Four years after I crossed into a parallel world, my fiancé had put me on the operating table ninety-nine times for his experiments.

The one saving grace was that I'd been born with the ability to regenerate.

The system said only one experiment remained, and then I could go home to my own world.

There, my fiancé loved me more than his own life.

Not like this world, where he treated me as a tool, a body he handed over so the female student he was funding could teach herself anatomy.

So even when post-op infections spiked my fever until I fainted, I never once refused to lie down on that table.

The hundredth dose of anesthesia pushed into my body.

I closed my eyes, and before I lost consciousness, I heard my fiancé and the doctor talking just outside the door.

"Mr. Farley, we've lied to Miss Fox for four years, made up this parallel world and this leveling system. When it's all over, can we really keep it from her?"

"We can. I hired the best hypnosis team there is."

"These four years, I've wronged her, I know. But her body is the ideal match for Maisie to practice on. The first ninety-nine experiments failed, but this time Maisie is going to succeed."

"Once the surgery is done, I'll make it up to her with the grandest wedding there is, and I'll spend the rest of my life with her."

Under the surgical drape, I opened my eyes, and my mind went blank.

So it had all been his scheme, staged for one reason: to make Maisie Henson's dream in medicine come true.

"By the way, this time we're removing the brain, not the eyeball. When she wakes up, be careful you don't let it slip."

The blood ran cold through my whole body.

He didn't know that my gift, my ability, came from a brain unlike anyone else's.

Once the brain is removed, it doesn't grow back. I would die, without a doubt.

...

On the table I fought with everything I had, but my limbs were strapped down and wouldn't move at all.

Maisie Henson walked in and lifted the drape, her face sour as she looked at me.

"What are you making a fuss for? The surgery's about to start. Stop thrashing."

"Let me go!"

My eyes were bloodshot. "I'm not doing the surgery!"

The mechanical voice blared inside my head.

【Warning! Warning! Host has only one final surgery remaining before leaving this parallel world.】

【Abandon now and everything resets to zero. Start over from the beginning.】

The old me would never have been willing to throw it all away at the last step.

But now I knew that voice was nothing more than a hallucination the hypnosis had planted in me.

Maisie sneered and called a nurse over to tighten the straps.

"Whether this happens isn't up to you. If you set my research back, can you bear that?"

Nigel Farley heard the commotion and came in from behind the door.

He frowned. "What's going on? Didn't she get the anesthetic?"

The doctor checked me over.

"Mr. Farley, we've used the anesthetic too many times. Miss Fox has developed a resistance. We'll have to switch to a different one."

"I'm not taking it!"

I screamed, "You can't open my skull!"

Nigel froze. "You heard everything."

He paused, then softened his voice. "Doesn't Miss Henson get those migraines? Take out the brain, grow a new one, and maybe it'll finally be cured."

"Nigel, I'll die."

The tears came before I could stop them, and my voice shook. "You lied to me for four years. I won't hold it against you. I'm only begging you to let me go this once. Please?"

He lowered his head and said nothing, something wavering behind his eyes.

"Faith Fox, what are you putting on this pitiful act for?"

There was a playful edge in Maisie's voice. "In four years, name me one surgery you didn't come through just fine."

"Nigel, if we don't start now, I'll miss Jacob Harmon's feeding time."

Jacob was the dog she kept.

He hesitated no longer and signaled the nurse to go on with the anesthetic.

"Faith, Jacob is delicate. He can't be left hungry."

"This is the last time. We've got a long life ahead of us, and I'll make it all up to you."

In his eyes, my life mattered less than whether a dog got fed on time.

I twisted with everything I had, refusing to cooperate.

"Maisie Henson, you're not even a real surgeon!"

"Forget that you've never done a craniotomy in your life. For three years you kept forgetting to sterilize the scalpel. Do you have any idea how many times you infected me?"

"You're a lab tool. Why would I bother sterilizing anything for you?"

Maisie snatched the syringe out of the nurse's hand, impatient. "If she doesn't want the anesthetic, then we'll operate with her awake."

The doctor hesitated. "Without anesthesia, the pain will kill her."

"She won't actually die anyway. This is a perfect chance to observe how a conscious subject reacts to having her brain removed."

She tugged at the hem of Nigel Farley's shirt, her voice going soft. "Nigel, an opportunity like this doesn't come often. You'll say yes, won't you?"

He glanced at me, then looked away just as fast.

"Whatever you want."

The last thread inside me finally snapped.

Cold metal pressed against my skull.

My head was locked into the surgical frame, unable to move.

At the end of my life, I felt myself go strangely calm.

"Nigel Farley, for the sake of all the years we've known each other, after I'm dead, bury me next to Dolly."

Dolly was our unborn daughter.

"You still have the nerve to bring up Dolly?"

His lips pressed into a hard line, his voice turning cold. "The baby died because you didn't respect yourself."

"I never brought it up afterward, but that doesn't mean I didn't care."

I stared at him, unable to believe it. "Nigel Farley, what are you talking about?"

Maisie's hands stopped mid-preparation.

"Faith Fox, how are you even able to say that? Five years ago Nigel was kidnapped on his birthday. If I hadn't gotten there in time, they'd have killed him!"

