Apocalypse: My Girlfriend Trusts a Warehouse Club

As 3iAtlas ignores all warnings and begins its descent into Earth's atmosphere, the entire human race realizes that an alien invasion is truly underway. Having anticipated this, I'm just about to take my girlfriend, Helena Cohen, to an official government shelter when her childhood friend, Damien Farley, intervenes. "Lena! The aliens are here! There won't be any fortifications that can hold against them!" he exclaims. "Listen to me! Let's go hide at the nearest Costgo instead. It's a membership-only place. The aliens don't have memberships, so they can't get in. It's the safest place on Earth!" I spit out the milk I was drinking, and to my horror, Helena nods in all seriousness. "Dam has a good point. Let's head out now." It strikes me then—if this is the level of intelligence humanity possesses, it would be no wonder if we were easily wiped out. Just as I prepare to use force to take Helena away, I realize I can't move. As it turns out, the milk was spiked. When I finally regain consciousness, I find myself inside a Costgo Wholesale. "Stop being so naive, Carl. We're doing this for your own good. Costgo has stopped issuing new memberships, so it's perfectly safe here, and there are plenty of supplies to keep us alive. We're saved." I shift my still-feeble body and smile. "You're absolutely right. Since it's so safe here, we really ought to bring all your other relatives over, too." Chapter 1 I woke up to find myself lying on a pile of soft, imported towels. The bright lights made my eyes ache. I quickly realized that I was in the home textiles section of Costgo Wholesale. My girlfriend, Helena Cohen, sat beside me, her face full of concern. "Carl, you're awake! How are you feeling?" Damien Farley, her childhood friend, stood nearby with his arms crossed, looking haughtily at me. "You're awake. Good. Now stop acting like such a damsel in distress." I pushed myself up into a sitting position, my limbs still weak and limp. "Did you put something in my milk?" I asked Helena. She averted her gaze, unable to meet my eyes. "I did it for your own good, Carl. The official shelters are packed. You'd just die if you went there," she said. "Isn't it great here? There are plenty of supplies and so much space to roam around too." Damien snorted coldly and walked over to us. "Stop wasting your breath on him, Lena. He's just a nerd. What does he know about surviving the apocalypse?" He looked down at me and continued, "Carl, it's only because we're friends that I let Lena bring you along. You should be thanking me." I looked at his self-righteous face and smiled. "Right. I suppose I should thank you," I replied. "In that case, for the sake of everyone's safety, shouldn't we bring over everyone else's family members, too?" My words caught Damien off guard. Several middle-aged men and women standing behind him turned to look at me. They were his and Helena's parents. Damien's mother, Fiona Brown, immediately shrieked, "Absolutely not! The more people there are, the more dangerous it'll get!" "Exactly! We barely managed to get in here ourselves," Helena's mother, Penny Wilson, chimed in. My smile deepened. "I see. So that's how it is." Damien's expression darkened. "Don't you dare try to sow discord here, Carl Sawyer. This is the best possible arrangement for everyone. It's chaos out there, and going out to fetch anyone else would just be a death sentence." Helena tugged at my sleeve. "Stop picking a fight, Carl. I'm sure Dam must have his reasons for doing this." I looked at her, and the last shred of warmth in my heart vanished. I just closed my eyes and said nothing more. My body was still weak, and I needed to conserve my strength. Seeing me fall silent, Damien assumed I had backed down. He cleared his throat, stepped up onto a crate of bottled water, and began his speech as the self-appointed leader. "Listen up, everyone! From this moment on, we move as a group. To ensure our survival here, we must make sure all supplies are centrally distributed. "Therefore, I, Damien Farley, will be the one in charge here," he declared confidently. A few people muttered under their breath, but they were quickly silenced by a sharp glare from his parents. A man wearing an employee uniform stepped forward. "Everything has been done as you instructed, Mr. Farley. All the doors are locked from the inside, and the power has been rerouted to the backup generator. The membership registration system has also been officially shut down." Damien nodded, satisfied, and patted him on the shoulder. "Well done, Walter. Stick with me, and I'll make sure you eat and live like a king." Walter Danford bowed and scraped to Damien immediately. "Thank you, Mr. Farley! Thank you so much!" I watched this farce unfold, feeling as though I were witnessing a group of jesters performing before me. The whole idea of ​​using a "membership system" to keep aliens out had to be a joke from the very beginning. Damien was simply using it as a pretext to dupe a bunch of fools into building a private kingdom for him. Chapter 