Sunshine was married.
Her husband also known as her ex-fiancé's father was sleeping in bed next to her, little whistling sounds of snores were coming from his nose.
She studied the marriage certificate in her hands, squinting for the tenth time, almost convincing herself that maybe if she blinked hard enough, her name would disappear and the right one would appear next to her husband's name.
She blinked many times like a dramatic soap opera actress absorbing shocking news. They always had those long artificial eye lashes, heavy makeup often. And the camera would freeze and zoom in and out as those eye lashes moved up and down.
For her, nothing changed.
"How is it still my name? I blinked like a dozen times, why isn't it changing? This can't be real. Right, it is a dream, a very weird dream." She whispered to herself.
The denial she had was purposeless because the picture on the marriage certificate was of her and Hades Quinn. There was no mistaking those steely gray eyes and sharp jawline. Even in pictures, he managed to look as if he was about to reach out and rip out the throat of the camera man.
She looked at her hands and turned them over, no scars and no roughness. Her hands were still as soft as a kitten's paw. The nails were well trimmed and painted light pink. The last time her nails had looked this good, she was twenty-four and still living in Quinn manor. She thought it was a dream so, Sunshine slapped her cheek and winced.
The pain was too real for it to be a dream.
But just to be certain, she got out of bed and run towards a wall, banging her head against it. The intense sharp pain registered through her thick skull, and she yowled.
She returned to the bed, laughing softly.
"I am not dead; I have been reborn?"
Sunshine sniffed the air. The room smelled like medicine. It seemed she had been reborn back to the time when Hades Thorne was involved in an accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. As far as she recalled, her cousin Moon had been the one that married Hades. It seemed, her rebirth had come with changes.
"How the hell did I end up here?" She muttered.
A more important thought on her mind was how she was going to fix the situation. Given how she had died, she had no plans to live the same foolish life of self-sacrifice. And she would not date a fool.
That was the most important rule: No dating or marrying fools, especially not in an apocalypse.
*****
[The last moment before her death and rebirth.]
The first rule that everyone needed to keep in mind in an apocalypse was not to trust anyone. In a world where a brother could kill his twin or his younger sister for a slice of bread, trust was such a precious thing. It was as precious as that slice of bread itself.
Sunshine's first mistake was never asking herself if her foolish fiancé was truly a fool.
What fool gathered a harem in an apocalypse?
What normal woman wanted to become a fool's woman at such a time?
What normal woman became pregnant for him and even fought another for his attention?
The normal answer was zero.
But it was exactly how things had been. While she protected the fool, he collected women and even impregnated some and yet it was never her. He had never touched her, which she was very grateful for now.
The answer to that puzzle was answered by her cousin Moon who also became one of the fool's women. Right before she stabbed Sunshine, she had said to her, "Sunshine, only a fool like you would not notice the things going on around her. You awakened a superpower in the apocalypse, battled hard and became known as the apocalypse queen. You have been so busy fighting all day and night that you missed what was in front of you.
Didn't you ever wonder why you are filled with scars while he is not. Are you sure that you did not see people acting subservient around him or trembling in fear in his presence? All those women that clung to him as if he was their lifeline...didn't you wonder why they wanted the fool. Only the strong are revered in this era so these things should have given you a clue.
I will tell you the truth right now before sending you to your death. Cassius Quinn is not a fool. He was never a fool, he was simply pretending because he didn't want Hades Quinn to see him as a threat and kick him out of the house. His true identity is the eighth king."
Sunshine's eyes had widened when her cousin made that revelation.
"Yes." Her cousin laughed. "The eighth king that is the biggest arms dealer in the apocalypse world. He has endless supplies, and his base is the biggest in the world. Now that the apocalypse era is about to come to an end, he is about to become the new president of the East.
Unfortunately, you will not be there to witness it because you are an obstacle in his path. He said that his rise to the top started with a good luck charm that you gave him, a bracelet. You also said to him that the bracelet would be passed to your children after you give birth. That is why he never touched you.
Last week, you asked him to give you a baby and you asked him to return your bracelet for safe keeping. He said that you should forget it. Just die in peace and forget all about it."
Sunshine had thrown her head back and laughed. After carrying a fool in the apocalypse for five years, this was the thanks she was getting. Her fiance was not a fool, he was a powerful man with super powers and she was being killed all because of a bracelet! What was special about it that he had to kill her to hold on to it. She was still thinking when she was stabbed in the chest.
"Cousin, did you ever think that someday we would be here? That I would be pregnant for him and on the rise as his official wife while you would be sent off to die!!"
Gurgling blood in her moth, Sunshine spat it out. "Moon, a man that asks you to kill your sister for him will someday ask another to kill you too for this very secret."
Moon looked up, laughing as she spread her arms out. "I am not like you, he loves me, and I am going to be his official wife. My biggest regret is that I rejected him as my husband back then because I thought he was a fool. Had I married him from the beginning; I would not have had to suffer for four years in the apocalypse before meeting you again."
Moon had looked at Sunshine with eyes that burned with dark hatred. It was if Sunshine was her greatest enemy in the world. Once again, Moon had plunged a knife into Sunshine's chest again, over and over. "Go to hell, an orphan like you that was raised by my parents is not allowed to live a life better than mine."
Sunshine had lost energy; death called her name. But before she could die, she raised her hand one last time, pulling out a grenade from her pocket and she threw it at Moon.
As she breathed her last, she heard the delicious sound of a scream. Unfortunately, she could not tell if Moon was dead and alive.