Category: English

Determined to study hard for my grad school entrance exams, I posted: [I’m dying. Quitting the game. Don’t look for me.] A few days later, I heard that a famous actor went crazy, mistaking a netizen for the love of his life. Later, by some twist of fate, I ended up in the entertainment industry. To steal resources, a two-faced actress intentionally set me up on a live reality show to disrespect the actor’s “dead” love. But it seems that “dead” love is… me? I’m still alive. What do I do now… 01 It was exam prep season again, and once more, I was screaming in frustration at my own laziness. My best friend, Chloe, rolled her eyes at me. “Audrey, if you don’t quit that game, you can forget about grad school. Keep dreaming.” I threw my phone down and started sulking. “What, still waiting for your gaming buddy?” Chloe patted my back. I stayed silent, just being stubborn. Even though my gaming buddy hadn’t been online for days, I wasn’t going to admit it. “Let it go. You’re just a random netizen to him. Focusing on your exams is what’s important,” she said. Ouch… This girl’s ability to stab me right in the heart is as strong as ever. Stabbing me right where it hurts the most. But I’m known for being stubborn to the bitter end. So I said, “It’s not because of him. I’m just addicted to the game.” “Fine, I’ll help you quit,” she said with an eye roll. I laughed. “Alright, if you can make it so I never log into that game again, I’ll admit you’re the boss.” “You said it, Audrey,” she said, grabbing my phone and frantically tapping away. A moment later, she tossed the phone back to me. “Done. I guarantee you’ll never dare log into this account again.” I had a bad feeling about this. I looked at the screen. My gaming profile had a new status update: AudreyA: [I’m dying. Quitting the game. Don’t look for me.] Then, all my cosmetic items—except for one limited-edition skin and the ones bound to my gaming buddy that couldn’t be gifted—were given away (mostly to Chloe herself, of course). My virtual pet, the cute little thing I always called my “daughter,” was transferred to my gaming buddy. She even left a message: [Take good care of our daughter.] Watching the DMs popping up one after another, my vision went dark, and I immediately logged off. She was right. I’d never dare log into this account again. Just pretend I’m dead. Socially dead. Later, I heard a rumor that a rising star, an actor who was quickly becoming an A-lister, suddenly went crazy. He completely abandoned his “single and available” image, risking his entire career, to search the world for the love of his life. And that love was a netizen he had never even met. Of course, I only heard passing mentions of this and didn’t know the details. At that time, I had already moved back to my hometown. A family member had fallen seriously ill. I was overwhelmed and had no time for anything else. Eventually, my family member recovered. I didn’t end up taking the grad school exams. Instead, through a bizarre twist of fate, I entered the entertainment industry, becoming an absolute nobody. Right now, I’m on my way to a live reality show. The famous actor, Liam Hayes, will also be there. A couple of days ago, a talented fan editor created a romantic montage of Liam and me, and a lot of netizens thought it was amazing. Liam’s team even reached out to my agency to discuss a potential collaboration. This reality show is basically a warm-up and a test run. Liam Hayes is that same rising star who went “crazy” before. He successfully became an A-lister. 02 “Audrey, remember, Liam is easy to talk to, but he has one absolute taboo: his dead first love.” In the car, my manager, Sarah, twisted my ear and lectured me. Liam’s “first love” stayed with him through his darkest times before he became famous. Back then, Liam had offended someone and was suppressed at every turn. He had no acting jobs; it was the darkest period of his life. But just when he finally achieved success, she died. Over the past year or so, countless women have tried to capitalize on his “first love” story, and they all met terrible ends. “This is your chance to make it big. Don’t screw it up,” Sarah said, poking my forehead. I nodded like a woodpecker and said, “Mission understood!” “Oh, and that two-faced Mia is also going to be there. Be careful,” Sarah added as I was getting out of the car. That woman, Mia, has been targeting me ever since I entered the industry. She’s stolen countless opportunities from me, pretended to be my best friend only to “accidentally” say things that got me tons of hate, and even paid for smear campaigns against me. She’s like gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe—annoying and impossible to get rid of. Thinking about her, I made a gagging face and got out of the car. … What I didn’t know was that a few hours ago… Mia was clinging to someone’s arm, saying, “David, you promised me. You have to make this happen.” “David” kissed her and said, “Don’t worry, it’s a done deal. Tonight, there will be an after-dinner game segment. I’ve arranged for Liam to draw the prompt to play ‘Elysium,’ the game he used to play with his dead first love.” “I’ve checked, and Audrey said she’s never played Elysium. Since her name is Audrey, I’ll have someone subtly suggest she use the username ‘Audrey.’ We’ll manipulate her into doing something that looks like she’s copying his first love’s old username, ‘AudreyA.’ I guarantee Liam will have her blacklisted from the industry by tomorrow.” “Also, you’ll play Elysium too. Remember, your persona in Elysium is the ‘skilled gamer.’ You need to criticize Audrey at the right moment. That way, both Liam and his fans will like you, and you can step over Audrey to get the collaboration opportunity.” Mia beamed with joy and sweetly said, “David~ You’re the best~” And then… … Of course, I knew none of this. Right now, I had just stepped out of the car, and the first person I saw was Liam. He is incredibly handsome. Perhaps because I knew about his tragic love story, he seemed to carry a unique, melancholic beauty. He stood there, casually waving hello. His dark eyes seemed filled with an impenetrable mist. For some reason, I suddenly felt a sense of familiarity. I shook my head. Am I crazy? I’ve only been in the industry for six months, and this is the first time I’ve met him. What familiarity? Audrey, you can’t just look at a handsome guy and think you knew him in a past life. With that thought, I adjusted my attitude and walked up to him with a bright smile. I said, “Hello, Liam. I’m Audrey Miller. You can just call me Audrey.” For some reason, he seemed to think of something and paused for a moment. I looked at him curiously. After about a second, he slightly lowered his eyes, his gaze focusing on me. He nodded, his voice clean and clear: “Hello.” 03 His voice also felt very familiar, but I figured I must have heard it on TV before. Totally normal. Audrey, keep it together. Just as I was thinking this, Mia’s voice called out from behind, “Liam, Audrey, wait for me!” I immediately rolled my eyes. What a buzzkill. Whatever, focus on the mission first. Today’s main objective: successfully cling to Liam’s coattails! So, during the live reality show, I worked incredibly hard. When Liam needed water, I was the first to pour it— “Water for you, Liam. If you need anything, just call for Audrey. I’m at your beck and call, guaranteed~” When it was time for tasks, I took the lead, rushing forward to grab all the chores— “I got this, Liam. My specialty is being physically fit. I’ve hardly ever been sick since I was a kid!” When we failed a mini-game and had to face a penalty, I stepped right up— “Don’t panic, I’m Liam’s designated stunt double. I’ll take the penalty. Our goal is: protect Liam from any harm!” … Sucking up, that’s what I do! Kissing ass, that’s my game! Kiss enough ass, and eventually, you’ll have it all! Slurp~ Let’s go, let’s go! Mia was also trying hard, but she cared too much about her image to compete with me. So, she resorted to passive-aggressive remarks from the sidelines: “Audrey, aren’t you afraid Liam’s fans will hate you for clinging to him like this?” I replied nonchalantly, “It’s fine, right? I’m not trying to push a romantic angle.” She’s the one trying to force a romantic narrative with Liam. When her first plan failed, she tried another: “But the way you’re acting, it looks like you’re just kissing his ass…” I chuckled: “No need to doubt it, I am kissing his ass. I want to be Liam’s right-hand man!” Saying this, I even looked directly at the camera: “Main quest: cling to Liam’s coattails, strive to be his most loyal sidekick, and pledge unwavering loyalty to Liam!” I finished with a fist pump. Then, ignoring Mia’s almost broken expression, I walked away with swagger. Netizens clipped this segment together with all my other kiss-ass moments from the day, and paired it with Mia’s almost broken expression. It instantly skyrocketed to the top of the trending list. [Hahaha, Mia’s expression, I’m dying of laughter.] [I don’t care, I want to be Liam’s most loyal sidekick too!] [Pledge unwavering loyalty to Liam!] … [Don’t laugh too soon. Audrey isn’t innocent. I actually think Mia is right, Audrey is clinging to Liam. There have been other female celebrities who played the ‘bro/sidekick’ card before, and they all ended up trying to leech off Liam’s fame later. Disgusting.] [+1 to the comment above.] [+My bank account number.] … My phone had been confiscated, so I didn’t know about the heated debates online. I only knew that this busy day was finally coming to an end. While shoveling food into my mouth, I sneaked glances at Liam. When his water glass was empty, I refilled it. Whatever he needed, I provided. Seeing him smile from time to time, I figured he must be pretty satisfied. Of course he is. Even I’m impressed by my level of service. Audrey, you’re the best! But when I suddenly looked up, I caught Mia’s sinister glare. It startled me so much I almost choked. Too scary. Just eat, ignore her. After dinner came the final activity before bed: drawing lots for a mini-game. I glanced at the crumpled pieces of paper. Singing, hide-and-seek, things like that were all there. I didn’t see all of them before a staff member put them into a box. “Liam, why don’t you draw?” the staff member said. “Whatever you pick, everyone will definitely be happy with.” Liam nodded modestly, reached in, and pulled out a piece of paper. The moment he opened it, he froze, his lips pressed tightly together. Little Qin, standing next to him, leaned over while talking: “What did you get? Liam, your expression is haha…” But before he could finish his “haha,” his expression changed drastically. He went completely silent. His eyes wide as saucers. Everyone was very curious, and so was I, but I didn’t dare look. Finally, Little Qin said, “Why don’t you draw another one?” But Liam said, “No need, this one is fine.” Then he flattened the piece of paper on the table. I took a look— “Elysium Map Race.” 04 The corners of my mouth twitched slightly. Dead memories suddenly attacked me. Oh no, this feels like heartburn. I was reminded of what my best friend did over a year ago. From that day until now, I haven’t played Elysium once. For some reason, besides my awkwardness, no one else spoke either. The atmosphere was incredibly weird. And everyone kept stealing glances at Liam. I was the least famous person there, so I didn’t dare make a sound. Right then, Mia suddenly spoke up: “Audrey, you’ve never played Elysium, right? Whoever teams up with you this time is going to suffer, haha.” She paused slightly, then looked at Liam and said, “Liam, I’m super good at Elysium. Let’s team up.” I instantly went on high alert. This two-faced Mia was waiting for this! She wants to show off her gaming skills to win Liam over and steal my opportunities again? Impossible! Absolutely impossible! I’ve been kissing up to Liam all day; I refuse to let someone else steal the fruit of my labor! Thinking this, I patted my chest and looked at Liam: “No, I’m super good. Liam, let’s team up!” I am a recognized pro at Elysium. Back in the day, I carried my gaming buddy across the map, flying through the skies and exploring every corner. Before Liam could say anything, Mia’s mocking voice came again— “Audrey, if you don’t know how to play, just admit it. You can’t lie just to team up with Liam. It wouldn’t be good if you dragged him down.” What I didn’t know was that online, someone had dug up an interview video of me from a month ago. In that video, the host asked me— “Audrey, have you played the popular game Elysium recently?” And the me on screen shook my head frantically: “No, absolutely not. I don’t know how to play that game at all.” The live chat had already exploded— [A month ago she said she’s never played, doesn’t know how, absolutely not. Now she dares to say she’s a pro? Is this a joke!] [Yeah, she probably hasn’t even leveled up much in a month. So funny. I used to think she was genuine, but now it seems she’s no different from the other women.] [Disgusting. Audrey, stay away from our Liam! Audrey get out of the entertainment industry!] … While the internet was blowing up, back at the reality show set. I’m someone who can’t stand a challenge, especially when Mia is being specifically malicious. Combining old grudges with new resentment, I had to win. “The game hasn’t even started, why are you already talking trash?” I said, instantly changing my expression and looking at Liam with a flattering smile. “Liam, pick me, pick me! Your loyal sidekick is your most reliable teammate! If you like this game, we can play it together all the time! I’m super good!” I even impressed myself with how fast I could change my tune. After all, with my skills, I could definitely carry Liam and make the game a breeze for him. Liam looked at my eager expression and, for some reason, seemed a bit stunned. He looked at me, but his dark eyes lacked focus. It was as if he was looking at something through me. Is there a problem? I used to act like this in the game when begging high-level players to carry me. Back then, I had another “sidekick” with me, and the high-level players were always happy to carry us. “Audrey, look, Liam hasn’t even said anything. He…” “Okay.” Before Mia could finish her mocking sentence, Liam agreed. Everyone around us was stunned. The internet exploded even more, because for the past year or so, Liam hadn’t teamed up with any female players. On the islands of Elysium, people often saw Liam taking a cute, pink virtual pet to travel across mountains, rivers, and oceans. Rumor had it that the virtual pet was the “daughter” previously raised by “AudreyA.” More and more people were hating on me online, but I didn’t know. I was happily taking a phone from a staff member. Create a new account or log into my old one? Definitely the old one. A new account wouldn’t have any levels; how could I beat anyone? If I want to carry the boss, I need to bring my absolute peak skills! Clenching fists.jpg Besides, that happened a year and a half ago. Surely no one remembers it anymore… Surely… Thinking this, I expertly entered my ID and password. After logging in, the familiar colorful interface washed over me. Long time no see.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “440982”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I am a ghost from ten years ago, anchored to this timeline by a single, desperate mission: save Alexander West. If I can win him back—if I can make him love me again—his younger self will be spared the tragedy that broke him. The accident that left the man before me paralyzed in a wheelchair will be erased from history. But if I fail, he vanishes. In every timeline, in every memory, Alexander West will simply cease to exist. This is my final shot. It’s why I’ve endured his venom, his public humiliations, and the way he sneers at me as if I’m something he found on the bottom of his shoe. To everyone else, I’m the toxic ex who doesn’t know when to quit. A social climber trying to claw her way back into the life of the man she once threw away. They don’t understand that I’m fighting for his life. Last night, the cruelty hit a new peak. During a high-stakes “Truth or Dare” at a charity gala, we were locked in a “Pulse Room”—a sensory-deprivation chamber where the door only unlocks if you whisper the name of the person you love and your heart rate hits a specific, undeniable frequency. Alexander didn’t hesitate. Without a glance in my direction, he breathed a single name: “Lydia.” Lydia. The bright, bubbly pharmaceutical rep who treats him like a wounded bird. His “Little Sunshine.” The door buzzed open. I stared at him, my chest aching as if he’d physically struck me. He just leaned back in his wheelchair, a mocking glint in his dark eyes. “It’s just a game, Iris,” he’d said. “Don’t tell me you actually took it to heart.” Then, his voice dropped, turning into a low, dangerous velvet. He told me that if I stayed in that dark room alone all night as a ‘penalty,’ he’d grant me one minute of being his girlfriend again. A sixty-second consolation prize. I just looked at him, feeling the last fraying thread of my hope snap. “Don’t bother, Alexander,” I whispered. