Wed or Dead

Lucifer told me my time wasn't up yet and that I shouldn't have died here. The problem was, I'd already died three times. And every single time, it happened after I got married. My first wife was a powerful leather factory owner from out west. But she had a crippling gambling addiction. After blowing through all her assets and my entire life savings, she let the debt collectors cut off three of my fingers to cover her debts. I ended up bleeding to death. My second wife was a respectable, glasses-wearing university professor. She even beat me with class, leaving no bruises and never hitting me in the face. I died from ruptured internal organs. My third wife was a quiet, blue-collar welder. I thought things would finally be good between us after we married. However, she just stood by while her mother, who despised me for being poor, humiliated and controlled my life. When my liver condition flared up, they blocked me from getting medical help, and I died of acute liver failure. I begged Lucifer in tears to give me a few different options. But Lucifer just said firmly, "Your destined wife is one of these three women. It's up to you to make it work. Pick one. Now." I was at a loss for words. Chapter 1 "Lucifer, I'm begging you. Can I go back and take a look first? Just a quick peek." I stood on the cold stone floor, staring intently at the misty shadow seated behind the desk. Lucifer side-eyed me. "The rules are clear: you can't go back and change the past! "However, I can give you one flashback opportunity for each marriage. You can only watch, not touch. Once you've seen everything, you make your decision. But there's a catch." "What catch?" I asked eagerly. "If you choose a wife this way and still end up dying a miserable death after the marriage, your soul will be completely obliterated, erased from existence forever. But if you pick right now without looking, even if you die horribly again, you'll just have to wait in line here for another hundred years before you can reincarnate. Think carefully." My fingers dug hard into the icy stone. Obliterated from existence? Or suffer another hundred years here? Spending a century in this dreary Hell until my soul went completely numb sounded like torture. I'd rather take a gamble on the flashback—my only real shot at survival. I raised my head and choked out, "I choose the flashback." Lucifer's hand froze mid-air. He looked me up and down, his lips curving into a smirk that I couldn't tell was mocking or approving of me. "You've got some guts." Before the words even faded, he waved his massive hand, and everything went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was standing right beside Rosie Price's genuine leather couch. This was my first marriage. Rosie was a powerful, self-made leather factory owner pulling in millions a year. How in the world did things get to the point where she used her own husband's fingers to pay off gambling debts? … Week 1 of our marriage. Rosie's life was far more glamorous than I remembered. Her factory was running at full capacity, with orders booked out through the next quarter. Every day, she left the house with a smile and came back with gifts of the latest high-end watches and sneakers for me. "Babe, did you go out today? Buy whatever you like. Just swipe my card." She tossed her car keys onto the entryway table, her eyes crinkling with genuine warmth as she kicked off her heels. When I was actually living through this past life, my heart had been filled with the joy of feeling cherished. But watching it now as a spectator, I saw the hidden cracks. Even during that first week, Rosie would sit at her computer, her brow furrowed in frustration over the books. Whenever her phone rang, she would turn her back to me and drop her voice to a whisper. "Why did the raw material price jump another three percent? The margins are way too thin!" Whatever the person on the line said only made her run her fingers through her hair in agitation. … Day 15 of our marriage. This was when things began to shift. The factory's biggest client suddenly breached their contract, leaving an unpaid balance of four hundred thousand dollars hanging in the air. Rosie didn't utter a word about it to me. That night, she suffered from insomnia until three in the morning, pacing the balcony and smoking through half a pack of cigarettes. Yet the next morning, she still smiled warmly at me over breakfast. "What do you feel like eating tonight? I'll pick it up on my way home from work." … Day 20 of our marriage. Rosie went to a private poker game hosted by a friend. "Just playing small to unwind. You've been way too stressed lately, Rosie," her friend had coaxed. Rosie walked away winning six thousand dollars. When she came back home, her eyes were shining. It wasn't the greedy spark of a gambler. It was the frantic desperation of a drowning person who had suddenly grabbed hold of a lifeline. Observing from the outside, I finally understood where it all started. That high from winning six thousand dollars wasn't driven by greed. It was the only tangible thing Rosie could grasp ‌amidst her suffocating anxiety. Because early the next morning, she used that exact six thousand dollars to buy me a designer tie. "I walked past the display window and thought it would look so handsome on you," she said softly as she tied it around my neck herself, her gaze dripping with tenderness. Watching that moment made my heart ache sharply. … Day 25 of our marriage. The client's breach of contract