Chapter 1

Liam stared at the satellite imagery on his monitor, his brow furrowed in concentration. As a data analyst for the National Disaster Prevention Center, his job was to see patterns others missed, to connect dots that looked miles apart. Right now, the dots over the mountain range near Crestwood, his girlfriend Chloe' s hometown, were forming a terrifying picture. A rare combination of heavy snowfall, unusual temperature fluctuations, and seismic instability pointed to a high probability of a massive snow avalanche.

His phone buzzed on the desk. It was Chloe. A smile immediately replaced his worried expression.

"Hey, you," he answered, leaning back in his chair. "Thinking about you."

"Are you?" Chloe' s voice was playful, but with an edge he knew well. "Or are you just thinking about your boring weather charts?"

"Both," he laughed. "Hey, about our anniversary trip next week, I was thinking-"

"I have the best idea," she cut in, her excitement obvious. "Forget the beach. Let's go to my hometown! We can ski, see my parents, and it will be so romantic. I already looked at cabins."

Liam' s smile vanished. He sat bolt upright, his eyes darting back to the screen. The glowing red markers indicating extreme danger were all centered on Crestwood.

"Chloe, no. Absolutely not."

"What do you mean, no?" Her tone shifted instantly from cheerful to annoyed. "Don't you want to see my parents? They're always asking when you'll visit."

"It's not about them," Liam said, trying to keep his voice calm. "The data I'm looking at right now is bad. Really bad. There's a serious risk of a major avalanche in that exact area."

A derisive laugh came through the phone. "An avalanche? Liam, it snows there every winter. You're being dramatic. My parents have lived there their whole lives, they know what they' re doing."

"This is different, Chloe. The models are predicting a one-in-a-hundred-year event. It's not safe."

"You always do this," she snapped. "You use your job as an excuse to control everything. I want to go home, and I want to go with you. But if you're going to be like this, I'll just go with Chad. I'm sure he'd love a ski trip."

The mention of his best friend, Chad, felt like a deliberate jab. Liam knew Chad and Chloe got along, but she often used him to make Liam feel inadequate.

"This isn't about control, it's about your safety."

"Whatever, Liam. I' m booking the tickets. You can either be my loving boyfriend or the paranoid weatherman. Your choice."

Before he could argue further, she hung up. Liam stared at the dead phone, a cold feeling spreading through his chest. He was trying to save her, and she saw it as an attack.

As he turned back to his monitor, a strange thing happened. A bright red pop-up box, the kind he'd never seen from their system software, flickered violently in the center of his screen. It had no 'X' to close it. The text inside was stark and brutal.

[WARNING: PAST LIFE MEMORIES UNLOCKED. SOULMATE BOND SEVERED DUE TO EXTREME BETRAYAL.]

Liam blinked, shaking his head. It had to be a virus, or a prank from the IT department. He tried to click away, but his mouse was frozen. Then, the text in the box began to scroll, fast and relentless, like a feed of pure horror.

[Past Life Cycle 1: You were a general. She was a spy for the enemy. She poisoned your wine the night before a decisive battle. You died. Your army was slaughtered.]

[Past Life Cycle 2: You were a wealthy merchant. She was your wife, in love with your business partner, "Chad." They bankrupted your company, stole your fortune, and left you to die in debtor's prison.]

[Past Life Cycle 3: You were a researcher who discovered a cure for a plague. She stole your research, sold it to a rival corporation, and discredited you. You were exiled and died alone, while she and "Chad" were celebrated as heroes.]

The text kept scrolling, each line a new, more painful betrayal. The names were the same. It was always Chloe. And it was always Chad, his best friend, by her side.

The final line of text burned onto the screen, searing itself into his mind.

[Current Life Cycle: You are a disaster prediction analyst. She will ignore your warning, leading to the death of her parents. She will blame you, ruin your career, and leave you for Chad. Her greed and his arrogance will eventually lead to their own demise, but your life will be destroyed first.]

The pop-up box vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. The screen returned to normal, showing the ominous weather patterns over Crestwood.

Liam was frozen in his chair, his heart hammering against his ribs. His breath came in short, sharp gasps. It couldn't be real. It was a hallucination, brought on by stress.

But as he looked at Chloe' s picture on his desk-the smiling, beautiful woman he loved-he felt a phantom pain, a deep, ancient ache of betrayal that resonated in his very bones. The love he felt just moments ago was now clashing with a tidal wave of cold, hard information that felt more real than anything he had ever known.

He knew, with a certainty that terrified him, that it was all true. And it was all about to happen again.