The smallest one looked even more betrayed than before, which was impressive because he had already been making betrayal his full-time career.

Swanly’s breathing came fast.

Then she heard herself.

Then she looked at the branch in her hand.

Then she looked at the cubs.

Then, very slowly, she lowered her eyes.

Only then did she realize what she was wearing.

It was not her torn jacket.

It was not her old black shirt.

It was not the dirty jeans she had worn for three months because laundry after the apocalypse was a luxury for people with hope and clean water.

She was wearing some kind of rough animal hide dress.

The hide was tied over one shoulder and wrapped around her body in a way that looked primitive, handmade, and deeply offensive to every modern woman who believed in soft cotton. The edges were uneven. The belt around her waist was braided from some kind of dried vine or leather. Her arms were bare. Her legs were bare. Her feet were bare.

Bare.

In a forest.

Swanly stared down at herself.

Then she laughed.

It was a small laugh at first.

Then it became bigger.

Then it became the sort of laugh a person made when reality had slapped them so many times that they started clapping back with madness.

"Okay," she said, nodding very slowly. "Okay. I understand now."

The cubs stared at her.

Swanly pointed at herself with the branch.

"I am insane."

The cubs blinked.

She pointed at the forest.

"This is not real."

She pointed at the animal hide dress.

"This is definitely not real."

She pointed at the cubs.

"And you three are not talking baby panthers because that is not a thing. Animals do not talk. Baby animals definitely do not call strange women Mama. So the only reasonable explanation is that I have lost my mind."

One cub whispered, "Mama is talking to herself again."

Swanly froze.

Her eyes slowly moved to him.

The cub ducked behind his brother.

Swanly lifted one finger. "No. Shut up. You are not allowed to add evidence."

The three cubs huddled together.

The smallest one sniffled and said in a tiny, miserable voice, "Mama is back to being mean again."

Swanly stared at him.

Her heart twitched.

Her panic immediately wrestled it to the ground.

"Do not guilt-trip me, demon kitten. I am in the middle of a breakdown."

She pressed one hand to her forehead and tried to think.

She had survived the apocalypse.

That much she remembered.

The sky had gone red. The cities had fallen. People had changed. Some died, some ran, some turned into things that should never have existed. Swanly had survived through luck, speed, stubbornness, and the system that had appeared in front of her one day with missions, rewards, warnings, and a deeply annoying habit of acting like her suffering was a tutorial.

Her system should have been here.

It had always been there.

Even when she hated it.

Even when it gave her missions at the worst possible time.

Even when it made cheerful notification sounds while she was running for her life.

Swanly swallowed and looked into the air in front of her.

"System?"

Nothing happened.

Her heart dropped.

She tried again, louder this time.

"System. Open panel."

The forest remained still.

No screen.

No sound.

No answer.

Swanly stood there with bare feet in wet leaves, dressed like someone who had lost a fight with a caveman wardrobe, holding a branch at three talking black panther cubs, and finally felt something cold crawl down her spine.

"No," she whispered. "No, no, no. Don’t do this. You useless glowing parasite, answer me."

Nothing.

The cubs watched her with wide eyes.

Swanly’s grip tightened around the branch.

She forced out another laugh.

"Fine. Great. Amazing. So I survived the apocalypse, possibly got bitten by a zombie, developed hallucinations, and now I’m in a forest talking to baby panthers. That makes sense. Honestly, that is probably the most logical thing that has happened to me all year."

The three cubs stared at her.

She stared back.

They stared harder.

She stared harder too, because if madness wanted a staring contest, Swanly was petty enough to participate.

The middle cub’s tail slowly wagged.

Swanly’s expression cracked.

Because they were still cute.

Horrifyingly cute.

Illegally cute.

The kind of cute that made a person forget that they had spoken words with their tiny little mouths.

Then a new thought hit her.

Swanly’s face changed.

Wait.

If these were panther cubs, then their mother had to be nearby.

She did not know much about wildlife. She was not one of those people who could tell animal tracks apart or explain which berries were edible. Before the world ended, her biggest survival skill had been knowing which convenience store had the cheapest instant noodles.

But even she knew one rule.

Where there were cubs, there was a mother.

And where there was a mother panther, there was Swanly’s funeral waiting behind a tree with its arms crossed.

Her body went cold.

She slowly looked around the forest.

The trees seemed darker now. The bushes seemed thicker. Every shadow looked like it might have claws.

Swanly lowered the branch and took one careful step back.

"Okay," she whispered. "Wonderful meeting you three. Very emotional. Very educational. I will now be leaving."

The cubs immediately perked up.

One of them asked, "Where is Mama going?"

Swanly stopped.

Her eye twitched.

"Do not call me that."

The smallest cub got to his paws and shook leaves off his fur. "Mama?"

"I said do not call me that."

The three cubs began walking toward her.

Swanly took another step back.

They followed.

She took three steps.

They followed faster.

She turned and walked.

They trotted after her.

Swanly turned again, pointed at them, and hissed, "No. Absolutely not. I don’t know what type of madness this is, but you three will stay here."

The cubs blinked at her with pure confusion.

The largest one tilted his head. "Stay here?"

"Yes. Here. On the ground. In the forest. Wherever your real mother left you."

The cubs looked at each other.

Then all three looked back at her with the exact same puzzled expression.

Swanly felt personally attacked by how synchronized they were.

She jabbed the branch toward the forest floor. "Talking animals? No. I draw the line there. Zombies were already enough. I am not adding talking animals to my list of problems. You stay. I go. Simple."

The middle cub’s ears lifted.

"Is Mama playing?"

Swanly’s face went blank.

The smallest cub gave a tiny excited bounce. "Mama is playing running!"

"No, Mama is not playing running because Mama is not Mama!"

The cubs giggled.

Actually giggled.

Tiny little beast giggles bubbled out of them as they bounced around her feet, tails flicking, paws pattering against leaves. They looked delighted, as if Swanly’s obvious terror was a new game invented for their personal entertainment.

Swanly turned around and walked faster.

The cubs chased her.

She walked faster again.

They sped up.

She broke into a run.

The three tiny black panthers shot after her like fluffy arrows.

Swanly ran between the trees, bare feet slapping against damp earth, animal hide dress tugging at her thighs, hair whipping around her face. Behind her, the cubs kept pace far too easily, their little bodies darting through roots and leaves with the natural confidence of creatures born in the forest.

Swanly, meanwhile, had been born for supermarkets, public transport, and complaining about bad Wi-Fi.

Within less than a minute, she was panting.

The cubs were not.

That offended her.

She stopped suddenly and bent forward with both hands on her knees, dragging air into her lungs.

The three cubs stopped in front of her and sat down neatly.

Neatly.

Like they had manners.

Swanly lifted one trembling finger.

"You," she wheezed. "All three of you. Stay. Here."

The cubs stared up at her.

She pointed deeper into the forest. "If your mother comes back and sees me with you, I am dead. Do you understand? Dead. Finished. Gone. I do not want to mess with a mama panther. I have survived too much to get eaten because three tiny fur demons decided I looked friendly."

The cubs blinked.

The largest cub slowly tilted his head.

"But you are mama."

Swanly stopped breathing.