Reborn After My Husband Left Me to Die

Ivy's POV:

The night the zombie outbreak began, I died outside the iron gates of Damon's estate, carrying his child.

The streets had completely descended into chaos. Several houses were burning at once, and blood-covered zombies were chasing people through the darkness.

I clung desperately to the eleven-foot-tall iron gate, telling Damon over and over through the bars that I was pregnant.

I begged him to open the gate for just a few seconds.

Just long enough to let me inside before shutting it again.

But he never moved.

Because there was already another woman standing beside him.

She was wearing his coat, one hand protectively resting over her swollen belly.

And when I stood on the other side of that gate telling my own husband that the baby inside me was his too, Damon only looked at me.

Then, in an almost disturbingly calm voice, he said,

"You're lying."

A second later, a zombie lunged at me from behind.

The moment its teeth sank into my calf, I was still gripping the gate.

Even as I was dragged to the ground, I still couldn't believe it.

The man I had been married to for three years would rather stand safely behind those gates and watch me die than open them for me even once.

But when I opened my eyes again, the zombie apocalypse hadn't happened yet.

And Damon was coming home with divorce papers in his hand.

...

I jolted upright on the couch, my hand immediately flying to my calf.

The skin was intact.

No bite marks.

No blood.

There were no screams outside. No streets burning in the distance.

Only the lamp beside the couch was still on.

Several cards covered in my handwriting were scattered across the coffee table.

I looked down at one of them.

Damon, I'm pregnant.

I had actually written several different versions of the same sentence.

Before falling asleep, I had still been seriously thinking about how I should tell my husband the news.

Should I just tell him directly?

Or should I ease him into it first?

Damon had been getting busier over the past few years, and our relationship had grown more distant.

I had even worried that telling him too suddenly might leave him unsure of how to react.

But looking at those cards now, all I felt was bitter irony.

Because just moments ago, I had already seen the future with my own eyes.

He would leave me outside those iron gates for another pregnant woman.

That hadn't been an ordinary nightmare.

It was the future.

A future that hadn't happened yet.

At the thought, I instinctively pressed a hand to my stomach.

My heartbeat had barely begun to settle when I heard the lock turn.

Damon was home.

I looked up as he walked into the living room wearing a dark coat.

There was a navy-blue folder tucked under his arm.

The instant I saw it, I knew tonight was unfolding exactly the way I remembered.

He didn't take off his coat.

Clearly, he wasn't planning to stay long.

He walked over to the coffee table and placed the folder down, accidentally covering one of the cards that read, "I'm pregnant."

He didn't see it.

Or maybe he simply hadn't noticed anything else on the table.

Damon told me that several months ago, he had undergone a medical examination.

The results were bad.

He wasn't going to die immediately, but he had far less time than he had expected.

And according to the terms of his father's estate, if he didn't have a legal heir, both the company and the family assets would be affected.

So he needed to deal with our marriage as soon as possible.

When he finished, he pushed the folder slightly closer to me.

Divorce papers.

After hearing all of that, I was calmer than I expected.

I asked him directly,

"Another woman is carrying your child, isn't she?"

Damon didn't answer.

But that brief silence was enough.

Suddenly, everything became clear.

The woman I had seen in the future hadn't appeared after the zombie outbreak.

She was probably already part of Damon's life now.

I was simply the wife who had been kept in the dark.

The most ridiculous part was that I had planned to tell him tonight that I was pregnant too.

Instead, he had come home first with divorce papers.

Damon didn't explain any further.

He only said that everything needed to be handled quickly.

He had already arranged the division of our assets.

There was nothing we needed to fight over.

Once everything was signed, things would be easier for both of us.

I looked down at the folder.

One of the cards I had written for him was still trapped beneath its edge.

All I had to do was pull it out.

I could tell him right now.

I'm pregnant.

Maybe this baby would make him reconsider the divorce.

Maybe the gates in that future would open because of it.

The thought lasted only a second before I forced it away.

Because I had already tried that.

In that future, I had knelt outside those gates with zombies closing in behind me.

I had even used our child as my final reason for him to save me.

And Damon still hadn't opened the gate.

If he could choose another woman over me while zombies were right behind me, what was the point of using a baby to keep him now?

More importantly, I already knew the zombie apocalypse was coming.

Compared to saving a marriage that was already over, I had far more important things to worry about.

Food.

Water.

Medicine.

A secure shelter.

Weapons.

And somewhere absolutely safe to survive.

Last time, I had placed my final hope in Damon's gates.

And that was why I died.

I wouldn't make the same stupid mistake twice.

I picked up the pen and turned directly to the signature page.

