2025-11-17 03:38:24Darkness. Cold, thick, suffocating darkness. Then, A sharp beep. A flash of white light. A jagged, stabbing pain that felt like his soul was being torn from flesh.
And suddenly, Voices. Muffled. Echoing. Familiar. “…so, what do we do with the property?”
“Split it six ways.”
“Seven,”
Tom said. “Don’t be stupid.”
A scoff. “Why should his wife get anything?”
James Wood’s fading consciousness clung to the voices like claws scraping a cliff. He couldn’t see them. He couldn’t move. He could only hear, trapped in a half-dead body on a hospital bed.
Michael’s voice broke through the haze. “His wife gets what we tell her to get.”
Maria’s voice cracked. “Please… I did what you asked… I poisoned him like you said… just let me have my children,”
Andrew sneered, “Shut up. If not for that video Tom recorded, you wouldn’t have listened.”
A slap echoed. Maria sobbed. James’s soul flinched. Tom’s cold voice came next. “Enough. He’s dead. Or as good as dead. Keep your voice down unless you want the nurses to hear.”
Dead? James tried to breathe, but nothing moved. He tried to scream, but no sound came.
Only the beeping machine answered him. The same men he fed… clothed… sheltered… The same woman he adored with every drop of blood… They were dividing his life already. “Properties first,” Michael said. “The company will be shared,”
“No.”
“We promised she’ll get her share if she plays her part,”
Andrew growled. “She poisoned him. Slowly. Quietly. We all saw how sick he got… she earned it.”
Maria sobbed harder. “Please… just don’t tell the world…”
Tom’s tone sharpened. “Don’t make me play the video again.”
James’s soul shivered. Video. Video of them. Of Tom. And Maria. In the bed he bought. In the home he built. Tom continued. “We keep the scandal buried. We take the wealth. Everyone wins.”
Michael laughed bitterly. “Except James Wood.”
Silence. A heavy, suffocating silence. Then Maria whispered, barely audible, “I… I didn’t think he’d die this fast…”
James’s soul fractured. Tom shrugged. “That’s life. Weak men die early.”
Weak? Weak? James felt a rage ignite in the void of his dying body.
He pushed, tried to move, tried to breathe, tried to live, A blaring alarm shrieked. Doctors rushed in. “HE’S CRASHING!”
“BP dropping!”
“Pulse is unstable!”
“CLEAR!”
A violent jolt blasted through his chest. His soul ripped away from the body entirely. Then, Silence. Weightlessness. James Wood looked down at his own hospital room from above. His body lay motionless. Machines beeped wildly. Nurses panicked. Maria cried with her face buried in her hands.
And the seven men? They stepped back. Cold. Expressionless. Unmoved. Tom muttered, “Good. It’s over.”
A doctor shouted, “We’re losing him!”
James watched all of it from above. Floating. Separate. Free. A tear he no longer had a body for fell in his spirit. “After all I gave…”
His voice echoed strangely, deeper than before. “…this is how you repay me?”
Maria whispered, “I’m sorry… James… I’m so sorry…”
Tom grabbed her arm. “Enough crying. We talk business outside.”
They dragged her out. Her feet scraped the floor as she resisted.
“Let me stay, please, I just want to see him, ”
Tom hissed in her ear, “You’ll get your share. Stop pretending you loved him.”
Maria broke into fresh sobs.
James drifted behind them through the hallway, weightless ,cold burning. They thought he was gone.
But he was watching.
THE PASSAGE
As they moved through the corridor, nurses pushed a screaming pregnant woman past them on a stretcher. “Emergency labor!”
The woman’s cries were loud, raw, soaked in pain. James stopped drifting. Something tugged at him,
The pregnant woman’s spirit flickered like a dim flame, weak, fragile, about to extinguish. “BP crashing!”
“She’s losing too much blood!”
“We’re close,keep pressure!”
James drifted closer. Her eyelids fluttered. Her heartbeat faltered. The baby inside her sparkled with a faint golden light. A new life. Empty. Unclaimed. Waiting. James felt the pull intensify, a door opening a chance a destiny woven with invisible threads.
