The first thing I became aware of was the cold, unyielding pressure of rope against my wrists and ankles. My eyes fluttered open to a scene ripped from a nightmare. I was bound tightly to a massive black cross, hoisted upright in the center of a cavernous, marble-floored hall. The air was thick with the cloying scent of incense and something else, something foul and metallic. Flickering candlelight cast long, dancing shadows on the walls, and before me stood Samuel Thompson, the man I had almost married in another life. His handsome face was a mask of feverish obsession, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying light.

At his feet sat a small, white poodle, its head cocked as it stared at me. Its eyes, however, were not the soft, loyal eyes of a pet. They were ancient, intelligent, and filled with a chilling, human hatred. A robed figure began to chant in a guttural language that made my skin crawl, and as he spoke, the poodle opened its mouth. But it wasn’t a bark that emerged. It was a woman’s voice, cold and vicious as a shard of ice.

“This one,” the poodle hissed, its gaze raking over me. “This is the body I want. Pure. Untouched. It will be perfect for me.”

In that moment, the fragmented horrors of my two lives clicked into place. My rebirth, my murder, the dog, the wedding—it was all a prelude to this. I wasn’t just a bride; I was a vessel. And the soul desperate to claim me belonged to a ghost.

My second life began where my first one so brutally ended: in a crowded pet market, reeking of sawdust, fur, and disinfectant. The memory of a knife sliding between my ribs, wielded by my best friend, was still a phantom pain in my chest. I had just been reborn, spat back into the past to a pivotal moment. Before me, a trembling vendor held out a sickly white poodle, begging me to save it from being thrown away. I had lived this day once before. In that life, I had pitied the creature, taken it home, and watched in bewilderment as my entire world transformed. Sudden promotions landed in my lap, impossible contracts were signed, and the icy, untouchable CEO of our company, Samuel Thompson, began looking at me as if I were the only woman on earth. It was a fairy tale that ended in a bloodbath on my wedding day, with my best friend, Vanessa Lee, whispering, “Why you? Why do you get everything?”

But this time, as I stared at the dog, a vortex of horror and understanding swirling within me, Vanessa herself lunged forward. She shoved a wad of cash at the vendor, snatching the poodle from his grasp. “This one!” she declared, her voice breathless and sharp with greed. “I’ll take him. No questions asked.” She clutched the dog like a long-lost treasure, then turned to me, a triumphant smirk playing on her lips. “Sorry, Kim. I know you probably wanted him, but I was faster. Guess I’ll be the lucky one this time. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even meet my prince charming.”

Her words cut deeper than she knew, confirming my darkest fear: she remembered, too. She had been reborn just as I had. But instead of seeing the trap, she only saw the prize. I gave her a faint, pitying smile. “I never wanted him, Vanessa. Last time I only bought him out of pity. That’s all.” For the first time, her confidence wavered. Her eyes darted away, a flicker of uncertainty in their depths. She clutched the dog tighter, as if afraid I might expose the truth. I didn’t need to. She had already eagerly stepped into the curse she thought was a blessing.

The next morning, she paraded into the office with the poodle, a queen displaying her crown. When our manager pointed out her well-known fear of dogs, she just laughed it off. An hour later, she emerged from his office, promoted to my supervisor. “Some of us were born to win,” she whispered to me, her voice dripping with venom.

I watched her ascent with a detached, chilling calm. She was living my previous life on fast-forward. Colleagues fawned over her, clients demanded her, and executives praised her. She taunted me relentlessly, her cruelty escalating with her success. “You must be so jealous, Kim,” she sneered. “Don’t worry—when I marry Samuel Thompson, I might let you be my maid.” I simply endured it, my silence a coiled serpent waiting to strike. I was waiting for the company banquet, the night that had sealed my fate in the life before.

She arrived glowing, a perfect replica of my former self, wrapped in a gown almost identical to the one I had worn. She had stolen every detail, right down to my shade of lipstick. But she had made one fatal error: she’d left the poodle at a pet clinic, thinking it was unwell. When Samuel arrived, his gaze cut through the crowd and landed on Vanessa. She blushed, ready for her fairy-tale moment. But his face was a thundercloud. He strode to her, seized her wrist, and hissed, “Where is the dog?”

