After My Last Rewind, They Begged Me to Stay Chapter 01

After My Last Rewind, They Begged Me to Stay Chapter 01

I have the ability to rewind time after death.

Sienna had wandered off again, and my brothers were already deciding how to fix it.

Nathaniel held my hands down. Julian covered my eyes. Weston, with practiced hands, drove the knife straight into my chest.

“Eleanor,” Nathaniel said, “Sienna must have been terrified out there. She’s young—we don’t want this leaving a mark on her.”

“Just hold still,” Julian added. “Just rewind and find a way to keep her from leaving the house.”

A wave of agony swallowed me.

When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in front of the Calloway estate.

Sienna—who hadn’t yet run away—was sobbing at the door.

“The necklace you gave me for my birthday is gone,” she cried. “It’s my fault for not keeping it safe. Let go of me, I have to go find it.”

She was about to bolt.

I stepped in front of her, looked at the blank, memory-less faces around me, and let my mouth curl.

“Don’t bother looking. That cheap necklace? I ripped it apart and flushed it down the drain.”

Sienna cried herself into a faint.

I took a hundred lashes from my furious brothers, my back in ribbons, and was locked in the wine cellar for three days and three nights as punishment.

Just as my consciousness began to fade, a mechanical voice surfaced in my mind.

[Host’s rewind count has been exhausted. Mission failed. You may choose to exit this world.]

…

The moment my memory came rushing back, I was lying on the floor, my nails digging into my palms, blood sliding down between my fingers.

I remembered now. I was the Player.

My mission was to max out the Affection Points of three target characters before before my death-rewinds ran out.

I’d assumed it would be simple.

But the System had glitched the moment I entered this world, and I’d lost my memory along with it.

In this world, my parents had died young, and I’d grown up leaning on my three older brothers.

When I discovered, quite by accident, that I could rewind time by dying, I told them everything without hesitation.

I used the ability to help them dodge every disaster life threw at them, boosting them, step by step, to the top.

In just ten short years, Nathaniel built a business empire and became its undisputed head.

Julian became the most celebrated surgeon in the state.

Weston turned into the most feared champion the underground fighting circuit had ever seen.

They cradled me like something precious, terrified I might so much as scrape a knee.

And then everything changed the day they brought Sienna home.

Sienna’s parents had been Nathaniel’s most trusted employees before they died in an accident, and my brothers had taken her in out of guilt.

At first, I pitied her too.

I treated her like a real little sister, decorated her room with my own hands.

The very next day, that room was smashed to pieces. Sienna cried that she wanted to leave.

“Since Eleanor can’t stand having me here, I’ll just go.”

I stared at my brothers, bewildered.

“I didn’t—”

They looked at me with disappointment instead.

“Eleanor, how could you turn out like this? You can’t even tolerate a young girl in the house?”

That was the first time they ever looked at me coldly.

After that, strange things kept happening.

Sienna turned up covered in unexplained bruises. Her skirts were always shredded. Her bedroom walls were scrawled with slurs. Glass shards turned up hidden in her shoes.

No matter how many times I denied it, my brothers’ eyes only grew colder.

Then came the day Sienna “fell” down the stairs again, breaking her leg, screaming from the floor:

“Don’t push me, Eleanor—don’t push me.”

My face went hot. I stormed forward.

“What are you talking about? When did I push you?”

Nathaniel grabbed my wrist.

“Right in front of us, Eleanor? We’ve spoiled you too much.”

His tone was so cold it made me shiver.

I looked to Julian and Weston for help and found the same frozen expressions waiting for me.

“Eleanor,” Nathaniel said, “go rewind. Take responsibility for what you’ve done.”

What—?

Before I could even turn my head, a knife plunged into my chest from behind.

From that day on, every lie Sienna told that my brothers believed cost me another death, another rewind.

To keep me from running, they kept me under constant watch—I wasn’t even allowed to leave the estate.

That was the beginning of my nightmare.

“System, check the targets’ Affection Points.”

[Nathaniel: 25. Julian: 19. Weston: 23.]

I knelt on the floor and laughed under my breath, a laugh so bitter it made my stomach turn.

I’d burned through every single rewind I had for this—for numbers this pathetic.

Exhausted, I spoke again.

“System. I want to exit this world.”

The System informed me I’d already lost the ability to rewind.

One more death, and I could leave this world for good.

I didn’t want to wait anymore. I just wanted out, right now.

I climbed unsteadily to my feet and walked toward the gates.

In the distance, a truck was barreling straight toward me.

I stood still and closed my eyes.