The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 18

Chapter 18:

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Chapter 18

Nicole knew Zeph was cold.

She just hadn’t expected violence, and toward a child at that.

Judging by Poppy’s reaction, this wasn’t new. No wonder the girl ran over every day. She wasn’t being clingy; she was hiding.

“Why does he hit you?” Nicole asked.

It was their family business, but hurting a child crossed a line.

Nicole didn’t ask about Poppy’s past. Still, Poppy’s timid, flinching eyes and her instinctive need to please dragged up memories Nicole didn’t want to revisit.

“Poppy,” she asked gently, “is he your real brother?”

That was why Nicole never pushed this child away.

“He’s been teaching me how to fight,” Poppy said, rubbing her bruised arm and smiling sweetly. “If I don’t dodge fast enough, I get hit. Sometimes I fall, too.”

That was when Nicole realized Poppy had been training every day, for five hours at a time.

“I can show you,” Poppy said eagerly.

Before Nicole could answer, Poppy moved into an open space and took a stance.

The shy, delicate little girl vanished. Her chin lifted, her back straight, and her core tight. She moved with sudden sharpness, fierce in a way that didn’t match her age.

It was military-style combat drills. Her movements were lean, precise, and forceful, and her eyes were focused

and intense.

Nicole was stunned.

The kid’s form was better than hers!

Kids needed praise. And so, Nicole gave Poppy a few encouraging words.

Poppy flushed bright red. “Nicole, you’re really nice.”

Zeph never praised her, no matter how well she did.

The bruises told the rest of the story. Her training hadn’t been gentle. A child barely five years old, trading for five hours a day during a typhoon.

What did that mean?

The neighbor in 1801 hadn’t existed in Nicole’s last life. All his strange choices now suggested he might have known that the apocalypse was coming. That could be why he was pushing Poppy so hard, forcing her to build the ability to survive.

You didn’t learn forms like that from videos alone.

Poppy was old enough to understand things, so Nicole didn’t press further and stayed cautious.

Despite coming over often, Poppy never snooped, asked for food, or touched what wasn’t hers. She always

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brought something with her.

That kind of behavior didn’t come from nowhere.

Nicole took out the herbal liniment she had made earlier and gently worked it into Poppy’s bruises.

“Use hot water at night,” she reminded the girl.

After getting some air, Poppy kissed the rabbits goodbye and left reluctantly.

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Downstairs had spiraled into chaos. Arguments and curses rang out. Fights broke out over nothing. The weather and the brutal living conditions had stripped people raw.

On the ninth floor, original residents screamed at the second-floor evacuees crowding the hallway. It nearly turned into a knife fight.

One morning, the ninth-floor residents woke to find their apartment broken into. The little food they had left was gone.

With the typhoon dragging on, that food had been life itself. Whoever did it deserved hell.

The second-floor evacuees were camped right outside their door, borrowing the bathroom or cookware. If thieves had come through, there was no way they wouldn’t have noticed.

Neither side backed down. They kept shoving and yelling at each other. It took hours before things calmed.

The ninth floor wasn’t the only one hit. Other floors were robbed, too.

Even when homeowners woke up, the darkness made it impossible to see. The intruders wore masks.

It wasn’t one or two people. They moved in groups.

Even with people sleeping in the hallways, no one dared move when knives were pulled. Some watched with twisted expressions, and some even gloated.

They believed that people who had food and refused to share deserved to be robbed. Now, everyone was starving together. Fair, wasn’t it?

Those who heard cries for help didn’t dare step out, either. They shoved refrigerators and couches against their doors, praying the thieves wouldn’t break in.

The building turned into a breeding ground for madness. Some victims put on masks themselves and went out to rob others.

In the shelter of storm and flood, evil thrived.

Nicole adjusted her routine. She ate as soon as it got dark, then slept. She set an alarm for midnight and got up to train her body in the dead of night.

After just two days, she heard a noise outside her door.

She pressed her ear to the metal.

Someone was prying at the lock.

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