How Does Dead Simple End?

After catching my supposedly frigid wife, Emmy Winslow, aroused by our household robot butler, I swallowed my disgust and sent the machine to a destruction facility. I never expected that decision to cost her life. On the way to chase after the robot, Emmy was involved in a horrific car accident and died at the scene. From that day on, I became notorious in our social circle as the jealous husband who drove his wife to her death. Five years passed. Night after night, I tortured myself by wondering if she would still be alive had I not been so petty over a machine. Until today, while discussing business at a private club, I passed a half-open VIP suite and heard one of Emmy's closest friends teasing her. "Emmy, how much longer are you planning to keep up this fake-death act?" A familiar voice answered, one I could never mistake, that was tinged with indulgence and amusement. "As soon as Corbin Ellery's heart condition is cured. Back then, if Grayson hadn't insisted on sending the butler to the destruction plant, Corbin wouldn't have needed to pretend his system malfunctioned. And I wouldn't have had to fake my death to help him disappear completely." Another friend clicked her tongue. "Still, nobody expected you to go this far. Having Corbin wear a custom synthetic skin suit and pose as a robot butler right under your husband's nose all those years? That's insane." Fake death? Corbin? The blood drained from my face. The woman I had mourned for five years was alive. And the robot that had stirred her desire had never been a robot at all. It was my closest friend. A passing server accidentally slammed into me, sending a tray crashing to the floor. The conversation inside stopped instantly. Emmy turned toward the doorway, and our eyes met.

Sera Quinn had one job. Marry a dying man, keep her head down, and wait. Nobody told her that Damien Voss did not die on anyone's schedule but his own. She was twenty two years old when her stepfather sat her down at the kitchen table and explained her options. Her mother was sick. The bills were swallowing everything. And the most powerful billionaire in the country was lying unconscious in a private hospital ward with his family desperate enough to pay a small fortune to any woman willing to stand beside him at the altar. All Sera had to do was say yes. She said yes. She had no other word left. She moved into his mansion and tried to be invisible. She talked to him in the dark of his room every night because there was nobody else and because she was sure he could not hear her. She told him things she had never told anyone. She told him she was scared. She told him she was pregnant. Then she overheard four words that changed everything and she ran before the sun came up. Four years later she had rebuilt herself from nothing. A career. A spine. Twin children with their father's eyes. A case file she had been building alone, one quiet hour at a time, that connected a road barrier report to a name that would put people in prison. She had one rule. Stay away from Damien Voss. Then her four year old daughter hacked into his private server and left him a message. Damien was already in his car before Sera found out what her daughter had done. He was not coming to talk. And Sera Quinn was finally done running.

On Mom's death anniversary, drug dealers break into the cemetery and take me away. To get revenge on my brother, Zack Smith—a forensic pathologist—they torture me until there isn't even a single uninjured spot left on my body. I hold on for almost three days, barely surviving, until I finally get a chance to call him for help. However, Zack replied, "Why didn't they kill you for good? A jinx like you who killed your own mother shouldn't be allowed to live!" When the drug dealers notice my action, they shatter all of my bones. The next day, a janitor discovers several large bags of human remains in the trash can. Zack painstakingly reassembles my body back together with his own hands—yet he fails to recognize that it's me, his younger sister he always claims to hate. When the drug dealers are finally arrested, he descends into madness.

In the fifth year of my marriage, I died in my sleep. However, I was born with a strange ability. Every time I died, I would come back to life at the exact moment before my last death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at 11:11 p.m. on the night I died. Unable to find the killer, I became trapped in an endless loop. The second time, I stayed up all night trying to catch whoever was behind it, but found nothing. The moment I let my guard down during the day and closed my eyes, I died instantly. The third time, I refused to believe it and had my husband, Emmett Berkeley, lock the bedroom and seal the windows. I still died the next day. The fourth time, I stayed alone in the bedroom, forcing myself to stay awake for three days straight to find the killer. By the third day, I couldn’t hold on any longer. My vision went black, and I died again. By the fifth time, I had gone insane. Right in front of Emmett, I grinned and hacked something to death. Blood splattered across the entire wall. Looking at Emmett trembling in the corner, I licked the blood from my lips and smiled faintly. "Honey, don’t you love me? Help me take the fall, okay?" The man who used to love me deeply pointed at me in horror, screaming, "Y-you found out… You knew, didn’t you…?"

I've chosen to participate in a death game. As long as I can escape from the murderer's killing spree in ten time loops, I'll be able to win at least 100 billion dollars. In the first loop, I have my apartment refurbished into a bank vault. Still, the killer is able to bust down my front door. In the second loop, I hide in the ceiling crawlspace. Yet, the killer is quick to locate me immediately, as though he knew where I was, to begin with. In the third loop, I finally realize that something's definitely fishy…

After I resign from my job as a forensic pathologist and return to my rural hometown to enjoy a laidback, leisurely life, I feel totally at peace. In contrast, my boyfriend's childhood sweetheart, Jessica Lester, starts panicking for real. She keeps begging me to stay. "Dr. Gardner, even though you're not that talented, I still hope you can stand beside me and speak up for those who have died unjustly!" I roll my eyes coolly and leave without looking back. In my previous life, Jessica is an intern put under my care. But every time we conduct an autopsy, she watches from the side but somehow manages to describe the victim's experiences before death ahead of me. She even uses wording that is identical to what I am thinking. I cannot make sense of it. In later autopsies, I give everything and go all out to prove myself, but even when she is not present, she can still iterate my findings at length. From then on, everyone idolizes her. Meanwhile, I become a laughingstock even if I am the most authoritative forensic expert in the state. Later on, the enraged family members of victims come to my doorstep every day. They lambast me and say that I am unworthy of being a forensic pathologist. They eventually set my house on fire, and I die miserably in the flames. When I open my eyes again, I return to the day I take Jessica to her first autopsy.