Damon visibly froze.

He probably hadn't expected me to agree without even arguing.

But I didn't give him the chance to ask.

I signed my name where it was marked, closed the folder, and pushed it back toward him.

"It's signed."

He looked at me as if there was something else he wanted to say.

But I was already standing.

I left every card with "I'm pregnant" written on it exactly where it was, still partly buried beneath the divorce papers.

If this child wouldn't be enough to make him open a gate for me in the future, then there was no reason to use the baby to keep him now.

When I reached the door, Damon finally called my name from behind me.

"Ivy."

I didn't turn around.

I opened the door, and cold wind rushed against my face.

I paused for only a moment before placing my hand over my stomach again.

My baby was still alive.

And so was I.

Most importantly, the zombie outbreak that would turn the entire city into hell hadn't started yet.

This time, I wouldn't need to beg anyone to open a gate for me.

Before the first zombie appeared, I was going to build a safe home for myself and my child.

Ivy's POV:

There were only eleven weeks left before the zombie outbreak.

And the first thing I did after being reborn was tell the person I trusted most in this world everything that was going to happen.

By the time I drove to Grandma's house, almost the entire street was dark.

Only the porch light above her front door was still on.

Just like always.

No matter how late I came home, she always left a light on for me.

The moment I parked, the door opened.

Grandma stood there in her robe, her glasses still pushed up into her hair. She had probably been reading.

She took one look at my face, swallowed whatever she had been about to say, and simply stepped aside to let me in.

"Sit down first."

I didn't try to pretend I was fine.

Ever since leaving Damon's place, I had spent the entire drive forcing myself to think about what I needed to do next.

But the moment I sat down at the dining table I had known since childhood and smelled the familiar scent of tea from the kitchen, all the exhaustion I had been holding back suddenly crashed over me.

Grandma didn't question me right away.

She put the kettle on first.

Only after sitting down across from me did she ask,

"Did you tell Damon about the baby?"

I shook my head.

"No."

"I didn't even get the chance. He asked me for a divorce first."

"And there's already another woman."

Even I was surprised by how calm I sounded when I said it.

Maybe after seeing a city overrun by zombies and being eaten alive, finding out my husband had cheated on me suddenly didn't seem quite as terrifying.

Grandma, however, wasn't nearly as calm.

Her expression immediately darkened.

"So you signed?"

"I did."

I looked down at the table, my fingers instinctively moving to my stomach.

"I can't use this baby to beg him to stay."

Besides, I already knew what would happen if I begged him.

But that wasn't what I had come here to tell her.

I had come to tell Grandma about the apocalypse.

"Grandma, there's something else I need to tell you."

"Just hear me out before you decide I've lost my mind."

She frowned, but nodded anyway.

So I told her the most important part.

I didn't retell every detail of how I died.

I didn't describe every zombie or how terrifying they looked.

I simply told her that in eleven weeks, an uncontrollable infection would break out across the city.

The infected would attack the living, and society would collapse almost immediately.

And in my previous life, I had died in that disaster.

I told her I remembered the streets burning.

I remembered people running for their lives.

I remembered those things that could no longer even be called human chasing after them.

Most importantly, I remembered the date.

Eleven weeks.

And everything that happened tonight had already begun matching what I remembered.

Damon would come home with divorce papers.

He would be in a hurry to end our marriage.

And there would be another pregnant woman by his side.

Things that had once existed only in the future were now happening one after another.

But the more I spoke, the colder I felt when I saw Grandma's expression.

She didn't interrupt me.

She didn't laugh.

But I knew that careful look in her eyes all too well.

She didn't believe me.

She was worried something was wrong with me.

When the kettle finally let out a sharp whistle, she stood up almost as if she were grateful to have something else to do.

She turned off the heat and stood with her back to me for a moment.

When she finally turned around again, her voice had softened.

She didn't accuse me of lying.

She simply thought I had gone through too much in one night.

Divorce.

Pregnancy.

Betrayal.

She thought the emotional shock had been too much, and my fear had turned itself into an incredibly vivid nightmare.

"Sometimes when people go through something traumatic, the brain can make their worst fears feel completely real."

As I listened, my heart slowly sank.

"But it wasn't a dream."

Even now, if I closed my eyes, I could still remember the pain of the zombie biting into my leg.

And I remembered Damon standing on the other side of the iron gate, doing nothing.

Grandma still shook her head.

She told me that if none of it had happened yet, I couldn't decide that the entire world would become like that in eleven weeks just because of one nightmare.

She said maybe I was simply terrified of losing the life I had now.

Maybe the divorce had magnified every insecurity I was already feeling.

