The Ghost Bride's Game Of Revenge

After surviving five years of hell in a deep-sea simulation, I finally escaped, battered and broken. I fought my way back for one reason: my fiancé, Derek. But when I found him, he sealed me in a cave and left me to die.

"Just three more days, Eva," he pleaded, his hand holding my pregnant former assistant's. "Our wedding is on Saturday."

My own parents, who had adopted her as their new daughter, believed her lies that I was a monster. They watched as Derek broke my ankle and hand, and my father shattered my ribs.

They left me for dead, trapped and alone, after I had spent five years clinging to their memory.

But I didn't die. I was rescued by a mysterious benefactor who gave me a new life and erased my pain. A year later, when a guilt-ridden Derek tracked me down, begging for a second chance, I smiled. It was my turn to play a game.

Chapter 1

Eva POV:

My life, what was left of it, ended the day I found him again. Five years. Five years of hell to get back to a world that didn't want me anymore.

The submersible was gone. One moment, the deep-sea currents were a dance of shadows and light. The next, a violent shudder rocked us, and the abyss swallowed everything. They called it an anomaly. I called it a new beginning. My beginning.

Derek, my fiancé, my rock, must have been broken by my loss. He was. I heard the stories later, whispered in the cold, sterile rooms of my recovery. He tried to end it all. A desperate, jagged cut across his wrist, a crimson promise to follow me into the deep.

He swore to my parents, his eyes wet and red, that he would spend every waking moment, every penny, the next five years of his life, searching. He told them he' d rather die than live without me. His voice, raw with grief, echoed in the empty halls of their home. My parents, shattered by their daughter's presumed death, clung to his words like a lifeline.

"Five years," he choked out, his hand shaking as he gripped my father's arm. "If I don't find her, you'll never see me again."

He meant it. He spent the money. Every last cent of our shared savings, his inheritance, even his research grants went into charting expeditions, hiring experts, buying submersible equipment. He chased every whisper, every phantom signal. He lost weight. His clean-shaven face grew a rough beard, his eyes hollowed out, dark circles perpetually bruised beneath them. He looked like a ghost, haunted by my absence.

My parents watched him, their own hope flickering. After three years, they couldn't take it anymore. They stopped funding the searches, their faces etched with a grief I couldn't imagine. They moved on, adopting a young woman, a former lab assistant of mine, Casey, into our family. A new daughter, a new life, built on my grave.

But Derek didn't stop. Not until the fifth year. That's when his relentless, desperate hunt finally paid off.

I saw the searchlights first. A blinding beacon cutting through the underwater gloom, a promise of rescue. My heart hammered against my ribs, a forgotten rhythm. I was weak, starved, my clothes hanging in tatters, my skin a patchwork of scars. But I was alive. And I was coming home.

I stumbled out of the cavern, my feet barely supporting me. The air smelled of salt and damp earth. I saw him. Derek. He looked older, more worn, but it was him. My Derek.

A sob tore through my throat, a sound I hadn't made in years. It was a cry of pure, unadulterated relief, of a love that had defied death. I ran, my broken body propelled by a surge of adrenaline, towards him.

He stood there, frozen, his eyes wide, a flicker of something I couldn't quite decipher in their depths. Shock, maybe. Disbelief.

Then, his hand moved. Not towards me, but towards a small, remote detonator clipped to his belt.

A deafening roar ripped through the air. The ground beneath me trembled violently. Rocks, massive and jagged, rained down from above, sealing the entrance to the cave. My cave. My prison.

I watched, numb with horror, as the exit vanished behind a wall of twisted metal and pulverized stone. Dust and debris filled the air, choking me.

"Just... three more days, Eva," his voice was strained, barely audible over the settling debris, but the words cut through me like a physical blow. His face was a mask of agony, but his eyes were resolute. "Please. Just three more days."

My mind froze. My body, already battered and bruised, crumpled to the cold, damp ground.

Eva POV:

Three days. That was all I had left. The life support from the simulation, the one I'd fought tooth and nail to survive, the one that had stolen five years of my life, was running out. Three days. And Derek, the man I' d clung to like a prayer in that digital hell, just sealed my tomb.

In that "parallel reality," that twisted survival game, I had faced unspeakable horrors. I had seen friends die, battled monstrous creatures, and endured starvation, all while holding onto the memory of Derek. He was my anchor, my reason. I had refused every temptation, every opportunity to escape the game by betraying my loyalty to him. I was a queen, a warrior, a lover in that world, but I was always Eva, Derek's Eva.

I' d even purposely failed the final mission, risking my "life" in the simulation, just to trigger the emergency exit protocol. Because the game promised a return to my reality, to him. And I knew, with every fiber of my being, that my life support, the actual medical equipment sustaining me in the real world, would expire in exactly seventy-two hours. I needed to get back. I needed to see him one last time.

The dust settled, gritty and metallic in my mouth. My lungs burned. My broken ankle throbbed, a dull, insistent ache that threatened to pull me back into the blackness. But I pushed through it. I had to.

I dragged myself up, leaning heavily against the newly formed rockslide. My voice rasped, raw and broken.

"Derek! Why?" My throat was on fire. "Why would you do this? Five years! You promised to search for five years! You swore you'd never give up on me!"

He didn't move. His gaze was fixed somewhere beyond me, his jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might shatter.

"Help me, Derek. Please. I only have three days left. The life support... it's failing." My voice cracked. I watched his face for any flicker of recognition, any sign that the man I loved was still in there.

Silence. Heavy, suffocating silence.

