Chapter 1They Killed Me To Bring Her Back

The day they shoved me back into my own body, I became a ghost in my own life.

For five years, a "player" had worn my skin, using my life as her game. When her mission was complete, the System, in its infinite and brutal efficiency, recalled me.

I ran to them—my mother, my father, my brother—my heart a raw, hopeful thing, ready to be held. Instead, they locked me in the basement. They beat me with belts and fists, starving me, all to coax their "real" daughter, their perfect sister, back from whatever phantom limb she’d become.

By the tenth day, I was fading. A husk of a girl, whispering through cracked lips, begging them to save me.

My brother, Michael, simply kicked me in the ribs. “When Chloe comes back,” he said, his voice flat and cold, “then you get to live.”

In the final moments, as the darkness at the edge of my vision began to close in, my fiancé, Ethan, appeared like an apparition. He descended into my personal hell and reached out his hand.

Gratitude washed over me, so pure and desperate it was its own kind of pain. I followed him out of that house, a shadow with no name, and I stayed by his side. I bore him a child.

And now, from the sterile chill of the delivery room, I could hear their voices through the door. His, and my parents’.

“When the baby is born,” Ethan said, his tone clipped and strategic, “I’ll have someone take care of it. You two can use the chaos to destroy her reputation completely.”

“Once the world despises her,” my father’s voice added, a low rumble, “once her despair value hits one hundred percent, Chloe can finally come back to us.”

I lay there, silent for a long time. Then, a slow, hollow smile stretched across my face.

I closed my eyes and made a deal with the Mainframe. I would help them get exactly what they wanted.

--

* * *

“Ethan, that’s your son. Your own flesh and blood. Are you really sure?” My mother's voice, laced with a flicker of something that might have been doubt, drifted through the door.

For a foolish second, a spark of hope ignited in my chest.

“Does she deserve to be the mother of my child?” Ethan’s voice was sharp, cutting. “If she hadn’t stolen Chloe’s body, she wouldn’t have had the chance in the first place.”

The strength drained out of me, leaving my mind a silent, white expanse.

She had stolen my body. For five years.

Their mournful sighs were a discordant symphony of grief. “I wonder how Chloe has been all this time,” my mother murmured. “Is she suffering in someone else’s body, being bullied?”

“That bitch, Ava,” my father spat. “It was never hers to keep. She should have just let go.”

“Patience,” Ethan counseled. “We’re almost at the end. The plan is nearly complete.”

Tears traced silent paths down my temples and into my hair.

To earn my way back, I had worked without rest, managing the lives and missions of dozens of hosts for the Benevolence System. I’d depleted my energy to the point of near-dissipation countless times, believing I was facing my final death. The thought of my family was the only thing that pulled me through, the anchor that let me survive each crisis.

And then, finally, Chloe—the player—had vacated my body.

The moment I saw my family again, the pent-up grief of five years spilled over. But before the first sob could even escape, my brother’s hands were around my throat.

His eyes were bloodshot, manic. “Give her back,” he choked out. “Bring Chloe back.”

He shook me, my head snapping back and forth. “Who the hell are you? What gives you the right to take her body? You’re nothing, you bitch, why are you trying to replace her?”

My parents stood by, their faces hard as stone, endorsing his rage.

They dragged me to the basement and the beatings began, a ritualistic punishment designed to exorcise my soul from my own skin.

Ethan appeared in the darkest hour of that despair.

He reached for me, and to get me out, he let my parents rain blows upon his own back, his body shielding mine. He emerged from that house bruised and bleeding for me.

I remember him kneeling before me, the picture of a wounded savior, taking my hand.

He’d said, “Ava, from now on, wherever I am is your home.”

He’d said, “Ava, don’t worry. We’ll have a son, and he and I will protect you together. No one will ever hurt you again.”

It was all just a scene. A beautifully staged lie.

“We have a Code Blue! PPH! Get blood packs, now!”

A nurse’s shout snapped me back to the present. A searing pain tore through my abdomen.

Through the fog, I heard Ethan’s voice, a masterpiece of anguish. “Doctor, please, you have to save my wife and child! Please! I can’t live without them!” The sound of something solid hitting the floor, over and over—his head, I realized. He was putting on the performance of a lifetime.

Such devotion. I felt a chill spread through my veins, deep and absolute.

“Doctor,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “Could you do something for me?”