Chapter 1: My Fiancé Killed Me

The first thing I saw on my wedding day was my fiancé kissing my twin brother, and the second thing I heard was the two of them planning my death.

“Once John is dead, everything will finally be ours,” Samuel Smith whispered, and I froze outside the hotel room with my heart hammering against my ribs.

Samuel was my twin brother, and Michael Wales was the man I had loved for three years and was supposed to marry in less than two hours, yet the two of them were kissing as though I had never existed.

“Are you sure he suspects nothing?” Michael asked.

Samuel laughed. “John trusts me completely, and he’s too busy preparing for his perfect wedding to notice anything.”

The gift box in my hand suddenly felt heavy, because I had bought Michael an expensive wristwatch as a wedding present and had wanted to surprise him with it before the ceremony, and what a fool I had been to think I was walking toward a man who loved me.

“And after today?” Michael asked.

Samuel’s smile disappeared. “If John discovers our affair, we kill him before he can expose us.”

The box slipped from my fingers and hit the floor, and both men turned toward the door at the same time.

For several seconds nobody spoke, until Michael finally sighed and said my name as if I were an inconvenience he had hoped to avoid.

“John.”

I stared at him, waiting for an explanation that would make the world make sense again. “Tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”

He said nothing, so I turned to Samuel instead. “You’re my brother.”

“And you’re always the victim,” he snapped. “Everything has always been about you, even Michael, whom you never deserved.”

I could hardly believe the words coming out of his mouth. “You slept with my fiancé!”

“And what will you do about it?” Samuel challenged.

I looked at Michael, desperate for him to deny everything, but he only shrugged and said, “You weren’t supposed to find out today,” and something inside me broke so completely that I almost heard it.

“I’m calling off the wedding,” I said, and I turned to leave, but Samuel caught my arm while Michael crossed the room and locked the door behind me.

“Let me go!” I shouted as my heart began to race, but Samuel shoved me against the table and leaned close enough for me to smell his cologne.

“You should have stayed ignorant, John.”

He pulled a knife from his pocket, and I stared at the blade, unable to believe that the boy who had shared my childhood bed was about to use it on me.

“Samuel, please, I’m your brother.”

“And you’ve been in my way since the day we were born.”

He stabbed me, and pain exploded through my stomach so violently that my knees gave out and I collapsed to the floor, reaching desperately for Michael with a hand that was already slick with blood.

He only watched me bleed.

“Why?” I whispered.

He crouched beside me with an expression colder than anything I had ever seen on his face. “Because loving you was never part of the plan.”

Tears blurred my vision as I watched my brother stand beside my fiancé, the two of them looking down at me like a problem that was almost solved, and Samuel picked up the gift box from the floor and opened it with a satisfied smile.

“Beautiful watch,” he remarked. “Thank you, brother.”

I wanted to curse him and I wanted to fight, but my body refused to obey me, and the last thing I saw was Michael checking his new watch.

“The wedding starts in forty minutes,” he said. “Let’s clean this up.”

Then everything went black.

⸻

[LIFE SIGNS FADING.]

A cold, emotionless voice echoed inside my head, and it was followed almost immediately by another message that settled over me like a verdict.

[DEATH CONFIRMED.]

So this was how I died, murdered by the two people I had trusted most in the world, and if I could only live again, I swore I would make them pay for every second of it.

[UNKNOWN ENERGY DETECTED.]

[RECONSTRUCTING HOST CONSCIOUSNESS.]

I gasped and my eyes flew open, and I immediately grabbed my stomach, only to find that there was no wound and no blood, and that I was somehow alive.

I scrambled off the bed and stared at the mirror, where my face looked pale but showed no sign of the injuries that had killed me, and then I grabbed my phone and saw the date glowing on the screen: October 22, my wedding day, the same day I had died.

“No way,” I whispered.

A translucent screen suddenly appeared before my eyes.

[REVENGE SYSTEM ACTIVATED.]

[HOST IDENTIFIED: JOHN SMITH.]

[WELCOME BACK, HOST.]

I stumbled backward. “What are you?”

The screen remained unchanged and simply continued to deliver its orders.

[MAIN MISSION UNLOCKED: SURVIVE YOUR SECOND LIFE.]

[REWARD: INITIAL ATTRIBUTE POINTS.]

[FAILURE: PERMANENT DEATH.]

Before I could ask another question, a new warning slid across my vision and turned my blood cold.

[APOCALYPSE COUNTDOWN: 72 HOURS.]

The apocalypse, I thought, and I could not understand what a disaster like that had to do with a man who had just been murdered by his own family.

A knock interrupted my thoughts. “John, baby?” Michael called from outside. “Open the door.”

My fingers curled into fists, because in my previous life I would have smiled at the sound of his voice, while now I wanted nothing more than to tear his heart out of his chest.

“Your brother is here too,” Michael continued. “We need to talk before the ceremony.”

I walked toward the door and then stopped, because a new system notification had appeared in front of me.

[WARNING: ONE VISITOR IS CARRYING A WEAPON.]

My breath caught, and on the other side of the door Samuel laughed lightly, as though he had never held a knife in his life.

“Come on, John, we’re family.”

I stared at the doorknob as it slowly began to turn, promising myself that this time I would not die, but the moment the door swung open the system flashed red and filled the air with a final warning.

[EMERGENCY ALERT: HOST, DO NOT TRUST THE PERSON STANDING BEFORE YOU.]