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” 1 “Think carefully, Iris. This might be the only chance you have left to—” Alexander cut himself off, his jaw tightening as he processed my words. For a fleeting second, a crack appeared in his icy mask. “What did you just say? You’re turning it down?” He narrowed his eyes, searching my face for the lie. “What’s the angle this time? Playing hard to get? Trying to make me chase you?” I met his gaze, forcing down the acidic burn in my throat. I kept my voice flat, devoid of the desperation that usually defined us. “I’ll take the penalty. I’ll stay the night.” I took a breath, the air in the room feeling thin. “But the rest of it? The ‘getting back together’ thing? There’s no point.” The smirk he’d been wearing froze. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the armrests of his wheelchair, his frame tense with a sudden, inexplicable fury. “Fine,” he spat, his voice trembling with a dark, suppressed emotion. “What’s the catch? What’s the new price?” “Do you want me to take you back to that trailer park in Haven Cove? Or do you have some new, pathetic excuse for why you vanished ten years ago?” He leaned forward, his eyes burning. “I don’t get it, Iris. You’re the one who walked out. You’re the one who left me bleeding out in the rain. Why do you always act like the goddamn martyr?” I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper, staring at the ceiling to force back the tears. This was my third life. My third attempt to fix this. In the first life, I tried to prove my devotion by literally throwing myself into the line of fire for him. When he stood over my hospital bed, he didn’t weep. He just said, “You always were dramatic.” In the second life, I brought him to my old professors, showed him the records, tried to explain that I never went to Europe for a better life—that I left to protect him. He didn’t believe me. Instead, he used his influence to ruin the people who tried to speak for me. In this life, I told him the truth from day one. I told him that our reconciliation was the only thing that could heal his legs, the only thing that could save his soul. He just laughed. He pointed to the miracle drugs Lydia was developing for him. “I’m not the naive kid from the docks anymore, Iris. You think your ‘love’ is going to make me walk? Listen to yourself. It’s pathetic.” Looking at the sheer loathing in his eyes now, I felt a bone-deep exhaustion settle over me. But then I looked at his legs, and the memory of him at eighteen flashed through my mind—how he’d worked three jobs to pay for my tuition, how he’d taken a lead pipe to the knees from a debt collector just so I wouldn’t have to worry. My eyes drifted to the EKG monitor on the wall of the Pulse Room. Even though he claimed to find Lydia annoying, his heart rate had spiked the moment her name left his lips. I gave a small, bitter laugh. “I don’t want anything from you anymore, Alexander,” I said. “For the last time: I never abandoned you. I never wanted the money. I was trying to save you. Truly.” I wiped a stray tear away before it could fall. Alexander looked stunned, a flicker of doubt crossing his face. The tension was shattered when the door was flung open. A figure blurred through the light, throwing herself into Alexander’s lap. “Are you okay?” Lydia asked, her voice trembling with manufactured concern. She looked up at him with wide, watery eyes. “You know you hate the dark. Why did you let her drag you into this stupid game?” “Let’s go home,” she whispered, then threw a sharp, territorial glare in my direction. She looked exactly the way I used to—standing as a shield between Alexander and the world. When the wheelchair didn’t move immediately, Lydia followed Alexander’s gaze to the EKG monitor. Seeing the recorded spike in his heart rate from earlier, she beamed. “She’ll be fine, Alexander,” Lydia said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “She’s not that scared little girl who used to hide in your arms anymore. She’s tougher than she looks.” The cold aura around Alexander seemed to soften slightly at her touch. He looked at me one last time, as if trying to convince himself of something. “One night, Iris,” he muttered. “Survive the night, and maybe I’ll give you one more chance to explain yourself tomorrow.” I watched Lydia wheel him away, the heavy steel door groaning shut behind them. The darkness rushed in, thick and suffocating. The old, familiar terror began to claw at my throat. He’d forgotten. Or maybe he just didn’t care anymore. He was the one who pulled me out of the darkness all those years ago when my parents locked me away. He knew the dark was my cage. I curled into a ball on the cold floor, burying my face in my knees. The tears came then, hot and heavy. My mind drifted back to the eighteen-year-old Alexander—the boy who was still waiting for me to come home in the past. Then, the cold, mechanical chime of the Directive echoed in my mind. [Warning: Host’s will to continue is critically low. Abandonment detected. Calculating failure parameters.] 2 [Confirmation required: Does the Host wish to forfeit the mission?] I bit my lip until the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth. I was ready to nod. I was ready to let the void take me. Suddenly, the last dim light in the room died with a sharp pop. Total darkness. The air felt like wet wool. I could hear the echoes of my father’s drunken shouting from my childhood, the sound of the cellar door locking. I tried to cover my ears, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. I opened my mouth to scream the word Yes to the Directive, to end it all— BANG. The door was kicked off its hinges. A silhouette stood framed in the blinding light of the hallway. For a second, the outline of the man matched the lean, hungry shape of the boy I loved. A smile broke through my terror. He came back. He still cares. The Directive’s question faded into the back of my mind. I must have fainted, because when I opened my eyes, I was dreaming. In the dream, I was back in Haven Cove. We were kids. Alexander was the town’s stray, the orphan everyone whispered about. The first time I ever spoke to him was after a group of local bullies had cracked his forehead open with a rock. I’d saved my lunch money for weeks. I used it to take him to the small clinic in town. I remembered him sitting on the exam table, his ribs showing through his skin, looking away from me. “I’ll pay you back,” he’d said, his voice a gravelly rasp. I’d just shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. Just… next time you go to the city, can you take me with you?” I wanted to learn. I wanted to see the world. My parents wouldn’t pay for school, so I had to be smart. I had to find a way out. We became inseparable. By the time I was eighteen, I held an acceptance letter to a university in the city, but my parents tore it into confetti. They wanted to marry me off to a man three times my age to settle a gambling debt. I tried to run, but Haven Cove was a trap. They caught me. They locked me in the shed behind the house for three months. No light. Barely any food. Alexander was the one who found me. He nearly died pulling me out of there, taking a beating that should have killed him. After we escaped, he worked two shifts at the docks to put me through school. When I tried to tell him no, he just pinched my cheek and laughed. “Just graduate, Iris. Then we’ll get married. You’re the only reason I want a better life.” That Alexander loved me with every fiber of his being. So when the Directive appeared to me ten years ago, offering a deal—go to the future, save the man he becomes, and fix the tragedy of his accident—I didn’t hesitate. Even the eighteen-year-old Alexander had encouraged me. “The future me won’t need a mission to love you,” he’d joked. But as I left, he’d gripped my hand, his eyes serious. “Iris, if the man I become ever breaks your heart… just walk away. I’m promising you right now, I’d rather die than be the reason you cry.” The dream started to dissolve. I reached out for his hand, screaming his name as I lurched awake. But I wasn’t in Alexander’s arms. I was in a hospital bed, and Lydia was standing over me with a smirk that made my skin crawl. “You really thought it was him, didn’t you?” she asked, her voice dripping with mockery. She pulled out her phone and played a video. It was security footage of the Pulse Room. It wasn’t Alexander who had kicked the door in; it was a panicked security guard. “The staff didn’t want a lawsuit,” Lydia laughed. “Did you really think a little ‘damsel in distress’ act would work on him? Alexander has spent ten years hating you. You think a dark room changes that?” She leaned in closer, her voice a sharp whisper. “I’m the leading lady of this story now, Iris. Why did you have to come back? You’re a ghost. Stay dead.” Before I could respond, she let out a piercing scream and threw herself onto the floor. The tray of hot soup she’d brought—supposedly as a peace offering—shattered, the scalding liquid splashing over her arms. Right on cue, Alexander rolled into the room. Lydia looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. “Iris, I only came here to check on you! Why would you do this?” She sobbed, clutching Alexander’s hand. “It’s my fault, really. I just told her that the new treatment was working, that you were going to walk again… and she snapped. She kept saying that only she could save you.” I watched her performance with a cold, hollow feeling in my chest. I looked past her, straight into Alexander’s eyes. “You were standing right outside the door,” I said quietly. “You saw what happened. Didn’t you?” 3 Lydia’s eyes widened in fake terror. “Alexander, no, she’s lying…” I waited. I waited for the man who used to know my soul to look at the physics of the spill, to see the calculation in Lydia’s eyes. I waited for him to protect me. Instead, his voice was like dry ice. “I could call the police, Iris. I could have you charged with assault.” He looked at me as if I were a stranger—a nuisance to be cleared away. Lydia pressed closer to his side, her face glowing with triumph. “Can’t take it?” Alexander sneered, his lip curling. “This is a fraction of the pain I’ve lived with for a decade. I was building a life for us in Everglade City. I was finally making it. And then you vanished without a word.” “Now I’m the man everyone wants to know. I’m the ‘New Money’ king of the coast. And suddenly, you’re back, crawling around, trying to get a piece of it.” His eyes were bloodshot, his voice trembling with a decade of fermented rage. “What makes you think I’d wait for you? What makes you think your ‘devotion’ means anything to me now?” The silence in the room was heavy, suffocating. The dam finally broke. “I didn’t leave because I wanted to!” I screamed, the words tearing out of me. “Then why?” Alexander yelled back. “Give me one reason! Tell me why you let me think you were dead!” I opened my mouth, but the Directive’s invisible weight clamped down on my vocal cords. I couldn’t speak the truth of the system. I couldn’t explain the time-slip. I closed my eyes, my shoulders slumping. “I can’t tell you the ‘why.’ But Alexander, I never stopped trying to get back to you. Everything I’ve done was to make sure you’d walk again.” I saw the flicker of “Here we go again” in his eyes. He didn’t believe a word. He pulled out his phone to dial the police. Suddenly, the door swung open again. A young woman with a round, friendly face froze at the sight of the chaos. “Iris? Oh my god, Iris! It is you!” She rushed in, ignoring Alexander. “Where have you been? When you turned down the Fulbright scholarship and disappeared from campus, the Dean was devastated! We all thought something terrible happened. You left everything behind—your clothes, your books… it was like you just evaporated.” The room went silent. Alexander’s hand froze on his phone. He turned his chair toward the girl, his voice a low growl. “She didn’t go to Europe?” The girl frowned. “Europe? No. She never even picked up her plane tickets. She vanished the night before the flight.” Lydia tried to cut in, her voice frantic. “Alexander, this is obviously an actress. Iris is just trying to manipulate you—” Alexander ignored her. He grabbed my wrist, his grip bruising. “Is she telling the truth? You never left the country?” I pulled my arm back, my heart feeling like lead. I looked at Lydia, then back at Alexander. “I’ll look into this,” Alexander muttered, his voice shaken. He turned to Lydia, his tone turning sharp. “Get out, Lydia. You’ve overstepped.” “But Alexander—” “Go,” he barked. Lydia scrambled to grab her bag and fled, her face pale. I didn’t say a word. I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling a strange numbness. I looked down at my hands and gasped. My fingertips were becoming translucent. I was starting to fade. I looked up, wanting to call out to him, but Alexander was already rolling out the door, his mind clearly miles away. I let out a long, shaky sigh. “Whatever,” I whispered to the empty room. Three days later, Alexander appeared at my door. He looked exhausted. He rolled to my bedside and pulled a small, velvet box from his pocket. Inside was a ring—a simple gold band, worn and slightly tarnished. “I bought this ten years ago,” he said, his voice raw. “I carried it every day for a year. Iris… if I asked you now, would it be too late?” I looked at the ring, then at him. “What about Lydia?” He didn’t answer. He just took my hand and slid the ring onto my finger. 4 After that day, Lydia’s name was never mentioned. It was as if she’d been erased from our lives. But the “proposal” didn’t lead to a wedding. It didn’t lead to anything. We just fell back into a hollow version of our old rhythm. He would kiss my forehead, he would bring me flowers, he would act like the man I used to know. One afternoon, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Are we actually together, Alexander? Does this mean I succeeded?” He didn’t look at me. “Just focus on getting better, Iris. We’ll talk about the rest later.” That evening, he brought me a vanilla cone—my favorite treat from Haven Cove. I reached out to take it, but my hand passed right through the wafer. The cone hit the floor, splattering across the tiles. I stared at my hand in horror. It was almost completely see-through now. Alexander didn’t say a word. He just quietly leaned down, cleaning the mess with a paper towel. “It’s okay,” he whispered. He looked so sad, so devoted. If I hadn’t seen the photos Lydia had DM’d me an hour earlier—photos of him and her at a bridal boutique, picking out her gown—I might have believed him. “I guess people’s tastes change over ten years,” Alexander said, his voice laced with a strange, hidden meaning. The anger finally surged, hot and blinding. “Stop it!” I grabbed my phone and shoved the wedding photos in his face. “Enough with the mind games, Alexander! Why the ring? Why the fake affection? Why pretend we’re okay while you’re planning a wedding with her?” Alexander went still. Then, he began to laugh. A cold, dry sound that had no joy in it. He looked at me, his eyes twin pits of ice. “You finally caught on. I was wondering how long you’d let me play with you.” Then, to my absolute shock, he gripped the arms of his wheelchair and stood up. He rose slowly, towering over me, his legs steady and strong. “That ‘actress’ you hired? The one who said you never went to Europe? Nice touch, Iris. But it wasn’t enough.” “You said only you could save me. But look at me. I’m standing. I’m fine.” He sneered, looking down at me. “Are you disappointed? Is your little ‘mission’ ruined because I didn’t need you to be whole?” I couldn’t breathe. “I did it on purpose,” he whispered. “Lydia’s company developed the treatment that put me back on my feet. I’m marrying her because she actually gave me a future, while you just gave me a decade of ghosts.” He sat back down, checking his watch. His phone buzzed—a call from Lydia. “If you want to come to the wedding and make a scene, go for it,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “Maybe I’ll give you a severance check for your time.” He looked at his legs with pride. “I’m going to my engagement party now. To start my real life.” “Alexander, wait!” I cried as he reached the door. “If you marry her, you’ll die! The mission—if it fails, you disappear!” He didn’t even turn around. The door clicked shut. Then, the Directive’s voice boomed in my skull. [Mission Failure Confirmed. Commencing Host Extraction. Returning to Year Zero.] [Host will remain in this timeline until physical transparency reaches 100%.] Across town, in the middle of a grand ballroom, Alexander West stood up from his wheelchair to the roar of applause. He held Lydia in his arms, his eyes scanning the crowd, looking for a face he claimed to hate. But I wasn’t there. As the music swelled, a sudden, violent jolt racked his body. His legs buckled. He collapsed, the world spinning into a blur of screams and camera flashes. As he lay on the floor, he felt his heart stutter, his very life force being pulled out of him like water through a sieve. In the darkness of his closing eyes, a single line of crimson text burned: [WARNING: TARGET TERMINATION IN PROGRESS. MISSION FORFEITED BY IRIS.]

