface and placed her hand on the nearest crate of bottled energy drinks.
Transfer confirmed.
The crate vanished into Sanctuary.
She moved with quick precision, transferring food in batches—cold to cold, shelf-stable to dry, liquids to hydration inventory, heat-sensitive to deep freeze sectors.
When she was done, the SUV was empty.
Her Sanctuary, however, was becoming a fortress of silence and preparedness—a dimension lined with food that would never rot, meals that would never age, energy that would never decay.
By the time the last of the sun dipped behind the jagged skyline of Manhattan, the Ironhowl was sealed and parked outside a world that had no idea it was already dying.
Raven leaned against the bumper, gloved hands in her pockets, eyes steady on the horizon.
People were still working. Still eating takeout. Still watching news anchors talk about new variants and stricter restrictions. They were still planning their weekends. Still swiping on their phones and waiting for numbers to drop.
Raven was planning her next move weapons and live stock like chickens, massive amounts of bottled water, and more she was making plans within plans. Tomorrow would be January 2nd, and she would need to be ready for more preparation.
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