A sandstorm had engulfed the world, plunging us into an apocalyptic nightmare.

My husband, his family, and I were holed up in an underground parking garage.

With food and water running low, I was down to one meal a day, all while enduring constant torment from my mother-in-law.

One day, my husband secretly signed me up for a supply run. My mother-in-law, ever spiteful, swapped out the dust mask and food in my pack for a bag of sand.

Unaware of the sabotage, I headed back to the surface and was buried alive by the storm.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in the kitchen, hearing their impatient voices outside, demanding to know if dinner was ready.

This time, they’re going to find out exactly what it feels like to suffocate and die buried alive.

——

I turned off the stove and carried the last bowl of bok choy to the table.

The heat from the freshly cooked greens burned my palms, a sharp reminder that I was truly alive again.

“Hurry up, Sophia! You’re as annoying as your name!” my mother-in-law sneered.

“If we had a maid, at least she’d be quicker,” she added with her usual sarcasm.

I set the bowl on the table and snapped back, “Then go ahead and hire one.”

My husband, with his usual irritated look, glared at me. “Don’t talk to my mom like that. Just eat.”

I glanced at the table. The meat dishes I’d served earlier were already picked clean, and now they were hungrily reaching for the bok choy, not even bothering to wait.

I felt a cold laugh rise in my chest. This family was always like this, greedy and selfish.

How blind I had been to marry into it, fooled by his pretense of affection before the wedding, only for him to show his true colors after.

Sitting here, about to eat with the very people who had caused my death in another life, I could barely hold back the urge to vomit.

“I’m not hungry. You two enjoy.” I turned and headed to the bedroom.

As I walked away, I heard my mother-in-law mutter under her breath, “Fine by me. Acting all high and mighty.”

My bedroom had been moved to the guest room. A month ago, after a doctor told me I might not be able to have children, my husband moved out of our shared room.

I wouldn’t have discovered he was already involved with a coworker if I hadn’t checked his phone.

When I confronted him, he had the nerve to say, “You can’t have kids, and my family needs an heir.”

Since then, my mother-in-law’s treatment of me had only gotten worse, her insults growing sharper with every little thing.

Sitting on the bed in that cramped guest room, I replayed everything they had done to me, and my anger simmered, threatening to boil over.

With only five days left before the world ended, I needed to get away from this family and stockpile supplies as quickly as I could. I made a silent promise to myself.

Soon enough, I heard my mother-in-law’s voice from outside, “Sophia, clean up the table and the kitchen.”

I opened the door to see my husband and mother-in-law lounging on the couch, watching TV. My husband was texting his lover, saying, “Miss you so much, baby. It’s been a whole day.”

From the phone came a reply, “I miss you too, Luther.”

The dining table was a disaster, with food scraps scattered on the floor.

They really saw me as nothing more than a maid and seeing my husband’s smug face made me want to puke.

Old memories flooded back. When he was wooing me, he had been just as deceitful.

He once made a big show with 999 paper roses and showed me his hands cut by the sharp edges of the paper.

I was so touched at the time that I agreed to marry him.

Despite his family’s poverty, he had taken good care of me, providing for me and covering my needs.

If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have married him, ignoring my parents’ warnings and moving so far away.

I earned a good salary and paid for all our expenses myself, while he never contributed any of his 3,000-dollar paychecks.

I covered everything, including food, money, and resources, while he pretended to be polite. But ever since I couldn’t get pregnant, he’d been treating me like a servant.

In the face of the apocalypse, he even suggested that I was wasting resources and should be the first to go.

In my previous life, when we moved to the underground parking garage, food and water were running low. I tried to limit myself to one meal a day, hoping they’d start treating me better.

But instead, my husband secretly signed me up for a supply run while I wasn’t looking. I was shaking with fear.

Meanwhile, his flirtatious coworker was happily eating our food. Why was it always me who had to go?

The woman clung to my husband’s arm with a sickly-sweet smile, her hand resting on her belly.

My mother-in-law’s voice cut through the air with icy disdain. “Hayley is pregnant with our grandchild. She can’t be put in harm’s way.”

She shoved my backpack into my hands and pushed me out the door.

I had hoped, despite everything, that my mother-in-law might have packed some actual food for me.

But when I opened the backpack, I found it was stuffed with sand instead of supplies.

As the sandstorm surged violently, I dropped the heavy bag and tried to run. But without any protection, I was quickly swallowed up by the towering storm.