Waking Up to Her True Face

Ethan Miller, a Seattle software architect, woke in a cold sweat, his heart hammering. His wife, Olivia, slept peacefully beside him, unaware. The calendar showed it was ten years earlier, their first year of marriage, but he'd just lived through a terrifying premonition: Olivia, supposedly dead for two years, reappeared in an Alaskan lodge with another man, Liam, confessed a harrowing regret, then died again. The dream's raw pain and phantom ache of betrayal clung to him, chilling his once-normal mornings. Soon, the nightmare began to bleed into his present. Olivia's late nights grew more frequent, her phone calls hushed. He caught glimpses of a new, unfamiliar perfume. Then, the undeniable truth: witnessing her outside an upscale restaurant, laughing intimately with a young man, Liam Vance, his heart-stoppingly familiar face mirroring the one in his dream. A small park rendezvous sealed it-a public, passionate kiss, Liam's smug gaze, Olivia captivated. The illusion of his loving wife shattered with sickening finality. But the worst was yet to come. Hiding in plain sight, Ethan overheard Olivia giddily discussing Liam, dismissing him as "boring," and chillingly, casually discussing his life insurance policy. "Enough to start fresh, really fresh." His blood ran cold. The woman he had adored, trusted implicitly, was gone, replaced by a calculating stranger. All he felt was a profound, wrenching injustice, a searing bewilderment. He was a fool. But Olivia's contempt and calculated cruelty would not go unpunished. No longer a naive, trusting fool, Ethan, armed with this terrifying future knowledge, made a quiet, chilling decision. He picked up his phone, his fingers trembling, and called his shrewd Aunt Carol in London. It was time to orchestrate his own disappearance, to rewrite his destiny.