Betrayal's Cycle: A Love Forged

Betrayal's Cycle: A Love Forged

Shirlee Melnick

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My job was to predict disasters, and the data screamed: "Massive avalanche coming for Crestwood." It was a statistical certainty, a one-in-a-hundred-year event aimed right at my girlfriend Chloe' s hometown, the place she desperately wanted to go for our anniversary. I tried to warn her, but she scoffed, dismissing my professional analysis as "dramatic" and a pathetic attempt to "control everything." "You always do this," she snapped. "If you're going to be like this, I'll just go with Chad. I'm sure he'd love a ski trip." Then, a bizarre pop-up seared onto my screen, a warning from seemingly nowhere: it claimed Chloe and my best friend, Chad, had betrayed me across multiple past lives-as a general, a merchant, a researcher-each cycle ending in my ruin. It felt insane, a stress-induced delusion, yet the phantom ache of betrayal was horrifyingly real. I was desperate to save her and her family, but her dismissiveness and Chad's smug presence fueled a chilling realization: this wasn't just about a snow slide. This was a pattern, a cycle of betrayal, and I had to break it, no matter the cost, even if it meant she would hate me for it.

Introduction

My job was to predict disasters, and the data screamed: "Massive avalanche coming for Crestwood."

It was a statistical certainty, a one-in-a-hundred-year event aimed right at my girlfriend Chloe' s hometown, the place she desperately wanted to go for our anniversary.

I tried to warn her, but she scoffed, dismissing my professional analysis as "dramatic" and a pathetic attempt to "control everything."

"You always do this," she snapped. "If you're going to be like this, I'll just go with Chad. I'm sure he'd love a ski trip."

Then, a bizarre pop-up seared onto my screen, a warning from seemingly nowhere: it claimed Chloe and my best friend, Chad, had betrayed me across multiple past lives-as a general, a merchant, a researcher-each cycle ending in my ruin.

It felt insane, a stress-induced delusion, yet the phantom ache of betrayal was horrifyingly real. I was desperate to save her and her family, but her dismissiveness and Chad's smug presence fueled a chilling realization: this wasn't just about a snow slide.

This was a pattern, a cycle of betrayal, and I had to break it, no matter the cost, even if it meant she would hate me for it.

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