A whisper echoed through the space around him: “A second chance… if you dare take it.”
The corridor blurred. The woman screamed. Doctors yelled. The light around the unborn child expanded, pulling James in, dragging him forward, consuming him whole. He reached out. “I’m not done.”
His soul touched the glowing spark inside the unborn child. Light exploded.
REBIRTH
Warmth. Pressure. Heartbeat. A muffled world. Voices outside like underwater sounds.
“Push!”
“She’s slipping, focus!”
“The baby’s coming!”
James felt himself being squeezed, moved, forced through a narrow, crushing tunnel. Then, Cold air. Blinding white lights. Hands lifting him. A loud smack. A cry burst out of him, tiny, high-pitched, helpless. But inside that fragile newborn shell…
James Wood was awake. And remembering. A nurse exclaimed, “He’s breathing! Strong lungs!” The doctor sighed with relief. “We almost lost both mother and child.”
From the bed, the weak voice of the woman whispered, “Is… is my baby okay…?”
James felt soft hands carrying him closer to her. “He’s fine,”
the nurse said. “A beautiful baby boy.”
The woman wept from exhaustion. Then she whispered, “His name… will be Evan.”
Evan. The name echoed in James’s newborn mind. But beneath it, his true name burned like fire: JAMES WOOD. And he wasn’t finished.
Not by death. Not by betrayal. Not by poison. His tiny newborn fingers curled into a fist. I will grow. I will return. I will take back everything they stole. And every one of them… will face me again. The world blurred as exhaustion washed over him.
But even as sleep pulled his newborn body under… His mind whispered the vow that would define his new life: “I died once. Never again.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 39 — THE DAY THE HOSPITAL LOCKED ITSELF
The first scream came from the seventh floor at exactly 3:17 a.m. It was sharp. Animal. Wrong. James Wood was awake before it echoed a second time.He stood by the window of his office, hands clasped behind his back, watching the city lights flicker like dying stars. When the scream cut through the hospital walls, his lips curved, not into a smile, but into something colder. James (quietly): “So it begins.”THE PATIENT WHO SHOULD NOT HAVE SCREAMED. Nurse Elina burst into the corridor, breathless. Elina: “Dr. Wood! It’s Victor, Room 712. He’s, he’s screaming about fire under his skin!”James didn’t turn immediately. James: “Vital signs?”Elina: “Pulse unstable. Blood pressure spiking. He says his nerves feel like they’re, like they’re burning alive.”James picked up his coat. James: “Good. Stage One has fully activated.”Elina froze. Elina: “Stage… One?”James finally faced her. James: “Prepare the isolation room. And notify the others.”Elina: “The others?”James: “All seven. Tonight,
CHAPTER 41 — PHASE TWO: THE DARK THAT REMEMBERS
The darkness did not feel accidental. It felt chosen. Total blackout. No emergency glow. No hallway lights. No machine hum. Just breathing. Seven different rhythms of fear. And one steady pulse of control.James Wood stood unmoving in the pitch-black room. He could hear them. Victor’s shallow gasps.Maria’s trembling inhale. Michael trying to mask panic behind anger. Rebecca whispering numbers again.Samuel muttering prayers. Sandra choking on silent sobs. Reeves pacing blindly. Then James spoke. Soft Precise. James: “Now… we remove distraction.”Maria’s voice cracked. Maria: “James, please… stop this.”James: “You said that before.”Silence swallowed the room again. THE SYSTEM HE BUILT IN SECRET Emergency backup lights flickered on, but only dim strips along the floor.Just enough to see outlines. Not faces. The monitors behind them rebooted. A new interface glowed on screen. PHASE TWO, COGNITIVE RESTORATION PROTOCOL Michael read it first. His voice shook.Michael: “Restoration? Wha
CHAPTER 42 — THE AUTOPSY THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