Maybe the pregnancy was making me more emotional than usual.

Every explanation sounded reasonable.

So reasonable that if I hadn't actually died once already, I might have believed them too.

I opened my mouth, ready to argue again, but stopped.

Because I had no proof.

From Grandma's perspective, I was a woman whose husband had just asked for a divorce, who was pregnant, and who had suddenly started claiming that a zombie outbreak would begin in eleven weeks and that I had already died once in the future.

It did sound insane.

"Okay."

"Maybe I'm just too stressed."

Grandma visibly relaxed.

She stood up and hugged me.

She told me to stay here tonight.

No matter what happened with Damon, I wasn't alone.

I didn't argue anymore.

But as I leaned against her shoulder, I already knew the truth.

She didn't believe me.

...

After returning to the room I used to stay in, I didn't even change my clothes.

I lay straight down on the bed and stared at the familiar ceiling.

Eleven weeks.

It used to sound like a long time.

Now it suddenly felt terrifyingly short.

Because if the future really unfolded the way I remembered, there was far too much I needed to prepare.

Food and water were only the basics.

Medicine.

Fuel.

Weapons.

A secure shelter.

Backup power.

And defenses strong enough to actually keep zombies out.

More importantly, I could never again place my survival in Damon's hands.

In my previous life, I hadn't run to his estate until the disaster had already begun.

I thought the high walls and iron gates would keep me safe.

And I thought three years of marriage would at least be enough for him to save me once.

Instead, I died outside his gate.

This time, I already knew how it would end.

So his estate couldn't be part of my plan from the very beginning.

I sat up, turned on the lamp beside the bed, and pulled a pen and paper from the drawer.

Then I began writing down everything I could still remember.

The approximate date of the outbreak.

The areas where the first signs of chaos appeared.

The order in which the power and water systems failed.

Which roads would eventually become completely blocked.

And which supplies would become the hardest to find.

Some of my memories were already blurry.

But that was fine.

I didn't need to remember every minute of the future.

I only needed to start preparing eleven weeks before everyone else.

When I finished writing, my hand once again rested over my stomach.

Grandma didn't believe me.

Damon definitely wouldn't believe me.

As for everyone else, if I ran outside right now and told them zombies were coming in eleven weeks, they would probably send me to a doctor even faster than Grandma would.

So I wouldn't tell anyone.

At least not yet.

Chapter Three

Damon's POV:

Two hours after the divorce papers were signed, what I still couldn't get past wasn't the fact that our three-year marriage was over.

It was how calm Ivy had been when she signed.

The divorce agreement hadn't been prepared at the last minute.

The day the doctor told me my test results, I had already contacted Julian.

I told him to get everything that needed to be handled ready in advance, because I didn't have much time left to waste on hesitation.

My condition was far more serious than anyone outside knew.

And the terms of my father's estate happened to tie the issue of an heir directly to the company.

If I failed to have a legal heir within the required time, it wouldn't just affect my personal assets.

It would also involve a redistribution of power throughout the entire group.

At a time like this, emotions had become the hardest thing to deal with, and the least efficient.

So when Julian brought me the documents, the only thing he confirmed was whether I planned to give them to Ivy myself.

I said yes.

He didn't try to talk me out of it.

After knowing me for so many years, he knew that once I truly made up my mind about something, there was no point trying to change it.

But now, the navy-blue folder was still sitting on the coffee table, and I was alone in the suddenly empty living room.

For the first time, I thought maybe it would have been better if Julian had asked one more question tonight.

At least then I would have had a chance to explain why I had to end this marriage so quickly.

But Ivy never gave me the chance to explain anything.

She signed too quickly.

That was what felt the strangest.

During our three years of marriage, she had argued with me over countless small things.

The thing about her that used to frustrate me most was how seriously she took everything.

No matter what it was, if she thought it mattered, she had to get to the bottom of it.

But tonight, I pushed a document ending our three-year marriage across the table to her, and she didn't ask me anything.

She didn't demand to know when I had changed my mind about us.

She didn't ask who the other woman was.

She didn't even look carefully at the division of assets.

She only confirmed that I had already made my decision.

Then she signed.

That wasn't like her.

I leaned back against the sofa, my eyes falling on the folder again, but for some reason, all I could think about was what she had done before leaving.

She had stood by the door for three seconds, one hand pressed against her lower abdomen.

At the time, I thought maybe her stomach was bothering her, or that she was simply too upset.

But thinking back on it now, something didn't feel right.

If she was only sad, why hadn't she looked back?

If she truly didn't want to let go, why had she walked away so decisively?

She hadn't looked like a woman whose husband had just left her.

