Chapter 2

My adoptive parents, Richard and Eleanor Sinclair, stared at Chloe in absolute shock.

You couldn't blame them. Just a second ago, Chloe had been sobbing about how much she had suffered living with her poor parents in the countryside. She had blamed me for stealing the luxury life that was rightfully hers.

The more Richard and Eleanor listened, the more they loathed me. Their venomous glares made me feel like they wanted to tear me to pieces right then and there.

But before they could announce that they were kicking me out to let Chloe take her rightful place, Chloe suddenly changed her tune. She declared she wanted to go back to the countryside, to be with the parents who had raised her from dirt. She told the Sinclairs to get lost.

As she finished her dramatic speech, she shot me a smug, gloating look.

That was when I knew. She had regressed too.

In our past life, Chloe had discovered she was adopted during a routine blood drive and immediately posted her DNA results online to find her real family.

Because she looked identical to Richard, her identity as the true Sinclair heiress was quickly confirmed.

On her very first day back, she was desperate to prove her loyalty to her new billionaire parents. She cut off all contact with my biological parents—the Millers—and had me sent back to them, claiming they were mentally unstable.

She told me I had enjoyed her luxury for too long, that I owed her, and that letting me live was already an act of mercy.

My biological parents were extreme doomsday preppers with severe paranoia. Any harmless action from me would trigger their delusions, making them think I was trying to poison them. They would beat me raw. Chloe couldn't wait to escape them, and she wanted me to experience that exact living hell.

But she didn't expect the zombie virus to break out just days after I arrived at the Miller homestead.

Before the apocalypse, the Sinclairs were the type of people who had organic produce flown in fresh daily.

Once the world went to hell, their food supply lines were cut off. They hid in their mansion, throwing money at their bodyguards to go out and raid the nearby shopping centers.

But after watching their fellow guards get torn apart by the infected, the remaining security detail formed a pact. They threw Richard and Eleanor to the zombies, hijacked the mansion, and lived like kings. Only Chloe was kept alive, dragged through a living nightmare every single day.

Meanwhile, the moment I had returned to the Millers' homestead, I was ushered into a state-of-the-art underground bunker. My paranoid parents had poured their life savings into building it. I survived in perfect safety until the military rescue arrived.

The day we were transferred to the survivor camp, I heard about the Sinclairs' horrific deaths. Grieving for the people who had raised me for twenty years, I wept bitterly and vowed to take care of their only surviving daughter—Chloe.

But the moment she saw me, already secretly infected, she lunged at me and tore open my carotid artery.

As my blood sprayed across the room, she stood there drenched in red, laughing like a maniac.

In this life, she didn't hesitate. She pushed Eleanor and Richard away as if they were plague-bearers and rushed out of the house, eager to get to the Miller homestead.

Richard and Eleanor stood frozen for a moment. Then, Richard slammed his fist on the table, cursing his ungrateful biological daughter.

When he turned and saw my eyes pooling with tears, his heart finally softened.

"Forget her," Richard sighed, looking defeated. "If twenty years of separation means she's been corrupted by those people, then we don't need her anyway."

I nodded, offering a gentle, compliant smile.

Chloe had no idea. In our past life, even though the Millers had a bunker stocked like a grocery store, I ate worse than a stray dog.

Despite the shelves being packed with canned goods and rations, my biological parents were constantly terrified that the apocalypse would last forever and we would run out of food. From the moment we sealed the bunker doors, they only allowed me one packet of Oreos and half a bottle of water a day.

Even if the food was literally rotting or being eaten by pests, they refused to let me touch it.

Yet, the day before the military rescued us, knowing the soldiers were coming, they suddenly shoved armfuls of food down my throat, forcing me to gorge.