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I am a 911 dispatcher. Eight years ago, I took a frantic call from a little girl begging for help. She said she was being kidnapped, but over the phone, an adult took the receiver and explained it was just a prank. I believed them and hung up the phone. The very next day, the little girl’s body was found. Eight years later, my headset chimed, and I heard that exact same plea for help: “Help me… I’ve been kidnapped.” 01 On my very first day on the job, I received a strange call. There was nothing but faint, shallow panting on the other end of the line. I repeatedly asked if there was a medical emergency, if they needed an ambulance. After a long silence, a tiny, breathless voice finally whispered through the static. “Help me. I’ve been kidnapped.” I panicked, scrambling to pull up the trace, but my senior colleague next to me brushed it off. “Just another kid playing with a cell phone. We’ve been getting a ton of these lately. Clear it quick, don’t tie up the lines.” The little girl said her name was Ducky, and she was seven years old. When I pressed for details, she stammered, her words disjointed and nonsensical. “Ducky really wants to go home, but I don’t know which way to swim.” “Miss, please help me!” It sounded exactly like a kid making up a story. My tone turned stern. “Sweetheart, faking a 911 call is wrong. It stops us from helping people who are in real danger. Do you understand?” That night, a massive blackout had hit the Eastside District. Police units were stretched incredibly thin, and emergency calls were flooding the switchboard. In the last ten seconds of the call, the person on the other end changed. An adult took the phone, immediately lowering their voice in apology. “I am so, so sorry, officer! The kid was just messing around. I’ll make sure to teach her a lesson.” At the dispatch center, over 60% of our daily calls are accidental dials or pranks. After a brief reprimand, I hung up the phone and threw myself back into the overwhelming workload. But the next day, a body floated to the surface of the Eastside Reservoir. The victim was a seven-year-old girl. Her waterlogged face was swollen beyond recognition. On the strap of her little red overalls, a name was faintly embroidered. Darcy. 02 Ducky. Darcy. The little girl hadn’t been lying. It really was a desperate cry for help. The call connected at 11:43 PM. The coroner estimated the time of death around 1:00 AM. Shortly after I hung up that phone, she was brutally murdered. And I was the only person who had heard the killer’s voice. In the missing person flyers, the girl had big, bright eyes and cute braided pigtails. Now, lying on the cold autopsy table, her face was disfigured, her joints shattered into pieces. The horrific sight made even hardened veteran detectives tear up. “That absolute monster. They shattered her bones so she couldn’t swim, then tossed her in the water!” If I had made the right judgment call. If I had initiated a GPS ping in time. If… But death doesn’t care about “ifs.” Regret and guilt swallowed me whole. A million “ifs” shredded my conscience. I attended the little girl’s funeral. The moment she saw me, the mother—who had lost so much weight she looked like a skeleton—lunged at me, screaming with a shattered voice. “Why didn’t you send a squad car?! Why?! You heard her begging for help!” Every single word slammed into my heart like a sledgehammer. “You killed my daughter!” “Darcy had a congenital cognitive disability. She went to a special education school,” my captain comforted me later. “She couldn’t even go to the bathroom without a teacher reminding her. She couldn’t articulate sentences properly. Danielle, this is not your fault.” “It is,” I shook my head in agony. “Even though the killer disguised their voice, if you listen closely, their accent doesn’t match the child’s.” Darcy and her parents had a thick, distinct Southern drawl. But the killer spoke in perfectly neutral, standard American English. “If Darcy had sneaked a phone to call 911 and was caught, the killer rushing over to snatch the phone would have experienced an adrenaline spike. Their heart rate would have skyrocketed, and their speech would be rushed and panicked.” But this killer wasn’t. [Don’t worry, officer. I’ll make sure to teach her a lesson.] The voice was calm. Controlled. Exactly as if everything was going according to plan. While Darcy was on the phone, hidden in the static background noise, there were faint metallic clinks. After consulting audio experts, I confirmed it was the sound of heavy pliers being loaded and adjusted. Which meant, while the child was begging for her life on the phone, the killer was standing right next to her, preparing their weapon. “They enjoyed it. Giving the child a sliver of hope, just to personally crush it.” I looked up at the photo of the smiling girl on the wall, my eyes brimming with tears. “The killer deliberately forced Darcy to make that 911 call.” 03 The case went cold. The police poured massive resources into the investigation, but turned up almost nothing. There were security cameras outside her school, but because of the blackout and the torrential rain, the footage was completely useless. We never saw who took Darcy. Two months later, Darcy’s mother committed suicide. The rumor mill had been vicious. People started suspecting the parents had done it. Neighbors claimed they heard them arguing about the crushing medical debt from Darcy’s special needs treatments the day she went missing. Teachers at the school testified that although Darcy was cognitively impaired, she was fiercely resistant to strangers. She wouldn’t have gone with someone she didn’t know. When Darcy died, her life insurance paid out a massive settlement. “They bought all those policies this year, right when she got pregnant with her second child.” “Tsk. Cashing out their daughter’s life to pay for their brand-new baby boy.” Unable to bear the horrific gossip, Darcy’s mother jumped from a building. I didn’t understand. Why is it always the innocent, kind-hearted people who have to bleed to prove their innocence? Where was the real monster hiding? Every night I closed my eyes, that tiny, desperate voice echoed in my head. “Ducky wants to go home.” And I had answered so gently: “Sweetheart, is there a grown-up with you?” “Yes! Right here!” The girl had giggled through her stammer. That was the exact sentence that made me assume it was a prank. If this was a kidnapping for ransom or revenge, why not call the parents? Why would the killer risk getting caught just to force Darcy to call 911? That single phone call completely altered the trajectory of my life. I enrolled in the police academy, specializing in audio forensics and voice biometrics. After graduation, I requested to be stationed right back at the 911 dispatch center. Over the years, I insisted on taking the night shifts. I relentlessly studied new audio technologies and helped crack multiple major cases. State bureaus tried to recruit me multiple times, but I turned them all down. My captain tried to talk sense into me. “Danielle, you have to learn to let it go. You were a rookie on your first day. We can’t judge our past selves with the hindsight we have today.” I just smiled faintly. “But that monster will strike again.” I told myself that my only job was to wait. And I waited for eight long years. On the exact night of the eighth anniversary of Darcy’s death, the emergency hotline on my console lit up. Same date. Same time. My heart slammed violently against my ribs. A profound, terrifying premonition washed over me. It felt like all my grueling effort, all my sleepless nights, had been preparing me for this exact second. I grabbed my headset. “911, what is your emergency?” 04 On the other end, a trembling teenage girl’s voice answered— “Help me… I’ve been kidnapped.” 05 “I’ve been kidnapped, please help me…” The girl’s name was Chloe. She had been abducted walking home after a late-night study hall. She had been ambushed from behind, completely overpowered, and dragged into a van. When she woke up, her wrists and ankles were bound with heavy industrial wire. She managed to blindly dig her phone out of her pocket and immediately dialed 911. “Don’t panic. I am right here with you.” “Where did the person who took you go? Did you see their face?” My voice was gentle but steady, carrying an authoritative calm. Chloe’s hyperventilating breath instinctively slowed to match my rhythm, and her memory began to sharpen. “I couldn’t see. He grabbed me from behind. He had a mask and a hat on. He… he was really strong. He just threw me over his shoulder and tossed me into a van.” The girl’s voice cracked with tears. “When are you getting here? I’m so scared… Can’t you just track my phone’s GPS?” “The kidnapper installed an anti-tracking blocker on your phone. It takes time for our tech team to crack it.” I softened my tone. “Chloe, can you see any landmarks nearby? Describe everything around you. The smell, the colors, the temperature, the sounds—anything helps.” Chloe knew that every second, every detail, was a matter of life and death. Enduring the excruciating pain of the steel wire cutting into her flesh, she dragged herself toward a small, grimy window. Her vision was blurry. The trees outside thrashed in the heavy rain. She strained her eyes. “It smells like mold in here. The air is really damp, and it’s raining outside… but I can’t see the color of the walls…” Suddenly, a streak of light flashed in the distant, dark hills. Her breathing hitched. “A train just went by! But it wasn’t a long one—it felt like a freight train!” “You’re doing incredible, Chloe.” My fingers flew across the keyboard, cross-referencing data. “You went missing from Lincoln High on Elm Street. You were taken in a van. Based on standard driving speeds and tonight’s traffic and weather, you’re still within city limits. It’s currently raining in four districts. “Based on the acoustics echoing around your voice, you’re in a room with fully tiled walls. Those are typically used in meatpacking or food processing plants. “Combined with the freight train tracks, I have pinpointed your location to one of the abandoned factories in the Kingspoint Industrial Park. “The fastest squad car will be there in 17 minutes. “Until then, I am going to stay on the line with you. Okay?” It might have just been comfort, but Chloe felt a genuine surge of hope. She wasn’t fighting alone in the dark anymore. The silence around her was deafening. Her teeth chattered. “But… where did the kidnapper go?” “If he was smart enough to install a tracking blocker, why would he leave my phone in my pocket to let me call 911?” The line went silent for a fraction of a second. Me: “From now on, I need you to only answer my questions with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. You cannot react visibly to anything I say. Can you do that?” “…Yes.” I spoke clearly, emphasizing every single word. “The killer hasn’t gone anywhere.” “He is currently inside that exact same room with you.” 06 How is that possible? Chloe’s entire body shook like a leaf in a hurricane. Her heart felt like it was going to explode out of her chest. There was nowhere to hide in this room… No, wait. There was. She held her breath, every hair on her body standing on end, desperately fighting the urge to turn around. Right behind her, leaning against the wall, was a large, rotting metal cabinet. Not too big. Not too small. Just big enough to fit a person inside. 07 The killer had never left the room. I strained my ears, hyper-focusing on every single frequency beneath the static on the call. Hidden in the white noise, I caught the distinct, metallic clink of heavy tools scraping together. The monster who murdered Darcy was standing right there. I told Chloe: “He deliberately left your phone so he could play a sick game with you. Right now, you need to pretend you don’t know he’s there. Find a way to slip out of the wire, walk out the door, and look for a way out.” “Delay him as long as physically possible. Keep yourself alive until my officers breach that building.” “Chloe, I will stay with you until you are safe. Trust me.” I wasn’t the terrified, helpless rookie from eight years ago. Tonight, I was putting everything on the line to bring this girl home. Chloe pushed every ounce of her strength into her ankles, trying to slide them out of the wire loops. Every inch she pulled scraped off a layer of skin. Gasping through the agonizing pain, she bit down hard on her lip and violently yanked her bloody feet free. Limping heavily, she twisted the doorknob. Outside was a pitch-black corridor. It looked endless, like a pathway straight into hell. Chloe’s nerves were pulled to the absolute snapping point. Her heart was in her throat. Just as she stood in the hallway clutching her phone, unsure of where to go, the metal cabinet inside the room behind her let out a faint creak. Thud. Someone stepped out. Through the earpiece, I dropped a single, heavy command: “Run!” 08 She ran. Pushing her legs harder than she ever had in her entire life. It felt like her lungs were going to rupture. Her body went completely numb, operating purely on survival instinct as she blindly stumbled through the dark corridors. The attacker followed her leisurely, like a hunter enjoying a casual stroll behind wounded prey. He paused to pick up a blood-stained sneaker she had lost in the scramble. He let out a dark, amused chuckle. “Fast little thing, aren’t you?” Chloe hid behind the door of a utility closet, pressing her back flat against the concrete wall. Her chest heaved violently. She clamped both hands over her mouth, waiting until the heavy footsteps slowly faded down the hall before finally daring to inhale. “He thinks I went downstairs. What do I do now?” Before she could turn the knob to leave, I instructed her: “You need to create a diversion. Is your other shoe still on? Take it off. Throw it down the stairs or at the end of the hallway to make him think you went in that direction.” Chloe hurled her shoe as far as she could and immediately sprinted back in the opposite direction. Exhausting every last drop of her adrenaline, tripping and falling over debris, she kept crawling forward. I praised her over the radio. In the dark, Chloe bit her lip and whispered softly, “My mom used to be a 911 dispatcher too… She taught me some of these tricks… If I don’t make it out. Officer, can you tell her… I really tried my best?” Wait, her mother was a dispatcher? A massive, terrifying wave of confusion crashed through my brain. But before I could ask for details… The phone signal cut out.

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My daughter’s body is a minefield. She was born with a hyper-sensitive system—allergies to everything from certain proteins to common pollen. It’s a constant state of high alert. Because of an emergency business trip, I had no choice but to leave her with my mother. During my lunch break, I did what I always do: I opened the nursery cam app on my phone. On the screen, my daughter was clutching a massive, vibrant bouquet of lilies. My mother was standing right there, hovering over her with a beaming smile, snapping photos. “Rosie, honey, smell the flowers. Aren’t they pretty?” my mother’s voice crackled through the tiny speaker. She knew. She knew exactly how severe Rosie’s reactions were. This wasn’t just a mistake. This was a death sentence. 1 The second I saw the monitor, my world tilted. Rosie was holding a spray of blooming lilies, their yellow pollen dusting her tiny hands. She was smiling, that sweet, innocent toddler grin. My mother, Martha, was crouched on the floor, waving her phone around like a frantic director. “Rosie is prettier than any flower. Just a little closer, sweetie. Let Nana get one more shot.” My heart stopped as Rosie buried her face into the petals. She took a deep, lung-filling breath of the very thing that could kill her. Black spots danced in my vision. Before I left, I had spent hours—literal hours—going over the protocols. I’d warned Martha about the spring bloom. I told her the neighborhood was a danger zone right now. I told her Rosie needed a mask if she went near the garden. I told her to stay inside. Martha had nodded. She’d promised. And then, the moment my back was turned, she’d gone out and brought the poison inside. Rosie isn’t “sensitive.” She’s anaphylactic. She’s been hospitalized before for accidentally eating a trace of peanut. This wasn’t a game. I fumbled with my phone, dialing my mother’s cell. In the corner of the monitor, I saw her phone light up. She looked at it, saw my name, and with a cold, practiced flick of her thumb, she declined the call. Then, as if nothing had happened, she went back to the camera app. “So pretty, Rosie. Give Nana a different pose.” I screamed at the monitor, my voice raw. “Mom! Get those flowers away from her! Rosie’s going to stop breathing!” Nothing. The audio only went one way unless I hit the intercom button. I slammed my thumb onto the “talk” icon. “Mom! I said get the flowers out! Now!” “Open the windows! Wash her hands! Wash her face! She’s going to have a reaction!” Martha didn’t flinch. The camera was brand new; I knew the speakers were loud. There was only one explanation for the silence. She was ignoring me on purpose. But Rosie’s face was already starting to flush. The skin around her eyes was puffing up. My chest tightened. I was hundreds of miles away, trapped in a glass office building, watching my child’s throat close in real-time. “Mom! I know you can hear me! Throw those flowers out! You’re going to kill her!” “Please! Look at her face! She’s turning red!” My words were pebbles thrown into a canyon. Martha just kept snapping photos, lost in her own little world of “perfect” memories. Rosie’s skin was becoming a blotchy, angry crimson. My hands were shaking so hard I nearly dropped the phone. I pressed my pen into my palm, the metal tip digging deep into my skin, but I couldn’t feel the pain. The panic was a physical weight, crushing the air out of me. In a final, desperate act, I softened my voice, trying to reach my daughter directly. “Rosie. Rosie, baby, listen to Mommy. Drop the flowers, okay? Drop them right now.” Rosie looked toward the camera, her expression confused and dazed. “Mommy… flowers.” She’s only two. She barely has the vocabulary to describe a stomachache, let alone understand the concept of a fatal allergen. I lost my temper. I used my “scary” voice, the one I hated using. “Rosie! Drop the flowers! Now!” Rosie flinched. The bouquet hit the floor with a soft thud. I exhaled, a ragged, shaky sound. “Rosie, get away from the flowers. Go to your room. Right now!” The moment the lilies hit the hardwood, the smile vanished from Martha’s face. She shot a look of pure venom toward the camera lens. “Nag, nag, nag. You’re so loud, Joyce.” She grabbed Rosie’s tiny wrist, pulling her back before she could run to her room. “Pick them up, Rosie. Nana wants to get a few more of you looking like a little princess.” 2 I felt like I was losing my mind. “Mom, you can hear me! I’ve been screaming for five minutes and you didn’t say a word!” “I’m not deaf, Joyce. Of course I heard you.” The breath left my lungs. It was like punching a cloud. This was my mother’s specialty: selective hearing. If she didn’t like what you were saying, it simply didn’t exist. She would steamroll over anyone’s life just to prove she was right. I’d spent my entire childhood being flattened by that steamroller. The only reason she was even in my house was because Dan was working double shifts, his mother had just broken her hip, and my firm had forced this trip on me. I thought I had accounted for every variable. I’d thrown out every suspicious item in the pantry. I’d stocked the fridge. I’d begged her to stay indoors. I had planned for everything except my mother’s ego. Martha saw Rosie hesitating. She picked up the lilies and thrust them back into the toddler’s arms. “Come on, sweetie. Just one more. You look so beautiful with the flowers. Other little girls would be so jealous.” Children thrive on praise. Rosie looked at the camera, then at the bright yellow centers of the lilies, and reached out her hand. A flicker of triumph crossed Martha’s face. Just as Rosie’s fingers were about to brush the pollen, I took a gamble. “Rosie! If you touch those, Mommy won’t come home! Mommy won’t love you anymore!” It was a horrible, manipulative thing to say. But it worked. Rosie burst into tears, her face crumbling. She wailed, backing away from the flowers as if they were made of fire. I slumped in my office chair, the adrenaline leaving me hollow. As long as she stayed away, she might be okay. I immediately switched from the monitor to a FaceTime call. Martha answered, her face a mask of annoyance. Before I could get a word out, she went on the offensive. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Scaring the poor thing like that. Ruining a perfectly good photo. You’re a mean mommy, aren’t you, Rosie?” She took Rosie’s hand and used it to playfully “smack” the phone screen. I gritted my teeth. I hated the way she used my daughter as a pawn in her petty emotional games. Rosie was still sobbing, her chest heaving. My heart broke for her. “Mom, it’s not about being mean,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “She is allergic. Deeply, dangerously allergic.” “Oh, stop with that nonsense. Children need to be exposed to nature. That’s how they build an immune system. You’re raising her in a bubble.” “It’s not a bubble, Mom! It’s a medical fact!” Martha rolled her eyes. She practically tossed Rosie onto the sofa. “Fine. Whatever. Your daughter is made of glass. I was just trying to give her a nice childhood, but I guess I’m just a villain. If I’m such a terrible grandmother, find someone else. I’m done.” She turned toward the door. 3 My heart plummeted. Was she seriously going to leave a two-year-old alone in the house? Rosie’s cries grew louder, her little voice calling out for “Nana.” Just as Martha’s hand touched the doorknob, I broke. “I’m sorry, Mom… I shouldn’t have yelled. Please, just stay. Just take care of her, okay?” I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was smirking. “That’s more like it. You kids think you know everything because you read a few books. Allergies… in my day, we just called it being a picky eater. She just needs to get used to things.” “But she really is—” I started, then stopped myself. It was useless. “Just… please. Keep her safe.” “Fine, fine. I’m staying. I’m not a monster.” She closed the door and, to my immense relief, she picked up the lilies and threw them onto the porch. I leaned back, realizing my shirt was soaked with cold sweat. My palm was bleeding where the pen had punctured it. I went to the breakroom, grabbed some antiseptic, and went back to my desk. I kept the monitor app open in a small window. I watched Martha feed Rosie lunch. They were sitting at the kitchen island. Martha was playing “airplane” with a spoon, and Rosie seemed to be calming down. My pulse finally started to slow. Then, Rosie started to cough. It wasn’t a normal cough. It was a harsh, barking sound. “Mom? What’s going on? Is she okay?” Silence. One second. Five seconds. My skin began to crawl. “Mom! Talk to me! What happened?” Finally, Martha’s voice came through the app. Just two words. “She just choked.