This is my final chance to rewrite the stars for Donna. I’ve traveled back across a decade, carrying the weight of a single mission: save her. If I fail, she ceases to exist in both timelines. Total erasure. So, I cannot afford to lose. Everyone thinks I’m pathetic for crawling back to an ex-girlfriend who’s now confined to a wheelchair, but I don’t care. I’m relentless. She hates me for what happened ten years ago—for the way I seemingly abandoned her when she needed me most. She spends her days finding new, inventive ways to humiliate me, but I don’t flinch. Until tonight. Until this twisted game of "Truth or Dare" got us locked in a high-tech escape room together. The rules are simple: the door only unlocks if you whisper the name of the person you truly love while a sensor confirms your heart rate has hit the "arousal" threshold. I waited, breathless. And then I heard it. She didn't say my name. She said "Parker." Parker—the "Golden Boy," the perpetual optimist who hovers around her like a loyal golden retriever. The man she usually treats with cold indifference. I stood there, paralyzed by the shock. Donna just let out a sharp, jagged laugh. "It’s just a game, Cade," she whispered, her voice like broken glass. "Don't go catching feelings now. It’s pathetic." Then, her eyes darkened with a predatory glint. She leaned in, her voice a low, seductive lure. She told me that if I stayed in this dark room all night as "punishment," she’d grant me a single minute of being "back together" as a reward. I looked at her—at the woman I’ve died for twice before—and slowly shook my head. "It’s okay," I said softly. "I don't need it anymore." She has no idea that my only goal is to restore the girl she used to be. To undo the accident that took her legs. To save a version of her that doesn't yet know how to hate me. 1 "Think about it, Cade. This might be the only chance you ever get..." Donna’s voice trailed off. A flicker of genuine shock crossed her face, cracking her icy mask. "What did you just say? You’re... turning me down?" She narrowed her eyes, searching my face for the catch. "What’s the play here? Playing hard to get? Trying to reverse the psychology?" I met her gaze. My throat felt like it was full of acid, but I kept my voice steady. "I’ll take the punishment. I’ll stay the night." "But as for getting back together?" I took a breath. "There’s no point." The smirk on Donna’s face froze. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the armrests of her wheelchair. I saw a flash of something dark and turbulent in her eyes—resentment, maybe, or a bruised ego. "Fine," she spat. "What’s the price, then? What are you going to demand this time? Do you want me to go back to that shithole fishing village with you? Or do you want me to sit through another one of your hollow, miserable explanations?" She leaned forward, her voice rising. "I don't get it, Cade! You were the one who dumped me. You were the one who walked away. Why do you always act like you're the goddamn martyr?" I bit my lip, forcing myself to look up so the tears wouldn't fall. This is the third time. The third life. And she still loathes me. In the first life, I tried to prove my love by literally jumping off a cliff for her. When she stood over my body, all she said was, "Serves him right." In the second life, I brought her to my old mentor, the man who gave me the scholarship. I tried to prove I didn't leave her for a career abroad. She hated me even more for it. She ended up framing that mentor for bribery, just to strip away everything I cared about. In this life, I tried total honesty. I told her the truth: that being with me was the only way to save her life. She laughed in my face. She threw a bottle of experimental meds—developed by Parker, her "Golden Boy"—at my feet. "I’m not the eighteen-year-old idiot I used to be, Cade," she had said. "Being with you is a 'cure'? Listen to yourself. That’s the most pathetic pickup line in history." Looking at the sheer disgust in her eyes now, I felt a bone-deep weariness for the first time. But then I looked at her legs. I remembered the night ten years ago—the night she was jumped by my father’s creditors because she was working three jobs to pay for my tuition. I remembered the sound of the impact. I looked at the heart rate monitor on the wall. The jagged green line was still settling. She claimed to hate Parker, but her heart skipped when she said his name. I forced a bitter smile. "I don't want anything from you this time, Donna." "I’ll say it one last time. I never abandoned you. I never tried to climb over you to get to the top. I am literally here to save your life." I turned my head away, quickly wiping my eyes with my sleeve. Donna hesitated. For a split second, the air between us shifted. Then, the door to the escape room was thrown open. A silhouette burst through the light, rushing straight to her. "Donna! Are you okay?" Parker. He was breathless, his eyes brimming with performative concern. He knelt by her chair, ignoring me entirely. "You’ve always been terrified of the dark. Why did you let him drag you into this game?" "Come on. Let’s go home." He threw a sharp, protective glare in my direction. It was a mirror image of the way I used to stand in front of Donna when we were kids. When he realized the wheelchair was locked, he paused. He followed Donna’s gaze up to the heart rate monitor on the wall. His expression shifted instantly to one of smug, sugary triumph. "He’ll be fine," Parker said, his voice softening as he looked at Donna. "He’s not the scared little boy who used to hide behind you anymore, Don. Let him stay." Donna’s cold aura seemed to thaw slightly under his touch. She looked at me, almost as if she were trying to convince herself of something. "One night, Cade," she murmured. "After tonight, I’ll give you one last chance to explain yourself." I watched them leave. Parker pushed her chair into the light, and then the door slammed shut. Darkness rushed in. The old, familiar terror began to crawl up my spine. She’d forgotten. She’d forgotten that ten years ago, I nearly died in a place just like this. I pulled my knees to my chest, burying my face in my arms. The tears came fast then. All I could think about was the eighteen-year-old version of Donna—the girl who was waiting for me to "win" this game so we could both go home. Then, a cold, mechanical voice flickered in my mind. [Warning: Host's will to continue has dropped below the threshold. Automatic failure sequence initiated.] 