REBIRTH OF THE PATHETIC HUSBAND
I was a disgrace to the Prestwick family—a poor, unwanted son-in-law they wished their daughter had never married. She had chosen me for my looks, but now, even that wasn’t enough. She wanted out. A divorce. To erase me from her life and marry into wealth like her family had always intended.
But I loved her. Despite the insults, the humiliation, the way they treated me like dirt beneath their feet—I refused to let go. That was my biggest mistake.
Frustrated by my defiance, my brother-in-law took matters into his own hands. He killed me, tossing my body into a cold, dark river, leaving me to sink into oblivion. I should have died. I did die.
But before I took my final breath, a man appeared before me, cloaked in shadow, his voice like a whisper from the abyss.
"What is your last wish?"
I should have begged for revenge. I should have cursed their names. But all I wanted was one more chance. One more chance to live.
And so, I was granted life again. But I was no longer the same. My soul was no longer my own. My body was no longer mine to control.
Because I had been reborn as something far more powerful.
I was no longer John Prestwick.
I was the Devil himself.
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Chapter: VORMIRWe didn’t speak as we ran.There wasn’t time for words—only breath and instinct, the pounding rhythm of boots over fractured steel and trembling earth. Behind us, Echo-Five groaned like a wounded beast. The mountain was caving in on itself. Concrete cracked. Support beams screamed. The corridor twisted as the ground warped.Reyes was bleeding from her shoulder, her jaw clenched against the pain. Ash had a limp, but he never slowed down. Neither did I. Something primal had grabbed hold of my spine, shoved me forward like prey escaping the eye of a predator. Only this predator didn’t hunt with teeth.It hunted with truth.We reached the outer chamber just before the whole eastern wing buckled in on itself. A tidal wave of dust rolled past us as we dove through the exit tunnel, lungs burning, ears ringing.Outside, the world had changed.The sky wasn’t purple anymore.It was black.But not the kind of black you see at night. Not the kind painted by clouds or swallowed by storm. This was
Last Updated: 2025-06-30
Chapter: Apocalypse I should have been afraid.The sky above the ruins of Chicago had turned a violent bruise-purple, and thunder rippled like a low growl from something slouching ever closer. Every instinct screamed that this was bigger than anything I could face, bigger than anything the Collector had prepared me for. But fear? It had burned out of me long ago—back when I first died, when I learned the afterlife came with contracts.What I felt now wasn’t fear.It was purpose.Ash walked beside me in silence. Reyes moved ahead, barking orders into her radio, directing units to evacuate the northern districts, to seal the Hollow, to prep fallback bunkers. But even as the soldiers scrambled and the machinery of survival clanked into motion, I felt it—pressing, watching, circling.The first of the forgotten Hounds had awoken.Not just Ash. Not just me.There were others.The Architect had said it plainly—our names were code, not memory. John, Ash, the others... we were experiments, forged in the earliest
Last Updated: 2025-06-29
Chapter: Weapon Of Extinction I didn’t wake up. I surfaced. Slowly. Like something dredged from the bottom of a poisoned sea.The Architect wasn’t there anymore. Not physically. But his touch, his presence, his truth—it clung to me like cold oil soaked into my bones.My memories weren’t mine.Not all of them.Not most of them.Pieces began shifting, falling into place like rusted gears groaning to life. There were fragments from the war, sure. The day I died. The Collector's voice, her offer. But underneath those were others—older, quieter.Strapped to a table. Lights overhead. Words I couldn’t pronounce being whispered by machines. Hands covered in black gloves stitching things into my veins. I remembered screams—my own. I remembered not understanding what pain was until they pushed me past it.And I remembered her.Not as the Collector.As the Creator.I was made.Not born.Reyes sat beside me, arms crossed over her knees, rifle across her lap. Her eyes were rimmed red from sleeplessness. She didn’t speak at fir
Last Updated: 2025-06-28