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Okay. Just a swallow of water down the wrong pipe. Martha was patting Rosie’s back, her body blocking the camera’s view of the toddler. The coughing stopped. But a cold dread began to pool in my stomach. Why was it so quiet? Rosie was a chatterbox. If she was okay, she’d be whining or talking about her juice. “Rosie? Baby, can you hear Mommy?” Nothing. “Rosie? Say something for me, sweetie.” The silence was deafening. This wasn’t right. Rosie always responded to my voice. She’d usually run to the camera and press her nose against the lens. “Mom! Move! I need to see her face!” Martha didn’t move. She held Rosie tightly, her back to the camera, as still as a statue. I stood up so fast my chair flipped over. I ripped my badge off my lanyard and threw it on the desk. “Call the partners,” I told my startled cubicle neighbor. “My daughter. Something’s wrong. I have to go.” The moment I mentioned leaving work, I heard Martha “tsk” over the monitor. She slowly turned around. “Honestly, Joyce, you’re so dramatic. You’ll get fired if you keep walking out like this.” “Let me see her!” I screamed. “Look, she’s fine. She just fell asleep.” Martha tilted Rosie toward the camera. Rosie’s face was still flushed, but her eyes were shut tight. Her mouth was slightly open. Martha rolled her eyes. “Always looking for a reason to panic…” But something was wrong. Very wrong. Rosie had been full of energy two minutes ago. Kids don’t just “fall asleep” in the middle of a meal while they’re crying. Before I could get a better look, Martha carried her out of the camera’s frame. I ran for the elevator, my fingers fumbling to call an Uber. My brain was a mess of jagged thoughts. Why would she just go to sleep? Then, a memory hit me like a physical blow. Last year. Rosie was barely one. We were trying out new foods. I’d given her a tiny bit of almond butter. She hadn’t cried. She hadn’t coughed. She had simply gone limp in my arms. The realization shattered me. Rosie hadn’t “fallen asleep.” She was in anaphylactic shock. 4 The memory of that hospital room—the machines, the needles, the way the doctor looked at me—sent a surge of nausea through me. I was in the back of the Uber, my legs shaking so hard I couldn’t keep my feet flat on the floor. I messaged Dan, my thumbs tripping over the screen. Get home now. Rosie. I think she’s having a reaction. Hurry. He replied instantly. Just leaving the site. I’m ten minutes away. I’m going. But ten minutes is an eternity when someone isn’t breathing. On my phone, Martha reappeared in the living room. She was rocking Rosie, humming a soft, cheerful lullaby. She looked so peaceful. It was horrifying. I felt like I was watching a horror movie where I was the only one who knew the killer was in the house. “Mom,” I said, my voice trembling, forced into a whisper. “Rosie is in shock. You need to get her out of the house. Dan is coming to take you to the ER. Get her shoes. Now.” Martha actually laughed. “The ER? For a nap? You’re losing your mind, Joyce.” She shifted her position, and for a split second, Rosie’s face came into clear view. Her lips weren’t pink anymore. They were a terrifying shade of bruised purple. And her arms—the skin that was visible was covered in angry, raised red welts. My blood turned to ice. “Martha! What did you give her?” My mother stiffened. “Is that how you address me? I’m your mother. Where is your respect?” I didn’t care about respect. I didn’t care about anything but the ticking clock. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, okay? Just tell me! What did she eat?” “Nothing special… just a little bit of peanut butter on her crackers. She liked it.” The world went black for a second. “Wake her up! Mom! There’s an EpiPen in the fridge! The red case! Stab her in the thigh and call 911! Do it now!” I was hysterical, sobbing into the phone. But Martha just kept rocking. “I’m not doing that. You’re being cruel. Let the child sleep.” “She isn’t sleeping! She’s dying! That medicine is the only thing that will save her!” I tried to explain the science, the constriction of the airway, but she just tuned me out. “She’s fine. Look at how peaceful she is…” I clawed at my hair. I was drowning in regret. Why did I take this job? Why did I trust her? On the screen, Rosie’s little body gave a sudden, violent jerk. A seizure. I screamed Dan’s name into the phone as I called him again. “Dan! Please! Faster!”

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I married my murderer. After the wedding, I played the perfect, subservient wife. I always took off my makeup after he fell asleep and put it back on before he woke up. My husband bragged about it on his livestream, saying this is the self-awareness every woman should have. A viewer warned him in the chat: [Run. Only skinwalkers put on makeup in the middle of the night. The more their stolen skin rots, the thicker the makeup. It won’t be long before she changes skins and eats you!] I covered my face and smirked. Oops, forgot the concealer. The livor mortis is showing. 01 My husband is my murderer, but I don’t care. I was ten minutes late getting home from the grocery store. In front of tens of thousands of viewers on his livestream, Caleb roared at me, “Where the hell have you been? Go kneel in the corner!” As I obediently knelt, the viewers who used to be outraged had become numb. [A gorgeous girl with an abusive guy, and she even paid him a massive dowry just to marry him. What is wrong with the world!] [Making his wife dance in the snow in a swimsuit just for views. He’s the king of scumbags.] [Give up trying to save her. Lawyers have contacted her, but she won’t listen. She said she’s committed to this man for life. They’re locked in.] Caleb’s livestream was dedicated to filming me serving his entire family, finding new ways to humiliate me to farm views. By the time he allowed me to stand up, the foundation on my knees had rubbed off, exposing the terrifying, purplish-red livor mortis. Oops. I quickly covered it with my purse. Foundation meant for the living just doesn’t have the staying power. It rubs off easily, especially in the summer. Luckily, the camera didn’t catch it, and I calmly changed into a maxi skirt. On camera, my makeup was flawless, rivaling any influencer. Combined with my tireless, uncomplaining demeanor, the male viewers were bursting with envy, begging Caleb to share his “wife-taming” secrets. My husband shamelessly bragged, “Dealing with women, the key is to never give them an inch.” “I told her I like pretty women, and she’s never dared to be bare-faced in front of me! She always takes her makeup off after I’m asleep and puts it on before I wake up.” “As a wife, satisfying your husband’s visual needs is the most basic virtue!” Amidst the viewers’ praise and condemnation. A conspicuous message scrolled across the chat. [Your wife is a skinwalker. Only the dead put on makeup in the middle of the night.] [Does she only do her makeup at 3 AM? Because that’s when the yin energy is heaviest, making the makeup hold best!] 02 Caleb laughed uproariously. What kind of nonsense was this? The account was named “Mystic Fish,” and the bio said he was a novice occultist. The guy was persistent, continuing to type despite being mocked. [You’ve been married for three years, right? That’s a skinwalker’s limit. She’s been taking longer and longer to do her makeup lately, hasn’t she?] [Skinwalkers need human vitality to sustain themselves. Is she clinging to you 24/7, refusing to leave your side? Every time you’re intimate, you get sick right after.] This made Caleb pause. It was true. He was strong and healthy before the wedding, but since getting married, he’s been constantly dealing with minor illnesses. His wife was obsessed with his skin; once, when he burned himself with a cigarette, she almost cried in distress. [Almost cried, but no tears fell. Corpses can’t produce tears. Have you ever actually seen her cry?] No, he hadn’t. Caleb suddenly panicked a little. “Why should I believe you?” [Put a few drops of mugwort extract into her makeup remover tonight. Mugwort has strong yang energy. If a skinwalker uses it, their face will rot.] [Whether she’s human or a corpse, one test will tell.] 03 I gratefully accepted the makeup remover my husband gave me. Caleb stared at me for a long time before letting out a sigh of relief. “Look at this pathetic, desperate look. A skinwalker?” The young occultist remained dead serious. [The three of you—you, your wife, and your father—all have birthdays in the same month. That’s a rare aligned fate. If a skinwalker consumes you, it’s a massive power boost.] [In three days, on your birthday, that’s when the skinwalker will start the slaughter.] Caleb was an only child. After we married, we lived in his family’s custom-built house on the outskirts of town. My mother-in-law was famously cheap in the surrounding area. Any takeout Caleb couldn’t finish, she’d let it sit until it smelled sour before giving it to me. Every day, she’d “thoughtfully” leave me two small dishes: one plain boiled cabbage, one pickled radishes. “This is for your own good. Too much grease and you’ll get fat, and my son will definitely cheat on you!” I thanked her. After all, skinwalkers don’t have metabolisms, and our stomachs don’t digest. Eating too much meat makes the stench of death stronger. On Caleb’s last birthday, he surprisingly gave me a small piece of BBQ pork. I suppressed my disgust and ate it, then spent half the day throwing up, losing six months of my cultivation. While gnawing on the pickled radishes, I personally served the delicious food and drinks to my mother-in-law. Watching her increasingly plump figure, I felt a deep satisfaction. Fantasizing about the texture of her skin and flesh when harvest time comes, I swallowed hard to hold back my drool. “As long as you eat well, drink well, and are happy, that’s my greatest wish.” Mood directly affects the pH level of the meat, after all. In the middle of the night, after my husband fell asleep and started snoring, I tiptoed to the bathroom to remove my makeup. Girls, even dead ones, care about their appearance. My makeup routine takes a long time. After removing the patchy, caked-on foundation, fake eyelashes, and colored contacts, I have to do basic moisturizing to make the makeup last longer. After concealing the livor mortis, I use the “sandwich method” to set it. The moment the makeup wipe touched my face, a burning sensation hit me. Right then, I felt a chilling gaze staring at my back. I jerked my head around. The door, which I had locked, had been pushed open at some point. Caleb stood in the doorway, his face dark and menacing. “Audrey, turn around. Let me see your face.” 04 Skinwalkers lack the five senses. But I felt a faint sweat seeping from my pores all over my body. Before coming in, the occultist had DM’d Caleb. [Rub ox tears on your phone’s camera lens. It will let everyone see ghosts and monsters, forcing her to reveal her true form so she can’t hide!] Caleb didn’t really believe the occultist, but seeing the viewer count skyrocketing on his livestream… And the constant stream of digital gifts being thrown at him, he immediately stepped toward me, raising his voice: “Making a fuss every night! Is your bare face really that hideous?” Wearing my pajamas, I covered my face and sobbed, looking so wronged I might pass out. Many people in the chat told him to let it go, saying the occultist was definitely just making things up for clout. Caleb grabbed my cold wrist and roughly yanked my chin up. “The viewers paid! Even if I tell you to strip naked, you have to strip! Disobey me, and I’ll beat you to death right now!” Helpless, I slowly poured out the makeup remover. The moment I wiped it off, Caleb, and everyone in the livestream, held their breath. But the skin under the foundation remained flawlessly smooth and supple. Caleb’s tense expression instantly relaxed, and he started cursing the occultist for being a fraud. The chat joined in. [Tormenting people in the middle of the night, hasn’t the poor girl suffered enough!] [I bet the three of them are in on it together. Traffic is higher at 3 AM than during the day!] The young occultist pondered for three seconds, then realization struck. [I get it! Today is February 29th, a leap day! It’s hard to distinguish between yin and yang energies today. The skinwalker’s body will become no different from a normal human’s!] I was actually quite surprised. I didn’t know who this occultist’s master was, but he had some skills. He actually figured out my origins. [She’s not an ordinary skinwalker. She’s a vengeful corpse fueled by extreme resentment, so ordinary mugwort is useless against her.] His tone became deadly serious. [What exactly did you do to her to create such immense resentment?!] 05 Furious and embarrassed, Caleb blocked the occultist. To give himself an out, he feigned disgust at my bare face and warned me not to go out without makeup and scare people. I smiled and said, “Of course.” See, he had long forgotten this face. Forgotten the girl he strangled with his own hands four years ago. Well, it makes sense. That night was pitch black, it was raining in the woods, and I was beaten bloody and bruised during my struggle. My face was ruined. All four of my limbs were broken. When he was finally satisfied with his assault and locked his hands tightly around my neck… I was still begging pathetically: “Don’t kill me. I swear I won’t tell anyone… Please, my grandma is waiting for me…” Please, I’m a senior in college, and I just got accepted into a top grad program. I haven’t even told my grandma the good news yet. That little old lady scrimped and saved to put me through school. She ruined her eyes working but wouldn’t spend a dime to see a doctor. She hasn’t enjoyed a single day of comfort from her granddaughter. She really can’t afford to lose me. But Caleb just smirked lewdly and tightened his grip on my throat. My body convulsed uncontrollably, tears streamed down my face, and a sharp crack echoed from my cervical vertebrae. And just like that, I died. Right before I died, I thought I saw my grandma. Wearing her faded, washed-out thin coat, sitting eagerly at the yard gate, while my favorite beef and vermicelli buns steamed in the kitchen. She’d reheat them endlessly, always wanting her good granddaughter to have a hot meal the moment she got home. She didn’t know I had been discarded deep in the woods. Stripped of my dignity, my future, and my life. In the rotting stench, my resentment refused to dissipate, turning me into a monster that was neither human nor ghost—a skinwalker. When I used a new face to ask the matchmaker to arrange a marriage, she asked me what I was after. I smiled gently, acting shy, and said I just wanted him. I wanted him for this unending— Blood debt. 06 The Caleb family’s death day… no, birthdays were approaching. When I presented the family of three with clothes I tailored myself, Caleb’s face fell slightly. Because before the occultist was blocked, he had warned him. [If the skinwalker gives you clothes, do absolutely NOT wear them. They do that to make skinning you easier!] I didn’t move my eyes, just slowly turned my head, a smile forming on my lips: “Honey, why aren’t you trying it on?” Caleb secretly unblocked the occultist. [She’s giving you burial clothes! The cranes embroidered on clothes for the living have their wings folded down. Only burial clothes have cranes with open wings, symbolizing the soul flying to heaven!] The fans in the livestream were rolling their eyes: [Please, it’s called ‘modern vintage’. It’s super trendy right now.] Seeing that no one believed him, the young occultist got anxious: [Count the buttons! Burial clothes use an odd number of buttons. The satin material symbolizes the end of the bloodline. Burial clothes require the hands to be covered, and every single piece of clothing she gave you has sleeves longer than your hands. No, the skinwalker is about to become a demon. I’m taking a bus to save you right now!] Caleb compared the clothes, and it was true. He was originally only half-believing, but seeing the massive influx of viewers, an idea sparked. He deliberately acted as if he believed completely and immediately sent a deposit to the occultist. He even hyped it up: “Fam, if you want to see an occultist battle a beautiful skinwalker, remember to tip and subscribe!” Who knew that on Caleb’s birthday, a murder would actually happen in the house. Only, the person who died was my father-in-law. 07 My father-in-law’s body was torn to pieces, a gruesome sight. On his way home from sneaking around with his old flame, he got drunk and tumbled down a slope, where wild wolves ate more than half his body. But strangely, his lower half was completely gone, and most of the skin and flesh on his head had been gnawed off. Yet, the clothes I had sewn for him remained perfectly intact on his body. Now, the new clothes really had become burial clothes. Caleb knelt before his father’s corpse, bewildered: “Why him first… Wait, didn’t you say it would go in order of our birthdays? Damn it, that occultist lied to me again!” As I wailed and cried alongside my mother-in-law, I couldn’t help but curl my lips into an eerie smile. Yes, my father-in-law could have lived a few more days. But who told him to discover my secret. That day, I had secretly gone to see my grandma. The little old lady’s legs had gone bad again. Ever since I disappeared, she had been running around with my photo every day for the past four years, looking for me. When someone mocked her, saying the college student she raised didn’t respect herself and must have run off with a rich guy, my grandma went crazy, grabbed a hoe, and almost fought them to the death. “You goddamn filthy scumbag! Say one more word about my granddaughter, and I’ll show you what this old woman is capable of!” The police found my missing backpack and bloodstains in the woods, concluding that I had been murdered. But my grandma stubbornly believed that without a body, her granddaughter was fine. “The fortune teller said my granddaughter is destined to live to a hundred!” For four years, she went to the county police station every single week without fail to ask for updates. Even the police didn’t know what to do with this stubborn old woman. The mountain roads were tough; a round trip took four hours. How could her legs hold up? I stood outside the yard, watching her burn up with a fever, her mouth still murmuring my childhood nickname. She was so weak she couldn’t even lift her hand, couldn’t even get a sip of hot water. A corpse shouldn’t have a heart, but pain rooted itself in my chest. A dense, inescapable ache. I chopped wood, boiled water, and while she slept, refilled her cup, placing it right where she could reach it. I didn’t dare stay long. Skinwalkers can’t stay around the living for too long. Corpse energy is toxic. I lived day and night with the Caleb family of three, and the corpse poison had long invaded their organs. I was just waiting for the perfect, auspicious day to gut them and feast. But as soon as I got home, my father-in-law cornered me at the door, giving me a creepy smile. “I finally figured out where you sneak off to every afternoon before grocery shopping!” Seeing me play dumb, he dragged me in front of a mirror, looking triumphant. “Keep playing dumb. Look at what’s on your neck!” That’s when I realized the steam from boiling the water had melted the foundation on my neck. The dark red livor mortis underneath was fully exposed. My chest stopped moving, and my eyes narrowed dangerously. That was the sign a skinwalker was about to feast. But my father-in-law didn’t notice. He grabbed my waist, a lecherous smile on his face. “Cheating on my son, huh? Tell me, which bastard left those hickeys on your neck?” 08 My father-in-law was a creep. He had stolen my underwear several times. He would also quickly grab my waist when walking past me. My mother-in-law knew all this. She played blind and even encouraged it: “It’s nice having free eye candy at home. Don’t go wasting money on hussies outside!” That night, I was taking a shower when the bathroom light suddenly went out. Accompanied by heavy panting, my father-in-law slipped in and roughly pinned me to the floor. I faked a cry for help. “Stop pretending. I got rid of Caleb and his mother earlier. Now it’s just the two of us!” He grinned maliciously, lowering his voice: “What’s so great about my son? He yells at you all the time. Be with me, and I guarantee I’ll treat you right…” He couldn’t wait and grabbed my shoulders. As he rubbed, a whole patch of skin on my shoulder peeled off like soft tofu skin. My father-in-law realized something was wrong. The light flickered back on. He instinctively raised his hand and finally saw that he was holding a wet, wrinkled piece of human skin. Then, with a crack, my head twisted ninety degrees. The moment our eyes met, his gaze trembled, and he was so terrified he forgot to breathe. I smiled, my voice stiff and slow. “Just the two of us? Then I guess it’s time to dig in.”