2 [Confirmation required: Do you wish to forfeit the mission?] I bit my lip until I tasted copper. I was a second away from saying yes. Suddenly, the last faint light in the room died. The darkness was absolute. My mind spiraled back to the cellar, to the smell of damp earth and my father’s drunken rants. My head throbbed. I tried to scream for the System, to tell it to take me back. Thump! The door was kicked open. A figure silhouetted against the hall light ran toward me. In my disoriented state, the shape looked just like the girl from my memories. I felt a surge of hope. She came back. She actually cares. The System’s question vanished from my mind. I must have passed out, because I started to dream. I was back in Portside, the foggy coastal town where we grew up. Donna was an orphan, the girl everyone liked to kick around. Our first real conversation happened after a group of neighborhood kids threw a rock at her head. I had saved up every cent I earned from paper routes. I carried her on my back three miles to the town clinic. She was so thin back then. She wouldn't look at me. "I’ll pay you back," she had muttered. I just blinked at her. "It’s okay. I heard you go into the city sometimes. Can you just... take me with you next time?" I wanted to study. My parents wouldn't let me. I needed to learn the train routes so I could sneak away to take the entrance exams. We became inseparable. When I was eighteen, I got my acceptance letter to a university abroad. My father tore it into confetti. They wanted to sell me off to work the industrial docks to pay their gambling debts. I tried to run, but Portside was a trap. I spent three months locked in a literal pigpen behind our house. Donna was the one who found me. She went feral, fighting my father to get me out. She nearly died doing it. After we escaped, she worked three jobs to pay for my life. When I tried to say no, she’d just pinch my cheek and laugh. "Just wait until you graduate, Cade. Then we’ll get married." "You’re the reason I work so hard. I want to give you the world." The eighteen-year-old Donna loved me with every fiber of her being. That’s why, when the scholarship abroad finally came through and she was crippled by my father’s enemies on the same night, I took the deal. I signed up with the System. She had even told me back then, "Ten years from now? I’ll probably be a boss. You won’t even need to 'win' me over." But as I left, she looked worried. "Cade... if the version of me ten years from now has really changed... if she’s gone cold... then just give up. I promise, I’d rather you be free than have you hurt by a version of me that forgot how to love you." The dream started to dissolve. I reached out for her hand. "Donna!" I screamed. My eyes snapped open. I wasn't looking at Donna. I was looking at Parker’s smug, amused face. He saw my confusion and started laughing. "You actually thought it was her, didn't you? You thought she ran back to save you?" He pulled out his phone and hit play on a video. "It was a security guard, Cade. They didn't want a lawsuit if you had a heart attack in there." He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a hiss. "You think these pathetic guilt trips work on her? She spent ten years suffering because of your betrayal." He paused, his eyes turning cold. "I’m the protagonist of her story now. Why did you have to come back?" "Since you won't take the hint... don't blame me for this." Before I could react, he screamed. He threw himself onto the floor, knocking over the hot tray of food he’d brought in. The scalding soup splashed across his arm, turning the skin red. That was the exact moment Donna rolled into the room. Parker looked up at her, tears welling in his eyes. "Cade... I only came here to check on you. Why would you do this?" He grabbed the hem of Donna’s coat. "It’s my fault. I just mentioned that your legs were getting better... and he lost it. He kept saying that the only way you’d truly heal is if you were with him." I looked at Parker’s "gotcha" smile and found myself laughing. It was a hollow, jagged sound. I looked Donna straight in the eye. "You were standing right outside the door, weren't you?" "You saw exactly what happened. Didn't you?" 3 Parker’s eyes went wide. "Donna, no, it’s not—" For a heartbeat, I held onto a sliver of hope. I waited for her to defend me, the way she used to when we were kids. Then she spoke, and the words were like ice water in my lungs. "I could call the police and have you charged with assault for this, Cade." Her face was a mask of indifference. I was a stranger to her. A nuisance. Parker let out a breath of relief, leaning closer to her chair. "Can't handle it?" Donna mocked, seeing me look down. "This is nothing. I spent ten years in this kind of pain. When my business in the city finally started to take off, your father’s old associates burned my warehouse to the ground. And you? You were gone without a word." "Now I’m successful again. Now I’m back on top. And suddenly, you’re back, sniffing around like a stray dog." Her eyes were rimmed with red, her voice trembling with a decade of suppressed rage. "What makes you think I’d ever wait for you? What makes you think I’d ever forgive you?" The room went silent. The