Building a Safe Zone with My Harem In The Post-Apocalyptic World

Aaron held his daughter carefully against his chest, still afraid that if he moved too much, the moment would somehow disappear.

She was so small and warm, her tiny fingers curled around his as she slept peacefully against him, and the simple weight of her body felt almost painful because he had spent so many years remembering a child who had never been given the chance to exist.

Agnes sat beside him, watching the two of them with a soft smile, and Aaron found himself staring at her for longer than he intended because there had been a time when he could barely remember the exact shape of her face without seeing it covered in blood.

All the parasite aberrant, all of the burden in his heart, all of those responsibilities, all of his dead teammate, and the dark mine were all gone...

Or he wanted them gone. Aaron couldn’t differentiate between those two anymore. He just knew that his wife and daughter were real.

"You know, you don’t have to hold her like she’s made of glass," Agnes said, gently nudging his shoulder. "She’s your daughter, Aaron. You aren’t going to break her just because you hold her a little tighter."

"I know that," he replied with a faint laugh, carefully adjusting the baby in his arms. "I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’ve never held her before."

"You’re supposed to be happy," Agnes said, resting her head against his shoulder. "You always make everything more complicated than it needs to be."

"Just hold her, Aaron. You don’t need to command anything, you don’t need to make a plan, and you don’t need to worry about what happens tomorrow. For once, you can simply be her father."

Aaron looked down at the child again, his thumb gently brushing over her tiny hand.

"Maybe I forgot how to do that."

Agnes smiled. "Then learn again."

He let out a quiet breath and looked around the apartment, taking in the familiar furniture, the curtains, the little table where Agnes used to leave her coffee every morning, and every other insignificant detail that he had forgotten he missed.

Everything was exactly where it belonged. There were no ruined buildings outside, no aberrants wandering through the streets, no blood, no snow burying everything beneath it.

There was only the apartment, his wife, and the daughter he had never been able to meet.

"What if none of it happened?" he finally asked.

Agnes turned toward him. "What do you mean?"

"The apocalypse. The aberrants. Everything after that." Aaron paused, his gaze returning to his daughter.

"Maybe you are right, I was exhausted, maybe I hit my head somewhere, or maybe my mind simply created the worst possible nightmare because I was afraid of losing you."

Agnes studied him quietly before reaching over and touching his cheek. "Then maybe you finally woke up. And you’re here now. I’m here, and she’s here too. Isn’t that enough?"

Aaron stared at her, and something inside him finally began to loosen.

"It is," he admitted. "God, it really is."

"Then stop thinking about it."

He smiled weakly. "You’re still bossy."

"And you’re still stubborn."

Aaron closed his eyes for a moment, leaning his head against hers while his daughter continued sleeping peacefully between them.

"If this is a dream, Agnes, I don’t want anyone waking me."

"Then don’t wake up," she whispered. "Stay here with us. You don’t have to go anywhere anymore."

"I won’t."

The apartment trembled before he could say anything else.

At first, Aaron thought it had only been something outside, but then the table shook hard enough to make the cups rattle against the surface.

His daughter immediately began crying, and Agnes straightened with a frightened expression as another tremor passed through the apartment, stronger than the first.

"Aaron, what was that? Was that an earthquake?"

"I don’t know." Aaron carefully stood while keeping his daughter close. "Stay here."

Another impact slammed against the front door, making the entire frame shudder.

Agnes immediately pulled the child closer. "Someone is outside."

Aaron stared toward the entrance, his instincts returning with a force he hadn’t felt since the nightmare began.

Something struck the door again, followed by a man’s muffled voice shouting from the other side, but the words were impossible to understand.

"Don’t open it," Agnes said, her voice trembling. "Aaron, whatever is outside, don’t open that door. We don’t know what it is."

"I need to see."

"No, you don’t. You have us now. You don’t need to go outside anymore, and you certainly don’t need to risk yourself for something that might not even be human."

Another impact cracked the wood.

Aaron instinctively reached toward his waist for his rifle, only to find nothing there.

"Shit! It’s gone! Of course it is, I checked it before."

Agnes looked at him with confusion. "What do you mean?"

Aaron stared at her for a moment, unable to answer. The lock snapped and the door burst inward.

A humanoid figure stumbled into the apartment, its body covered in blood and pale growth.

It was clearly an aberrant, yet its movements were strangely familiar, almost human, and when it reached toward Aaron, he found himself hesitating instead of immediately attacking.

"Aaron !%%@&@*($(!"

He blinked, ’Did it just say my name?’

The creature grabbed his arm and began pulling him toward the doorway, and although Aaron struggled against it, some inexplicable instinct told him that he knew the person beneath that twisted body and he needed to follow him.

"Aaron!" Agnes screamed from behind him. "Don’t let it take you! Come back here!"

He looked over his shoulder and saw Agnes clutching their daughter tightly against her chest, both of them terrified, and for a moment the sight of his family was enough to make him want to fight his way back.

Yet the creature continued dragging him toward the hallway, and Aaron couldn’t bring himself to kill it.

There was something about its eyes, something about the way it desperately tried to reach him, that made his mind reject the idea that it was merely an aberrant.

But it couldn’t be right... All of his teammates or those people in his nightmare were dead. So whatever in front of him was indeed a monster, something that wanted to drag him from this reality.

Then his hand suddenly found the familiar grip of a firearm at his waist.

Aaron drew it immediately, pointing it toward the creature.

The aberrant turned its head, and the distorted features became clear enough for recognition to strike him like a blow.

"Eric...? No, that’s impossible!"

"!@^#&#((!" it screams at him again.

His teammate’s face was there beneath the parasite, his eyes wide and desperate as he continued trying to pull Aaron toward the hallway.

The creature’s mouth moved, seemingly trying to say something, but Aaron couldn’t hear him over the crying child and Agnes’s desperate pleas.

"Kill it, Aaron!" Agnes screamed. "Please, you have to kill it before it takes you away from us! Look at what it’s doing to you! You can’t let another aberrant take your family away after everything you’ve already lost!"

Aaron’s finger rested against the trigger, but he couldn’t pull it.

"Let me go, you are a monster, this must be another nightmare!"

Aaron whispered, though he wasn’t sure whether he was speaking to the creature or himself.

The monster tightened its grip.

"Shit! Let go of me!"

He was finally able to let go of its grip, sweat started to roll down Aaron’s temple. He was confused, dizzy, he didn’t know which one was real and not anymore.

Agnes screamed again, this time with tears running down her face as she pressed their daughter against her chest.

"Aaron, please! Don’t make me watch you leave us again! You promised me you would protect our family, and I need you to keep that promise now. Whatever that thing is, it isn’t your friend! You know what happens if you hesitate."

"You will let me die again, on that cold floor, in pain and lay in the pool of my own blood!"

Aaron’s breathing became heavier as he looked between the monster and his wife, his mind desperately trying to reconcile the two realities.

The memories that felt real flashed again, the death of Agnes, the death of his teammate.

’If that monster dragged me from this place, would I go back to that wrecked dark place?’

His grip tightened, his heart beating so fast everything turned blurry, even the scream of his wife and the cries of his daughter.

"!@$*((! Aaron..."

The monster called him again and the shaking of his apartment became more intense. He could feel everything starting to fall apart, the wall started to crack up to the ceiling and tears started to fall from Aaron’s eyes.

"No! Please, Aaron! Don’t leave me again! I need you, our daughter needs you! I don’t want to go back to that cold place!"

Aaron’s breath ragged as he finally took the trigger, the shot echoed through the apartment.

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