blew wide open. The bank was pressing for repayment on the previous batch of material loans, and she faced a funding shortfall of two hundred thousand dollars. So Rosie started frequenting the poker tables. She went from five-thousand-dollar buy-ins to ten thousand, and eventually to fifty-thousand-dollar hands. She had winning streaks. Once, she brought home eighty thousand dollars in a single night. That night, she swept me into her arms and spun me around the living room. "Babe, we're going to the Maldives right now! I already looked up the flight tickets!" In my past life, I was so thrilled, asking if she had just closed a massive business deal. She said yes. And I blindly believed her. … Days 30 to 60 of our marriage. I watched Rosie's gradual descent. At first, whenever she won, the first thing she did was transfer money to me or plan trips. She was actively trying to patch up the financial hole. However, starting around Day 45, winning money no longer meant fixing the problem. It meant planning the next poker game. The hole was already mostly patched, but she couldn't stop. The stakes on the table shifted from "our trip to the Maldives" to "I can win even more". She went from playing with local small business owners to facing seasoned high-stakes players in underground VIP lounges. The scale of her wins and losses ballooned from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. … Day 80 of our marriage. Rosie suffered her first massive loss, with three hundred thousand dollars gone in one night. She didn't come home, opting to hole up in a hotel room for two days instead. When she finally returned, I asked her what was wrong. "I was on a business trip negotiating a big contract. I'm just exhausted," she muttered, avoiding my eyes as she walked straight into the bathroom. I stood by helplessly, watching a woman who had originally just wanted to build a good life for us get her sanity stripped away by the thrill of winning. By the end, the look in Rosie's eyes at the table was completely different from where she started. The first time, her eyes held anxiety and desperate hope. By the last time, her eyes held nothing but pure, bloodthirsty madness. She had long forgotten why she sat down at that table in the first place. … Day 96 of our marriage. The debt collectors came knocking at the door. Rosie wasn't home, leaving me alone to face three strange men covered in full-back tattoos. "Rosie owes us two million dollars. She said she's out of cash, so we're taking her husband's fingers to settle this month's interest—a hundred and seventy thousand dollars," the leader sneered. In my past life, I had broken down crying, begging for mercy. What followed next was a nightmare I had already lived through once. The flashback abruptly cut off right as my first finger was severed. The blinding pain didn't reach me this time, only a dizzying rush of vertigo accompanied by the debt collector's cruel laugh into his phone. "It's done, Mr. Con. You can count on me..." Chapter 2 "Done looking?" Lucifer muttered from his spot on the bench, giving me another sidelong glance. "That woman practically sold you out. Still going to pick her?" "I want to see the second one," I said hoarsely, not answering Lucifer's question. I took a deep breath, forcing Rosie's timeline down into the back of my mind. Lucifer flipped a page in the Book of Life. A flash of white light later, and I found myself standing inside Mandy Holland's home office. The second flashback had begun. This time, it was about my life with Mandy. My objective this time was crystal clear. Had Mandy's suffocating desire for control been there from the very beginning, or had something specific triggered it? … Day 1 of our marriage. Mandy sat at her desk wearing wire-rimmed glasses as she quietly graded papers. As my past self walked past, she looked up and offered a soft, pleasant smile. "What do you want for dinner tonight? I'll make it." Her honey-glazed barbecue pork ribs were genuinely incredible. Her knife skills were so precise that every single portion of meat was cut to the exact size. Even the plating looked like it had been lifted straight out of a culinary textbook. For the first two days, everything felt completely normal. She cooked, washed the dishes, and even squeezed toothpaste onto my toothbrush every morning. Her thoughtfulness was flawless, almost to a fault. … Day 3 of our marriage. Mandy sat in the living room reading a book while my past self was changing clothes in the bedroom. "Babe, I'm heading out to grab dinner with my college buddies tonight. I won't be eating at home," I called out, adjusting my collar in front of the mirror. "Which buddies? Where are you going?" Her voice was flat, like she was asking about the weather forecast. "Just a couple of my old roommates and our class president. We're hitting up that popular gastropub downtown." "Is the class president a guy or a girl?" she asked, her voice even softer this time, so quiet that my past self hadn't even registered it. When I finally came back home later that night, Mandy was waiting at the door with a warm mug of milk. "Did you have fun? What did you guys talk about?" "Yeah, it was great. Everyone's pretty much the same." "Your phone battery must be dead. Here, let me plug it in for you." She asked with absolute sweetness, slipping my phone out of my hand. In my past life, I had only seen it as a sign of care. But watching it now from the outside, I saw the exact moment her thumb swiped swiftly across my