The door was yanked open. The sound was loud enough to wake Amelia and the children. The four bleary-eyed people shot up after remembering how they fell asleep.

The person who opened the door was one of the bodyguards assigned to the mansion. When he saw the five people in the room. His movements stopped. He bowed slightly.

"Apologies, young lady. The master and madam had someone check your room. After finding you both missing, they sent me to check on the children."

Amelia waved him off when he finished speaking. "Tell them, we’ll be down soon."

The children stirred. Dominic looked up at Kain, then down at himself, cuddled into the man’s arms. He didn’t have excessive affection for his father. It had been five years, and after everything they had gone through, he had only come to find them recently.

It didn’t matter how good he was to him, Dominic couldn’t bring himself to show any compassion. If there was a day they were discarded, not liking this father would make this easier.

Ashton’s view wasn’t much different than Dominic’s. But, he admitted to himself that he was beginning to like his father. He hadn’t expected to, but he was willing. As long as Kain could prove himself.

Avery wasn’t as entangled as the two boys. She was the kind of person who loved and hated. Right now, she could proudly proclaim she liked her father. She wasn’t close to him, but she wouldn’t deny that he had been good to them.

For the three of them, their mother was an easier target. The way she would encourage Avery when she fought brought the two of them closer together. As for the boys, they weren’t as close to her, but they still felt some goodwill towards her.

Kain rolled his shoulders. The meditation did wonders. He didn’t feel tired. His body was relaxed. He felt as if he could run a marathon. Briefly thinking about the rewards he got, he decided to tell them about it later.

"Let’s go," he said. "We shouldn’t keep everyone waiting."

Another half an hour passed before the five of them were ready. The children had their little backpacks on. They kept them with them everywhere they went. Kain knew what was inside. Food, clothes, even bits of cash. Everything they needed so they could leave if they needed to.

The family of five calmly walked down the stairs. The destruction from early in the morning was still evident. A crystal chandelier had fallen. They hadn’t had time to clean it up yet. There were various scattered pieces of porcelain. Paintings had been flung to the floor and cut up by sharp falling objects.

The Hartwell couple was looking at the shambles of their mansion with a look of heartbreak. Daniella and Nicola were sitting comfortably together on a loveseat they had cleaned. Nicola’s arm was slung over the back while Danielle leaned into him, hand resting on his chest.

Kain raised an eyebrow. Nicola caught his eye, grinned, tilting Danielle’s head up to look at him, giving her a peck on the lips. He looked back at Kain, testing. He wanted a reaction.

The kiss was done behind the elder Hartwell couple. They had not seen it, but that didn’t mean others in the room didn’t, especially since Danielle hadn’t pulled away.

Kain gave a thumbs up and an imperceptible nod. He hadn’t wanted to query the dynamic in the Hartwell house, but now he was curious. He didn’t care about the relationship between Nicola and Danielle.

The collapse strips people of their moral compass. The two before him wouldn’t be the first sibling couple he had seen. A sibling pairing was relatively tame in terms of things. The real fun hasn’t started.

"Good morning," Kain said evenly to everyone. He fixed an overturned sofa, cleaned, and had the children sit down.

"Mom, Dad..." Amelia called out to her parents. "Siblings," she said, wiggling her eyebrows. She glanced at the butler, who had been standing there, and nodded to him briefly.

"So," Nicola said, brushing hair away from Danielle’s face. "Is this supposed to be the world-ending drama? The place shaking for an hour only to stop?"

Everyone’s eyes went to Kain. They had been skeptical before. But because Amelia told them to trust him once, they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But today was the supposed apocalypse, and nothing had happened.

Kain shook his head. "This isn’t it. This isn’t even the appetizer. Why don’t you check your phones? We should still have another hour before the real trouble starts."

He saw a clock on the wall. It was almost 7 am.

Around him, everyone took out their phones. They had been so caught up in securing the mansion that they had not thought about what was happening outside.

As they watched the news reports, their faces grew increasingly serious. News of islands sinking, inland and underwater landslides. Both active and dormant volcanoes around the world began to erupt simultaneously.

The death toll had soared for smaller countries with volcanoes. Other island countries found themselves no longer surrounded by water. The water had disappeared, giving them more landmass than they previously had.

Creatures that had originally been in the depths of the ocean were seen flopping around on beaches. A sea creature once thought to be extinct was terrorizing a specific country.

In all the world, it appeared as if they were the only safe harbour.

He looked at the children who were curious about what the adults were looking at.

"Do you want to see?" Kain asked them.

Hesitatingly, they nodded.

Kain had no intention of hiding this from them. They were about to live in a world far worse. If he kept them in the dark, that would be harming them, not helping them.

He showed them the scenes that everyone else had seen in the news reports. Dominic didn’t have much of a reaction. Ashton leaned forward, his interest high. Avery scrunched up her nose, mumbling about some sea creature not being cute.

He nodded to himself, seeing they weren’t afraid. Then again, if they were, that might be the real problem.