Two words.

Clear.

Firm.

The second I said them, Mark’s eyes went bloodshot. He punched me so hard my vision flashed white.

“Ryan! How can you be this cruel? That’s my son! The first grandson of the Walker family!”

My mother lunged at me, scratching and hitting, like she wanted to tear my skin off with her bare hands.

“You want my grandson dead? You heartless little monster!”

My father shook with rage and pointed at me like he was passing sentence.

“Ungrateful bastard! You worthless son!”

I ignored all of them.

Because all I knew was this:

A life already here, already breathing, already fighting, mattered more than a baby who, by that point, could no longer realistically be saved.

That was the principle I had been taught in medicine.

So I signed.

Vanessa lived.

The baby did not.

And from that day on, I became the family’s permanent criminal.

They called me a killer.

Mark and Vanessa moved straight into the condo I had taken out a mortgage on.

It was supposed to be my home. The place where my fiancée, Chloe, and I would start our future together.

But they said I had killed their son, so I owed them a life debt.

And apparently a condo counted as partial payment.

My parents nodded along as if that were perfectly reasonable.

“Your girlfriend probably wouldn’t have given us a grandson anyway. What’s the big deal if your brother lives there instead?”

Chloe refused to accept it.

She went there to argue.

Vanessa shoved her.

She fell.

That was when I found out Chloe had been pregnant.

I had planned to surprise her with something beautiful.

Instead, life handed us a nightmare.

We lost the baby.

Chloe spiraled into a depression so deep I could not pull her back out.

And in the end…

she stepped off the rooftop of the tiny apartment we had rented after losing everything else.

That day, the wind had been just as strong as it was the night I died.

After I handled her funeral, I went back home.

The house was wrecked.

Furniture overturned. Plates smashed. Picture frames broken.

My mother pointed at me and spat out every word like acid.

“It’s all that cursed woman’s fault! She killed my grandson, and now she killed herself too. Good riddance!”

I stood there, numb.

Later, I asked for my share of the family property.

They refused.

They cut off my money.

They kept my diploma from me.

They wanted me to spend the rest of my life working like an animal to repay a grandson who had never even taken a full breath.

I said no.

I found a job.

I was preparing to leave.

Then one day, Mark and Vanessa called me to the rooftop.

They said they wanted to talk.

And I believed them.

Maybe somewhere deep down, I was still stupid enough to believe blood meant something.

Reality corrected me.

Hard.

“Ryan, hand over your debit card.”

“You owe us for our son. Your money belongs to us now.”

“And that dead girlfriend of yours… she had life insurance, didn’t she? Hand that over too.”

I looked at their greedy faces…

and laughed.

So that was the real point.

Not grief.

Not justice.

Money.

Just money.

I refused.

And then…

Mark pushed me.

After that came unbearable pain.

Then endless darkness.

My life, from beginning to end, had been one long joke.

…

“Family? Where is the patient’s family?”

“The mother is hemorrhaging badly. We need a signature right now. Mother or baby?”

The voices stabbed into my ears.

I jolted awake.

White hospital walls.

The stinging smell of antiseptic.

And the doctor standing right in front of me, clutching the consent form.

Everything was identical.

The same hallway.

The same words.

The same nightmare.

I had come back.

02

I had really come back.

Back to the exact day Vanessa’s labor turned critical.

In my last life, in this exact place, I had said the words save the mother.

And from that second on, the door to my personal hell had swung wide open.

Beside me, Mark’s voice was already ripping through the hallway.

“Doctor! You save both my wife and my son! Do you hear me?”

My mother’s voice followed, shrill and frantic enough to split the air.

“My grandson! My grandson can’t die! He just can’t!”

My father tried to calm everyone down, but it was useless.

“Stop yelling! Let the doctor think!”

Every detail was the same.

Every line.

Every expression.

Like an old movie rewinding frame by frame.

All of them drowning in chaos.

All of them desperate.

And very soon, they would realize someone was missing.

The one person who could make the decision for them.

The one person who could carry all the blame.