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I used to believe Robert was the man who pulled me from the wreckage of the world. He told me he possessed a “Directive”—a neurological interface that granted him foresight and power. He promised that in this frozen hellscape, he would be my sanctuary. He promised we would survive the Great Freeze together. Instead, I became a prisoner. I watched as they methodically broke my limbs, and then, like a bag of refuse, they tossed me into the permafrost to be used and discarded. As the light in my eyes began to flicker, I remembered the activation code he had once whispered in a moment of feigned intimacy. With a trembling breath, I forced the words out. A cold, synthesized voice echoed in my mind, stripping away the final layers of my delusions. “Directive: Host, how could you trade June’s life to satisfy those monsters?” Robert’s voice replied, devoid of any warmth. It was the sound of a man discussing a business transaction. “Macy is too fragile for this. June… June is a fighter. She’s built to endure.” He paused, and the next words were a serrated blade across my heart. “Macy is my Life-Tether. The Protocol is clear: I must ensure her survival at any cost. Once this deal is closed and the Credits are secured, I’ll find a way to make it up to June.” Every agony I had suffered—every snap of bone and sting of ice—had been a calculated sacrifice. He hadn’t failed to protect me. He had orchestrated my destruction. As the stench of a starving, infected hound filled my nostrils, I finally stopped fighting. I let go. 1 “This one’s a statue. Not a single scream.” A jagged shard of ice was driven through my palm. My body jerked, a white-hot flare of agony pulling me back from the brink of unconsciousness. My eyes drifted open, unfocused and heavy, and that’s when I heard Robert’s voice again through the thin walls of the basement. “How much longer?” The synthesized voice of the Directive sounded almost human, its tone wavering with something like mechanical grief. “Three hours. But Host… her limbs are shattered. She has twelve puncture wounds. They used a brand on her tongue. Should we not… intervene?” “No,” Robert snapped, his voice brittle. “The agreement was twenty-four hours. Not a minute less.” I felt a ghost of a smile touch my cracked lips. I closed my eyes again. It was the seventh year of the Permafrost. I was the one who had cracked the code, the one who had synthesized the vaccine that could finally grant humanity immunity to the Necro-virus. When I had ventured out to find the final chemical reagents, Robert had insisted on being my lead guard. He said he couldn’t bear to let me out of his sight. I thought it was love. I thought he was risking his life for mine. Now I knew the truth. He had struck a deal with the Insurgents long before we left the Bastion. A searing heat pressed against my chest. The sizzle of my own flesh and the cloying, metallic scent of burnt skin filled the cramped basement. The scream I had been holding back finally tore through my throat, raw and jagged. The men surrounding me erupted into a chorus of guttural laughter. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to retreat into the only place they couldn’t touch: my memories. Robert and I had been childhood sweethearts. After we married, in the quiet, desperate nights of the apocalypse, he would hold me and whisper about the future. He wanted a family. A real home. He didn’t want to be alone in the dark anymore. For that dream, I survived everything. I scavenged through ruins, I fought off the infected with nothing but a rusted pipe, I starved so he could eat. And finally, I had succeeded. I was carrying our child. But now, I wasn’t even a person anymore. And my child was already a cold, still weight inside me. “Host, they’re bringing in the hounds! June can’t take anymore. She’s losing too much blood, and the fetal heartbeat is—” “Shut up!” Robert’s voice was frayed, irritable. For a heartbeat, a foolish, dying spark of hope flickered in my chest. I thought he might remember our years together. I thought he might remember the way I looked at him on our wedding day. Then, he pushed me into the abyss. “She’s tough,” he said, cold as the wind outside. “She won’t die.” Even the Directive seemed horrified. “Robert, look at yourself. She is your wife, not your enemy. Why must she endure this for your gain?” “Because she is my wife!” Robert roared, his voice thick with a twisted sense of martyrdom. “In the life before this one, Macy died saving us. My ‘Rebirth’ was paid for with Macy’s blood. If she dies, the Directive shuts down, and I die with her. Just a little longer. Once the main forces arrive, I’ll go in and ‘rescue’ her. She’ll understand.” I had thought the Insurgents kidnapped me for the vaccine. I was wrong. Everything—the blood, the pain, the loss of my child—it was all for Macy. The “Guardian Angel” he claimed had traded her life for his second chance. 2 That was why he was always there for her. Why he used his position in the Bastion to shield her from every hardship while I worked myself to the bone in the labs. We had fought about it, of course. Every time, Robert would pull me close, his breath warm against my ear, and say, “June, you’re the one I love. Macy… she’s just a debt I have to pay. It’s a responsibility, nothing more.” And every time, I had backed down. I had chosen to believe him because the alternative was too terrifying to face. But he hadn’t just chosen her. He had sentenced me to death. As the three infected hounds were dragged into the room, their eyes milky and their jaws snapping, I closed my eyes and waited for the end. I don’t know how much time passed before the sound of Robert’s sobbing pulled me back. His eyes were bloodshot, his face a mask of performative grief. “I’m so sorry,” he choked out, his voice trembling. “It’s all my fault. I didn’t get here in time.” The smell of him—the expensive soap from the Bastion’s private stores—made my stomach churn. I stared at him, my gaze fixed on his throat, imagining my hands—my broken, useless hands—tearing the life from him. I bit into the inside of my cheek, using the sharp sting of pain to find my voice. “Why… why were you so late, Robert?” He flinched, his eyes darting away from mine. “There was a complication with the perimeter. I failed you, June. I let those animals get to you.” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. “But listen to me. It doesn’t matter what they did. I still love you. I’m going to make you whole again. I promise.” He wrapped me in a heavy, fur-lined coat and carried me to a temporary camp. My colleagues, hardened by the world, turned pale when they saw me. I had over a hundred wounds, some shallow, some deep and weeping. We lacked proper medical supplies; they had to use primitive cauterization just to stop the bleeding. I spiraled back into the darkness. When I woke again, Robert was clutching my hand, weeping silently. “Those monsters… June, I swear, I will protect you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.” I closed my eyes, refusing to look at him. Every word out of his mouth felt like another shard of ice driven into my skin. A moment later, the door to the medical tent swung open. A silhouette I loathed stepped into the light. “Robbie? Why are you still in here?” Macy was dressed in a pristine white parka, a pink ribbon tied neatly in her hair. She looked like a creature from another world—a world that hadn’t seen blood or hunger. She skipped toward him, then let out a sharp, theatrical gasp when she saw me. “Oh! June! You look… oh, that’s terrifying!” She immediately buried her face in Robert’s chest, trembling. “Robbie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, I’m just… I’m so shaken. You aren’t mad at me, are you?” I watched as Robert smoothed her hair, his touch infinitely more tender than it had been with me. “It’s okay, Macy. You’re sensitive. I know.” I wanted to laugh. I was the one who had been mutilated, yet she was the one who needed comforting. Robert claimed he only felt “duty” toward her. But he gave me logic and excuses, while he gave her everything she asked for. The distinction was finally, brutally clear. Robert eventually left to “coordinate the transport,” leaving me alone with Macy. She sat on the edge of the cot, leaning in close. She sniffed the air and immediately made a face of pure disgust. “You smell like rot. Look at you. You aren’t even a woman anymore. You’re barely a person. Why are you still hanging on?” She smiled, a cold, sharp expression that never reached her eyes. “If I were you, I’d find a way to end it. You’re just an eyesore now.” I forced a dry, rasping laugh. “If I’m an eyesore to you… then staying alive is worth it.” I knew she wanted him. But even in this ruined world, our marriage was recognized by the Bastion’s Council. As long as I was his wife, she was nothing but a shadow. Macy’s face twisted into something demonic. She reached out and pressed her thumb directly into one of my open wounds. I gasped, my vision swimming. “Do you know what Robbie says about you behind closed doors?” she hissed. “He says you’re pathetic. He says he’s disgusted that you won’t just die and let him move on. As the woman who actually loves him, I think it’s time I helped him out.” 3 She pulled a small syringe from her pocket, filled with a pale yellow fluid. My heart hammered against my ribs. “What is that?” “You’ve been exposed to the Necro-virus,” she whispered. “A couple of vaccine shots would fix you right up, but honestly? It’s such a waste to use the good stuff on a lost cause like you.” She leaned in closer, her breath smelling of peppermint. “This is a Thermal-Toxin. Robbie was worried you’d be too cold out here in the snow, so he asked me to give you a little ‘warmth.’ It’ll make your exit very… memorable. And once you’re gone, I’ll be the one who ‘discovered’ the vaccine. I’ll be the hero. And you’ll just be a tragic memory.” I couldn’t breathe. Seven years of my life—seven years of sleepless nights and frozen fingers in the lab—and they were going to steal it all. They were going to kill me with the very thing I had died a thousand deaths to create. I had already been infected by the hounds. Without the second stage of the vaccine, I would turn. But the Thermal-Toxin… for someone already fighting the virus, it was a recipe for a slow, agonizing internal combustion of the nervous system. “You… wouldn’t…” I gasped. I tried to struggle, but she shoved me off the cot. My broken bones shrieked in protest as I hit the floor. “Look at you,” she sneered. “You think you can compete with me? I’m going to have the world at my feet. I’m going to have Robbie’s children. And you? You’re going to burn from the inside out in the dirt.” She plunged the needle into my neck and emptied the syringe. I blacked out from the sheer shock of the chemical burn. When I woke, the world was a haze of fire. Every nerve ending felt like it was being scorched by a blowtorch. I screamed for Robert, but the camp was empty. A lone colleague remained, looking at me with pity and terror. “They’re gone, June. They took the last transport. They said you were too far gone to move.” My mind went blank. “The vaccine… did they leave the vaccine?” “They took it all back to the Bastion for the ‘official launch.’” I begged him. I pleaded until my voice broke. Finally, the colleague, a man named Sam, put on his hazmat suit and helped me into an old rover. We chased the transport through a blizzard for two days. When we finally caught up to them at the secondary airfield, I didn’t care about pride. I didn’t care about the betrayal. I just wanted to live. I crawled through the snow, dragging my broken body toward Robert as he stood by the helicopter. “Robert! Please!” I shrieked. “Just one dose! I’m turning! Please!” Robert looked down at me, and I saw only irritation and embarrassment in his eyes. “June, for God’s sake. This shipment belongs to the future of humanity. Not a single drop can be wasted on a personal whim. I have a mission to protect Macy and the serum. Stop being so dramatic.” The other scientists stood frozen. Sam yelled out, “She’s infected, Robert! If she doesn’t get the shot, she’ll turn in hours! She’s your wife!” Robert let out a sharp, dismissive scoff. “I know you’re jealous of Macy, June, but this is pathetic. Macy already gave you the booster shot back at the camp. Stop lying to get attention. I don’t have time for your theatrics.” He turned his back on me. The helicopter blades began to roar, kicking up a blinding cloud of snow. I lunged forward, grabbing at his boot. “Robert, I’ll go! I’ll leave! I won’t ever see you again! Just give me the shot! I want to live!” He didn’t even look back. He just kicked my hand away, his face contorted in anger. “Enough! I’ll send a retrieval team once I’ve secured the Bastion. Just wait your turn!” He climbed into the cabin and pulled Macy in beside him. She looked down at me through the glass, a radiant, triumphant smile on her face. The helicopter rose into the gray sky. I slumped into the snow. The rage inside me surged, and I coughed up a spray of thick, black blood. “Oh god,” Sam whispered, backing away. “The transition… it’s starting.” He wanted to help, but the fear of the virus was too great. I didn’t blame him. I didn’t want to live through the transformation—to become a mindless, shuffling corpse. “Sam,” I wheezed. “Give me your sidearm.” He hesitated, then placed the heavy pistol in my mangled hand. I handed him a small data drive and a blood-stained journal I had kept hidden in my coat. “When I’m gone… give this to the Council. Not Robert. The Council.” As I pressed the barrel to my temple, a strange, calm clarity washed over me. At that exact moment, miles away in the air, a digital chime echoed in Robert’s mind. “Warning: Life-Tether terminated. Host lifespan: Final Countdown initiated.”

