When the World Ends, She Begins novel Chapter 34

Harold's not just messing around—turns out, it really works.

...

Natalie leaned against her apartment door, snacking on a bag of chips while listening to the chaos echoing down the hallway.

Someone was shouting "crossbows!" and another voice yelled about "acid." From inside, she could piece together the gist of it all.

She remembered that article she once read online—"Twenty Possible Causes for the Apocalypse" by Harold.

I have to admit, he's a freaking talent.

Somehow he'd turned the 15th floor into a full-on doomsday bunker, like something out of a survival show.

Honestly? Worth taking notes.

Too bad she'd never been the science type—she could crush essays and debates, but physics and chemistry? Instant nosebleed.

Those rigged-up electric doors? Forget it. She'd probably shock herself before getting one to work.

As for sulfuric acid—sure, she'd scavenged plenty of it from the building supply rooms. Not just acid, but a ton of other chemicals she couldn't even name.

But setting traps? No way. Like, what kind of pipes do you even use for spraying acid that don't melt apart?

Whatever. When God gives you one cheat code, He makes sure you don't get the others.

She didn't need fancy traps anyway. With her little cheat code—her storage space—she was more than satisfied.

So what if she had to rough it a little? She'd deal.

At her feet, Lucky stared up at her, wide-eyed, as if shocked at the smug look on her face.

Really, Natalie? Humble-bragging in your head again?

...

After striking out everywhere else, the neighbors dragged themselves back to Owen's apartment.

The ones too badly injured—and their families—had already gone home. The rest who lingered were either lightly hurt or just badly shaken.

The mood inside was heavy, suffocating.

Huddled in the back, Braxton and Tiffany hadn't been physically injured, but their condition wasn't much better.

Braxton's face was pale beneath a scruffy beard, his whole body slouched with exhaustion.

Gone was the polished, well-groomed guy who used to care about appearances. Hunger had stripped that away.

At this point, all he could think about was tearing into a plate of food.

Beside him, Tiffany looked even worse.

She used to keep her hair a perfect salon blonde—smooth, glossy, and carefully maintained.

But weeks of going hungry, her body starved of nutrients, had wrecked it. And with supplies running out, even her stash of salon-grade products was long gone.

Now her hair hung in brittle clumps, dry and frizzy, like a pile of dead straw slapped onto her head.

Why does Natalie always get to look radiant, no matter what?

Why am I always the one left looking up at her?

Meat?

A dog?

Dog meat?

What were they supposed to do—just sit around and waste away?

Even if the fourteenth floor was guarded by gangsters with guns, some of them would've tried it. And it wasn't. It was just one woman.

"She's right! Fourteenth floor!"

"Yeah! Let's take the dog!"

The shouting caught like fire, voices rising, feeding off each other.

But the ones who'd been injured upstairs earlier stayed quiet. They knew better.

Sure, from the outside it looked like a big, united mob, but when fists started flying? Half the people here would turtle in the back, leaving the rest to bleed for them.

Fighting the mother-and-son duo on the top floor had already been a nightmare, but they'd gotten out alive. Natalie, though? She'd kill without blinking.

And injured as they were, going head-to-head with the fourteenth-floor psycho was just asking to die.

They weren't idiots. So this time, they hung back, letting the shouting do the work.

And so it went—lots of chanting, plenty of big talk—but not a single soul stepped out of Owen's doorway.

Finally, Owen himself stood up, voice steady and authoritative. "We're still going to the fourteenth floor. If we don't, we starve. Simple as that.

"But tonight, everyone's beat up. Too many are hurt. Go home, rest, and get your strength back. I'll draw up a proper plan—no one gets left out. Tomorrow morning, we go together, and we take what's hers."

The room settled. One by one, they left. Some went to bandage wounds. Others sharpened knives. A few shadowboxed in the dark, hyping themselves up. But they all shared the same thought: tomorrow, Natalie's food was theirs.