"And you? While he was hanging between life and death, you ran off to a bar to mess around with a bunch of men, and partied until you miscarried a baby that was already eight months along."

"You've never once repented for that. What right do you have to yell at him?"

The more she said, the more worked up she got, her expression like she wanted to kill me.

Nigel gripped her wrist. "That's enough. Don't make yourself sick. Just do the surgery."

I felt the high-frequency electric knife move across the top of my head, clear as anything.

The sound of searing skin left my whole body numb.

It hurt so much.

I couldn't move. All I could do was clench my teeth.

The smell of charred flesh crawled into my nose, and my mind began to blur.

Five years ago, on his birthday, Nigel Farley was taken by a rival.

I was the one who found him, using the tracker he'd installed in my phone himself.

To buy time, I had my subordinate carry him out first while he was unconscious, then locked myself inside the warehouse and let them take me instead.

Pregnant, I was beaten and abused by the kidnappers until death would have been a mercy.

I barely managed to escape, and collapsed at last outside a bar.

When I woke again, I was in the ICU.

Nigel was badly hurt too, his bandages not even off yet, and still he sat with me in silence for three days and three nights.

After we were discharged, he never mentioned it again.

He was still gentle with me, but he would never touch me again.

I thought it was guilt and grief over the baby, so I never dared bring it up either.

To save him, I lost my child and nearly threw away my own life, and all I got in return was one line from him: that I hadn't respected myself.

The pain in my skull grew sharper, cutting through my thoughts.

The top of my head was cut fully open and held apart with a retractor.

Before I could adjust to that pulling sensation, the drill started up.

Maisie's hands were clumsy. The bit kept slipping off its mark, testing back and forth in one spot three times before it finally bit in.

Powder sprayed everywhere, much of it sticking to my face.

Cold sweat soaked through the sheet beneath me, and I couldn't hold it in any longer. I cried out.

"Maisie, stop for a second."

It was Nigel Farley's voice.

I thought his heart had finally softened for me.

Then he lowered his head.

A pet dog was circling his feet.

"Jacob came looking for you."

There was a smile in his eyes.

The pressure of the drill against my skull eased off.

Maisie set down her instrument and rushed over, still in her surgical gown, to scoop him up.

"I'm sorry, baby! I missed your feeding time! It's all that mean Faith Fox's fault!"

She rubbed his head and took the dog food from the nanny's hands. "I know you only let Mommy feed you. You must be starving. Eat up."

I was left on the operating table, a hole open in my skull, watching her feed a dog in a room that was supposed to be sterile.

Nigel turned back and met my eyes. His brow furrowed.

"Why are your lips so pale?"

He picked up the restorative broth sitting to one side and came toward me. "Drink."

I felt dazed.

I thought of my pregnancy, how he always woke early to make me soup, carried it to the bed, and fed it to me.

Sometimes when I fussed and refused to get up, he used this same gentle tone.

"Drink it. I simmered it for over two hours. Take pity on me, won't you?"

I sank into the memory and said nothing. Maisie spoke first.

"Nigel, that's for Jacob. What has she done to deserve something this precious?"

He explained. "She's too weak. I'm afraid she'll die on the table before the surgery is even finished."

"You don't get chances to practice like this often. I don't want to see you upset."

"Jacob can go without for today. When it's over I'll buy him treats."

"Fine." She held the dog and looked at me, put upon. "You lucked out. If you live through this, remember to thank us."

I almost laughed out loud.

Made to drink a dog's tonic, and expected to be grateful for it.

Nigel forced the broth into my mouth, bitter and salty and faintly like blood.

The moment I swallowed the last mouthful, the drill I'd been spared started up again.

A fresh round of torment began.

The whine of the drill went on shuddering through me.

Maisie's hands were clumsy. After endless agony, she finally finished drilling and switched to the saw blade.

The instant the bone was cut open, my nails dug into my palms and tears spilled out beyond my control.

Nigel wiped the sweat from my temple.

"Faith, it's almost over. Hold on a little longer. Afterward, whatever compensation you want, you can have it."

"A house, a car, jewelry, anything else. You decide."

I gave a bleak smile.

One weightless word, compensation, and he thought it could cover four years of what I'd suffered.

Four years ago, Nigel's manner toward me turned cold overnight, colder than I could accept.

I said he loved me like his own life. He gave a thin, cold laugh and said I was deluding myself, that he'd only gotten engaged to me because I was easy to handle.

I said he used to dry my hair for me, that he'd sat up all night when I was sick, that he'd once driven across half the city because I offhandedly said I wanted cake.

He tossed me a therapist's business card and told me to go get treated if I was sick.

I actually went.

His manner really did make me doubt it, doubt that the love we'd shared had ever been anything but an illusion.

And it was after that therapy session that the "system" appeared.

The talk of a "parallel world" felt like a lifeline I could seize.

The goal of "one hundred surgeries" made me lie down on the operating table again and again, willingly.

I still remember the first thing they took was a kidney.

For Maisie, who had kidney failure.

She'd been living off Nigel's funding for years, and for the first time she had a healthy body.

And at last she had the means to chase her dream of medicine.

And I was the perfect test subject to practice on.

They'd gouged out an eye, cut away my stomach, removed my gallbladder.

Ninety-nine wounds had scabbed over, leaving scars that wound across my whole body.