No Time

Chapter 4: About the Apocalypse

I think I figured out how I came back in time.

I have a weird Peridot ring that my grandmother gave me when I was 100 days old. She died when I was still not one.

I wore the ring everywhere. Keeping it on a chain when my fingers were still too small and putting it on my finger when it fit.

Peridots are gemstones often found in meteorites.

I had the space element, a place to store stuff in but I never told anyone about it, not even my siblings. The space element kept things fresh. It was infinite. It had a pretty cool landscape with water, grass, trees, and clean air. I guess something to do with a spacetime continuum or something let me go back in time?

It didn't have that spiritual water stuff or anything, and didn't let me teleport, but it was still very useful.

I grew vegetables and occasionally took them out secretly to eat.

Unfortunately, this power didn't work yet. I have to wait for the apocalypse to come...

The red phase. It is the specific time when the sky turns red for an hour. Whatever random object from the things you've touched during that 60 minutes, will be your power. Only some people can gain powers though, less than 10%. Even if you try, you may not be a power user. It might be a useless ability, like being able to make cotton string or paper based on touching something random. Only less than 7% of the ability users got decent abilities. And those with powerful abilities were very blessed. People with multiple abilities were about 4%. Those with 2 abilities were 3% and those with 3 abilities were 1%. The ones who had more than that were too minuscule a number and wouldn't dare to reveal their powers in case of trouble from jealous humans. The red phase happened a day before the apocalypse at 8 o'clock in the morning.

My mom didn't gain anything from the red phase and was a regular human. My dad became a glass user from touching his phone.

I became a space and water user from washing my hands at that time.

My big brother was playing with Pico, our white dove that we haven't gotten yet. He gained an affinity with birds, was able to speak with birds and gained huge white wings he could fly with and tuck in whenever by making it into a tattoo. He said it was really hard to fly around but amazing at the same time.

People used to call him the "Angel". Well, our family do look highly above average in looks. While I was more on the extremely beautiful side, my brothers were very handsome and charismatic, and my sister is a very cute girl. My mother is a beauty, I really wonder why father cheated on her. She was a faithful wife, and my step-mother looked average. Maybe the others' personality was better?

Anyways, the red phase happened a day before the apocalypse happened. After the red phase, many people fell sick. Those who didn't fall sick were regular people and those who did fall sick became power users or zombies.

Some other things that happened during the apocalypse.

There are the plants and animals all going mutant.

Men could get pregnant. It's questionable if this happened to increase human populations and keep us alive or if it's to make more food for zombies... if there are gods, they must favor the zombies. But not all men could get pregnant, those who did had to have powers and have partners who also had powers. Actually, even women who had female partners could get pregnant as well, if they were married through exchanging blood.

Anyways, the children born by people with abilities had higher power abilities and had abnormal powers. By abnormal powers, it meant the powers that were strange but powerful, like telekinesis and others.

For children born from a set of parents who were half normal and half powered, they usually got none at all. It depended on chance but they rarely got powers.

And regular children had no powers at all.

During the apocalypse, after getting married, people could only stay with one partner for life. And because of the apocalypse, the human lifespan was increased, but nobody knew how long. It would at least extend for more than 120 years since an ability user grandpa survived that long, but since I died, I didn't get a chance to know how long that grandpa would live on for. The lifespan of a human increasing also meant that you would have to stay with that partner for your whole long life.

People during the apocalypse married through trading blood. This way was found out from two men becoming blood brothers and ending up with each other. Then an imprint on the back of your neck would appear in red. The imprint for each couple would look similar but different, none would look the same.

But only people with abilities could do this. And people who gained abilities through a zombie trial could only do it with people who also went through the zombie trial, and regular ability users only with ability users. Regular people couldn't do this at all with any type of person.

Somehow, through becoming married partners, your affections would increase if you were compatible with that person and you would never be able to betray your partner. You could get pregnant by intercourse. How the bottom was chosen for women, I don't even know. This method of marriage was very strange but romantic in a way. But, if you weren't compatible enough, both partners would cough up the blood and began to hate each other.

I don't technically know how it worked, but it was risky when two people coughed up blood. They would hate each other endlessly and try to kill the other. And unless one or both of them died, nothing would work out.

The zombie apocalypse started when I was 17 and from the time I died, at 29, those children born from ability users were already put into groups and killing zombies.

Anyways, being a 10 year old genius is pretty easy. University professors pay me to do some tests and it pays pretty well. And I've done some other random deliveries, writing novels, being interviewed by radio and tv stations occasionally. So far, I've saved up 100,000 yuan, that's $15,614.50 in U.S. dollars. I was investing bit by bit in some businesses that would grow exponentially, and am earning money a lot these days. The 100,000 yuan was merely a part of what was in the bank.

I've bought many types of seeds and grains in a warehouse I bought. I got my own bank account by threatening dad about telling about his mistress. He doesn't know yet that mom already has an inkling about it. She is already abusive anyways.

Whenever she gets into the mood, Ge pulls all of us into his room and locks the door.

Even when she screams and destroys the living room, we don't dare go out.

Xiao Bing already has a thin scar on her back from being hit by a flying cup.

Xiao Lai has bruises from being hit when he came home earlier than us, not letting him be protected.

Ge comes home with me, so I can block all her moves with the martial arts that I know. I've started training again by waking up at 5 every morning and going outside to run and practice moves. I sleep at 9, so I get 8 hours of sleep every night. Yup, it won't stunt my growth.

My Ge is the student council president and is very popular with many friends and supportive teachers. Xiao Lai is loved by many and has many friends too.

I don't get it. Why are there no friends around me? In my last life, I had some... but why not now?

I asked Ge, but he only said this, "Xiao Yu, you're kind of intimidating. Kids might think that you're scary and mysterious? You're kind of hard to approach as well."

How am I hard to approach? Am I scary?

Well, right now, I'm debating on whether to start training my siblings so they can run away or fight when the apocalypse starts in 7 years. I've taught Ge how to block with basic moves so he can protect himself from mom, but I haven't taught Xiao Lai and Xiao Bing yet.

Perhaps I'll start teaching them during the weekends.