notification bar. She was checking my messages. … Day 5 of our marriage. I didn't leave the house. Mandy was in an exceptionally good mood, cooking an entire spread and even popping open a bottle of red wine. Throughout dinner, she kept placing food on my plate with a tender smile. "See how nice it is at home? The outside world is just too loud." … Day 6 of our marriage. I mentioned that I wanted to head over to the shopping mall. "I'll come with you," she said, instantly setting her book down. "No need. I'm just going out with a couple of the guys." Her smile dropped for half a second, and her eyes instantly turned ice-cold. "The mall gets way too crowded. I won't feel comfortable unless I go with you." My past self had thought it was endearing. But this time around, I watched how she actually "accompanied" me. Throughout the entire shopping trip, her eyes never once glanced at a single display shelf. Instead, she stared straight ahead at me and at every single person I looked at. … Day 12 of our marriage. In my past life, I ran to the supermarket during the day to pick up some groceries. While paying at the register, the young cashier accidentally gave me five dollars too much in change. My past self just smiled and handed it right back. That night, Mandy holed up in her study for a full hour. Curious, I peeked over her shoulder. She was writing in her journal. [He looked at the woman at the cash register today. I counted—he looked for three whole seconds.] [He smiled at her.] [He shouldn't be looking at anyone else.] [He should only ever look at me.] Every stroke was pressed so hard into the paper that the page was nearly punctured. I gasped. … Day 18 of our marriage. The first time she ever laid a hand on me. It started because my phone received a mass-sent holiday greeting text from an old female classmate. Without saying a single word, she pinned my past self down onto the couch. Her fists struck my back three times. She didn't hit my face, and there was no visible swelling or lingering discoloration. Once my shirt was back on, absolutely nothing could be seen. After she finished, she sat on the couch in silence for five full minutes. Then she pulled out her phone and transferred five thousand dollars straight to my account. "Go buy that leather jacket you were looking at the other day," she said, her voice entirely gentle. My past self had sat there crying, nursing his aching back, and ultimately chose to forgive her amidst her tearful apologies and sweet reassurances. Watching from the outside perspective this time, I finally saw the expression on her face as she made that transfer. It wasn't guilt, but calm, as if she had just finished executing a routine system program of punishment, compensation, reset. From that day on, her reasons for striking me grew more absurd with every passing week. Yet every single time it ended, she would sit with her head in her hands for minutes on end, putting on a masterclass of heartbreak before coming back to me to apologize softly, over and over. As time went on, the physical blows grew heavier, and her apologies grew more dramatic. It went from gentle coaxing and sweet persuasion to weeping uncontrollably on the floor, begging me to forgive her. The third time happened because I answered a phone call from a delivery driver. The fifth time happened because I liked a female colleague's photo on social media. The seventh time happened because I lingered two seconds too long while looking at the female lead on TV. By the ninth time, I didn't even need to watch anymore. The flashback abruptly cut off just twenty-four hours before my death. When I snapped back to Hell, my mind was still frozen in the terrifying grip of Mandy's extreme obsession, my entire body shivering. "Do you know why she didn't say anything right after beating you?" Lucifer suddenly broke the silence. I stared blankly at him. "She was making sure you were still hers," Lucifer said slowly. Chapter 3 I sat there on the cold stone bench down in Hell, nervously twisting the hem of my shirt between my fingers. Lucifer's words kept spinning on an endless loop inside my head. "She was making sure you were still hers." Mandy didn't beat me out of pure malice. She did it just to confirm I still belonged to her. And Rosie? Well, Rosie's gambling sprees at least started as a desperate bid to give us a comfortable life. So what about Olivia? The very same woman who had broken down crying while carrying that untouched bowl of soup back into the kitchen. Out of the three of them, she was the only one who had ever truly made my heart soften. More importantly, she was the only one who shed actual tears the day I died. What if she could finally stand up for herself? What if I forced her to grow a spine this time around? "Let me see the third one." I looked up to meet Lucifer's gaze. "Last one on the list," Lucifer said, closing the Book of Life and tapping his fingernail against the cover. "Once you've seen this, you're locked into making a choice." I squeezed my eyes shut, letting the blinding white light swallow me whole once more and carry me back into my previous life with Olivia Morrison. … Day 1 of our marriage. True to form, Olivia quietly helped me make the bed and unpack my luggage. She even arranged all my toiletries in the handiest spots right along the bathroom vanity. She wasn't big on small talk, but she was so attentive it was hard not to feel touched. "Is the comforter warm enough for you? I can easily grab another one if you're cold," she