After my wife got pregnant, I applied to join the Polar Expedition Team.
Midway through the mission, my wife's first love and I both fell into an ice crevasse. Death was seconds away.
When my wife threw down a lifeline, I gave up any chance of saving myself and handed the rope to Bryan Harding.
Because in my last life, I was the one who'd been pulled out alive. Bryan was swallowed by the ice. They never recovered his body.
After he died, Georgina Gilbert showed no grief. She quietly withdrew from the expedition and settled in to carry her pregnancy to term.
It wasn't until the baby was born that she gave the child Bryan's last name.
Then she drove a knife into my chest, her face twisted with hatred.
"This is mine and Bryan's child. You're the reason he never got to meet his own baby."
"He's dead, and you're still breathing? You don't deserve to be alive. Go to hell and beg for his forgiveness!"
She pushed me off the rooftop and staged it as a suicide. Then she held her baby and smiled.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment of the rescue.
……
"Grab the rope!"
Georgina stood at a distance and hurled the rope down. It landed right beside my hand.
Clarity hit me like a freight train. I turned my head and saw Bryan Harding behind me.
Twenty below zero. Both of us clung to the edge of the crevasse with nothing but our hands, an abyss yawning beneath our feet.
The lifeline was closest to me, but Georgina only had enough strength to pull one person up.
My hands were shaking. I gritted my teeth and shifted so Bryan could see the rope.
"Bryan, grab the rope! I'll pull you up!"
The next second, Bryan seized the line and held on tight.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Georgina sag with relief. She hauled him up onto solid ground.
"You're hurt. Let's get back to base!"
Watching Bryan make it out alive, I exhaled.
Through the driving snow, the two of them clung to each other, stumbling away together. On her way out, Georgina tossed the rope aside.
"Humphrey Simmons, I'll send someone else for you!"
I clenched my jaw and held on. Every ounce of strength drained from my body. After they disappeared into the white, my grip gave out and I plunged into the crevasse.
By sheer luck, the tool in my hand jammed into a crack in the ice wall and stopped my fall.
I didn't know how long I hung there. Cold air poured through the tear in my thermal suit. My fingers had gone completely numb, but I kept holding on. Finally, voices drifted down from above.
"Think that Simmons guy is already dead?"
"Once you fall in, there's no coming back. His own fault for playing hero and insisting on going out."
I screamed for help. Eventually the people up top noticed the crevasse. I craned my neck, and my eyes met theirs.
The moment they saw me, every member of the expedition team went silent.
Not one of them reached down. They just watched me slip further.
"Learned your lesson yet, Simmons?"
"You're the one who deliberately led Bryan this way. Tried to get him killed and nearly got yourself killed instead."
Someone let out a scoff and dropped a chunk of ice. It struck my visor.
That tiny impact sent my nerves screaming. Cold sweat broke out across my back. I begged them to pull me up.
They stared down at me like I was a circus act, mockery plastered across every face.
"Don't be pathetic. Be a man for once. You made your bed, now climb out of it yourself!"
A man's life hung in the balance, and they were cracking jokes.
My fingers were dead. My core temperature was dropping. I couldn't last much longer.
After they'd had their fill of watching me suffer, someone finally tossed a rope down. I reached for it. Couldn't quite get there.
"Climb up yourself. We're leaving."
Every muscle locked tight. I could barely believe it. But when I looked up, the face staring back at me was Georgina's.
"Babe, please. Just hand me the rope."
The word babe made her recoil. Not only did Georgina refuse to help, she actually stepped back. Then her voice came down, cold as the ice around me.