2 Damien was fully immersed in his fantasy of being the king. Along with his so-called "inner circle"—his and Helena's parents—he commandeered the best refrigerated display cases in the fresh produce section that were stocked with imported steaks, salmon, and an array of expensive seafood. The rest of us, including the sycophantic Walter, were left with nothing but bread and canned goods. Helena approached me, carrying a plate of grilled steak in her hands, saying, "Here, Carl. Eat something." The steak on the plate was still sizzling, its delicious aroma filling the air. I glanced up at her, then looked over at Damien and his family, who were busy feasting nearby. "Is this for me?" I asked. "Yeah." Helena nodded. "Dam specifically asked me to bring it to you. He said you're weak and need proper nourishment." I took the plate and dumped the steak straight into a nearby trash can right in front of her. Helena's face went deathly pale. "Carl! What are you doing?" "I'm not hungry," I said, my tone indifferent. Her eyes welled up with tears. "Do you really have to be like this? We're all in the same boat now!" "The same boat?" I let out a laugh. "You mean this boat is named the 'SS Damien', and I'm just a stowaway waiting to be tossed overboard, aren't I?" Helena was left speechless by my words. Noticing the commotion, Damien walked over. He took one look at the steak in the trash can, his expression darkening, and said, "Don't push your luck, Carl. I was being nice by offering you steak, and you're repaying my kindness by throwing a tantrum like this?" I leaned back against the shelving unit, not even bothering to acknowledge him. Damien felt humiliated in front of everyone else, and his temper flared. He yelled, "Lock him in the storage room! Let him sit there and reflect on his behavior!" Two men immediately stepped forward, reaching out to grab me. My gaze turned icy. "Don't touch me." The two men, taken aback by my demeanor, stopped in their tracks. Flustered and enraged, Damien snapped, "Useless idiots! Get him!" I slowly stood up and flexed my wrists, which still felt a bit stiff. The effects of the drug were wearing off, and I could feel my strength slowly returning. I clenched my fists. "Are you sure you want to do this, Damien?" Just then, the supermarket's public address system crackled to life. After a harsh burst of static, a woman's voice came through. "Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Please, if you can hear me, say something!" Everyone froze. Damien's expression shifted, and he rushed toward the broadcast room. I went after him. Walter was there too, frantically fumbling with the equipment. "What's going on? Didn't you say the internal lines were all cut?" Damien demanded furiously. "I don't know, Mr. Farley! It looks like… It seems like it's coming from an external channel." The woman's voice continued over the broadcast, now laced with sobs. "Help! Is anyone there? We're at Trader Poe's on the west side of town! There are monsters here… Aaaah—" A piercing, blood-curdling scream followed. Then, there was nothing but the hiss of static. A deathly silence fell over the entire Costgo. Every face was etched with terror. Trader Poe's didn't require a membership. They were doomed. Fiona was the first to recover. She grabbed Damien's arm, her voice trembling as she said, "Thank goodness we listened to you, Dam! Thank goodness we came to Costgo…" "Yeah! How could Trader Poe's ever compare to Costgo?" some others chimed in, their expressions a mix of lingering dread and relief. Damien's ego was thoroughly satisfied. He cast a smug glance my way, as if to say, "See? I was right all along." Helena clutched her chest and turned to me, saying, "Carl, did you hear that? It's far too dangerous out there! We have to stay here." I said nothing. Instead, I walked over to the broadcast console and adjusted a few of the knobs with a casual, offhand motion. Then, I whispered under my breath, "Step one, clear." Chapter 3 The supposed tragedy just now propelled Damien's authority to its peak as everyone began to view him as their savior. Emboldened, he grew increasingly arrogant and started imposing even harsher rules. For instance, he mandated that everyone surrender their personal belongings to him—ostensibly to prevent anyone from hiding dangerous items. Those who resisted were locked inside a windowless walk-in freezer. Two people had already been confined there for a full day and night for the "offense" of hiding their lighters, and by the time they were let out, they'd nearly frozen to death. People were furious, yet no one dared to speak up. Meanwhile, Helena had become Damien's most devoted follower. She carried a notebook with her, going from person to person, recording their details and the items they handed over. When she reached me, she asked in a perfunctory, bureaucratic tone, "Carl Sawyer. Where are your personal belongings?" I found the situation almost amusing as I took in the unfamiliar expression on her face. "What else could I possibly have other than the clothes I'm wearing now?" Helena