Chapter: Forgotten ExperimentThe Well wasn't on any map.Not a physical one, anyway.Ash didn’t explain much as we moved. Just that it was “old,” that it was “buried,” and that every Hound hears it eventually. A whisper beneath the chaos. A voice that doesn’t belong to the Collector—or maybe precedes her.We traveled northeast. The world around us warped slowly the closer we got. Buildings leaned in strange directions, like pulled by gravity that wasn’t ours. Birds didn’t fly overhead. No animals moved through the brush. It was silence without peace.After two days of walking, we found it.Not with our eyes. With our bones.A pressure. A thrumming. The feeling of standing over something vast and hollow beneath your feet, like the earth might cave in any second and drop you into oblivion.Ash stopped near the ruins of an old observatory, half-collapsed and consumed by vines.“This is it,” he said.I frowned. “It’s a ruin.”“It’s a mask. The Well doesn’t need a place. It needs a wound. This building just happened t
Last Updated: 2025-06-27
Chapter: King OF DeathAsh and I didn’t speak much after the crater. There were no words for what we saw. What we felt. The throne wasn’t just a symbol—it was real. It had memory. It had will. It had seen me, and I knew—just knew—it wouldn’t forget. The chain in my chest had always been a leash. Now, it felt like a fuse.I asked Ash once, as we walked: “Why didn’t you warn me?”He didn’t stop walking. “Would it have changed anything?”No. He was right. I would’ve gone anyway.We moved east through the ruins. Skipped the main roads. The cities were too loud, too watched. Reyes stayed back to lead the bunker—reluctantly. But she knew I couldn’t drag her further into this. She didn’t belong in the world of old kings and forgotten gods.She belonged to the world that was still trying to survive.We reached the edge of a ghost zone after three days. A stretch of land marked with static on every map. No recon data. No patrols. No satellites dared look too long.They called it the Shard.Ash called it something el
Last Updated: 2025-06-26
Chapter: The Balance Between Life And DeathI couldn’t sleep.Not after what I’d seen.Not after what I’d felt.The Herald’s voice still echoed in my skull. Not as sound, but as weight—like someone had carved a symbol into the center of my brain and left it glowing there.“You carry the leash.”The words repeated every time I closed my eyes.I sat on a cot in one of the lower levels of the bunker. The walls were damp. The lights flickered overhead. Reyes had ordered a rotation of guards after the Herald's attack, but even their footsteps sounded afraid.Across from me, Ash leaned against the wall, arms folded, face half-lost in shadow. He hadn’t spoken in nearly an hour.“You gonna sit there brooding all night,” I muttered, “or finally tell me what the hell’s going on?”He didn’t look at me. “Depends. You ready to know?”“I watched a Choir tear open the sky,” I said. “I think we’re past the ‘soft truths’ stage.”He nodded once. Then pushed off the wall.“You ever wonder why you?” he asked. “Out of all the souls she could’ve dr
Last Updated: 2025-06-25
Chapter: GETTING CLOSER TO PROF JENNYThe next morning, sunlight streamed through the tall windows like liquid gold, warming the edges of my silk sheets. For a moment, I forgot where I was. The mattress beneath me was too soft. The air too still. No honking cars. No neighbors arguing. No scent of fried food wafting in from the street.Just silence.Then it all came rushing back—the call, the limo, the mansion… the truth.I was David Lancaster.The heir.I lay there for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling. A chandelier hung there, elegant and quiet. It looked like it cost more than my entire neighborhood. I ran a hand over my face. The bruises still ached faintly beneath the gauze, but they were healing.A soft knock came at the door.“Master David?” Sophia’s voice called gently.“Yes?” I sat up, rubbing my eyes.“Breakfast is ready. Should I prepare your clothes for the day?”“I… I’ll dress myself,” I said quickly, still not ready for that level of pampering.“As you wish, sir,” she said through the door. “Your schedule
Last Updated: 2025-06-19
Chapter: My Father's Enemies The grin didn’t fade as I turned away from the mirror, my mind racing. Fun. That was one way to put it. Insane was another. I ran my fingers over the expensive watch, the weight of it foreign against my skin. The bruises on my knuckles, the ache in my ribs, the ghost of Dylan’s boot against my side—those felt real. But this? The palatial estate, the staff treating me like royalty, the ten million dollars sitting in my account? It was like stepping into someone else’s life. And maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. I took a deep breath, inhaling the subtle scent of cedar and wealth, then crossed the room to the massive walk-in closet. Rows of suits in deep charcoals and midnight blues hung perfectly pressed, their designer labels whispering a price tag I didn’t even want to guess at. The shelves held rows of polished Italian leather shoes, and the glass display cases glinted with cufflinks, tie bars, and watches worth more than my old bartender’s salary in a year. I ran my fingers
