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

Chapter 6

The house was completely silent, swallowed by the heavy dark of midnight.

In the small basement office, the only light came from the dim glow of Arthur’s laptop screen. Outside the window, a quiet wind rustled the trees, but inside, Arthur’s mind was racing like a war engine.

Spread across the wooden desk were notebooks, maps, and printed documents.

Two months, Arthur thought, his eyes scanning the lists he had been furiously typing out. Only two months until the solar flares hit, the power grids collapse, and society falls apart.

He muttered to himself under his breath as he checked off items on his screen. "Water purification tablets... five hundred cans of non-perishable food... solar generators... heavy duty locks for the basement door..."

For the first time since he woke up in the past, Arthur felt a tiny flicker of focus. A small sense of relief. He had the knowledge of the future. He knew what was coming. He could secure a bunker, hoard supplies, and protect his life before the world burned.

"I can do this," Arthur whispered into the quiet room. "I’ll buy the supplies quietly. I’ll prepare everything in secret. Once the apocalypse starts, I’ll be ready."

Then, his eyes fell on a blank field in his digital ledger: Joint Bank Balance: $0.00.

Arthur’s face tightened. He remembered why he was stuck in this house. Eleanor had been bleeding their savings dry for months, funneling money into private accounts. If he wanted to buy weapons, food, and bunker equipment, he needed to know where every single penny of his money had gone.

"I need her bank statements," Arthur muttered, standing up from his chair. "And her spare keys."

He turned off his desk lamp, stepping into the pitch-black hallway.

He moved like a shadow, creeping up the basement stairs and slipping into the quiet living room. Upstairs, Eleanor was fast asleep, likely exhausted from the intense confrontation with Marcus earlier that afternoon.

Her expensive designer handbag sat on the kitchen counter, illuminated by the faint glow of the microwave clock.

Arthur approached the bag quietly. He unzipped the main compartment and reached inside, his fingers brushing past lipstick, compact mirrors, and receipts. He pulled out her leather wallet, slipping out her bank receipts, and found her spare key ring at the bottom.

Good, Arthur thought, tucking the bank slips into his pocket. I can trace the account transfers tomorrow.

He was about to zip the handbag shut when his fingers caught on a small, stiff lining near the bottom corner. He paused. There was a hidden zipper tucked deep inside the inner fabric.

Arthur unzipped the secret pocket and reached in.

His fingertips touched hard, smooth plastic.

He pulled out a small, amber-colored plastic bottle. There was no standard pharmacy label on the front, but a small, hand-written prescription tag was taped neatly around the cap.

The tag bore the official stamp and elegant signature of Dr. Marcus Vance.

Arthur stared at the bottle in the dim light of the kitchen. "What is this...?" he whispered.

He twisted the cap open. Inside were tiny, colorless liquid capsules. No name, no dosage instructions. Just a sinister, unlabeled vial of chemicals hidden deep within her purse.

Arthur brought the bottle back down into the basement office, shutting the door tightly behind him.

He sat in his chair, pulled up a medical database search bar on his laptop, and typed in the chemical batch code printed on the tiny prescription tag: Compound-X / Synthetic Organophosphate Derivative.

He hit enter.

The screen flashed, and a detailed medical classification page loaded. Arthur leaned in close, reading the bold black text aloud in a quiet, trembling voice.

"High-dosage synthetic neurotoxin derivative. Colorless, odorless, and tasteless when mixed into warm food or liquids. Induces gradual organ failure, internal cardiac arrest, and sudden death. Frequently mistaken for natural stroke or cardiac collapse..."

Arthur’s breath hitched in his throat. The words seemed to jump off the screen and strike him straight in the chest.

"Dosage instructions: Administer daily over a seven-day period in meals..."

Arthur froze. His blood ran cold.

The room seemed to spin violently around him. His chest heaved as a wave of suffocating shock slammed into his body.

"No..." Arthur choked out, his voice cracking. "No, no, no..."

He looked down at the amber bottle resting beside his computer. His hands began to shake uncontrollably.

This wasn't medicine for Eleanor. It wasn't even a drug to force a miscarriage.

It was poison. Fast, silent, undetectable poison.

Designed to be slipped into his dinner. Put in his coffee. Mixed into his soup while he sat across from her at the table, completely unaware.

Arthur fell back against his chair, clutching his head as the terrifying truth washed over him like a tidal wave of ice.

In his past life, he had given in to Eleanor’s demands. He had let her manipulate him, signed over their assets, and lived long enough to suffer through the apocalypse, the fake trial, and the execution in the snow.

But this time... because he had stood up to her, because he had torn up the mortgage papers and backed Marcus into a corner...

They weren't going to wait for the apocalypse. They weren't even going to wait for a long legal battle.

"They're going to poison me," Arthur whispered into the empty, silent room, tears of pure rage and horror filling his eyes. "They're going to put it in my food..."

Eleanor wasn't just an unfaithful wife trying to steal his home. Marcus wasn't just a dirty doctor trying to embezzle money.

They were serial killers.

They were planning to murder Arthur in his own home, sweep his death under the rug as a sudden heart attack, inherit his life insurance, and take over his entire fortune before the apocalypse even began.

Arthur clutched the plastic bottle so hard his knuckles turned stark white. The plastic groaned under his grip, threatening to shatter.

He looked up at the basement ceiling, staring toward the dark bedroom upstairs where his wife was sleeping peacefully.

A cold, terrifying realization settled into his chest, burning away the last remaining traces of his humanity.

They aren't trying to frame me anymore, Arthur realized, his eyes widening with pure, absolute dread. They're going to kill me this week.