murmured right before we drifted off to sleep. Back when I lived through this exact moment in my third life, I genuinely believed I had hit the jackpot. She didn't have a gambling problem, she didn't throw punches, and she had a steady, down-to-earth presence that made you feel safe. … Day 3 of our marriage. Then came the routine medical checkup results. The verdict dropped like a ton of bricks. I had a hereditary liver condition whose symptoms had been brought on by overexertion. I needed long-term treatment and plenty of rest. Olivia's hands wouldn't stop shaking as she stared down at the lab report. "Babe, I promise you, I'm going to take good care of you!" she vowed, gripping my hand so tightly her knuckles turned white, her eyes reddening and filling with tears. That very evening, her mother called. After a brief, nervous hesitation, Olivia spilled the truth about my health. On the other end of the line, there was a heavy two-second silence, followed by a scoff. "A grown man throwing a fit just because he catches a little bug? My poor daughter really drew the shortest straw imaginable." "Mom, please don't talk like that..." That was all she managed to get out before hanging up. I watched her face in the aftermath. There was no fiery anger or even a trace of righteous frustration. Just that heavy, hollow resignation of someone who had swallowed that exact poison her entire life. … For the first half-year of our marriage, her mother stayed out of our hair. During that window, Olivia took care of me brilliantly. She scoured the internet for dozens of liver-healthy meal plans, set blaring alarms in the dead of night to hand me my medication, and took over every ounce of heavy lifting around the house so I wouldn't strain myself. For a brief, shining moment, I actually believed that as long as her mother stayed far away, our marriage could work out. … Month 7 of our marriage. That illusion shattered the day her mother moved in under the transparent excuse of "helping out". The second she stepped through the front door, her eyes locked onto the line of pill bottles sitting on the coffee table, and her expression instantly soured. "What kind of pathetic life must it be for a grown man popping pills like candy all day long? My daughter married you to live comfortably, not to play full-time nursemaid to an invalid." Olivia stood frozen nearby, her lips parting, but no words ever made it out. From that afternoon, every promise Olivia made about "taking good care of me" began to fall short. It wasn't that her heart was not in it. It was simply that the moment her mother stepped into the room, Olivia shrank into a shadow of herself. During the first week of her mother's extended stay, Olivia spent three solid hours simmering a nutrient-rich chicken soup. She carefully carried the bowl down the hallway toward my room, only for her mother's freezing voice to cut her off in the living room. "You're working yourself to the bone as a blue-collar welder, earning pennies, while he sits on his lazy ass all day taking expensive medication. How on earth do you expect to afford that?" "Mom, his health is really fragile..." "If his health is that worthless, he shouldn't be dragging down everyone around him! I never should've given this marriage the green light. Being broke is one thing, but hitching yourself to a walking pharmacy is suicide." Olivia's fingers trembled around the bowl. Without a word, she turned on her heel and carried the soup straight back into the kitchen. She set it down on the stove burner, put the lid back on tightly, and stood there in complete silence for a long time. Her palms were pressed flat against the edge of the counter, her entire frame trembling. Yet she never brought it out to me. By the second week, her mother had taken it upon herself to confiscate two of my essential preion bottles. "Taking all these synthetic chemicals every single month costs a small fortune. Just force down some electrolytes instead. That'll cure anything." The moment her mother retreated behind her bedroom door, Olivia sneaked into the kitchen trash, salvaged the bottles, and quietly stashed them back into my nightstand drawer. By the third week, the rules shifted entirely. Her mother forced me into the kitchen to cook my own meals. "My daughter breaks her back working all day, and she's still expected to wait on you hand and foot the second she gets back through that door? Where is your basic human dignity as a man?" Olivia scrambled quietly to handle the kitchen chores behind her back whenever she could. However, she had to do it like a ghost—stealthy, terrified of getting caught, and hyper-aware of her mother's watchful eyes. She was living like a trespasser inside her own home. … Month 9 of our marriage. That was when my liver finally gave out, plunging into an acute, violent flare-up. Trapped in a relentless high fever, my body swelling up with fluid, my grasp on reality began to dissolve into a hazy fog. Panicking, Olivia grabbed her phone to dial 911. "Have you completely lost your mind calling an ambulance?! A hospital stay could cost tens of thousands! How long do you think your savings would last?" Her mother lunged forward, snatching the phone right out of her trembling grip. "He's a broke freeloader whose body is completely shot! Are you planning on draining our entire family safety net just to keep a lost cause breathing? What about your own future? Get a grip on reality!" Olivia's hand froze mid-air. She looked from my fading face up to