Darkness. Cold, thick, suffocating darkness. Then, A sharp beep. A flash of white light. A jagged, stabbing pain that felt like his soul was being torn from flesh.
And suddenly, Voices. Muffled. Echoing. Familiar. "…so, what do we do with the property?"
"Split it six ways."
"Seven,"
Tom said. "Don't be stupid."
A scoff. "Why should his wife get anything?"
James Wood's fading consciousness clung to the voices like claws scraping a cliff. He couldn't see them. He couldn't move. He could only hear, trapped in a half-dead body on a hospital bed.
Michael's voice broke through the haze. "His wife gets what we tell her to get."
Maria's voice cracked. "Please… I did what you asked… I poisoned him like you said… just let me have my children,"
Andrew sneered, "Shut up. If not for that video Tom recorded, you wouldn't have listened."
A slap echoed. Maria sobbed. James's soul flinched. Tom's cold voice came next. "Enough. He's dead. Or as good as dead. Keep your voice down unless you want the nurses to hear."
Dead? James tried to breathe, but nothing moved. He tried to scream, but no sound came.
Only the beeping machine answered him. The same men he fed… clothed… sheltered… The same woman he adored with every drop of blood… They were dividing his life already. "Properties first," Michael said. "The company will be shared,"
"No."Tom's voice sliced through the room like a blade. "Equal share. Seven parts. Maria included. A promise is a promise."
"We promised she'll get her share if she plays her part,"
Andrew growled. "She poisoned him. Slowly. Quietly. We all saw how sick he got… she earned it."
Maria sobbed harder. "Please… just don't tell the world…"
Tom's tone sharpened. "Don't make me play the video again."
James's soul shivered. Video. Video of them. Of Tom. And Maria. In the bed he bought. In the home he built. Tom continued. "We keep the scandal buried. We take the wealth. Everyone wins."
Michael laughed bitterly. "Except James Wood."
Silence. A heavy, suffocating silence. Then Maria whispered, barely audible, "I… I didn't think he'd die this fast…"
James's soul fractured. Tom shrugged. "That's life. Weak men die early."
Weak? Weak? James felt a rage ignite in the void of his dying body.A rage that could melt steel.
He pushed, tried to move, tried to breathe, tried to live, A blaring alarm shrieked. Doctors rushed in. "HE'S CRASHING!"
"BP dropping!"
"Pulse is unstable!"
"CLEAR!"
A violent jolt blasted through his chest. His soul ripped away from the body entirely. Then, Silence. Weightlessness. James Wood looked down at his own hospital room from above. His body lay motionless. Machines beeped wildly. Nurses panicked. Maria cried with her face buried in her hands.
And the seven men? They stepped back. Cold. Expressionless. Unmoved. Tom muttered, "Good. It's over."
A doctor shouted, "We're losing him!"
James watched all of it from above. Floating. Separate. Free. A tear he no longer had a body for fell in his spirit. "After all I gave…"
His voice echoed strangely, deeper than before. "…this is how you repay me?"
Maria whispered, "I'm sorry… James… I'm so sorry…"
Tom grabbed her arm. "Enough crying. We talk business outside."
They dragged her out. Her feet scraped the floor as she resisted.
"Let me stay, please, I just want to see him, "
Tom hissed in her ear, "You'll get your share. Stop pretending you loved him."
Maria broke into fresh sobs.
James drifted behind them through the hallway, weightless ,cold burning. They thought he was gone.
But he was watching.
THE PASSAGE
As they moved through the corridor, nurses pushed a screaming pregnant woman past them on a stretcher. "Emergency labor!""Room 214, NOW!"
The woman's cries were loud, raw, soaked in pain. James stopped drifting. Something tugged at him,a force, a pull, a path that wasn't death but something else. He turned.
The pregnant woman's spirit flickered like a dim flame, weak, fragile, about to extinguish. "BP crashing!"
"She's losing too much blood!"
"We're close,keep pressure!"
James drifted closer. Her eyelids fluttered. Her heartbeat faltered. The baby inside her sparkled with a faint golden light. A new life. Empty. Unclaimed. Waiting. James felt the pull intensify, a door opening a chance a destiny woven with invisible threads.
A whisper echoed through the space around him: "A second chance… if you dare take it."
The corridor blurred. The woman screamed. Doctors yelled. The light around the unborn child expanded, pulling James in, dragging him forward, consuming him whole. He reached out. "I'm not done."
His soul touched the glowing spark inside the unborn child. Light exploded.
REBIRTH
Warmth. Pressure. Heartbeat. A muffled world. Voices outside like underwater sounds.
"Push!"
"She's slipping, focus!"
"The baby's coming!"
James felt himself being squeezed, moved, forced through a narrow, crushing tunnel. Then, Cold air. Blinding white lights. Hands lifting him. A loud smack. A cry burst out of him, tiny, high-pitched, helpless. But inside that fragile newborn shell…
James Wood was awake. And remembering. A nurse exclaimed, "He's breathing! Strong lungs!" The doctor sighed with relief. "We almost lost both mother and child."
From the bed, the weak voice of the woman whispered, "Is… is my baby okay…?"
James felt soft hands carrying him closer to her. "He's fine,"
the nurse said. "A beautiful baby boy."
The woman wept from exhaustion. Then she whispered, "His name… will be Evan."
Evan. The name echoed in James's newborn mind. But beneath it, his true name burned like fire: JAMES WOOD. And he wasn't finished.
Not by death. Not by betrayal. Not by poison. His tiny newborn fingers curled into a fist. I will grow. I will return. I will take back everything they stole. And every one of them… will face me again. The world blurred as exhaustion washed over him.
But even as sleep pulled his newborn body under… His mind whispered the vow that would define his new life: "I died once. Never again."