Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



"Sorry for making you wait out here for so long," came the cheerful voice of as a man walked out of the gates of the City Y Sanctuary Base. "You know what a pain red tape is and everything."

I raised an eyebrow. I understood red tape before the apocalypse, but there was no way they could expect us to believe that excuse now, right? The guy was making a power play and that was it. I sat on the hood of the light blue SUV, the only vehicle left after I put all the others in my space. What can I say? I wasn't going to stand until whoever ran this base was willing to grace us with his presence.

Wang Chao and Liu Wei were leaning on either side of me and Liu Yu Zeng and Chen Zi Han were talking to each other off to the side, but not one of us moved as the man approached. He couldn't have been more than 40 years old, but I was horrible about judging someone's age.

I could see his eyes begin to widen as he saw who he had left waiting for him to appear.  "General?" he stuttered, looking back and forth between him and Liu Wei. I guess it paid to travel around with a living legend.

Wang Chao grunted and looked at the man before him. "Colonel," he said his voice cold. I don't think he was all that happy to be left out here either. After all, we could have been swarmed by a horde if we had arrived a few days later. "I thought the Commanding Officer was a Major General," he continued, his gaze searching for, and finding, FNG. I guess the poor messenger was not ranked high enough to enter the gates and was forced to wait with us.

"I'm sorry, Sir," said the man coming to attention and saluting Wang Chao. It seemed a bit late, but what did I know? "The Major General is in a meeting with other base commanders about the horde coming."

Wang Chao raised an eyebrow and simply looked at the man. "If that is the case, I guess you don't need us anymore. We'll just return home. Best of luck in the future," said Wang Chao as he uncrossed his arms and legs and stood up, offering me a hand to get down.

"Wait! Are you part of a base? I mean, we have a representative of the City J Naval Base here, I would think that you would be with them. Did you start your own?"

I snorted in disbelief when I heard that the Rear Admiral had sent some people to this place. I had no idea what he was thinking. Truth be told, I am a little disappointed that they managed to survive as long as they had. Maybe we had left a little too nicely.

"Unfortunately there are some irreconcilable differences between us and the Rear Admiral, if he is here, we will leave you to your own devices," said Wang Chao, his voice so cold I was expecting frost to come out of his mouth.

"No! Please! I am sorry about what happened. Please come in. You and your men are more than welcome. If you want, you can leave the female with the rest of the ones on base. She should be fine until we have solved the matter of the horde." The man in front of us seemed to be digging his hole faster and faster, not giving himself a chance to stop and take a breath.

"She will be staying with me," said Wang Chao as he pulled me closer to his body. Rolling my eyes, I kept my mouth shut. I had no idea the dynamics of this base, and while I normally didn't mind going in like a wreaking ball, I would trust my men.

'You need to go where the other women are. She is waiting for you,' came the gentle voice from inside my head. I paused as I thought about what I should do. Clearly, the person that I needed to kill was in with the other women, but was I willing to leave the boys vulnerable here in hostile territory?

Ignoring the voice, I stayed silent and followed Wang Chao and the rest into the base.

While I didn't agree with letting your enemy gain strength simply because it would be 'more fun to knock them down from the top,' I was not going to ignore the threat that anyone from the Navy Base posed to us either.

The Colonel led us up a few flights of stairs and down a long hallway. There were torches lighting the way, the flickering flame creating shadows on the walls around us.  "You guys don't have electricity?" asked Liu Yu Zeng in confusion. He walked behind everyone, his hands in his pockets looking completely innocent.

The man we were following scoffed at his statement like he said the dumbest thing he had ever heard. "No one has power," he said as if he was talking to a toddler. "The EMP made sure of that."

"Don't we have power?" asked Liu Yu Zeng as he turned to Chen Zi Han. The other man simply grunted and nodded his head, but didn't say a word.

The Colonel scoffed at that, "There is no way possible that you would have power."I think you should take a look at

"Sure, let's go with that," said Liu Wei as he winked at me. I guess I have been saying that a lot if all of the guys were now using it. I rolled my eyes and let them have their fun. However, a movement in the shadows caused me to freeze for a second, my body pulled along by Wang Chao until he realized that something was wrong.

'She is here,' whispered the voice, practically purring. 'And she is perfect!'

I… stopped. Refusing to move, I stared off into the shadows where I knew the woman once was but had long disappeared. 'Perfect?' I asked, my tone void of emotion.

'Yes, perfect for your shadow,' came the voice, in its joy, it didn't realize what it was revealing.

'My shadow?' I asked. I could feel myself start to turn cold at the idea that the perfect match for my shadow was just feet away from us. I could practically feel my blood turn to ice as I thought about Chen Zi Han leaving me, following some other woman. Protecting her, cherishing her.

I exhaled, not noticing the cloud of condensation coming out of my breath as if I was outside in the middle of a cold, winter day. In my head, all I could see was Chen Zi Han towering over a woman that, while taller than me, only reached his shoulder. Her back was straight, her hair falling around her like silk, his hand wrapping around the strands and bringing them to his lips.

She was beautiful, the way she carried herself spoke about her confidence in herself and her skills, her eyes gleamed with the knowledge that this was her world to do with as she pleased. She was the heroine, and her hero was standing behind her like a king guarding his queen.

I could see the challenge in her eyes, in her very stance as if she stood before me. She smiled at me, like she knew who I was, like I was nothing more than a minor inconvenience to her. I saw her face and studied it until it became engraved in my very flesh.  I would be more than a minor inconvenience, I would hunt her down and….

"Li Dai Lu!" shouted someone right in my face, forcing me from my thoughts. I turned to the intruder, the one that was standing between me and my prey. Standing between me and my men. "Li Dai Lu," the person said again as they pulled me into their arms.

I closed my eyes, preparing to break out of the hold and hunt down the woman that wanted what was mine. But as I took a breath, I breathed in the smell of Earth, of plants, of warmth. Chen Zi Han. 

He was here, with me, holding me. He wasn't behind some nameless woman, some OP heroine that would save humanity. He was beside me.

"Princess," he whispered into my ear when he realized that I had come back to him. "My Princess," he breathed again, pulling me in close.

"Am I?" I asked, my teeth chattering for some reason I couldn't place.

"What?" he asked, scrunching his eyebrows as he looked down at me in confusion.

"Am I yours?" I asked, looking up into the eyes of the man that held a huge part of my heart in his hands.

"Always and forever," he vowed as he leaned down to place a gentle kiss on my lips. The words rang through my head, seemingly so familiar and yet foreign at the same time. His vice blended in with a deeper, hoarser voice. 'Let them all die. You are mine,' growled the male voice in my head. The words wrapped me in warmth and I sunk into the embrace of my man.

"Yours," I agreed. "And you are mine."