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I was with Caleb for ten years. I tattooed his favorite flower, a gardenia, on my collarbone. When he finally agreed to marry me, he was keeping an 18-year-old girl on the side. Before our wedding, he indulged in her “breakup countdown.” He took her bungee jumping, skiing, and flew her to Iceland to see the Northern Lights. But he didn’t know I was dying. I booked a flight out of the country, donated his entire net worth, and got my tattoos lasered off. While he was counting down the days to our wedding, I was planning my escape. 01 On the day I was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, the young girl Caleb was keeping on the side came to find me. “I know I’m the other woman.” The girl’s opening line was terrifyingly earnest. She bit her lip. “I know you guys are getting married soon, but—” “Caleb doesn’t love you anymore.” “I’ve been with him for a year. We’ve slept together seventy-eight times. Fifty-three times in hotels, twenty-one times at my place.” “And four times at your house, in your bed.” 她 looked at me bluntly. “If Caleb still loved you, I wouldn’t even exist.” I found it almost funny. I lit a cigarette, looking at her through the haze of smoke. “What else? Keep going.” So she pulled out her phone and played a video for me. The angle was hidden, like it was secretly recorded. The girl was curled up in Caleb’s arms, crying. “Even if you have to marry her out of responsibility, can you please not abandon me?” Caleb pushed her away gently and tossed a bank card onto the table. “Find a stable guy. Being with me is no good for you. It’s too dangerous.” “No!” She wrapped her arms around his waist, pouting. “I’m not afraid of danger.” “Can you please not throw me away?” “Caleb, I won’t be a burden to you. I swear.” Caleb froze for a second. His gaze swept across her face, and for a brief moment, he looked completely lost. Then, he leaned in and kissed her. 02 I stubbed out my cigarette. The girl was exactly eighteen. Her face was full of youthful collagen; she was genuinely pure and innocent. And, the very first time I saw her, I knew. She looked like me. She looked exactly like the eighteen-year-old Tara. “You’re right about one thing. If Caleb still loved me, you wouldn’t exist.” I stood up. My stomach was actually throbbing in pain. I leaned against the table, careful not to show it. “But I advise you not to fall too deep. Caleb has never loved you, nor does he love me.” “He only loves the Tara from his memories.” The pure, beautiful Tara who died years ago on the bloody path helping him rise to the top. “In a few years, he’ll find a new replacement, and you’ll end up even more miserable than me.” I was actually lying to her. I was about to die. How could she possibly end up more miserable than me? At worst, she’d just get dumped when Caleb got bored of her. 03 I gave myself to Caleb when I was eighteen. I grew up without parents. The grandmother who raised me passed away when I was fifteen. Caleb appeared right around then. He pursued me fiercely. He threw money around recklessly, wanting to lay the best of everything in the world at my feet. He was handsome, and he gave me a profound sense of security. I fell for him fast. On my nineteenth birthday, he coaxed me into tasting the forbidden fruit. That night. From pain to complete surrender. I became entirely his. The next day, Caleb took me to meet his crew. I had never been exposed to a scene like that. I timidly held onto his jacket, quietly greeting everyone as he introduced me. The way they looked at me was full of mockery. “Caleb, why’d you get yourself such a little girl?” “She’s too sweet. She’s gonna be a liability.” Back then, I didn’t know what “liability” meant to them. I couldn’t help but defend myself quietly, “I won’t be.” “I won’t be a burden to Caleb.” I swore it. But later, as I slowly integrated into his world, I realized exactly what kind of life he led. It was a life lived on the edge of a knife. To avoid being a burden, to be able to stand by his side, I forced myself to adapt to that brutal environment. Ten years. I cut my hair short. I dyed it. I started smoking. I got tattoos. I even collected countless scars across my body. Because I was ruthless enough, I helped Caleb climb to become the second-in-command of the Chicago underworld. But Caleb didn’t seem happy. Countless nights. He would hold me in his arms, his fingers tracing the scars on my body, leaning down to kiss them. “Tara.” He would bury his face in my chest and sigh. “I still prefer the way you used to be.” And after a moment of stunned silence, I would always push him away, light a cigarette, and laugh. “Caleb, saying that is a real dick move.” 04 It was past midnight when Caleb came home. I was lying in bed. I wasn’t asleep. I was just staring into the darkness. Until Caleb pulled me into his arms. “Not asleep yet?” He leaned down to kiss me, but I dodged. He froze for a second, then suppressed his temper and hugged me. “Who pissed you off? I’ll go chop them up right now, okay?” “Caleb.” “Yeah.” The room was so dark I couldn’t see his face. But I could smell the gardenia perfume lingering on his clothes. “Let’s break up.” Caleb stiffened. Then he let go, rolling over to lie on his back next to me. “What is it now?” He pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “You’re not a little girl anymore. Why are you acting so dramatic?” “Break up?” He chuckled. “Tara, you’re not young anymore. Who else is going to marry a woman who smokes, drinks, has tattoos, and handles business more ruthlessly than most men?” My chest seized. I pressed my hand hard against my heart, but I couldn’t suppress the dense, agonizing pain. Last year, when my arm got sliced open, I was allergic to the local anesthesia. Twelve stitches, completely raw, and I gritted my teeth without making a single sound. But Caleb’s drunken truths made my eyes burn with tears. “Caleb,” I couldn’t help but ask, “if I got a terminal illness, would you…” “Tara.” He cut me off, irritation clear in his voice. “Stop asking stupid questions.” “If you get a terminal illness, I’ll commit suicide with you. Happy?” He rubbed his temples. “I’m busy with the wedding and business lately. I don’t have the energy to coax you. Stop throwing tantrums.” Just then, his phone rang. Caleb rejected the call in frustration. But the person called back again. After a few rounds of this, Caleb got out of bed with his phone. “Speak.” A girl’s crying voice filtered through the receiver, muffled but audible. Caleb cursed under his breath. “So fucking annoying.” Despite saying that, he quickly grabbed his coat and headed for the door. “There’s a problem with the business. I have to go handle it.” “Go to sleep. Don’t wait up for me.” 05 Caleb and I set our wedding date for the third of next month. A simple ceremony. I never told Caleb about my illness. Late-stage. Basically incurable. I also never told him that I had zero intention of marrying him. I could accept everything about Caleb. Everything except betrayal. Just thinking about him holding another woman, kissing her face, searching for the shadow of my youth in her… it made my stomach churn. It made me sick. I gave myself to him at eighteen. It had been exactly ten years. Now, the doctors said I had about six months left to live. Looking back, I wasted the best years of my life on him. For the little time I had left, I just wanted to be Tara. I booked a flight out of the country. I wanted to use whatever strength I had left to see the world I loved but had never actually explored. And I booked that flight for the third of next month. 06 Early in the morning, I crossed out another day on the calendar. Ten days left until my flight. The sound of the front door opening came from behind me. Caleb walked in, bringing the winter chill with him. He took off his coat and walked over to hug me. He still didn’t like my short hair. His eyes followed mine to the calendar. Seeing the date heavily circled on the third, he chuckled and gently pinched my cheek. “Can’t wait to marry me?” He counted. “Ten days left.” He buried his face in my neck. “I’ll make time in the next couple of days to go with you to dye your hair black again, maybe get extensions?” “You’ll look beautiful at the wedding.” “No need.” I looked at the calendar blankly. “There’s not much time left.” “Short hair is fine.” Caleb stayed silent for a long moment. “Alright.” He let go, picking up the coat he had draped over the chair. “There’s a lot to do for the wedding. Mack’s turf got smashed up yesterday. I’m busy, so I won’t be coming home for a while.” Caleb stared at me as he spoke. Like he was waiting for me to yield. Waiting for me to say, Okay, come with me to dye my hair. Let’s get extensions. But I just stared back at him indifferently. “Go.” “Anyway, it’s only ten days.” Caleb didn’t say another word. He turned and walked back out into the dark. He never looked back. 07 With seven days left until the wedding, I went to a tattoo parlor on the outskirts of the city. The owner was a woman in her thirties, well-maintained but with eyes full of deep weariness. She glanced at me. “What are we doing?” I rolled up my sleeve, pointing to the “CS” on my wrist, and then exposed the gardenia below my collarbone. “Remove both of them.” She took a look. “Laser removal hurts. And it’ll scar.” I smiled. “I’m not afraid.” Pain was the last thing I was afraid of right now. As for scarring— I had so many scars all over my body, two more wouldn’t make a difference. Besides, in six months, this body would probably just be a pile of ash anyway. The owner chatted with me as she prepped. “Breakup?” I smiled. “Yeah. Soon.” “Seven days left.” She clicked her tongue. “So ceremonial. A breakup with a countdown?” Maybe the shop was just quiet, or maybe we just clicked, but the moment I saw her, I felt like we were the same kind of people. We talked about the past. When Caleb first pursued me, I gave him a deadline. Three hundred days. If he could stick it out, I’d be his. So, every single morning, Caleb would show up in front of me and count the days. “One hundred and seventy-nine days left.” “Tara, ninety-six days until you’re my girlfriend.” “One day left, future girlfriend.” … The boy who relentlessly pursued me for three hundred days through rain and shine… Had slowly grown tired of me over the next ten years. I hit it off with the owner. As she lasered off the ink, I told her the meaning behind the two tattoos. The “CS” on my wrist was done on our one-year anniversary. I had been kidnapped by a rival gang to threaten him. Caleb went to the drop alone to save me. He knew it was a suicide mission, but he went without hesitation. He was almost hacked to death that day. When he was discharged from the hospital, I went to a parlor and got his initials on my wrist. Back then, I naively thought I was locked in with Caleb for life. But that night, when I proudly showed Caleb my still-red, swollen wrist, he just froze. He didn’t give me the touched reaction I expected. He frowned, asked me why I did it, and asked if it hurt. Finally, he pulled me into his arms. “Don’t do this again. I don’t like it.” “I don’t like it when you hurt yourself.” “You’re perfect just the way you are. You don’t need to change. I love a clean, flawless Tara.” I was young then, and I just thought he was worried about me. I didn’t realize Caleb had actually spoken his true feelings. And the gardenia on my chest was tattooed the day Caleb swore he would marry me by the time I was twenty-eight. Caleb loved gardenias. He loved their pure, flawless white. So I tattooed one on my chest. Waiting for Caleb to marry me. Now, Caleb had finally set the wedding date for my twenty-eighth year. He was busy planning the wedding seven days away. While I was planning how to leave him. Even though my body was ruined, I still didn’t want to leave this world bearing any mark of him. I pointed to the other side of my collarbone and told the owner. “Tattoo a trumpet vine right here.” Caleb loved gardenias. But I preferred the trumpet vine. He wanted me pure and flawless. But in my final days, I insisted on being the wild, untamed vine climbing over the high walls.

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The free bread at the back of the campus cafeteria had become my primary food group. On my phone screen, a photo from my parents’ Instagram feed stung worse than the hunger in my gut. It was a platter of oysters and Alaskan king crab, glistening under the warm lights of a high-end bistro. They always claimed they were sending me three thousand dollars a month for “living expenses,” but the balance on my debit card had never crested a hundred. When the registrar’s office sent me a final notice for my tuition, I finally found the courage to call home. “I already transferred that money!” My mother’s voice was a jagged blade, slicing through the receiver. “You probably blew it all on some mindless trend, and now you have the nerve to ask for more?” My knuckles were white as I gripped the phone, my voice trembling. “Mom, I swear, I haven’t spent a dime on anything but food. The money just… it never hit the account.” “Bullshit! I have the transfer confirmation right here on my phone!” she shrieked. “Not only are you a spendthrift, but you’re a liar too. It’s time you learned a lesson.” That afternoon, I received a text notification from the bank. My account had been frozen. … I was just pouring the lukewarm cafeteria bread over a bowl of plain white rice when I saw the update. Another “family” dinner. The table was a graveyard of expensive shells. My mother was smiling, carefully de-shelling a lobster claw and placing it onto my cousin’s plate. My father had his arm around him, flashing a peace sign for the camera. That single meal cost more than my entire year’s grocery budget. The caption read: Dinner with the kid. He’s growing into such a thoughtful young man. We couldn’t be prouder! If you didn’t know any better, you’d think they were a perfect nuclear family of three. I stared at the rice. The bread had cooled, and the grains were hard and clumpy, but I didn’t care. I tilted the bowl and forced it down. My stomach, shriveled from days of neglect, cramped instantly. I doubled over, gasping, and my hand slipped. The bowl shattered on the floor, the remnants of my sad meal splattering across the linoleum. By the time the cramps subsided, the cafeteria staff had already started the midday cleaning. The food was gone. I thought about my empty bank account and felt a surge of desperation. I closed my eyes, reached down, and gathered the relatively clean clumps of rice from the table with my bare hands, swallowing them dry. “Noah? What are you doing?” I froze. It was my roommate. My face went hot, a deep, burning crimson. I couldn’t blame him for being shocked. On move-in day, my parents had pulled up in a top-trim Range Rover. My mother was draped in designer silk, a Rolex Submariner gleaming on her wrist. Everyone on floor four assumed I was a trust-fund kid. Nobody would believe that my monthly allowance was barely enough to cover a pack of gum. By the end of the month, I was a ghost haunting the free-bread station. Before I could manufacture a lie, my phone vibrated. It was my mother. I hit ‘accept,’ and her voice came through, uncharacteristically bright. “Noah, honey, I just put this month’s three thousand into your account. Let me know if you need anything else, okay?” I didn’t say anything. I opened my banking app. Balance: $30.58. Still two digits. It was always two digits. I thought of the lobster. I thought of the way she looked at my cousin. I took a breath, trying to keep the bile down. “Mom? Can I be honest with you?” She chuckled, sounding like she was in a great mood. “Of course. When has your mother ever lied to you?” “Could you… could you maybe send a little extra? Or send it differently? It’s just… it’s been really tight this month.” Silence. It stretched so long I could hear my own pulse drumming in my ears. I dug my nails into my palm, already regretting the words. Then, the snap. “Is three thousand not enough for you? What are you doing, Noah? Are you out there running with a bad crowd? Drugs? Gambing?” “Mom, no—I’m telling you, I only see thirty dollars in the account. Every month. I’m living on free soup. I can’t keep doing this.” My voice broke. “I don’t even need much. Just five hundred. Just Venmo it to me directly. Don’t go through the bank.” The sound of a glass shattering echoed through the phone. Then came the explosion. “Noah! How dare you lie to my face? I transfer that money like clockwork every month! You’re ungrateful, you’re greedy, and you’re a liar! I sent you to school to get an education, not to live like a king. If this is who you’ve become, you don’t belong at that university!” The line went dead. I stood there, paralyzed. My roommate was staring at me, his expression a mix of pity and confusion. I didn’t say a word. I just looked down, finished the last of the rice, and walked out. It was a sick joke. My roommates lived on eight hundred a month and ate like royalty. I was supposedly “getting” three thousand, yet I was survives on thirty. I’d been living this lie for two years, surviving on grueling side gigs and sheer willpower. The next morning, the hunger finally won. A sharp, white-hot pain bloomed in my stomach, coiling me into a ball on my mattress. I forced myself up. I had a shift at the dining hall—the only perk was a free breakfast. Three breakfast burritos. That was my fuel for the next twenty-four hours. I swallowed an old antacid and hurried to work. But the pain wouldn’t quit. Halfway through the breakfast rush, the world turned grey and tilted on its axis. I woke up in the infirmary. The nurse had placed a warm compress on my stomach, but my first instinct wasn’t relief. It was panic. I grabbed my phone and checked the app. Balance: $30.58. I couldn’t even afford the co-pay. With no other choice, I called home again. “Mom, please. I’m in the campus clinic. I passed out. I need money for the medical bill…” “If you’re broke, stay healthy!” she screamed before I could even finish. “I gave you three thousand yesterday! One day, Noah! It’s been one day and you’ve blown it all? You’re a disgrace!” I hadn’t realized I’d bumped the speakerphone button. Her voice rang through the quiet infirmary like a siren. My skin burned with shame. I saw the nurse look away, pretending to be busy with