Chapter 1

I was reborn on the day I got buried in a sand pit.

My wife of seven years leaned over the edge of the hole and screamed down at me.

"The rope is down. Tie it around Stellan first. You're strong. You can hold on another five minutes."

In my last life, I grabbed it first.

Stellan ended up brain-damaged from oxygen deprivation.

She forced me to work sixteen-hour days to pay off the debt. "Stellan is your fault. You did this. Why don't you just die?"

In the end, my leg bone rotted away. She threw me out of the hospital. I died alone in a basement that leaked when it rained.

This time, I said only one word: "Okay."

I fastened the rope around Stellan's harness. It pulled taut, and he was yanked up.

Then the roar of the SUV's engine faded fast. She drove away in the only vehicle, taking him with her without a single look back.

I leaned against the wall of flowing sand and closed my eyes.

This time, I wasn't going to fight for it.

But Mandy, why did you end up regretting it?

"Ethan! The rope is down. Hook yourself in, now. The car can't pull two people through this sand. We can only bring up one at a time. Do you hear me?"

The sand had already swallowed me up to my chest when Amanda's sharp voice crackled through the walkie-talkie, riding a wave of harsh static.

I tilted my head up. The windstorm hit my goggles like gravel being hurled by a fist.

Less than a yard away from me, Stellan had sunk halfway into the quicksand.

He was clinging to a dead branch that was about to snap, his face streaked with sand and tears, screaming up at the surface in pure desperation.

"Mandy! Help me! I can't breathe! I don't want to die out here!"

Watching the scene in front of me, I felt nothing but cold emptiness inside.

So I actually got a second chance.

This moment was exactly the same as before.

In my last life, Amanda and I had been married three years, both of us working out here in this wasteland.

When the sand collapsed without warning, I'd been buried in the quicksand just like this.

Back then, driven by survival instinct and by my trust in the woman I'd just married, I grabbed the lifeline.

But I never could have imagined that one desperate choice would become the beginning of a nightmare I couldn't wake up from.

Because Stellan spent ten extra minutes under the sand, he was oxygen-deprived long enough to cause brain damage by the time they pulled him out. His mental capacity dropped to that of a ten-year-old.

From that day on, the look Amanda gave me held nothing but a hatred that cut all the way to the bone.

She drove me to work sixteen hours a day. Every dollar I earned, salary, bonuses, everything I had saved toward buying us a house, went straight to Stellan's medical bills.

"This is the consequence of what you did. If you hadn't saved yourself first, Stellan would never have ended up like this. You have to take responsibility."

Then, after years of grueling work in brutal conditions, the bone in my thigh deteriorated so badly I could barely walk.

At the moment I needed surgery money most desperately, Amanda quietly drained every cent from our account.

She stood over me where I lay in the hospital bed, her voice stripped of any warmth.

"Stellan needs new physical therapy equipment, and that costs a lot. Your leg is already ruined anyway. There's no point wasting money on it."

In the end, she kicked me out of the hospital without mercy. I died alone, in a basement with no heat.

Every bone in my body rotted. I died in agony, drowning in regret that had nowhere to go.

"Ethan! Are you deaf? Why aren't you saying anything?"

Amanda's voice came through the walkie-talkie again, edged with fury she could no longer hold back.

"Stellan has severe asthma. Inhaling all this sand could kill him. You're in good shape. You can last another five minutes down there. Clip the safety hook onto Stellan. Do it now."

She didn't even ask, not once, whether I was also about to be swallowed alive. Whether I might die too.

In her mind, my strength and my obedience had become the very reasons it was acceptable to abandon me.

I looked at Stellan sobbing beside me, and suddenly I thought my past self was the world's biggest joke.

I'd nearly killed myself trying to prove I mattered more to her than her best friend. And all I got in return was a rotted leg and a cold corpse.

This time, I wasn't going to fight for it.

"Okay."

I spoke into the walkie-talkie, calm, my mouth full of grit.

Then I reached out with both hands, pulled the rope toward me, and clipped it directly onto Stellan's safety harness.

"Ethan... thank you. Don't worry. I'm sending the guys down with equipment right now. Give me five minutes!"

A thread of relief slipped into Amanda's voice, along with something that tried to pass itself off as gratitude.

I didn't respond. I just reached over and switched off the walkie-talkie.

All I could hear now was the soft scraping of sand against Stellan's body as he was pulled upward.

The rope went taut fast. It jerked Stellan out of the pit in one rough motion.

He wailed like a rescued child in midair, flailing his arms and legs as they hauled him up.

I stood in the tightening sand and watched his shape disappear into the blinding light above.

Then came the muffled growl of the SUV's engine from somewhere overhead.

The tires spun furiously in the sand, throwing out a sharp, grinding shriek.

One hard rev of the engine, and then the sound moved away fast.

She drove off in the only vehicle.

Took Stellan, the one she treated like he was everything, and left without looking back.

In this scorching wasteland where the sun could peel the skin right off you, she drove away the only vehicle that could save my life and told me to wait.

I leaned back against the tightening quicksand wall and closed my eyes.

There was no rage in me. Only a stillness, deep and dead, like water that had forgotten how to move.

The Ethan who had spent his whole life revolving around Amanda died in that moment, buried beneath the dry, drifting sand.