The first mistake James ever made… Was believing he was the only one who could plan. The second… Was believing the past stayed buried. The Oversight Director did not blink. Security escorted the seven patients out of the sealed wing one by one.Maria looked back at James as they wheeled her away. Not hatred. Not love. Something worse. Unfinished truth. When the doors finally shut, only three people remained inside the dimmed chamber: James. Elina. The Director.The Director held up the tablet again. “Three days ago,”he said calmly, “an anonymous petition demanded the exhumation of James Wood.”James did not move. “Grounds?”he asked. “Suspicion of financial coercion before death. Alleged irregularities in the inheritance transfer.”Maria. Or one of the seven. Or someone else entirely. The Director studied James carefully. “You’ve taken a remarkable interest in these patients, Doctor.”“They are under my care.”“You’ve built an entire research wing around them.”“They volunteered.”Th
CHAPTER 38 — THE CONTRACT OF FEAR
Rain hammered the hospital roof like fists demanding entry. Inside St. Haven Medical Center, the air felt heavier than before, like every wall remembered what had been said yesterday.James Wood walked through the corridor, coat swinging behind him. Nurses stepped aside. Patients lowered their eyes. The silence that followed him felt like a crown, and a warning.He had returned to the world not just as a man. But as something reshaped by betrayal. At the nurse’s desk, Elina hurried after him.Elina: “Dr. Wood, your seven private patients are here again. They came early. All of them.”James: “Good. Let them wait.Elina: “They look… terrified.”James paused.James: “Terror means progress.”THE KILLERS GATHERIn Room 12B, the seven conspirators sat around a table. No laughter. No arrogance. Only fear. Samuel’s left arm twitched uncontrollably. Rebecca blinked rapidly, her vision flickering like broken film.Victor massaged his temples, murmuring to himself. Clinton Reeves fought for bre
CHAPTER 37 — THE SYMPTOMS OF GUILT
The storm rolled across the city like a warning. Thunder rattled the hospital windows. Lightning flashed through the halls, white and violent. The air smelled like rain and electricity, like a world about to change.Inside St. Haven Medical Center, the waiting room overflowed with patients, but seven chairs remained reserved. Seven chairs, separated from the rest. Seven chairs with seven names.Maria Wood. Michael Tenneson. Sandra Blake. Dr. Clinton Reeves. Rebecca Hall. Victor Dane. Samuel Cray.Every one of them here. Every one of them trembling. Nurse Elina rushed to James with a clipboard. “Doctor,”she said, anxious, “they’re all waiting. They want answers.”James slid on his gloves. “They’ll get them,” he replied.“One by one.”CONFLICT IGNITES IMMEDIATELYBefore James could step forward, Samuel Cray staggered out of his seat. Sweat drenched his face, and his left hand twitched uncontrollably.“Wood! We need to talk!”Samuel shouted. The room went silent.James turned slowly. “M
CHAPTER 36 — THE UNSEEN HAND OF JUSTICE
The morning fog clung to the hospital windows like ghostly fingerprints, distorting the light and giving the corridors a muted, dreamlike glow.Dr. James Wood walked through those halls with measured steps, his lab coat swaying behind him like the cloak of a monarch who ruled in silence.His face remained calm, professional, reassuring to anyone who saw him, the very image of a kind, brilliant doctor. But beneath his skin, beneath his pulse and breath, something darker flourished.Vengeance had roots now. It was growing."Seventeen years they've lived without guilt,"James thought, passing a group of nurses. "Seventeen years since they stole my life. Seventeen years since they murdered James Wood the first time."Now, he was ready. Not for their death, not yet, but for their descent. Slow, crawling, inevitable. Like sickness.He reached his office, closed the door, and stared at the files spread across his table. Each one had a name. Each one belonged to a killer.Maria Wood. Michael
You may also like
Hidden Billionaire Son-in-law
Deliaha Shine125.2K viewsThe Billionaire Husband in Disguise
Banin SN189.6K viewsRise Of The Supreme General
Anakin Detour95.0K viewsThe Lowly Son in Law is Quadrillionaire
Riku Ormstrom93.4K viewsThe Special Agent: Andrew Pierre
The_Juice4.2K viewsThe Mysterious Chairman Keith
Slumberin_Wraith581 viewsThe fortune's deadline
Liamneche02 521 viewsThey Tried to Kill Me Quietly, Now I’m Coming Back Loud
Ore-ofe write336 views