I came back to life choking.
Air slammed into my lungs as if I'd been underwater for too long. My body jerked upright, a broken gasp tearing out of my throat. It hurts not the pain of death but the echo of it.
My hands flew to my chest.
No wound and no blood.
Just a frantic heartbeat pounding against my ribs.
I froze.
The bed beneath me was soft. Too soft. Silk sheets tangled around my legs, warm and real. The air smelled faintly of incense, nothing like the damp, metallic scent of the room where I had died.
This isn't hell, I thought wildly.
And it isn't heaven either.I slowly looked around.
Tall windows. Heavy curtains. A chandelier dimmed to near darkness. Everything screamed wealth control power.
I slowly got out of the bed.
My legs felt weak, as if they didn't fully belong to me yet. The cold floor sent a shiver through my body as I walked toward the window, my mind still trapped in the last moments I remembered.
The rain. The darkness. The knife!!
I pressed my forehead lightly against the glass and closed my eyes.
Was it all a bad dream?
A nightmare my mind created?
I tried to replay everything his shadowed figure, the sound of rain, the calm in his voice as he stood in front of me. My chest tightened.
I opened my eyes.
The view outside the window made my breath catch.The roads were different.
The narrow street I remembered was gone. In its place stretched a wider road, clean and unfamiliar. Many of the houses that once stood there had vanished completely. New buildings rose where memories should have been.
This wasn't the world I remembered.
My heart dropped painfully.
"What… is this?" I whispered.
My hands trembled as I leaned closer to the glass, scanning the surroundings desperately, hoping I was mistaken hoping my eyes were lying to me.
They weren't.
Panic crept into my chest, heavy and suffocating. I couldn't understand what was happening to me. Nothing made sense. Not the room. Not my body. Not the world outside.
Then something caught my eye.
I stepped closer to the window.
And what I saw next made my blood run cold.
The girl staring back at me wasn't the woman who had just died.
She was younger.Her face was softer, untouched by exhaustion and pain. Her eyes were clearer, brighter eyes that hadn't yet learned how cruel the world could be.
My breath caught painfully in my throat.
That was me.
Eight years younger.
My hands slowly lifted, and the reflection copied me perfectly. The truth sank in, heavy and terrifying.
"This… isn't possible," I whispered.
My legs gave way, and I stepped back from the window, my heart racing wildly. Nothing made sense. The room, the world outside, my body everything felt wrong.
With shaking fingers, I pressed my hand against my chest.
There was no wound, no pain, no blood.
Only smooth skin beneath my palm.
Relief flickered inside me brief and fragile.
Then my fingers brushed over something faint.
A mark.
Right over my heart.
I lowered my gaze, my breath uneven. It was barely visible, pale against my skin but I recognized it instantly.
The exact place where the knife had pierced me.My throat tightened.
A mark without a wound.
A scar without a memory this body should have.Tears blurred my vision as the truth finally settled in.
I hadn't imagined my death.
I hadn't dreamed it.
I had returned to my own past carrying the proof of how I died.
I looked around the room again.I knew this room.My gaze fell to my left hand.
A ring caught the low light.
Silver. Simple. Familiar.
My breath shattered.
"No…" I whispered.
While I was thinking all this.
The door opened softly behind me.
I stiffened. I didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
"You're awake already?"
His voice was gentle nothing like the one I remembered from the night I died. There was warmth in it. Familiarity. Concern.
I closed my eyes for a brief second before turning.
He stood just inside the room, dressed casually, his hair slightly messy as if he had rushed in without fixing it. The faint light from the window finally touched his face. He is holding a cup of coffee in his hand.
"Here is your morning coffee mam!" He said.
While handing over cup of coffee to me.
But I was staring at him.
The face I had once loved more than myself.
Last night,this last night,we had gotten engaged.
I remembered it clearly now.
The ring and his smile.
The way he had held my hands and promised me a future.
My chest tightened painfully.
He took a step toward me. "You left the bed so suddenly. Did you have a bad dream?"
A bad dream.If only it had been that simple.
