Chapter 3

In the heart of modern Seoul, where neon lights hum like restless ghosts, Lee Mira lives a second life she was never meant to have. Once consumed by a mysterious fire that should have ended her, she awakens in a world that doesn't quite feel real - where shadows move through networks, and her reflection whispers secrets she can't unhear. Haunted by the past and hunted by the truth, Mira begins to unravel the cause of the blaze that stole everything from her. But the deeper she digs, the more she realizes the fire wasn't an accident - it was a message. A warning. A creation born from her own hands. Now, with Evan Choi, the man who once saved her and might still betray her, Mira must walk the line between vengeance and redemption. Together, they navigate a city built on memory and deceit - where love burns as fiercely as revenge, and every secret has a pulse. Because some flames never die. They remember. And they always find their way home.

When the sky ignited in crimson and bombs obliterated Segunda Island in 2080, death was only the beginning. The fallen didn't stay dead. They morphed into savage, bloodthirsty beasts. Terrified survivors barely hold on, hunted by horrors that wear the faces of those they loved. Jane Fortalejo, the last from a dynasty destroyed overnight, is forced to ally with strangers from the island's shadowed underbelly. Driven to expose the sinister truth behind the apocalypse, Jane will risk her life, sanity, and the fragile alliances she forms. What really brought ruin to Segunda? And can the last survivors escape a fate worse than death itself?

As the world burned outside our penthouse, my husband secured two tickets to the Helios Initiative-a billionaire's ark for humanity's brightest minds. I was a brilliant software architect who sacrificed my career for his, so I assumed the second ticket was mine. Instead, he asked me for a temporary divorce. He needed to legally bring his doe-eyed protégée, Katia, as his "Key Collaborator." "It's the only logical solution," he said calmly, handing me the papers. He explained that his work with her was essential for rebuilding civilization, while our marriage was mere "sentimentality." He was leaving me and my mother, who sold her home to fund his career, to die. He offered me a "fund" to be comfortable while the world ended, insisting he still loved me. The man I had built my life around was discarding me like an outdated accessory. But he made a fatal miscalculation. He forgot the billionaire funding the ark owed me a life-altering favor. My hand shook as I dialed the number I hadn't touched in ten years. "Emmett," I whispered, "I need to call in that favor."

Five years ago, I gave my fiancé, Floyd Meyers, my neural interface to save his life after a car crash left him in a coma. He promised to cherish me forever, but now he's engaged to another woman, Jaylah Ryan. Together, they're publicly erasing me, making it clear I'm being thrown out of the house I once called home. In my last life, I broke down. I cried and begged for an explanation. He told me a psychic claimed I was the source of his bad luck. He had me locked away in a mental hospital, then drowned me in the cold lake behind our house, convinced he was freeing himself from a curse. I sacrificed a piece of my own body for him, and he repaid me with humiliation and murder. But I woke up again, back in this house, just days before their engagement party. This time, I will not cry. I will not beg. This time, I have an escape plan, and I will walk away before he can destroy me again.

For seven years, my husband Kerr Chapman' s every cruel word and cold shoulder was translated by a mysterious "Mind-Link Notification" as a twisted expression of love. It told me his dismissals were "tests of obedience," his neglect a sign of "profound commitment." I believed it, sacrificing my dignity and self for a love I thought was just hidden. Then, after he kicked me out late one night, I crashed my car. Lying injured in the hospital, I expected him to finally break. Instead, he arrived with my university rival, Gina Parker, who openly mocked me and claimed Kerr had been with her. Kerr stood by, defending Gina, even as she deliberately broke a cherished drawing of my deceased mother and then fabricated a story that I attacked her. He carried her out, leaving me alone, his words echoing: "It's a thing, Chloe. You hurt a person over a thing." The Mind-Link notification flashed, trying to justify his betrayal as "a test of my unconditional love." But for the first time, its words felt like a monstrous lie, a sick justification for his cruelty. I stared at the blue box, the words blurring through my tears. The love it described wasn't love. It was a cage. And I finally, finally saw the bars. I had to get out.

I poured years of my life into "The Gilded Cage," a virtual world where I became Noah, determined to save Chloe, its tragic villainess. I guided her, taught her, helped her build a tech empire, thinking I' d rewritten her destiny. But when she finally stood on top of the world, she looked at me, her eyes cold. "You didn't save me, Noah. You just built me a different cage." Then, she brutally threw me from her penthouse balcony. Ejected from the simulation, I thought I was free. But a system malfunction tethered my consciousness to Chloe's. I was dragged through her past, a ghost watching her childhood trauma and Liam Hayes's betrayal unfold, forced to relive every painful step of her original story. Each memory, a cruel reminder of my failure, of the monster I inadvertently helped create. Why was I condemned to witness the very pain I' d tried so hard to prevent again? The system said it was a recursive feedback loop, a side effect of her emergent sentience. But it felt more like a calculated torment. When my consciousness was finally about to dematerialize, Chloe, tear-streaked and broken, reached for me, pleading, "Please. You have to save me." But the phantom pains of her betrayal surged, and I recoiled, spitting out the words that echoed her own cruelty: "My life doesn't need a monster in it." I thought it was over. Then, weeks later, the real Chloe, corporeal and lost, appeared on my doorstep. "I found a way out... You have to help me. You have to save me."