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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