Chapter 1

The air in the Alaskan lodge was thin and bitingly cold. I, Ethan Miller, a software architect from Seattle, sat alone.

Outside, the sky was a vast, dark canvas, waiting for the aurora borealis. This trip was supposed to be a final wish.

Doctors had given me a timeline, a bad diagnosis. It was a lie, I'd learn later, but back then, it felt like the end.

My wife, Olivia Hayes, had been gone for two years, lost in a boating accident. Or so I believed.

The wind howled, shaking the small wooden structure. I pulled my parka tighter.

Then, through the storm's noise, I heard it – a woman's cry, then a man's shout.

My tent, pitched a little way from the main lodge for a better view of the lights, was suddenly illuminated by the frantic beam of a flashlight. I unzipped the flap, peering out into the swirling snow.

A figure stumbled, then another. It was a man, younger, supporting a woman. As they drew closer, the flashlight caught her face.

My breath hitched. Olivia. Alive.

Not a ghost, not a memory, but Olivia, her vibrant red hair plastered to her forehead by snow, her arm around this younger man, Liam Vance.

The world tilted. Ten years of marriage, two years of grief, all of it a lie.

The blizzard trapped us all in the main lodge. Chaos.

The lodge owner, a gruff old man, tried to get a signal for help. Olivia was injured, a deep gash on her leg from whatever accident they'd had in the storm.

Liam fussed over her, his face pale. I just watched, numb.

Hours passed. The storm raged. Then, a terrible sound, a rumble that grew into a roar. Avalanche.

Snow and ice crashed down, shaking the lodge violently. When it stopped, Olivia was worse. Critically injured. Liam was frantic.

I knelt beside her, my mind a blank. Her eyes, the same eyes I had loved, fluttered open. She looked at me, a flicker of recognition.

Her lips moved. "Ethan," she whispered, her voice raspy. "Liam... I regret Liam... not you."

Then, her eyes closed. Again, she was gone.

I woke up with a gasp, drenched in sweat. My bedroom. Seattle. Sunlight streamed through the window.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I looked around, disoriented. The calendar on the wall: ten years earlier. The first year of our marriage.

Olivia lay beside me, sleeping peacefully, her breathing even.

The misdiagnosis hadn't happened yet. The Alaskan trip, her "second death," her confession – it was all a nightmare, a horrifyingly vivid dream of a future that couldn't be real.

But the pain, the betrayal, felt too sharp, too deeply etched in my soul. I touched my chest. The phantom ache of loss was still there.

Olivia stirred, her eyes opening slowly. She smiled, a soft, sleepy smile that used to melt my heart.

"Morning, sleepyhead," she murmured, stretching.

Her voice, so normal, so unaware. It sent a chill down my spine. The future, that terrible future, felt like a shadow clinging to me.

I tried to smile back, but it felt like a grimace. "Morning."

She propped herself on an elbow, looking at me. "You okay? You look pale."

"Just a bad dream," I said, the words tasting like ash.

She reached out, touching my cheek. Her hand was warm. "Poor baby."

She leaned in to kiss me. I flinched, almost imperceptibly.

She got up, humming, heading to the kitchen. I heard her starting the coffee machine. The sounds of a normal morning.

But nothing felt normal. I was hyper-aware of her every move, every word.

Her final words from that Alaskan nightmare echoed in my mind: "I regret Liam... not you." Liam. The name was a brand on my memory. Who was Liam?

She came back with two mugs of coffee. She offered me one, with a piece of chocolate on the saucer, her usual morning gesture.

"Here you go."

I looked at the chocolate, something I usually loved. Today, I couldn't. "No, thanks," I said, taking only the coffee.

Olivia paused, a slight frown creasing her forehead. "You sure? You love these."

"Not today." My voice was flat.

I watched her, searching her face for any sign, any hint of the woman from my "future." She just shrugged, popped the chocolate into her own mouth, and took a sip of her coffee.

A few days later, Olivia came home late from her marketing firm. "Big campaign launch," she said, kissing me briefly. "Exhausted."

She seemed normal, tired but cheerful. But I watched her. I listened.

The future knowledge was a constant hum beneath the surface of my thoughts.

Then, one evening, she was on the phone in the other room. Her voice was low, laughing softly. It wasn't a work call. I knew her work voice. This was different. Softer. More intimate.

When she hung up, she came into the living room, a bright, almost forced smile on her face. "Just Chloe," she said, naming her best friend. "Gossiping as usual."

But her eyes didn't quite meet mine. And her cheeks were flushed. A tiny seed of suspicion, watered by the nightmare future, began to sprout.

The next week, she said she had a late dinner with clients. "Don't wait up," she called as she rushed out, dressed impeccably, a new perfume I didn't recognize lingering in the air.

I nodded, watching her go.

An hour later, I "forgot" my wallet at home and drove to her office building. Her car wasn't in its usual spot. I waited.

Two hours later, I saw her. She wasn't alone.

A young man, tall, charismatic, was laughing with her as they walked out of a nearby upscale restaurant, not the one her firm usually used for client dinners.

He opened the car door for her – a sleek sports car, not his own, I'd later learn. She leaned in, said something that made him grin, then got into her own car.

He watched her drive away before getting into his.

Liam. It had to be. The casual intimacy, her glowing face.

The first lie, the first concrete crack in the foundation of our marriage, right here in this new past. My future nightmare was bleeding into my present.