I nodded too quickly. "Yes. I just… couldn't sleep."
He frowned slightly. His hands wrapped around my waist.
"You never wake up this early," he said. "Especially after a night like yesterday."
Yesterday.
The happiest night of my life.
The night I had believed everything was finally going to be okay.
He leaned down.....then stopped when I subtly stepped back.
The movement was small.
But he noticed.
His hand froze in the air.
"…What's wrong?" he asked quietly.
Nothing. Everything.
"I'm fine," I replied, forcing a smile that felt stiff on my face. "Just tired."
He studied me carefully now, his eyes searching my face as if trying to read something written between my expressions.
"You're acting strange," he said. Not accusing. Just confused. "You wouldn't even let go of my hand last night."
My fingers curled unconsciously at my side.
Last night, I had loved him without fear.
This morning, I was standing in front of the man who would one day kill me.
He stepped closer again, his voice dropping. "Did I do something?"
The question caught me off guard.
For a moment, I almost laughed.
You killed me, my mind screamed.
Instead, I shook my head. "No. Of course not."
His gaze softened but the confusion didn't fade.
He lifted his hand slowly this time, giving me enough space to pull away.
When his fingers brushed mine, my body tensed before I could stop it.
The warmth of his touch sent a chill through me.
He felt it.He pulled back instantly.
His eyes darkened not with anger, but with something far more dangerous.
Suspicion.
"You're scared," he said quietly.
I forced myself to meet his eyes.
"I'm just overwhelmed," I whispered. "Everything happened so fast."
He held my gaze for a long moment.
He started moving toward me.
Slowly.
His eyes never left mine, as if he was trying to read something hidden deep inside me. My heart began to race, panic tightening my chest.
I took a step back.
Then another.
"Wait—" I whispered, but the word barely left my lips.
My foot hit the edge of the bed.
I lost my balance and fell back onto the mattress, the breath knocked out of me. Before I could even process what was happening, his weight followed careful, controlled as he braced himself above me.
My pulse thundered in my ears.
His hands came to my waist instinctively, steadying me. The touch was warm. Familiar.
Too familiar.
Then, in one smooth movement, he shifted, rolling us gently until I was above him instead, my palms pressed against his chest.
I froze.
He looked up at me, eyes dark not dangerous, not cruel.
Just… in love.
His hand rose slowly, giving me time to pull away.
I didn't.
He leaned up and pressed a soft kiss to my lips.
It wasn't rushed.
It wasn't forceful.
Just the kind of kiss we had shared countless times before full of trust.
Then another, brushing my cheek.
Then my jaw.
Then he lowered his face to the curve of my neck, resting his forehead there, breathing me in like I was his safe place.
My vision blurred.
I clenched my jaw, holding back tears that burned behind my eyes.
Because in this moment
He was innocent.
This man didn't know the future.
Didn't know what he would become.
Didn't know what he would do to me.
His arms tightened slightly around my waist, protective, familiar.
"I love you," he murmured softly, like it was the easiest truth in the world.
My chest ached.
I closed my eyes, forcing myself not to cry, not to break.
Because how do you look at the man who killed you.....
when right now,
he loves you with his whole heart?
Suddenly the phone rang.
Not loud
but enough to shatter the moment.
He froze.
His eyes dropped to the screen, and whatever he saw there erased the warmth from his face. The change was instant so quick I almost missed it.
"I need to take this," he said, already sitting up.
He didn't wait for my response.
He grabbed the phone and walked out of the room, his voice low and urgent as he answered the call. The door closed behind him with a soft but final click.
Moments later, I heard the lift.
Then silence.
My heart wouldn't slow down.
I stared at the door, a strange unease crawling up my spine.
That ringtone…
I knew it.
I had heard it too many times before.
Late nights.
Whispered calls.
Him stepping away always saying it was nothing.
Even last night.
Our engagement night.
My fingers tightened in the sheets.
I remembered now.
That was the same number.
The one he used to talk to until dawn.
The one connected to the night I died.
A chill ran through me.
Whatever had just called him
had already taken the first step toward killing me again.