Her smile crumbled. “He… he wasn’t feeling well, so I—”

“You left him in a cage?” His voice was a low roar that silenced the ballroom. He dragged her out of the party, ignoring her sputtered excuses. I followed at a distance, a ghost in the shadows, as he drove her to the pet hospital. The moment Samuel appeared, the whimpering poodle flung itself against the bars of its cage. Samuel’s face softened into something far more dangerous than anger—it was worship. He opened the cage, cradled the animal, and whispered a name so low only I could hear it through the glass. “Half a month, Olivia. Just half a month more.”

My blood ran cold. Olivia. Olivia Summers. Samuel’s childhood sweetheart, who had died in a brutal car crash three years earlier. Her body, the news reports had said, was destroyed beyond recognition. Only her beloved white poodle had returned from the wreck unharmed.

The weeks that followed were a public spectacle. Samuel courted Vanessa with a fierce intensity, declaring their relationship to the world and showering her with gifts. She was ecstatic, convinced she had won the ultimate prize. She didn’t see the truth I now saw with horrifying clarity: Olivia’s soul hadn’t died in that crash. It had slipped into the only available vessel—her dog. The wedding was never about love. It was about a ritual. It was about finding a new, human body for Olivia’s soul. My body, in the last life. Vanessa’s body, in this one.

The morning of her wedding, Vanessa called to mock me. As she flaunted her diamond ring, I saw the backdrop. It was all the same as before: the grand hall, the eerie silence, and the massive black cross standing where an altar should be. Then, I heard it—a faint woman’s voice from off-screen. “Samuel, is this the gift for our poodle?” Vanessa whirled around, panicked. “Who’s there?” she cried. But she was alone. Alone with the dog. The poodle could speak.

It was too late to warn her, not that she would have listened. The next day, she hammered on my apartment door, her face a wreck of terror and rage. “This is your fault!” she shrieked, shoving a bundle of bloodstained white fabric at me—my wedding dress from the first life. “You knew he was using me! You let me walk right into it!” Her eyes were wild. “If it isn’t me, then it’ll be you! SAMUEL!” she screamed down the hallway. “I HAVE HER!”

Black-suited men flooded my apartment. A chemical-soaked rag was pressed to my face, and the world dissolved into darkness.

Which brought me here, bound to the cross, listening to a dead woman speak through a dog’s mouth. The poodle, Olivia, deemed Vanessa’s body “filthy, stained, unworthy.” She wanted me. Samuel’s eyes shone with madness. “Just a little longer, my love,” he cooed at the dog. “Soon you’ll be in a proper body again.”

Terror threatened to suffocate me, but I focused on the faint warmth against my skin. Hidden beneath my blouse was a talisman, a protective charm I had acquired from a priest after my rebirth, acting on a desperate, instinctual fear I hadn’t fully understood until now. The moment the chanting priest sprinkled the foul-smelling water on me, the talisman flared with an incandescent light. The dog shrieked, a sound of pure agony, as smoke curled from its white fur.

“What is this?” Samuel roared. The priest staggered back. “She is protected! The ritual will fail!”

“Then use the other one!” Samuel screamed, pointing a trembling finger at Vanessa, who was sobbing in a corner. “Do it now!”

The poodle howled in protest. “No! I don’t want that body! I want HERS!”

In the ensuing chaos, Vanessa saw her chance. With a guttural scream of blind panic, she snatched a ritual knife from the altar and plunged it deep into the poodle’s chest. A spray of crimson arced across the white marble. Samuel let out a sound of inhuman anguish as the dog’s voice rasped a final curse, “You’ll never escape me…” before it collapsed, still and silent.

The wail of sirens cut through the sudden silence. Someone had tipped off the police. The official story was a sanitized mess of whispers about a tragic accident and bizarre cult practices. Samuel’s empire crumbled overnight as investors fled. Vanessa, released from questioning, stepped off a curb and was instantly killed by a speeding truck. A final, brutal act of a curse that wouldn’t let her go. Samuel was consumed by his madness, confined to his decaying mansion, where they say he lies paralyzed after a fall, whispering Olivia’s name until his throat bleeds.

I left it all behind. The city, the company, the ghosts. I live a quiet life now, in a small town where no one knows my name. Sometimes, in the dead of night, I think I hear the faint scratching of paws at my door. But when the sun rises, there is only silence. I survived. And in a world of curses and madmen, survival is the only victory that matters.