If anything, she had looked like someone who already knew something and had finally decided not to waste any more time.

The study door opened just then.

"You look terrible."

Camille walked in.

She had clearly just come back from dinner and was still wearing the same dress. Her stomach had become more noticeable as the pregnancy progressed, and it was getting harder to hide.

She didn't ask if she could come in.

She simply sat down on the armrest across from me, glanced at the documents on the coffee table, and immediately knew it was over.

"She signed?"

I nodded.

Camille visibly relaxed.

"At least we won't have to keep sneaking around anymore. And you won't have to worry every time I show up that she might find out."

I frowned.

"I wasn't worried about her finding out."

Camille looked at me but didn't argue.

She just smiled.

For some reason, that expression made me even more uncomfortable.

Because she wasn't entirely wrong.

For a while now, I had deliberately avoided letting Ivy and Camille run into each other.

I told myself it was only to avoid unnecessary trouble.

After all, the divorce hadn't been dealt with yet.

Before everything was settled, there was no reason to make the situation uglier than it already was.

But now the marriage was over.

Camille was sitting right in front of me.

And the baby was still there.

I should have felt relieved.

Everything was moving in the most suitable direction.

The company needed an heir.

Camille was pregnant.

Ivy had signed the papers without fighting over the assets or making the divorce public.

It was as if every problem had been resolved smoothly.

But I didn't feel nearly as relieved as I thought I would.

"You're still thinking about her?"

Camille finally noticed something was wrong.

I pulled my eyes away from the folder.

"I just think she was acting a little strange tonight."

Even saying it out loud sounded ridiculous.

I thought it was strange because Ivy hadn't cried.

I felt uncomfortable because she hadn't tried to stop me.

I was the one who had ended the marriage, yet now I was sitting here going over it again and again simply because she had accepted the end too easily.

Camille also knew when to stop.

She quickly changed the subject and started talking about a prenatal appointment she had in a few days.

At first, I wasn't paying much attention.

Then she told me how much it would cost.

I looked up at her.

"That much?"

The money itself meant nothing to me.

But that didn't mean the amount made sense.

A routine examination shouldn't cost that much.

Camille seemed to already have an explanation prepared.

She said she was seeing a private specialist.

There were also several additional tests for the baby, so the clinic required payment in advance.

She looked completely natural as she explained it.

At least on the surface, nothing seemed wrong.

But for some reason, I still watched her for a few extra seconds.

Maybe everything that had happened tonight had simply made me more sensitive than usual.

Ivy had acted so strangely that now I found myself instinctively thinking twice about everything I heard.

"Send me the clinic information."

The smile on Camille's face froze for a moment.

Only for a moment.

If I hadn't already been watching her, I probably wouldn't have noticed.

"Why do you suddenly need the information?"

"It's not a small amount. I'll have my assistant keep it on file."

My tone was casual.

She quickly returned to normal and said she would send it to me later.

Then she added,

"But they need the payment tonight. My appointment is early tomorrow morning."

I didn't ask anything else.

I had already had enough for one day.

The lawyers.

The divorce.

Ivy.

And all those endless calls from the doctor.

I really didn't have the energy to keep questioning her over a medical bill.

So I took out my phone and transferred the money.

The moment the payment confirmation appeared, Camille visibly relaxed.

Then she got up, walked over to me, and wrapped both arms around my shoulders.

She rested her head against my chest, her voice soft, almost comforting.

"Damon, things will get better from now on. You won't regret the decision you made today."

I didn't answer.

I simply raised my arms and held her out of habit.

But when I looked over her shoulder, my eyes eventually returned to the navy-blue folder.

Ivy's signature was inside.

I had thought the hardest thing I would have to do tonight was personally bring our marriage to an end with her.

But what truly unsettled me was how she had ended it with almost no hesitation at all.

Camille was still in my arms, talking about the future.

But another image kept appearing in my mind.

When Ivy stood up to leave, she hadn't taken the cards from the coffee table.

At the time, I hadn't paid any attention to what was written on them.

I only remembered that several of them had been trapped beneath the divorce papers.

One corner of a card had been sticking out, and she had stared at it for a long time.

Thinking back on it now, I suddenly wanted to know what was on them.

She had originally been waiting for me tonight.

She had even prepared something she wanted to tell me.

But by the time she left, she hadn't said a single word.

I slowly let go of Camille, my eyes already returning to the table.

The cards were still there.

One of them was half-covered by the folder.

For some reason, I suddenly had a very bad feeling.

Maybe what I had really missed tonight wasn't why Ivy had suddenly agreed to the divorce.

It was what she had originally been planning to tell me before I put those divorce papers in front of her.