His Doomsday Cage of Ten Years Regret Chapter 01

His Doomsday Cage of Ten Years Regret Chapter 01

I was nothing more than a pretty dead weight, and Peyton Hale was my perfect lover.

When the apocalypse hit, he shielded me while we broke through a zombie horde, and ended up getting scratched on his body.

His childhood friend Winnie Bennett exchanged half her own blood with his to bring him back from the brink of death.

After that, people often asked him the same question.

“If Winnie and Dawn both fell into the zombie horde at the same time, who would you pick to save?”

“Winnie,” Peyton answered without a moment’s hesitation.

“After that, I’ll die with Dawn.”

That was what he’d said in our first life, and it was exactly what he’d tried to do.

But the moment he spun around to rush to my side, the entire group teamed up to pin him to the ground.

Wave after wave of zombies swarmed forward, drawing an impassable boundary of life and death between us.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the day right before the end began.

…

Getting killed by zombies brought no pain.

The instant the toxic virus penetrated my skin, I lost all sensation of pain.

I simply stood rigid, watching his former teammates strain every effort to pin Peyton down, his eyes bloodshot and burning with frenzy.

Someone fired several shots toward me and told the group to take the knocked-out Peyton away immediately.

Once the group was gone, my consciousness drifted upward little by little, floating until I circled back to Peyton’s side.

I watched him turn against every member of his old squad. He refused food and water, chained to a bed, desperate to end his own life but with no way to do it..

Night after night, he’d weep in his sleep and murmur my name.

“I swore I would die alongside her. Dawn is waiting for me.”

What a fool. I wasn’t waiting for him at all.

I was just trapped in this form, unable to leave.

I also watched Winnie tend to him day and night without rest.

Even when the deranged Peyton treated her with icy contempt, hurled things and hurt her, she never strayed from his side.

She stayed with him through every stage: from crushing despair to numb indifference, until he was finally willing to speak to another human being again.

The first thing Peyton said once he regained his sanity was an apology to Winnie.

“I can’t thank you enough for sticking by me all this time. ”

Winnie clapped a hand over her mouth and sank to her knees, hot tears dripping onto the floor.

If I was honest, I’d resented Winnie once.

She’d known Peyton far longer than I had.

Mutual friends always looked at the two of them with obvious romantic undertones in their gazes.

Peyton always clammed up and refused to talk about his past with Winnie Bennett.

But now, I was endlessly grateful she was there to keep him from falling apart.

I lingered as a ghost beside Peyton every single day, watching him go through the motions—hollow, mechanical, nothing more than a killing machine hunting zombies.

Ten years slipped by in this endless drifting.

Everything changed on the day the apocalypse finally drew to a close.

Peyton and Winnie led their unit to wipe out the last remaining horde, and Winnie was critically injured in the fight.

She dragged herself over to Peyton, clinging to her last breath, and poured out all the feelings she had buried over the years out loud in front of everyone.

I floated above the onlookers and joined them in persuading Peyton.

“Just give her a chance,” I whispered along with the rest. “You have to move forward with your life.”

Peyton gave no reply.

He rushed Winnie to emergency surgery, then headed straight for my memorial headstone.

He dropped to his knees.

“I’m so sorry, Dawn.”

I wasn’t angry with him at all.

But my voice could never reach his ears.

I wanted him to stand up and tell him I did not deserve him kneeling before me.

He couldn’t hear a single word.

Soon afterward, a runner found him with news: Winnie had pulled through and was stable, and she wished to see him immediately.

Peyton brushed the wrinkles from his coat and left with the messenger.

Instinctively, I tried to follow—yet my feet were glued to the spot, completely immobile.

I could only stare helplessly as his figure walked further and further out of my sight.

The scene blurred and blended with the memory from ten years before—the figure who carried Winnie Bennett away and went the opposite direction from me.

Not long after, my consciousness began to fade.

A voice calling itself the System rang in my ears.

It told me this world was merely a novel.

Peyton and Winnie were the main characters.

I was merely a throwaway side character meant to drive their plot.

The two protagonists had fallen for each other when they were young. But they were too young; one was arrogant and haughty, the other refused to compromise, so they missed their chance with each other.

Ten years of the apocalypse and countless partings matured them, and made them confirm their feelings for one another once more.

I cut the system off mid-explanation.

“Will Peyton be happy in the end?”

The System paused briefly and replied, “He gets a happy ending in the story.”

That was all I needed to know.

The system tentatively asked if I held any regrets, offering to cut me a break as compensation for my decade spent as a restless spirit.

I shook my head. I had none.