frowned. "You clearly have something in your pocket." I reached into my pocket and pulled out a compact satellite phone. It was something I'd prepared well in advance. Damien's eyes lit up. "A satellite phone? Excellent! Hand it over at once!" He reached out to snatch it, but I pulled back, evading his grasp. "It doesn't have a signal right now." "Enough talk!" Damien snapped, refusing to believe me. "Give it here!" I looked at him and said slowly, "Even if I gave it to you, who would you contact? Or did you want to see if I had Zeus on speed dial to come save you?" A ripple of suppressed laughter spread through the crowd. Damien's face flushed a mottled purple. He seethed, "You're asking for it!" He then lunged toward me, his fists raised. I simply sidestepped and tripped him. Unable to stop his momentum, Damien slammed headfirst into a shelving unit, and a large, angry red welt instantly appeared on his forehead. The men he'd brought along as his enforcers immediately swarmed forward. The atmosphere turned heated and tense, and a violent confrontation seemed imminent. "Stop it, all of you!" Helena screamed, rushing between us and throwing her arms out to block me. "Carl, can't you just stop this? If you'd just hand the phone over to Dam, we could all get along perfectly fine!" She looked at me, her eyes full of reproach, as if I were the unreasonable one here. I stared back at her and asked, enunciating every word, "If Damien hadn't been there, would you still have spiked my milk?" Helena's body went rigid. Her face turned deathly pale in an instant. Damien scrambled up from the floor, clutching his forehead. "Stop wasting your breath on him, Lena! He's just trying to break us all up!" Pointing at me, he then shouted to the others, "This guy has been against us from the very beginning! He wants us all dead! Seize him! Lock him up in cold storage!" The crowd began to stir, their gazes filled with hostility and suspicion. They were traumatized by the tragedy at Trader Poe's and had lost all capacity for rational judgment. They now saw any challenge to Damien's authority as a direct threat to their own lives. And so, I became the target of everyone's rage. Helena still hesitated. I gently pushed her aside. "Don't bother. I'll go myself." I began walking toward the cold storage room. As I walked past Damien, I stopped and said, "Oh, and one more thing… That distress broadcast earlier? That was me all along." Chapter 4 My words landed like a bombshell. Everyone stared at me with utter disbelief. Damien's expression shifted from rage to bewilderment, and then to sheer terror. "W-What did you just say?" he stammered. "I said that the broadcast was my doing," I stated with a smile. "It was just a recording I played by connecting this satellite phone to Costgo's PA system." I held up the satellite phone, waving it in the air. "The audio was just some sound effects from a horror game I downloaded online a few days ago. As for that woman's blood-curdling scream, I faked it with a voice changer." A dead silence hung over the crowd. It was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop. Everyone stood completely still, as though frozen by a spell. Helena's lips trembled. She looked at me as if I were some kind of monster. Meanwhile, Damien's face first turned red, then purple, then white. He pointed at me, his finger shaking like a leaf. "Why… W-Why would you do something like this?" "For fun, of course," I replied, an expression of feigned innocence on my face. "Don't you think it's hilarious watching a whole group of people scramble and soil themselves over a couple of sound effects?" "You lunatic!" Damien finally snapped, roaring, "Why would you lie to us?" "Lie to you?" I dropped the smile, my gaze turning cold. "Who's really lying here? "Who told everyone the Costgo membership could ward off aliens? Who lured everyone here just because he was desperate for control and effectively cut off any chance of survival? "And who coerced my own girlfriend into drugging me, all just so he could get rid of someone he couldn't stand?" Damien's face grew a shade paler with every sentence I shot back at him. The crowd around us began to whisper, their expressions shifting as they looked at Damien. They weren't complete fools, after all. They'd simply been blinded by their own fear. And now, I'd simply exposed the truth. "I'm simply giving you a taste of your own medicine," I said with a casual shrug. "You love playing king, don't you, Damien? I was just adding a little pizzazz to make your little game more fun and challenging." Damien panicked completely. He put on a brave front and shouted, "Don't listen to him! He's just trying to drive a wedge between us! He wants us all dead! "Think about it! If it weren't for me, you'd all be just like those people at Trader Poe's by now!" That remark struck a chord with the group. The broadcast might have been a fake, but the danger outside was still very real. A middle-aged man stepped forward and asked hesitantly, "So… have the aliens actually arrived or not?" Everyone turned their