A bone panel floated up along with bone screws. The panel slotted in place as the screws automatically screwed themselves in a moment later. I could make bones almost as strong as steel in my normal form, slightly stronger in my zombie form. Compressing the bone down took significant time and mental energy, and altering it after was that much more difficult. So, unless I was making weapons and armor for my people, strengthening the bone didn’t make sense.

The altercation that took place was quickly forgotten about as someone cleaned up the bodies. Everyone knew the world had changed, but everyone still held on to the hope that it wouldn’t be as bad as they thought. Every death they viewed was another crack in their perfect vision of the future, where everyone got along perfectly.

People weren’t idealists; they knew we would need to defend this land, otherwise we’d lose it. That’s why people were running barbed wire along the eight-foot-tall fence that surrounded the mansions. The total area inside the fence was four acres of land. It wasn’t that much, but it would have still been a hundred-thousand-dollar job at least. It wasn’t much in terms of defense, and it was harder to defend as it covered so much area, but it was absolutely necessary for protecting the fruit trees and crops I planned to grow and the animals we’d raise for food.

Looking at it like that, the land just wasn’t enough for the long term. We would have to expand into the forest behind the mansions, but that was something to think about in the future. The front of the mansion would most likely become a shanty town, perhaps developing into an actual city if we could keep up supplies until other food sources start to come in.

Realistically… I could indefinitely support about twenty people with my inner space farm, but that just wasn’t enough. Even with the increased time inside, it was much better to start saplings until they were ready to become full-grown trees to plant outside. It was better to rapidly grow foods that would last forever than transplant them, so the amount of food grown goes up instead of staying the same.

We’d have to make a catwalk near the fence, perhaps put up guard towers, and keep an eye on the back fields so people didn’t sneak in, but that was once again, plans for the future. With only an hour left, I could feel the air shift through my perception while a normal human might only get ten minutes of warning with smaller hail before it kicked up to the full-blown thing.

I finished putting up the extra protection for the crates that housed the animals. I was honestly sick of taking care of them, but it was necessary until the blizzard passed. I got everything protected and locked down as the animals went crazy; they knew what was coming, and their instinctive nature made them want to get somewhere safer, to huddle in a hole or underneath a tree, but those would be far less safe than the metal shell containers they were in.

I called out loudly one last time to get inside before the hail arrived and made my way inside. I waited with bated breath, many of us sat in the main hallway as the only windows were on the staircase leading up to the second floor, and I had blocked them off along with every window in hopes they wouldn’t be destroyed. It started out slow, a little tinkling rain to start before turning into grain-size ice.

It kept getting louder as bigger and bigger hail rained down. I had mostly forgotten how bad it got the first time. It blew out my window, and I screamed in fear for an hour, but the freezing cold was much worse and more memorable. I hadn’t been outside and was in the middle of a building, so I hadn’t gotten the worst of it. Now, it sounded like the world was exploding.

We were also in a more structurally stable house, but the sky was firing bowling ball shards of ice at us. I could see the fear in the few girlfriends of mine who decided to ride it out in the hallway; most went into the basement, which would be better protected. The devastation seemed minimal here, but anyone unprepared would be ruined.

Imagine not having days of foreknowledge beforehand to protect your house; every single window would be shattered, anyone outside slain outright by the falling ice, billions if not trillions of dollars in property damage, as most vehicles would be rendered useless. All of that was just the start of the cold snap blizzard, the coldest temperature to ever happen, the moment after everyone's windows were destroyed.

As quickly as it came, it was over, the mansion not much worse for wear, but even with the house still completely whole, I could feel the cold. With my endurance, I could go outside shirtless and only be annoyed by how cold it was, while others would rapidly freeze to death. The cold snap in the first timeline had been the reason Victor died. He had gotten frostbite on his feet and could barely walk, but he had died from complications a year or so later.

Many people had permanent injuries from the cold, if it didn’t outright kill them. Many would be burning furniture or family heirlooms to keep warm tonight, not many would have the resources to survive the week or so of the cold snap, as we got a few feet of snow… Which reminded me, Sophie had a very rough time with the cold snap.

She was fine and lived, but that was before taking care of all her animals. I told her to get food for them, but who knew if she had more than a month's worth saved up. Well… I was going to spend the blizzard inside, cuddled up with my girlfriends, but I probably should go rescue my other one first. Driving was going to suck; I didn’t even know if the vehicles would be able to start at this temperature.

…But we did have a portable flame thrower right now in Alicia, I just needed to convince her to leave this safe, warm home and travel across multiple states on roads that might no longer be safe as feet of snow pile up, making it impossible to see anything, especially the roads. I needed a plan, and if I didn’t want the trip to be absolutely miserable, I needed to take the right people with me.

I could brute force it, put a snow plow on a truck and just drive, but while I would be fine getting there, getting back with her and all her animals would be that much more difficult. Sure, the path would be safer and easier to travel after I pushed all the other cars out of the way, but anything could go wrong during the process. That’s why I wanted to wait until after the blizzard to go rescue her.

I think about whether it was worth it or not and… I still miss her; it took a herculean effort not to go kidnap Sophie the moment I came back in time. I still wanted her to believe I was a heroic man, the same type I was before she died in the first timeline, the reason she fell in love with me in the first place. As wishful as that was… I wasn’t the person she fell in love with the first time. I was… More pragmatic. I knew that everything wouldn’t work out in the end if you’re a good person. Sometimes, it takes being a bad person to get the ending you want.