a chart. Something inside me finally snapped. “Enough! You keep saying three thousand! But look at my statement! It’s thirty dollars! Thirty! Do you have any idea what these two years have been like? I’m delivering food until 3 AM on a rented bike. I’ve worked through fevers because I couldn’t afford a bottle of Tylenol. You put the money in and then you take it back—who are you doing this for? Who are you trying to impress?” There was a pause. Then her voice sharpened into a lethal point. “Are you accusing us? We work ourselves to the bone to provide for you, and you turn around and blame us for your own incompetence? If the money is gone, you lost it. You deserve to struggle.” My father’s voice drifted in the background. “Noah, son, don’t worry. I’ll send more later…” “Send what?” my mother cut him off. “He’s a boy. Why does he need so much cash? He’ll just get into trouble. Our reputation can’t handle a delinquent son. We survived on pennies when we were in college. He’s just spoiled. A spoiled brat.” I stared at the ceiling, trying to keep the tears from spilling. I failed. In the end, I had to beg my supervisor at the dining hall for an advance to pay the clinic. By the time I left, the delivery app on my phone chimed. My second job was starting. I took a deep breath and ran to the electric bike rental station. It was five dollars an hour. I usually booked two hours and rode like a madman to hit the bonuses. The orders were slow today, but one popped up—a long haul, way outside the campus bubble. A thirty-minute ride for an eight-dollar payout. I took it. At a red light, a matte-black sports car pulled up beside me. The engine purred with the kind of expensive precision that made my teeth ache. I glanced over. The guy in the driver’s seat looked familiar. It was Tyler, my cousin. He was on a hands-free call, grinning, a heavy gold watch catching the afternoon sun. “Thanks, Aunt Diane! Yeah, I just picked it up. The handling is incredible. It’s like driving a cloud.” He glanced my way, his eyes skimming over my sweat-soaked delivery vest and the beat-up thermal bag on my back. His gaze paused for a microsecond. Then he looked right through me. Like I was part of the scenery. The light turned green, and he roared away. I sat there, my hands frozen on the handlebars. Tyler was my father’s nephew. He wasn’t even related to my mother, yet she’d bought him a supercar. And I, her own son, had just woken up in a clinic because I couldn’t afford a sandwich. The irony tasted like copper in my mouth. I reached the delivery address a minute late. The customer was a pregnant woman who snatched the bag and began complaining before I could even apologize. “What took so long? If my baby gets stressed because I’m hungry, that’s on you!” “I’m sorry, the traffic—” “Save it. You’re getting a one-star.” The door slammed. My phone buzzed. Delivery completed. Payout: $4.00. The app had docked half for the delay. I stared at the screen for a long time. Then I got back on the bike. On the ride back to campus, it started to drizzle. My vision blurred, a mix of rain and salt. I didn’t cry, though. I just twisted the throttle, letting the cold wind fill my lungs until the ache in my chest felt like it belonged to someone else. At 9:00 PM, I crawled back to the dorm. After showering, I counted my earnings. After the clinic debt, I had $42.58. Total net worth. At least I wasn’t in the red. My phone buzzed again. A private message from my advisor. Noah, your tuition is significantly past due. Is everything okay? Tuition? My stomach dropped. My mother had “paid” it before the semester started. I’d watched her click through the portal. Had she canceled the payment? Or was it another lie? I spent the weekend on a bus back to my hometown. I needed answers. When I reached the front door of our suburban estate, my thumb wouldn’t work on the biometric lock. They’d changed the settings. I was about to ring the bell when the door opened. It was Tyler. He saw me and let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Hey, little cousin. Why didn’t you call? It’s family dinner night. We didn’t really set a place for you.” “Noah? You have the nerve to show up here?” My mother’s voice barked from the foyer. Tyler turned back to her, his voice dripping with fake concern. “Aunt Diane, I know Noah’s been irresponsible with money, but he’s still family. I’ve heard about college kids getting into deep water—gambling debts, shady loans. He’s probably just in over his head.” The bait was set. My mother took it instantly. “I cannot believe I raised such a failure!” she screamed, lunging toward me. “Getting into debt, hanging out in the gutter, and then crawling back here for a handout? Get out!” She raised her hand to strike me. Even knowing she didn’t love me, the fact that she believed a cousin’s gossip over her own son felt like a physical weight in my chest. “I’m not here for a handout,” I said, my voice cold. “I’m here to ask why my tuition hasn’t been paid.” She froze. Then, the vitriol returned. “Don’t you dare play that game! On top of the three thousand a month, I’ve sent you money for clothes, holiday bonuses—nearly ten thousand dollars this year alone! You gambled it away, didn’t you? And now you’re trying to steal your own tuition?” I clutched my bag, staring her down. “You say you sent the money. Where is it?” “My account shows thirty dollars every month. I’m at the top of the ‘failure to pay’ list at the registrar. Is that your idea of providing?” I pulled up the email from the school and held it in her face. “You say you gave me the money? Prove it. Let’s look at the ledger. Right now.” My mother opened her mouth to snap back, but my father, who had been quiet on the sofa, suddenly stood up. His face was a mask of stern authority. “Noah, that’s enough. Is this the thanks we get? You come into this house and scream at your mother? Where is your respect?” I looked at him, my eyes burning. “Respect? She’s lying to my face, Dad! She says she’s sending thousands, but I’m starving!” “Lying?” My mother slammed her hand on the side table. “You want proof? Fine. Let’s look at the receipts, you ungrateful brat. Let’s see exactly how much of a liar you are.” She pulled out her phone and pulled up her banking app. She shoved the screen an inch from my nose. I stared. I didn’t want to miss a single digit. My heart stopped. The records were there. Every single one. The first of every month: Transfer to Noah – $3,000. Status: Success. But… that was impossible. “I don’t understand…” I whispered. The transfers were real. The system showed the money leaving her account and entering mine. Every ‘birthday gift,’ every ‘clothing allowance’—it was all there, marked as completed transactions. But my balance had never changed. It was as if the money hit my account and then simply evaporated into thin air. Before I could wrap my head around the glitch, my mother’s voice turned low and dangerous. “Get on your knees.” Before I could react, she kicked the back of my calf. The pain sent me stumbling down. Then, a sharp, stinging slap across my face. I was kneeling on the porch of our million-dollar home in full view of the neighbors. “I have tried everything to raise you right,” she shouted, her voice booming so the whole street could hear. “But you are a liar and a thief. You spent your tuition on god-knows-what, and then you came here to gasprint your own mother? Everyone, look! This is what an ungrateful son looks like!” She grabbed a decorative broom from the foyer and began striking my back. A small crowd of neighbors began to gather. “Isn’t that Diane’s son? What happened?” “Spent all his tuition money, apparently. Then tried to extort her for more.” “What a shame. Diane works so hard. Some kids are just born rotten.” The crowd murmured their approval of my “discipline.” My mother’s chin lifted. She loved an audience. She loved being the righteous martyr. She hit me harder. My father stepped out, his voice a faux-whisper of sympathy. “Noah, just apologize. It breaks my heart to see you like this. Just admit you spent the money and say you’re sorry.” I looked at him. Truly looked at him. And in that moment, a jagged piece of memory slotted into place. I started to laugh. It was a cold, jagged sound that stopped my mother’s hand mid-swing. “I know,” I said, my voice echoing in the sudden silence. “I know exactly where the money went.”

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The chime of the system echoed in the hollows of my skull just as I reached the center of the living room. Only ten minutes ago, my younger sister had been sobbing in my arms, her face a mask of fragile beauty as she begged for reassurance that I wouldn’t abandon her once I was married. Now, Gilbert, my fiancé—the man who hadn’t uttered a word in the seven years I’d known him—was using his hands to shatter my world. His fingers moved with clinical precision. Your sister is pregnant. Then, the follow-up, a jagged blade of a sentence: The child is mine. I stood frozen, the air leaving my lungs in a slow, painful hiss. He reached into his pocket and produced a lab report, the DNA results confirming the biological link between him and the fetus. We did it many times while you were at work, his signs were sharp, colored with a mockery he no longer bothered to hide. We tried every position to make sure she conceived. He paused, a cruel glint in his eyes. Remember when she got sick at dinner last week? You were so sweet, rubbing her stomach to settle her nausea. You had no idea you were touching my child. He continued, his movements fluid and cold. The hospital confirmed it today. Three months. She’s fragile, Jolie. She knew the risks to her heart, but she insisted on carrying my baby anyway. He let out a silent, huffing laugh. It’s your fault, really. You didn’t watch her closely enough. Then, the killing blow: So, whether that baby lives or dies depends on just how heartless you want to be as a sister. My heart felt as though a cold, invisible hand had squeezed it until the valves began to pop. The pain was so acute I could barely breathe. They would never know. They would never understand that the “Redemption Mission” I had accepted seven years ago was meant for both of them. I was their savior, and they were my assignment. I took a shuddering breath and spoke into the silence of my mind. I’m done. Abort the mission. I choose to terminate and return home. … [Warning: Once the mission is abandoned, the world-line will revert to its original trajectory. The final fates of the target characters will be irreversible. Does the Host confirm?] Confirm. [Extraction sequence initiated. T-minus 72 hours until biological shutdown.] As the mechanical voice faded, a tidal wave of agony washed over my nervous system. I looked at the man standing before me, my throat so dry it felt like it was lined with glass. “Why?” I managed to choke out. Gilbert looked at my reddened eyes. There wasn’t a flicker of guilt on his face—only a terrifying, flat calm. He walked over to the master bedroom closet and yanked out my wedding dress. The one I had spent months designing. My eyes snagged on the fabric. There were stiff, yellowish stains across the delicate lace of the bodice. I had sewn every bead onto that dress. Every stitch had been a prayer for our future. You were always working late, his hands signed, nonchalant. You left Maisie and me alone in this house. Fire was inevitable. Our bodies fit together in a way yours never did. He took his time, savoring the destruction. Maisie is young. She’s… adventurous. She would cry and say she was sorry to her big sister, but then she would wrap herself around me and wouldn’t let go. We did it on this dress, Jolie. Over and over again. I stared at him. The face was the same one I had loved for nearly a decade, but I couldn’t recognize the soul behind it anymore. I’ve told you everything now, Gilbert continued. You’re her sister. You’re my fiancée. You’re supposed to be the “big” person here. You should accept us. He seemed certain I would bow my head. He expected me to cave, just as I had a thousand times before. After all, our wedding—the day we had supposedly dreamed of for seven years—was only two weeks away. I swallowed the metallic taste of blood rising in my throat and looked him dead in the eye. “The wedding is off.” I said it clearly. No tremor. No hesitation. Gilbert’s expression darkened instantly. The invitations are out, he signed aggressively. Don’t start acting like a martyr now. Maisie is carrying my child. We’re a family. The three of us. Family. The word felt like a joke. When I first arrived in this world, the system told me the predetermined ending if I failed. Once I left, the erasure protocol would trigger within three days. Without my “redemption,” Gilbert would spiral back into his dark, obsessive psychosis and eventually be butchered in an alley by the creditors he owed. Maisie, deprived of the expensive care I provided, would suffer a fatal heart failure. Seven years. I had exhausted every system point, nearly traded my own life to pull these two out of the abyss and into the light. The progress bar was at 99%. I was one step away. After the wedding, they would have been “saved,” and I would have earned a lifetime of peace. And yet, they chose this moment to gut me. “Why now?” I gritted my teeth. “Why wait until now to tell me?” Gilbert’s face remained a mask of indifference. Maisie’s bump is starting to show. She needs status. Besides… He paused, his hands slowing down. Who else is going to want a woman who can’t even get pregnant? The truth hit me like a physical blow. He let out a sharp, mocking breath. You’re the one who forced your way into my life, Jolie. You don’t get to decide when it ends. You don’t have the right. I looked at the face I had adored and felt nothing but a profound, sickening sense of the absurd. Memories flashed like a strobe light. The first time I met Gilbert—he was a shut-in, drowning in silence and trauma. I spent nights learning ASL, endured the whispers and the laughter of his peers just to stay by his side. I was the one who reached into the mud and pulled him out. Then there was Maisie. Our parents, dying in the wreckage of a car crash, had pressed her into my arms with their final breaths. They begged me to save her—the sister with the failing heart. I had spent countless nights carrying her into ERs, signing consent form after consent form, dragging her back from the brink of death. Back then, Gilbert filled sketchbooks with thousands of portraits of me. He signed oaths that I was his only salvation. Maisie used to wait up for me until midnight, her thin, fragile frame making my heart ache with a protective ferocity. I had loved them more than my own life. To fund his galleries, to buy her imported heart medication, I had worked myself into the ground. I had worked through stomach hemorrhages; I had pushed myself so hard the doctors told me my body was too stressed to ever carry a child. I didn’t care. Not then. But I never imagined the people I saved would be the ones to push me off the cliff. It was almost poetic. They had spent seven years sharpening the blade, waiting for the perfect moment to slide it between my ribs. “Gilbert, you disgust me.” My eyes were raw, but my gaze was steady. For a second, he flinched at the sheer finality in my look. I disgust you? His brow furrowed, looking at me like a temperamental child. If you had just been obedient, we could have gone on like always. He pulled his phone from his pocket and swiped through a few photos before shoving the screen in my face. They were private photos. Intimate. Explicit. Photos of me taken while I was sleeping or in moments I thought were private. He scrolled, a cruel curve touching his lips. Think about how the board at your firm would react if they saw these. What would the world think of the “Saintly Jolie” then? “Give me that!” I lunged for the phone, my heart hammering. I gave you a chance, Jolie. You pushed me. Before I could reach him, his thumb tapped the screen. The whoosh of an outgoing message echoed in the silent room. Then, my own phone began to explode. Notifications, group chat pings, DMs—a digital wildfire. Gilbert looked down at me from his height. Now that your career is dead, what else can you do but marry me? Be a good girl. Close the deal. And maybe at night, you can listen through the walls to how a real woman sounds. Seven years of blood, sweat, and tears—my entire career, my reputation—gone in a single click. I collapsed onto the hardwood floor, a high-pitched ringing in my ears. “Gilbert… everything I did… the career, the money… it was all for you.” He turned his back on me, his fingers moving one last time. That was your choice. Nobody told you to be a martyr. He locked the door from the outside, leaving me in the dark. The silence was absolute. A dull, heavy throb began in my chest. I could feel my life force—the “Host energy”—slowly leaking out of my pores. Three days. Just a few more dozen hours, and I’d be back in my own world. I sat there on the floor all night. When the gray morning light finally bled through the curtains, the door clicked open. Maisie walked in. She looked pale, her beauty delicate and ethereal. She shot a timid look at Gilbert in the hallway before dropping to her knees in front of me. “Jolie, please… don’t be mad at Gilbert.” Her eyes went red instantly, tears spilling down her cheeks like perfect pearls. “It’s my fault. All of it. You’ve always taken care of me, you’ve always loved me most. Please, just forgive me this one time.” She reached out with a thin, trembling hand to touch my sleeve. I recoiled, pulling away from her touch. Her hand froze in mid-air. She didn’t look embarrassed, only deeply, performatively sad. “I’m so sick, Jolie. And I was so lonely.” As I looked at her “innocent” face, I saw my parents’ dying eyes. I saw her hooked up to an oxygen mask, begging me not to leave her. I had sworn at their graves that I would protect her from everything. I didn’t realize I was the one she needed protecting from. I watched her performance in icy silence. My lack of reaction started to crack her mask. She looked up, and for a second, the spite leaked through. “Why can’t you just share, Jolie? You have everything. A healthy body, a glittering career… everyone loves you. But look at me! I’m broken! I can’t even run or jump like a normal person!” Her voice rose, her thin frame shaking. “I just wanted