MY WIFE KILLED OUR THREE CHILDREN. I WAS SENT TO DIE

The cold didn’t just freeze the skin. It bit straight into the bone, cracking it from the inside out.

Arthur lay flat on his back in the endless expanse of snow, his chest heaving with weak, shallow breaths. White frost caked his eyelashes. Every intake of air felt like swallowing shards of broken glass.

So this is how it ends, he thought, staring up at the grey, lifeless sky of the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Exiled. Sentenced to freeze like a dog.

The snow crunched nearby. Slow, deliberate steps.

Arthur tried to turn his head, but his neck was stiff as iron.

"Look at him, Dr. Vance," a woman’s voice drifted down, cold and smooth, devoid of the slightest tremor. "He’s still breathing. He really is like a cockroach."

Arthur’s eyes strained open.

Standing above him, wrapped in thick, fur-lined coats were his wife, Eleanor, and her personal doctor—Dr. Marcus Vance.

"Human survival instinct is remarkably resilient, my dear," Marcus said smoothly, adjusting his gloves. He looked down at Arthur with quiet amusement. "Though in temperatures fifty below zero, instinct only prolongs the agony."

Arthur cracked his blood-crusted lips. "Eleanor..." His voice was barely a raspy whisper. "Why... why are you here? You shouldn't be out in the wild..."

"Why am I here?" Eleanor knelt down, resting her hands on her knees. Her eyes held no grief, no trauma, no sign of the broken, sobbing woman who had stood in the courtroom three days ago. "I came to watch you die, Arthur. I wanted to see the look on your face when you finally realized how thoroughly you lost."

"Lost...?" Arthur groaned, a tear freezing instantly on his cheek. "The children... our three babies... I tried to protect you all... I spent months out in the ruined sectors searching for food..."

"Oh, stop it!" Eleanor snapped, laughing softly—a sharp, cutting sound that echoed over the barren ice. "Your endless whining about how hard you worked! You were never home! You left me alone!"

"I was hunting for supplies to keep you alive!" Arthur squeezed his eyes shut, the agony of the memory washing over him again.

The courtroom. The jury. The stern face of the judge.

“The defendant, Arthur Pendelton, abandoned his mentally unstable wife for weeks on end,” the lead juror had read, his voice dripping with disdain. “His complete lack of emotion during these proceedings—not a single tear for his three murdered children—shows a cold, sociopathic indifference. We find him guilty of gross negligence and domestic psychological abuse, driving the victim to a psychotic break.”

Arthur hadn't cried because he was in shock. His mind had completely shattered. He couldn't process the blood on the nursery floor, the tiny blankets, the silence. He had frozen on the outside because he was dying on the inside.

And Marcus had stood on the witness stand, adjusting his glasses, speaking with calm authority: “As a board-certified psychiatrist, I treated Mrs. Pendelton. The trauma of years of severe neglect and emotional abuse by her husband directly induced her severe postpartum breakdown. She is not a killer, ladies and gentlemen. She is a victim.”

"You lied..." Arthur muttered in the snow, staring up at Marcus. "You lied to the court... You made them think I abused her..."

"I didn't lie, Arthur," Marcus smiled gently, as if speaking to a child. "I merely gave the jury the story they wanted to hear. People love a tragic victim. And a cold, distant husband who spends weeks away from home makes such a convenient villain."

"You monster..." Arthur coughed, spitting a fleck of dark red onto the snow. "She killed our children! She smothered them in their cribs!"

"Oh, Arthur," Eleanor leaned closer, her eyes gleaming with a terrifying, twisted light. "You still don't get it, do you? They weren't our children."

Arthur froze. "What?"

"They weren't yours," Eleanor whispered, leaning into his ear. "I cheated on you before the apocalypse even started. I slept with Marcus for months. When I got pregnant with triplets, I was so sure they were Marcus's. I raised them thinking they were his legacy."

Arthur’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. "No... no..."

"Imagine my absolute disgust," Eleanor sneered, her face contorting with genuine hatred, "when Marcus ran the genetic tests last year. Do you know what the results said, Arthur? They were yours. All three of them. Biological, 100% Arthur Pendelton."

Arthur stared at her, his brain struggling to grasp the grotesque logic. "They were my children... and you killed them because... because they were mine?"

"I couldn't stand the sight of them!" Eleanor hissed. "Every time they looked at me with your eyes, I felt like throwing up! I wanted Marcus's children, not a loser's! So Marcus gave me the push I needed. He told me how to end it. He told me how we could use their deaths to get rid of you forever!"