The sound of the fork against the white porcelain resonated in the silence of the shelter. Gustavo chewed calmly, with the confidence of someone who has defeated fate. In front of him, his wife poured more wine into her glass, while their three daughters played with their almost-empty plates. His parents, in-laws, and brother-in-law conversed in a hushed murmur, avoiding looking him in the eye. Only his grandmother, with her trembling hands, seemed unaware of the heavy burden of that night.

  Outside, beyond the thick reinforced steel walls, despair reigned. From the armored window, Gustavo had seen hundreds of people crawling through the dry earth, scratching at the door, begging with tears and screams for him to let them in. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

  It had all started with an accident. Two years ago, as he was riding his bicycle home from work, a truck ran him over. The doctors said he had been dead for three minutes. Three minutes in which he saw the future.

  It wasn’t a dream, nor a hallucination. It was a clear, precise, and detailed glimpse of the world to come. He saw cities reduced to ashes, charred bodies lined up in the streets like mountains of dead flesh, he saw the sky darkened and the land turn barren. He saw the exact dates of everything: the first missile launched by mistake, the immediate retaliation, the inevitable escalation. He knew that in two years, the world would burn.

  When he woke up, he tried to warn everyone. He went to the press, internet forums, local radio stations, even tried with politicians. They mocked him. They called him crazy. “Another apocalypse fanatic,” they said. He gave exact dates, predicted smaller conflicts, but even when those happened, people found ways to discredit him. “Coincidence,” they said.

  For two years, he fought. He begged, screamed, pleaded. Until he grew tired. If the world didn’t want to listen, then let it condemn itself. He had a gift, and he would use it to save himself.

  He got rich. He bet on the stock market with surgical precision, invested in real estate that he knew would skyrocket before the collapse, bought materials before the fear of war drove prices up. And he built his shelter. Not just any bunker. A self-sustaining underground palace with hydroponic crops, energy generators, food reserves for decades. Unique technology. Only for him and his family.

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  And now, here he was, with them, having dinner, while outside the desperate tore their throats shouting for help. He had seen old friends, colleagues, even neighbors. One by one, he turned them away. Their pleading looks didn’t affect him. He had warned them. He tried to save them. They chose not to listen.

  A child’s scream pulled him from his thoughts. Outside, a man was pounding the door with bloodied fists. “My son! Just my son! I beg you! Let him in, he’s not to blame!” Gustavo closed his eyes and sighed. “It’s too late,” he murmured to himself.

  He took another bite of his dinner. It was delicious.

  Gustavo looked at his wife. Julia had her gaze fixed on her glass of wine. He knew she didn’t fully agree with what they had done, with what they were doing. But she had never said it out loud. She had never confronted him. She was a practical woman, and above all, she loved their daughters. She accepted it for them.

  His eldest daughter, Camila, set her fork down on the plate. “Dad, what will happen next?” Her voice was barely a whisper. The girl was twelve, old enough to understand what was happening outside.

  “We’ll live,” he answered. “We have everything we need here.”

  “And the others?” asked his youngest daughter, Sofía, seven years old. “Aren’t they going to come in?”

  A heavy silence fell over the table. Gustavo looked at his wife. Julia looked away. His in-laws, his brother-in-law, no one dared respond. Finally, it was the grandmother who spoke.

  “We can’t save them, little one,” she said softly. “There’s not enough for everyone.”

  Sofía lowered her head, stirring the remnants of her food with her fork. She didn’t say anything else.

  The next day, when Gustavo checked the cameras again, the man was dead. The boy was still there, trembling, alone.

  He closed his eyes. He couldn’t save everyone, so he pressed a button, and the sound of bullets followed immediately.

  “It’s the most humane thing I can do,” he murmured, then turned off the cameras and left the room, only to gaze at his warm family, the regret and guilt fading away when he saw them happy.

  The shelter was his world now. His family, his only responsibility.