Last Updated: 2025-03-28
Chapter: Chapter 6: Now A Lancaster My fingers trembled around the phone, my breath coming in short, disbelieving gasps. Ten million dollars. Ten million dollars. The number burned itself into my mind, searing away the pain, the humiliation, the despair. "Who… who are you?" I managed, my voice hoarse but no longer weak. There was something new in it now—something raw, electric. Hope. The man chuckled, a rich, warm sound. "My name is Vincent Cole, Master David. I’ve been searching for you for a very long time." Vincent Cole. The name meant nothing to me, but the way he said it—like it should have carried weight—made my pulse quicken. "You’re telling me," I said slowly, forcing my thoughts into some semblance of order, "that I’m the heir of Andrew Lancaster. The billionaire Andrew Lancaster." "Not just the heir," Vincent corrected, his voice dropping into something almost reverent. "His only heir. His son." The world tilted. Son. The word hit me like a freight train. My father—if he even was my father—had
Last Updated: 2025-03-27
Chapter: Chapter 5: The Life-changing Phone call I pushed open the bar’s creaky door and stepped inside, immediately hit by the familiar scent of alcohol, sweat, and stale smoke. The place was already busy, dimly lit with the usual crowd of regulars hunched over their drinks. Back to reality. I sighed, rolling my shoulders before making my way behind the counter. “Look who finally decided to show up,” a gruff voice called. I turned to see Mark, my manager, wiping down a glass with his ever-present scowl. He was a burly guy in his late forties with a permanent five o’clock shadow and a personality that swung between grumpy and mildly tolerable. “You’re two minutes late,” he added. I sighed. “Traffic.” Mark grunted but didn’t push it further. He didn’t actually care as long as I did my job. I grabbed an apron and tied it around my waist, my mind still replaying everything that had happened today. Jenny, her car, her laughter, the way she looked at me… I shook my head. I needed to focus. The night dragged on like it
Last Updated: 2025-03-25
Chapter: Chapter 4: A Strange ConnectionWe continued eating, the atmosphere between us surprisingly light despite how unusual this situation felt. Jenny had this way of making things seem normal—even though nothing about this was normal. “So, tell me about yourself,” she said, twirling her fork between her fingers. “What do you like to do when you're not fighting in lecture halls?” I smirked. “You make it sound like I do that often.” She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you?” I sighed dramatically. “Alright, maybe I’ve gotten into a few… misunderstandings.” She chuckled. “That’s a diplomatic way to put it.” I shrugged. “Well, when you don’t have much in life, you tend to fight to keep what little you do have.” Her eyes flickered with something unreadable, but she didn’t press. Instead, she took a sip of her drink and asked, “Okay, what about hobbies? Do you have any?” “Hobbies?” I repeated, thinking for a moment. “Uh… I guess I like reading. And fixing things. You know, like repairing old gadgets, computers, stuff
Last Updated: 2025-03-25
Chapter: Chapter 3: A Rare FeelingProfessor Jenny and I made our way back to the lecture hall, and I could feel every single pair of eyes on us. The whispers started immediately—hushed murmurs, stolen glances, judgmental smirks. Some students nudged each other, others discreetly pulled out their phones, probably to record whatever was happening. I didn’t care. I kept my head straight, matching Ms. Jenny’s pace as she walked beside me, completely unfazed by the attention. If anything, she exuded an air of quiet authority, her presence commanding the room before she even said a word. We entered the lecture hall, and the moment we did, the whispers intensified. I ignored them. My focus shifted to my book, still lying on the floor where Dylan had crushed it. I walked over and bent down, picking it up. The cover was bent, the pages slightly torn, but I didn’t care. I ran a hand over the creases before tucking it under my arm and making my way to my seat at the far end of the hall. Ms. Jenny, on the other hand, st
Last Updated: 2025-03-25
