My adopted sister, Savannah, was obsessed with apocalypse-prepper novels. So when the temperature in Denver plunged to 70 below zero and stayed there for three straight days, she wasn't scared; she was ecstatic. She declared it was the End of Days and, in a manic frenzy, maxed out every credit card she could get, buying enough freeze-dried food and ammo to last a decade. As a meteorology grad student at CU Boulder, I kept showing her the atmospheric models. It was a severe polar vortex, an anomaly, but it wasn't permanent. "It'll thaw in a week," I pleaded. "Just buy enough for a few days." But she wouldn't listen. She filled our parents' garage with hundreds of pounds of frozen meat. Worried about the biohazard of it all thawing and rotting, Mom, Dad, and I decided to give the excess food to our neighbors, who were already running low. That night, Savannah murdered us. She cornered us in the kitchen, her eyes glittering. “Rule number one of the apocalypse, Ivy: kill the bleeding hearts. Family doesn't mean squat!” She stabbed my father first. “Three fewer mouths to feed. My chances of survival just went way up.” She was still gloating when a National Guard rescue team drove by. Thinking they were raiders coming for her stash, she charged out of the house, knife raised. They shot her dead. I opened my eyes. We were back. All of us. Seated at the dining table for Sunday dinner. Three days before the freeze. “From now on, I am done with the Miller family! We are through!” The shout came from Savannah. The fork in my hand clattered to the plate. I knew instantly—she remembered, too. Mom and Dad were blindsided. "Savannah, honey, what are you talking about? What's wrong?" I glanced at the thermostat. It was August. 77 degrees. But I knew what was coming. Thinking of what she did to us, I couldn't speak as my parents tried to calm her down. “You don't get to tell me what to do!” she spat, grabbing her purse. “You’re not even my real parents!” With that, she stormed out. Over the next three days, she leveraged every predatory payday loan and high-limit credit card she could find, racking up an insane $500,000 in debt. She bought a reinforced cabin in the foothills, installed a bunker, and paid triple the market price for generators, supplies, and high-powered hunting rifles. Then, just as I knew it would, the snow began to fall. In August. The city panicked. People mobbed the grocery stores. I calmly took Mom and Dad to King Soopers and we bought a reasonable, two-week supply of food and water. We’d just finished unloading the car when my phone rang. Savannah. Her voice was giddy. “A hundred pounds? Seriously? I saw the Ring camera. You yuppies are pathetic. A hundred pounds of cabbage is, what, ten heads?” She laughed. “I’m not responsible for you this time. I’m going to be a queen in this apocalypse. When you’re starving, maybe I’ll toss you some scraps if you beg nicely.” Mom and Dad looked at our modest pantry, their faces etched with worry. “Ivy... is she right? Is this really it? This isn't enough.” I didn't even look up from my laptop, where I was tracking the NOAA data. “She’s rotted her brain with prepper-porn. It’s a severe anomaly, but it’s not the end of the world. Trust me.” My confidence as a meteorologist calmed them. A little. They stopped fussing over the food and instead, Mom texted Savannah. “Please be safe, honey. Ivy says this will all be over in a few days. We’ll come get you then!” My stomach clenched. We’d been switched at birth, and Savannah had lived with us for 15 years. Her biological parents were dirt-poor, and she hated them. But Mom and Dad... they still loved her. When they heard her birth family was trying to marry her off for cash, they'd brought her right back home. They never saw the monster I did. Not until she was standing over them with a knife. Savannah’s reply text was scathing: “A few days? You’ll be popsicles in a few days! Denver has NEVER seen temps like this. This is IT! Just watch me rule this new world. If you live that long.” Dad sighed and went back to organizing his workbench. Mom started a game of online bridge with her friends. Savannah, who must have been monitoring our home's security feed, called again, enraged. “You’re playing cards? The world is ending, and you’re acting like it’s a snow day? We'll see how long you last!” I took a deep breath. I couldn't swallow the rage from last time. “Heard you bought a cabin, Savannah. And generators? Rifles? Where’d a broke girl like you get that kind of cash?” She shrieked. “None of your business! I got it myself, with my own skills!” I laughed. “You mean payday loans? Maxed-out credit cards? Don’t act like you’re some kind of financial genius. How are you going to pay that back? We’re not bailing you out.” “Pay it back?” she scoffed. “When everyone’s dead, who’s gonna come collect? I’m never asking you for a dime, and don’t you dare come begging me! It’s every man for himself now!” A moment later, our family text chain lit up. Dozens of photos. Three massive storage units, packed floor-to-ceiling. “I hear city people can live on a single leaf of lettuce a day. Good luck with your 100 pounds of cabbage! Thoughts and prayers!” I immediately screenshotted everything and posted it on the r/Denver subreddit. Title: My sister thinks it's the apocalypse and is 'prepared.' Body: [PHOTOS] She just sent these to our family. Says she's stocked for 10 years and we're all gonna die. Is she... okay? The post blew up. At first, it was jokes. user1: This is what happens when you read 'The Stand' too many times. user2: Holy hell, does she have a bunker? Is she single? Asking for a friend. user3: Damn, she's not just a prepper, she's the final boss of preppers. Then, one comment stopped me cold. Mike_D78: Is this real? Can you share her location? My kids and I are 10 miles away, our power is out and we have no food. We're going to die. Please, can she spare anything? I realized this wasn't a game. The disaster was real, even if it wasn't the apocalypse. People were already in serious trouble. A chorus of support for Mike flooded in. OP, tell your sister to donate! People are dying! I replied to the thread: Sorry everyone, she's not with us. She has the food, but she won't share. She's made that very clear. Please find other help. Then, I deleted the entire post. The snow kept falling. A high-tech drone buzzed outside our window and dropped a package in the yard. It was a piece of rotten, freezer-burned meat. Savannah's voice came over its speaker, tinny and mocking. “Don’t say I never gave you anything! A little treat, for old time’s sake.” I was staring at our own full pantry when I heard a loud banging from her end of the still-open phone line. A muffled man’s voice: “Ma’am, State Emergency Services! We need to talk to you!” I heard Savannah panic. “Who are you? How did you find me?” “Ma’am, we saw reports online of a significant stockpile of supplies at this address. The situation downstream in Aurora is critical. We’re asking for donations.” “You saw what? Online? No! I’m not giving you anything!”
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