weight of everything—the three lives, the sacrifices, the silence—finally broke me. "I didn't!" I screamed. "Donna, the reason I left was because—" I felt a physical pressure on my throat. The System was blocking the words. I started shaking. "Because why? Say it!" she yelled. There was a tiny, desperate flicker of hope in her expression. I closed my eyes and let out a long, ragged sigh. "I can't tell you the 'why.' But I never left you because I wanted to. I came back to save you." To make you walk again. Before I could finish, I saw the look of "here we go again" wash over her. She turned her chair around and pulled out her phone to dial 911. Just as the call connected, the door pushed open again. "Nate? Oh my god, Nate! It is you!" A young woman with a round, cheerful face walked in. She looked at the mess on the floor and winced. "What happened here?" She looked at me with genuine excitement. "Where have you been for ten years? When you suddenly gave up your spot for the London program, our professor was devastated. You just... vanished. Everyone thought you were dead." Boom. Donna’s head snapped toward the girl. She shoved her chair forward, grabbing the girl’s arm. "What did you just say? He didn't go abroad?" The girl frowned, pulling her arm back. "Who are you? Yeah, Nate stayed. He never even picked up his transcripts. He left everything in his dorm. It was like he was erased from the planet." Sensing the toxic atmosphere, the girl made a quick excuse and bolted. Parker tried to recover. "Cade, nice touch. Hiring an actress? Really?" I ignored him. I pulled my hand away from Donna's grip and looked down. My fingers were beginning to turn translucent. The "erasure" was starting. I looked for Donna, but she was already turning away, her mind a whirlwind. "I’ll look into this," she muttered. "You better not be lying to me, Cade." She turned to Parker, her voice sharp. "You overstepped. Get out." Parker started to protest, but she leaned in and whispered something in his ear. He turned pale and left without another word. I leaned back against the hospital bed. I was so tired. I looked at my fading hand and whispered to the empty room, "It doesn't matter anymore." Three days later, Donna appeared at my door. She looked at me with a complexity I couldn't decipher. She rolled her chair to my bedside and pulled out a faded, cheap silver ring. "I bought this ten years ago," she whispered, her voice husky. "I was going to ask you to stay." "Is it too late now?" I looked at her, my heart a flat line. "What about Parker?" She didn't answer. She just slid the ring onto my finger. 4 After that, we didn't mention Parker. It was as if he had been a fever dream. The "proposal" wasn't mentioned again either. We just... existed. She would kiss my forehead. She would wipe a stray crumb from my lip. I asked her once, "Are we back together?" She didn't answer. She just told me to focus on getting better. One afternoon, she brought me a vanilla cone—my favorite from the old days. I reached out to take it, but my fingers passed right through the cardboard sleeve. The cone hit the floor with a splat. Donna didn't get angry. She just silently leaned down from her chair and wiped the mess with a wet wipe. "It’s okay," she said quietly. Looking at her like that, I almost believed we were okay. If I hadn't seen the text Parker sent me an hour earlier—a photo of Donna at a bridal boutique, fitting a wedding dress. "It’s normal for tastes to change after ten years," Donna said suddenly. That was it. The fuse lit. "Enough!" I grabbed my phone and shoved the photo of her in the wedding dress in front of her face. "What is this, Donna? What is the point of this sick game?" "You 'propose' to me, you refuse to talk to me, you act like we’re back together—and all the while, you’re planning a wedding with Parker? What am I to you? A pet? A trophy?" She stared at the photo, and then she started to laugh. Cold, melodic, and terrifying. "It took you this long to realize I was playing you?" She braced herself against the arms of her wheelchair and, to my absolute horror, stood up. She looked down at me, her height making her seem like a stranger. "Cade, the 'actress' you hired was good, but not good enough. You said being with you would save me? Look at me. I’m standing." "I’m fine. I’m better than fine. And you? You have nothing left to hold over me." I sat there, stunned. "I did it on purpose," she smirked. "Parker’s meds worked. He made me walk again. So I’m marrying him. What does it matter who I marry, anyway?" Her phone buzzed. Parker. She waved it at me. "If you want to object at the wedding, Cade, maybe I’ll give you a check for the entertainment value. You can finally have the money you wanted." She looked at her legs, pride glowing in her eyes. "I’m going to the ceremony now. To my new life." As she turned to leave, I called out, one last time. "Donna! If you marry him, you’ll die! The mission will fail, and you’ll be erased!" She didn't even pause. She didn't hear the last part. The System flickered to life. [Mission Failed. Initiating return sequence to T-minus 10 years.] [Return will commence once host's body reaches 100% transparency.] At the engagement gala, Donna stood tall under the flashing lights. She held Parker’s arm, her eyes scanning the crowd. She was looking for me. She wanted to see me break. But as the officiant began to speak, a sudden, violent wave of vertigo hit her. Her legs buckled. There was a scream, a chaotic rush of bodies. Parker was shouting. As she collapsed on the floor, she felt a terrifying sensation—not pain, but absence. Like her very soul was being pulled out through a straw. In the fading light of her vision, a crimson warning flashed in the air: [WARNING: TARGET ERASURE IN PROGRESS. HOST HAS ABANDONED MISSION. COUNTDOWN INITIATED.]
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