The villain.

That had been me.

But not this time.

This time, I was gone.

I stood up slowly.

Brushed off my clothes.

Adjusted my collar.

Then I turned my back on the noise and walked straight out of the hospital.

The air outside still carried the damp chill of recent rain.

It felt clean.

Almost kind.

I took a deep breath and crossed into the twenty-four-hour convenience store opposite the ER entrance.

The cashier mumbled a bored hello.

The whole place was so quiet it felt sealed off from reality.

Just one wall away, people were screaming, crying, begging.

But here?

Steam rose from the soup station.

A fridge hummed softly.

A radio whispered old pop songs from somewhere near the register.

I stopped in front of the hot food counter and stared at the steaming cups of soup and skewers.

The smell hit me instantly, rich and savory, wiping the hospital stench out of my head.

For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt something shockingly simple.

I felt alive.

In my last life, while I was studying for my graduate entrance exams, I had pinched pennies so hard I forgot what it felt like to eat something warm just because I wanted to.

It had been a long time since I had given myself anything decent.

So I picked up a paper bowl and filled it with fish cakes, stuffed tofu, chicken wings, and, because I had always loved them, two thick slices of simmered daikon.

“At the register, please.”

“That’ll be four dollars and seventy-five cents.”

I paid, took my bowl, and sat by the window.

Outside stood the hospital.

The OB surgical floor lights were still blazing on the fifth level.

I could almost picture the scene upstairs.

The panic.

The shouting.

The phone calls.

The way my family would be tearing the place apart looking for me.

I bit into a piece of daikon.

The broth had soaked all the way through. It was hot and salty and soft enough to nearly fall apart on my tongue.

Warmth spread from my mouth to my stomach.

It was almost enough to make me smile.

My phone started vibrating like it was trying to jump off the table.

Mark.

I did not answer.

I muted it.

Turned it face-down.

And kept eating.

There is nothing in this world more important than filling your own stomach when you have spent an entire lifetime starving for everyone else.

Especially when you have already seen what sacrifice buys you.

In my last life, for the sake of that sacred little word family, I had lived like a servant.

I handed them everything.

My future.

My education.

My home.

My love.

My life.

And what did I get back?

A label.

Murderer.

And a shove into the abyss.

Family?

When money and the fantasy of a “Walker grandson” entered the room, family was worth less than dust.

So why, exactly, should I walk back into that swamp again?

I finished the last sip of broth.

Warmth settled fully into my body.

My phone was still vibrating.

I imagined them taking turns calling me, each one more frantic than the last.

Good.

I threw my trash away and left the store.

Not to go back to the hospital.

Instead, I walked into the office building next door and took the elevator to the third-floor café.

It was quiet.

Clean.

A corner seat by the window looked directly down onto the ER entrance.

Perfect.

I ordered an iced Americano.

Sat down.

And waited.

About ten minutes later, the hospital doors burst open.

My parents and Mark came running out like people who had lost their last grip on reason.

They spun in circles, shouting, searching.

Mark had his phone pressed to his ear, his face twisted into something feral.

My mother dropped to the pavement and beat at her thighs while sobbing.

My father paced back and forth, chain-smoking, his hands shaking too badly to hold the cigarette steady.

A vivid little performance.

I lifted my coffee and took a sip.

Bitter.

But fragrant.

In this life…

I wanted to be nothing more than an audience member.

Whether they lived or died, what they chose, what they lost…

none of it belonged to me anymore.

Finally, Mark seemed to snap.

He hurled his phone at the ground so hard the screen exploded into glittering pieces.

Then he threw his head back and let out a roar like an animal being skinned alive.

After that, he turned and ran back into the hospital.

I smiled faintly into my coffee.

I could guess where he was going.

To make the choice.

No villainous younger brother standing there this time.

No convenient scapegoat.

Just him.

The husband.

The father.

Forced, at last, to decide for himself.

Between the wife he once promised to love until death…

and the son he saw as the only bloodline that mattered.

I was curious.

Very curious.