a piece of warmth for myself! Is that so wrong? You can still be his wife. I just want to be with you both. Why do you have to be so dramatic?” She was using “love” as a weapon to justify the theft of my life. She honestly believed my “intolerance” was the problem. I stood up, refusing to look at her for another second. “Maisie, you’re both pathetic. And you’re both filthy.” The words hit her like a slap. Her eyes widened, and her face suddenly turned a terrifying shade of purple. She began to gasp, her hands clawing at her chest. “Jolie… why… it hurts… Gilbert! Help me!” Gilbert burst into the room, lunging past me to catch her before she hit the floor. A sound broke from his throat—a strangled, guttural sob. The man who was mute by choice was finally making noise, and it was for her. He held her against his chest, his eyes filled with a terrifying, overflowing agony. He looked at me, his hand signing with a violent, jagged speed. Did you have to push her? She’s your sister! How can you be so cold? For a split second, my muscle memory took over. I moved to grab her emergency medication from the nightstand. But I stopped. The sister I had sacrificed everything for was cradled in the arms of the man I was supposed to marry. The absurdity of it finally broke me. I stood there, paralyzed, as the sirens of an ambulance began to wail in the distance, cutting through the quiet morning. At the hospital, the ER doctor handed over a critical notice. Acute heart failure brought on by severe emotional stress. She needed an immediate transfusion and stabilization, or she wouldn’t last the night. The hospital’s blood bank was low on her rare type. We were sisters. We shared the same blood. In the past, I had considered that bond my greatest blessing. Gilbert grabbed my wrist, dragging me toward the donation room. Give her your blood. Save her. His grip was like iron. It’s your responsibility. You’re her sister. You can’t just watch her die. The nurse approached with a thick needle. I fought them, kicking and screaming, trying to wrench my arm free. “Let me go! Don’t touch me!” But Gilbert stepped closer, pinning my shoulders down against the chair. He was incredibly strong, and he used his weight to crush me into the seat until I couldn’t move. The needle slid into my vein. My struggle only resulted in a smear of red across the vinyl. My warm blood began to flow through the tube, destined for Maisie. As the bags filled, the world began to dim. The room spun. And then, a sharp, white-hot cramp bloomed deep in my abdomen. It felt like a hand was inside me, tearing at my insides. I went pale, cold sweat soaking my hair. The nurse noticed something was wrong and stopped the flow, calling for a doctor. After a series of frantic tests, the doctor looked at me with profound pity. “Ms. Harold, you were nearly two months pregnant.” My brain went numb. “You were already severely dehydrated and exhausted. The stress and the forced blood draw… it triggered a miscarriage. I’m so sorry. We couldn’t save the pregnancy.” The words were a thunderclap. I stared at the ceiling, a single, hot tear tracking down my temple. I was pregnant. The one thing I thought was impossible had happened quietly, a tiny miracle growing in the middle of a nightmare. And before I even knew he existed, he had been sacrificed to save his aunt. His own father had held me down while they drained the life out of us both. I don’t remember the surgery. Afterward, I stood by the window of my hospital room, barefoot on the cold floor. The wind blew through the open pane, tossing my hair, but my mind had never been clearer. My heart was gone. It had been shredded along with that tiny life. The door opened. Gilbert pushed Maisie in a wheelchair. With my blood in her veins, her color had returned. She looked refreshed. “Jolie, don’t be too sad,” Maisie said, her voice a sugary silk. “Some things just aren’t meant to be. You couldn’t keep him… maybe he just didn’t belong to you. But it’s okay! My baby is strong. I can have this child for all of us.” She reached out to pat my hand with her faux-sympathy. I jerked away, my skin crawling. Gilbert watched my cold reaction and let out a long, weary sigh. You can’t blame Maisie for this, he signed. Your body was always too weak to carry a child. It happened. Now, just focus on being an aunt to Maisie’s baby. We can still be— “Gilbert, you are a monster.” Every drop of blood in me felt like ice. “You think I’m going to help you raise your mistake? You think that can replace what you just killed?” The last of his patience snapped. He stepped forward, grabbing my jaw, forcing me to look into his dark, violent eyes. A bunch of cells? You’re going to mourn that? You couldn’t even satisfy me in bed, Jolie. You think you’d be a good mother? Maisie is giving you a gift by letting you be part of this. Be grateful. Seven years of soul-crushing “redemption.” Seven years of guarding their lives with my own. It ended in a hospital room with a man’s hand on my throat and my sister’s smile. I didn’t have the strength to argue anymore. The anger evaporated, leaving only a hollow, black void. I didn’t owe them a single breath. The system’s voice chimed one last time. [Detection: Host Despair Level at 100%. Extraction sequence finalized. Protocol: Immediate.] I stepped onto the windowsill. I looked back one last time at the two of them, their faces finally shifting from arrogance to a sudden, piercing terror. They lunged for me, screaming my name. I closed my eyes and let myself fall backward into the light.

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When we were taking photos in the snow, my boyfriend suddenly gave me a shoulder throw just to make his high school crush smile. “Just a joke! Look at your silly face, haha!” That day, his crush gave her most beautiful smile, while I broke my right arm and could never hold a scalpel again. Later, he was diagnosed with a rare disease, and the only doctor in the country who could perform the necessary surgery was me. The moment he threw me over his shoulder to please his crush, he threw his own life away. 01 It rarely snowed heavily in Seattle. After lunch, a few colleagues and I were strolling around the hospital grounds when we bumped into Audrey Miller taking photos of the snow. Back in medical school, she was famously known as the “Ice Queen”—her personality even colder than the surgical scalpels she wielded. She had never smiled. She was the goddess of many underclassmen and upperclassmen alike. “Dr. Miller!” A male colleague called out to her, handing her a coffee to warm her hands. “It’s freezing out here. Why are you all by yourself?” “Thanks, I don’t like crowds.” Audrey turned away indifferently, her pale skin looking as if it had been dusted with a thin layer of frost in the sunlight. Everyone wanted to take a group photo under a tree, so I pulled out my phone to act as the photographer. Bending over to find the right angle and distance, I counted down with my fingers: “Three, two…” On the last second of the countdown, a rush of wind swept past my ear. My boyfriend, Noah Davis, appeared out of nowhere. Laughing loudly, he hoisted me up while I was bent over and brutally slammed me down with a shoulder throw, right shoulder first! Thud! “Look at your silly face, hahaha!” I sank deep into the snow. The impact against the tree trunk hidden beneath the snow caused the branches to tremble slightly, sending a flurry of snowflakes drifting down like a fairy tale. For the first time ever, Audrey broke into a radiant smile, stunning everyone. 02 Why did Noah do this to me? Did he deliberately humiliate me just to coax a smile out of Audrey? What did I do wrong? My brain was completely blank for a few seconds. By the time the feelings of grievance and anger surged up, I realized my entire right shoulder was numb. I had completely lost feeling in my right arm, and when I tried to speak, only a sob came out. “Help…” “Wow, Audrey, this photo of you is so beautiful! I’ve known you for seven years and this is the first time I’ve seen you smile!” Noah had snatched my phone and was enthusiastically showing the photo to everyone like he was presenting a treasure. “Yeah, Dr. Miller, you really should smile more. You’re so beautiful!” “Noah, hurry up and help your girlfriend up. How could you do that?” Noah laughed, saying it was fine, and crouched down to dig me out of the snow. “Chloe’s a prankster offline too. We’re always messing with each other like bros. She’s fine…” His words came to a screeching halt when he met my dull, lifeless eyes. Digging further, he saw my unnaturally twisted right arm and immediately panicked. 03 “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Chloe! I was just joking with you…” My right shoulder had been pierced by a tree root, bleeding profusely. I was rushed into the ER. The Chief of Surgery and the Vice President of the hospital, who had just gotten off a grueling shift, both turned pale when they saw me and hurried in one after another to assist in the emergency operation. Noah gripped my left hand tightly, the corners of his eyes red. He wiped the snowflakes off my face over and over again, trembling uncontrollably in a panic. He was stopped outside the operating room. In the last second before the doors closed, I looked at him calmly and said one word: “Get lost.” 04 When I woke up in my hospital room, Audrey was asking the nurse about my medication from the previous night. The room was filled with a cloying scent. The sickly sweet smell of her floral essential oil even overpowered the smell of disinfectant. Next to my pillow was Audrey’s phone, the screen still illuminated. She had posted that group snow photo on her Instagram. Noah was the first to like and comment: [You really should smile more. You look beautiful when you smile.] I stared blankly for a few seconds. My gaze then fell on the medical chart next to the phone. Whether out of carelessness or malice, my chart had been casually tossed there by Audrey. I’m a surgeon too; I understand what the chart says. My right hand would never be able to hold a scalpel again. 05 The sound of pages turning was exceptionally loud. Audrey glanced back at me, coldly snatched the chart away, and didn’t say a word. Even though we went to the same med school and now worked in the same hospital, we weren’t close. Audrey rarely talked to men, and she completely ignored women. We had nothing to say to each other. “Is Chloe awake? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Noah’s voice shattered the silence of the hospital room. He had just come off an all-night surgery. His handsome face was covered in sweat. His tall frame cautiously approached the bed, and he grasped my hand through the blanket. “I really just wanted to joke around with you. I’m sorry, Chloe.” “I’ve already called your mom and dad. Don’t worry!” “…You just have a fracture. We’ll do a minor surgery in a few days. Our Chief of Surgery will operate personally, and I’ll be there too. Your right hand will definitely recover!” Noah’s voice trembled at the end. Like a lost, helpless child, he kept his head down, stroking my fingers over and over again. Seeing that I wasn’t speaking, he gave a stiff smile and tremblingly pulled a velvet box from his pocket. “Oh right, look at my memory! Actually, yesterday, I wanted to propose to you.” 06 I hadn’t noticed when Audrey slipped out of the room. Noah’s eyes were burning with intensity, looking at me with deep affection: “Seattle has never seen such beautiful snow. I wanted to take advantage of it to propose to you… I wanted to make you mad first and then surprise you. You know, like the videos online. I really was just joking! I’m an idiot, I’m so stupid, I promise there won’t be a next time!” But inside the box was a very ordinary ring, showing no signs of careful preparation. Did he expect me to believe him? Noah grabbed my numb right hand: “Marry me, Chloe.” The silence in the room was terrifying. It felt like I could hear every single drop of IV fluid falling into the chamber. Suddenly, I laughed. Noah visibly let out a sigh of relief. He eagerly pressed his cheek into my palm, nuzzling it like a puppy trying to act cute and seek forgiveness. “Look at your silly face.” I used my uninjured left hand to grab his hair, my eyes turning icy cold: “You’re still thinking about proposing at a time like this? Go to the police station and make a statement first. You’ve committed assault.” “You made me angry just to propose? Stop making excuses for your mistakes. At that moment, you only wanted to humiliate me to make your goddess smile. Do you think I’m stupid?” “Furthermore, the people you should be apologizing to the most are my patients. They waited so long for a chance to have surgery. The highly specialized procedure they need can only be performed by me and our 96-year-old retired professor in the entire country. Now that my hand is ruined, who’s going to help them?” 07 Noah opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, so overwhelmed by guilt after his lie was exposed that he couldn’t speak. The quiet room was left to me alone. The water stains on the ceiling, caused by the melting snow, were slowly spreading, much like my own future—lost and without direction. I closed my eyes, and the hopeful faces of my patients quickly flashed through my mind. How was I going to explain this to them? “Noah, honestly, this isn’t your fault. No one can predict accidents. Chloe is just a young girl, she needs a bit more coaxing. She’ll be fine once she thinks it through.” Hearing the voice, my eyes snapped open. Audrey was standing outside my room, consoling Noah. “I guess this is why I don’t like getting close to anyone. I could never take my anger out on innocent people. Should you unconditionally blame your boyfriend just because he’s your boyfriend? I really look down on women who throw unreasonable tantrums like that.” I thought I was hallucinating. What kind of nonsense was Audrey spouting? Noah sighed heavily, his voice hoarse: “You’re right, Audrey. I understand what you mean. Regardless, I’ll take all the blame. I love her, and I can’t be as clear-headed and rational as you.” “You care about Chloe a lot too, don’t you? Staying here in the room to keep an eye on her. I thank you on her behalf. You should go back and get some rest.” Through the gaps in the blinds, I could vaguely see Audrey standing in front of Noah. Noah helplessly rubbed his face, and finally, with a reverent and gentle motion, he leaned against Audrey— “Thank you, Audrey.” … Expressionless, I picked up the phone: “Hello, 911? I was maliciously assaulted by a male colleague, and I suspect attempted murder!” 08 Noah and I met in college. If there was anything about him that won my heart, it was probably his sincerity—his ultimate weapon. He held nothing back with me and always took my side unconditionally, like a silly, clumsy puppy that loved wagging its tail at its owner. I didn’t have to question his true feelings; I just needed to slowly teach him how to love, how to navigate a relationship… But now, I no longer wanted to accompany a boy as he grew up. He could give his heart to me, but his soul would always lean toward that sacred, pure goddess. He made me sick. My parents rushed to the police station. After learning what happened, they strongly supported my decision. What kind of joke involves executing a flawless shoulder throw on your girlfriend without hesitation? He destroyed my future. And he had the audacity to blatantly lie to my parents afterward: He claimed I accidentally slipped in the hospital and injured my arm. 09 Faced with all my accusations, Noah didn’t say a single word in his defense and accepted whatever punishment was coming. In the end, it was the Hospital President and the Chief of Surgery who stepped forward to mediate, hoping the situation wouldn’t blow up. Noah would face an indefinite suspension, and lawyers would negotiate a financial settlement out of court, all to avoid jail time and protect the hospital’s reputation. Moreover, my 96-year-old mentor was hospitalized and in a coma, and no one wanted to agitate the old man with a massive scandal. An out-of-court settlement was fine. Noah had better get his money ready. The hospital quickly arranged for my surgery, telling me to focus solely on recovering my right hand and not to worry about anything else. But on my very first day hospitalized, a huge argument erupted at the nurses’ station over mandatory overtime. With two surgeons out of commission, all schedules and surgeries had to be reshuffled, drastically increasing everyone’s workload. Audrey, passing by during her rounds, stopped in front of the nurses’ station and said coldly: “Complaining won’t solve anything. You nurses are tired, but aren’t the doctors tired too?” “It was clearly just an accident. It’s Dr. Williams throwing a tantrum and escalating the situation that caused her boyfriend to be suspended. You can’t blame anyone else.” “Don’t mind me being blunt; I’m just telling the truth.” 10 The staff at the nurses’ station were stunned. Not having been at the scene, not knowing the full story, and hearing this from Audrey—the usually aloof “goddess” who hated gossip—made her words naturally convincing. Audrey turned to leave, but I quickly rushed up and grabbed her wrist— “Dr. Miller, if you have something to say, say it directly instead of making passive-aggressive remarks. What do you mean I escalated the situation?” “Let’s get this straight: I am the victim here! If it were any of you, and your boyfriend threw you for no reason, fracturing your arm so badly you could never hold a scalpel again, and then tried to pass it off as ‘just a joke’ or ‘an accident,’ wouldn’t you be angry? Wouldn’t you demand accountability? If not, you must be actual saints!” The nurses’ expressions shifted. I pulled up the group photo and placed my phone on the desk: “Dr. Miller was there when it happened. When Noah threw me, you smiled more radiantly than ever! What were you thinking? Were you really that happy?” Audrey swayed slightly, her teeth biting hard into her lower lip, the color draining from her face. Just as she was about to speak, a strong force suddenly pushed me away from behind. Noah stepped between us, shielding Audrey behind him. “Chloe, Audrey doesn’t understand these petty squabbles between women! Just drop it. Everything that happened is my fault.”

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