eyes toward me. However, I simply offered them a smile and said nothing in reply. I then turned away and stepped into the cold storage room before pulling the door shut behind me. I let them stew in their own shock, fear, and speculation on the other side of that door. They could damn well figure out the answer to that question themselves. It only took a tiny bit of provocation to shake their trust in Damien, and I'd already planted that seed of doubt in their minds. Now, all I had to do was patiently wait for it to sprout. Chapter 5 I made myself quite comfortable in the cold storage unit. I grabbed a goose-down coat on the way in here. I wrapped myself up in it and leaned against a cardboard box, feeling a bit sleepy. Outside the door, the sounds of Damien's furious shouting and the other people arguing drifted in intermittently. My words had clearly hit the mark, and Damien's "reign" was beginning to crumble. About three or four hours later, the door to the cold storage unit opened. It was Helena. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she carried a tray with some bread and water on it. "Carl…" She set the items on the floor, her voice choking with emotion. "Why did you do it?" I opened my eyes and looked at her. "Which part are you referring to?" "All of it!" she exclaimed. "You lied to everyone and threw everyone into a panic!" "Didn't Damien lie to you all first?" I retorted. "Damien… He did it for everyone's own good!" she countered. I sneered. "You're saying that as if 'doing it for everyone's good' justified drugging me or ruining everyone else's chances of reaching the government shelter." Helena's face turned pale again. "That… I was the one who did it, okay? I was the one who begged Dam to bring you along!" "So, the two of you had it all planned out, then?" I asked, sitting up straight and staring directly into her eyes. Helena looked away, feeling uneasy under my gaze. "We just didn't want you to make a pointless sacrifice." "A pointless sacrifice?" I laughed. "So, you think that trusting the government and science is a 'pointless sacrifice'? And that believing that a Costgo membership card can ward off aliens means we'll all be saved?" Helena was left speechless. She remained silent for a long time before saying in a low voice, "Regardless, you can't go on like this. Dam has… He's lost control of the situation. "People outside are in an uproar. Some want to leave, some want to kill you, and others want to seize the supplies." "Isn't that exactly what Damien wanted?" I replied with a shrug. "Didn't he want a dog-eat-dog world where the strong prey on the weak? It would be the perfect environment for him to do whatever he pleased." "But now everyone's turning against him!" "Oh?" I raised an eyebrow. "That's sad." Helena grew frantic. "Carl! What are you trying to do? Do you want us all to die here?" I looked at her, suddenly feeling a profound sense of weariness. "Just go, Helena. I don't want to see you ever again." She froze, tears streaming down her face. "Are you… Are you breaking up with me?" "Our relationship ended the moment you spiked my milk," I said bluntly. With that, I closed my eyes once more. Helena stood there for a long time before finally running off, sobbing. A while later, the door to the cold storage unit opened again. This time, it was Damien who entered, with Walter by his side. Walter was basically his lapdog at this point. There was a bandage on Damien's forehead. He glared at me sinisterly as he growled, "Feeling pretty pleased with yourself, aren't you, Carl?" I ignored him. Damien continued. "Let me tell you something, Carl. Even if you've exposed me, it won't change a thing. If anything, they're even more afraid of you now. They see you as a madman. You're just a ticking time bomb ready to go off at any moment." He took a roll of heavy-duty tape from Walter. "And I'm going to make sure you stay quiet for good." He stepped toward me menacingly. Walter followed close behind, a cruel grin on his face as he pulled out a length of rope. I slowly stood up and brushed the dust off my clothes. "Damien, did you know? Since 3iAtlas began accelerating toward us, it only needs 72 hours to travel from Mars to Earth." Damien stopped in his tracks, his brows furrowing. "What do you mean?" "It means time is almost up," I said nonchalantly. "And yet, here you are, wasting time playing pathetic games with me. You still think you're the king of the castle or something? Did you honestly think you could pass this 'doomsday screening' just by a Costgo membership?" Damien froze. "Doomsday screening? What the hell are you babbling about?" I didn't answer and simply glanced down at my watch. "It's about time. My vessel is almost here." "Your vessel?" Damien and Walter exchanged bewildered glances. I looked up with a cryptic smile and said, "That's right. Real members get a private vessel to pick them up." No sooner had I spoken than every light in Costgo went out. The roar of the backup generator cut off abruptly. At once, total darkness and deathly silence engulfed the whole place.