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.

Eva POV:

My stare only fueled his rage. His face twisted into a snarl. He bent down, his powerful hands gripping a jagged piece of rock, half the size of my head. He didn' t hesitate. He brought it down, with brutal force, on my already injured ankle.

A piercing scream tore through me. My body collapsed, writhing on the damp earth. The pain was blinding, all-consuming. My foot felt detached, a useless appendage. My vision blurred. I stared at him, my eyes wide with a mixture of shock and profound disappointment. This twisted, violent man was the one I loved? The one I almost died for?

"You won't ruin my wedding, Eva," he spat, his voice devoid of any warmth. "Just three days. What's three days in a cave? It's not like you're going to die."

My leg throbbed, a sickening purple rising beneath my shredded trousers. The ankle was a grotesque, unnatural angle. I felt the blackness creeping in, threatening to swallow me whole. But I fought it. I had to say it.

I struggled to lift my head, my voice barely a whisper. "I have three days, Derek. My life support... it's programmed to shut down. This isn't a game. I came back to say goodbye."

My words hung in the air, heavy and ignored.

"I wish you and Casey all the happiness in the world," I choked out, the lie tasting bitter. "Just… let me see my parents. Please. One last time."

I pictured them, their faces etched with five years of grief, grey-haired, stooped, heartbroken. The thought of them, still loving me, still waiting, was the only thing keeping me from giving in to the darkness. I dragged myself forward, inch by painful inch, pulling with my good arm, my broken ankle useless, my mangled hand searing with pain.

He watched me. Not with pity, not with compassion, but with a cold, almost detached expression. He picked up another rock. Smaller this time, but still lethal. He brought it down on my wrist, the sickening crack echoing in the confined space.

I screamed again, a raw, animal sound. My other hand, the one I had used to dig, now lay a mangled mess. He stepped closer, his voice low, mocking.

"Don't bother, Eva. They won't believe your ghost stories. Not after what Casey told them." His voice was chillingly calm. "And besides… they're already here."

My heart stopped. My blood ran cold. "No," I whispered, the word a desperate plea. "They wouldn't. They love me."

I tried to push past my broken body, to demand answers, to see them. My throat tightened. The words wouldn't come.

Then, two figures emerged from the shadows behind Derek. My parents.