her mother's harsh glare. I could practically see two warring forces tearing her apart from the inside out. Terror versus heartbreak. In the end, terror claimed a total victory. Slowly, agonizingly, she lowered her arm. Right before my consciousness finally winked out of existence, I caught one last glimpse of Olivia's expression once the phone was put away. She wasn't angry anymore. She was just crying. Turning her back so I wouldn't have to look at her, her shoulders shook violently with every silent, suffocating sob. And even after the crying stopped, she never once reached back for that phone. The flashback snapped shut, plunging everything back into darkness. "Well, have you made your choice?" Lucifer's raspy voice cut straight beside my ear. Chapter 4 I sat there in Hell in a heavy, prolonged silence. For once, Lucifer didn't try to rush me. He simply kept turning the pages of someone else's Book of Life. Inside my head, all three flashbacks were playing on an endless loop. Rosie had started out gambling out of love, only to end up gambling purely for the sake of the addiction. Mandy had been executing deep-seated control programming hard-wired into her bones from day one. And Olivia was broken inside. She could cry all she wanted, but she could never quite manage to grow a spine. There were three choices on the table. Rosie had her addiction. Once a gambling habit takes root, it clings to you like a venomous snake biting its own tail. Even if the initial motive was pure, it still leads to the same abyss. Mandy had her mental illness. Her obsessive need for control was a core personality defect that was not correctable. And the worst part was that she genuinely didn't believe anything was wrong with her. Olivia had her broken spirit. A psychological paralysis forged from decades of conditioning that had left her permanently fractured, something I could never hope to heal. So the conclusion was crystal clear. None of them were viable. "Is there any way I can choose none of them?" I asked, biting down hard on my lower lip. Lucifer finally lifted his head to look at me. "The rules state your destined match is locked within these three. If you refuse to choose, you spend a century doing hard labor right here in Hell." "And what if I pick one, but still end up dying anyway?" Lucifer closed the registry with a solid thud, his tone flat. "Did you completely tune out when I said, 'It's up to you?' You've died three miserable deaths already. Are you seriously just going to blame it all on bad luck?" I froze. What on earth did Lucifer mean by that? However, I didn't press him for answers, knowing full well he wouldn't spare another single word. Silence stretched on. The wind in Hell blew with a biting chill, feeling like a dull razor slowly scraping across bare skin. "You've only got three days left on the clock. If you miss the deadline, I'll just assign you one at random," Lucifer snorted coldly. "And if it comes down to a random assignment—" He tapped his fingers together, putting on a cheap, dramatic act of calculation. "Odds are it'll be Mandy. Her line has the shortest waiting list." A violent shiver ran straight down my spine. I forced my mind to rewind the three flashbacks frame by frame, completely dropping my focus on what my wives had done wrong. Instead, I started searching for something else entirely. What was my role in each of these marriages? Take Rosie's timeline. What did I actually do? I just kicked back, enjoyed the high life, spent her cash, and waited around for our next vacation. Not once did I ever stop to ask, "Are you exhausted? Are you running into trouble at the factory?" For Mandy's timeline, I didn't say a word when my phone was first snooped through. When she first started tracking my movements at the mall, I convinced myself it was romantic. When she first struck me, I excused it as her caring too much, before wiping my tears and taking her five thousand dollars to buy a jacket. Not once during that very first invasion of my privacy did I stand up and say, "This crosses the line. I'm walking away." In Olivia's timeline, my liver condition flared up into a high fever, and my mind started slipping. What did I do? I just waited around for her to save me. My phone was right there on the nightstand. Why didn't I call 911 myself? It wasn't because the fever had completely scrambled my brains. I remembered clearly that I had still been conscious enough to make the call. The reason I didn't make the call was because I was waiting for Olivia to rescue me. I had outsourced the entire responsibility of staying alive straight to my wife. Across all three marriages, my role never changed: I waited to be pampered, waited for an apology after being beaten, and waited to be rescued. I had never once made a single decision for myself. Yet did this sudden epiphany actually change anything? Even if I finally recognized that I was always just waiting around, what good would it do? An addiction remained just that. So did a sickness, and a broken spirit. Would refusing to wait for my wife suddenly cure Rosie of her gambling problem? Would it stop Mandy from throwing punches? Would it magically give Olivia a backbone? The deeper I spiraled, the more hopeless it felt. With only one hour left of my final three days, I stood before Lucifer. My eyes were red-rimmed, but my mind was made up. "I've made my choice." Lucifer picked up his pen and sat up straight. I took a deep breath and spoke the name. Lucifer's pen stopped dead in its tracks.