Then, his hand moved again. This time, it reached behind him, finding another hand. A woman' s hand. Small, delicate, resting possessively in his.

My breath hitched. My eyes, still blurry from tears and debris, focused. Standing just behind Derek, half-hidden by his broad frame, was a woman. She was pale, her features soft, almost childlike. And then I recognized her. Casey. My former lab assistant.

Casey, the timid junior, clinging to Derek as if her life depended on it.

Derek squeezed her hand, his knuckles white. His eyes, when they finally met mine, were cold, distant.

"I can't, Eva," he said, his voice flat. No emotion. No regret. Just a stark, brutal finality.

My gaze dropped, drawn by an almost imperceptible swelling beneath Casey's loose-fitting blouse. A faint roundness. A baby bump.

My stomach churned. The world tilted.

Casey whimpered, her gaze darting between me and Derek. Her eyes welled up, big and innocent. "Eva," she whispered, her voice trembling. "How could you? Why now?"

She looked at me, then at Derek, then back at me, her eyes brimming with tears. "You always did this, Eva. Always. You always tried to ruin everything for me."

My head reeled. "Ruin what?" I managed to croak.

"My career, my reputation," she sobbed, grabbing Derek's arm, burying her face into his shoulder. Her voice was muffled, but clear enough. "You stole my research proposal, claimed it as your own. You took my spot on the deep-sea mission that should have been mine. And now... now you come back to take my family, my children, the father of my children?"

She pulled back, her eyes blazing with an artificial fury, clutching her belly protectively. "I have a three-year-old, Eva! Our son! And another baby on the way! What kind of monster are you, to come back now and destroy everything?"

Derek looked at Casey, his expression softening. He pulled her closer, stroking her hair. He turned to me, his face hardened by a contempt that felt colder than the deepest ocean.

"I knew it, Eva," he said, his voice laced with disgust. "I knew you were always cruel to Casey. I tried to warn you. But you never listened. You always thought you were above everyone else."

He looked at Casey's belly, then back at me. His voice dropped, low and menacing. "I won't let you hurt her, Eva. Not again. Not ever."

He squeezed Casey's hand again, then looked at the sealed cave entrance. "Wait three days," he repeated, his voice devoid of any real remorse. "Just three days. Our wedding is on Saturday. After that, I'll come back. And we can talk."

He bent down, gently kissing Casey's forehead, then her lips. A long, tender kiss. A kiss that stole the last breath from my lungs. My legs felt like lead, rooted to the spot. I couldn't move. I couldn't scream. I couldn't even blink.

Eva POV:

A three-year-old. And another on the way. My mind, still grappling with the impossible, did the math. Derek had moved on, not months, but years ago. His "five-year search" for me? A lie. A cruel, elaborate charade. He hadn't been searching for me; he'd been building a new life, a new family. My ghost was a convenient scapegoat for his new happiness.

The irony tasted like ash in my mouth. He spent five years supposedly looking for me, only to seal me away again when I finally returned. He wanted to marry Casey. He wanted me to die, quietly, conveniently, so his perfect new life wouldn't be disturbed.

A bitter, humorless laugh escaped my lips. It was a raw, dry sound.

"Explain?" I rasped, the word a curse. "There's nothing to explain, Derek. Your actions speak louder than any words you could ever conjure."

I turned away from their sickening display, my gaze falling on the pile of jagged rocks. I had to get out. My broken body, my dying body, needed to move. My hands, raw and bleeding from my desperate escape from the simulation, clawed at the stone. Each movement sent agonizing bolts of pain through my arm, up to my shoulder, but I ignored it. I had to.

Tears streamed down my face, hot trails mixing with the cold sweat and grime. My fingers, scraped and torn, were slick with blood, but I kept digging. I wouldn't die here. Not like this. Not after everything. My parents. I needed to see my parents. They would listen. They would understand. They would love me.

A faint sliver of light, almost imperceptible, peeked through a crack in the rockfall. A tiny beacon of hope. My breath hitched. I pushed harder, a desperate sob tearing from my throat.

Just then, Casey' s voice, a sickeningly sweet whisper, cut through the air. "Derek, look!"

I heard a sudden shriek, then a thud. I spun around, my heart pounding. Casey lay on the ground, curled into a ball, clutching her abdomen. A dark, wet stain bloomed beneath her.

"My baby!" she wailed, her voice piercing. "She pushed me! She pushed me!"

Before I could react, a heavy boot slammed down on my outstretched hand, pinning it to the ground. Bone-jarring pain shot up my arm, a sickening crunch echoing in the cavern. I screamed, a primal sound torn from my throat. The familiar, bone-deep agony. It was the same pain I felt when the creatures in the simulation broke my limbs, when I starved, when I was tortured. This wasn't the simulation. This was real. This was Derek.

He ripped his foot away, then roughly pulled Casey to her feet, his face contorted with fury. He didn't even glance at my mangled hand. He just kicked at the pile of loose rocks near the entrance, sending them crashing down, further sealing me in.

"You monster!" he roared, his voice shaking with rage. "You tried to kill my child! You tried to hurt Casey!" His eyes burned with hatred. He hadn't seen anything. He hadn't asked. He just assumed. His love, his devotion, was a shield for her, a weapon against me.

The betrayal was complete. It wasn' t just that he had moved on. It was that he saw me as a villain, a threat, an inconvenience to be discarded.

I bit down on my lip, hard, until the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. My mangled hand, almost certainly broken, trembled as I slowly pulled it from beneath the rocks. I looked at Derek, my eyes burning with a hatred that mirrored his own.