In my past life, I was performing emergency pipeline repairs 300 meters beneath the ocean when my oxygen line ruptured.

I swam back for help, only to have my wife, Summer Yates, and her first love, Zachary Gibson, lock me out of the diving bell.

Not only did they ignore whether I lived or died, but they also started live-streaming an extreme no-oxygen endurance challenge to the entire internet. In the end, I suffocated and drowned.

Even after my death, Summer and Zachary smeared my name, calling me a deranged saboteur, while they ran off together with my massive life insurance payout.

When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn to the exact moment I was banging on the hatch.

Right on cue, Summer's sweet, teasing chuckle came through the comm. "All units, don't open the hatch. Carter wants to attempt an extreme challenge today. He's going to swim back to the surface without oxygen!"

Immediately after, Zachary's voice followed, trembling with excitement. "Babe, the sponsors said if Carter succeeds this time, I'll be the lead director on next month's million-dollar documentary series!"

In my past life, I had begged them through mouthfuls of blood, only to be met with Summer's impatient urging.

"Stop wasting your energy. You should save your oxygen and start swimming up. You're such a strong swimmer. Just hold on for another half hour, and you'll make Zachary's dream come true!"

Now, as I listened to this pair of scumbags plot against me, I sneered and cut the communication. I raised the highest-powered underwater cutting torch in my hand and aimed it directly at the main load-bearing cable connecting the diving bell to the surface vessel above.

They wanted me dead, so none of them would be leaving alive either.

Summer Yates' impatient voice pierced through my bone conduction earpiece. "Stop playing dead! Just save your oxygen and start swimming up already! Quit banging around down there. You're ruining the livestream."

I stopped knocking.

In the pitch-black darkness 300 meters below, only the blinking red light on my dive mask cut through the void.

The display read: [Primary Oxygen Line Pressure: Zero. Emergency Reserve Remaining: 3 minutes 15 seconds.]

Summer's shrill voice urged me to start swimming through the comm. "Carter Lawson! Are you deaf?! The sponsor's camera is pointed right at you! Turn around right now and swim toward the surface!

"Make sure you look good doing it. Show everyone the ultimate willpower of a professional diver! If you dare screw up Zachary's documentary on camera, you and I are done when you get back!"

Listening to that familiar, nauseating voice, I did not cry or beg for mercy as I had in my past life.

The temperature at 300 meters was barely above freezing. Yet, my heart felt colder than this water itself.

I glanced down at the multi-function tactical display on my wrist. The oxygen countdown had already dropped.

[2 minutes 45 seconds].

I knew that for a human body, swimming from 300 meters below without oxygen and without any decompression protocol was not an 'extreme challenge'; it was a guaranteed death sentence.

The water pressure at that depth would instantly crush my internal organs into pulp.

Summer and Zachary Gibson were not ignorant. They knew exactly what would happen. They wanted me dead, and they wanted my death to be valuable, to bring explosive traffic to Zachary's documentary.

I took a deep breath of the stale air remaining in my mask and forced myself to stay calm. Instead of turning to swim upward, I raised my right hand, still encased in the heavy, pressure-resistant glove, and tapped the hidden control valve on the side of my helmet three times.

With a beeping sound, the independent black box was activated.

"High-definition audio and video recording in progress."

Only I knew that this latest prototype dive suit had a built-in independent storage module that was not connected to the surface vessel.

It would record everything that was about to happen.

Summer asked, "Carter? What the hell are you doing? Why aren't you moving?"

Zachary's voice cut in, laced with condescending irritation. "Do you have any idea how many followers the livestream just lost because you're stalling? Are you trying to ruin this?"

"Ruin this?" I stared through the thick glass at the faint warm glow emanating from inside the diving bell and let out a hoarse, cold laugh.

To make sure the black box captured the most damning evidence, I forced down the increasingly violent suffocation tearing through my chest. I deliberately made my voice sound weak and desperate.

"Summer...the oxygen line is broken, and the emergency reserve is gone, too. I can't swim up. For the sake of our newborn daughter, please just open the door. If I die, who's going to support Kendra? Who's going to cover her expensive daycare fees?"

When I mentioned Kendra, the comm fell silent for a brief moment.

Suddenly, Zachary burst into wild, unrestrained laughter. Even through the crushing pressure of the deep sea, his laughter came through the headset, sharp and grating.

"Carter, oh Carter, you really are the world's biggest idiot!"

Zachary laughed so hard he was almost out of breath, his voice dripping with malicious mockery. "You really think that little brat at home who calls you Daddy is actually yours?"

I clenched my fists so hard my knuckles cracked inside the pressure-resistant gloves. Even though I had suspected it in my past life, hearing it confirmed now made the humiliation of betrayal tear at my heart all over again.

"What do you mean?" I asked, deliberately making my voice tremble with disbelief.

Zachary dropped all pretense, his tone filled with a victor's gloating. "What do I mean? Well, Summer had my kid just to keep you around as her personal ATM! You spend months at a time stuck down in the deep sea. Of course, Summer gets lonely! Every time you're down here risking your life, I'm keeping her company in that bed you paid for!"

"And that's not all…" Summer's sweet, syrupy voice now sounded like pure venom as she added without any shame, saying, "All the money you've risked your life for over the years, those massive deep-sea bonuses and hazard pay? We've already used it for the down payment on a luxury condo downtown. And guess whose name is on the deed? Zachary's."

Her tone turned even more cutting. "Carter, have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror? A low-level diver who reeks of seawater like you? How could you ever be good enough for me? If it wasn't for your high salary and how easy you were to control, why would I have ever married you in the first place?"

The more Summer spoke, the more excited she became. "Oh, and I forgot to tell you... That 80-million-dollar accidental death policy that you signed with the company? I'm the beneficiary. As long as you die on livestream today like a good little accident, that money will be perfect for Kendra's future education fund, and it'll help Zachary lock in that director position, too.

"So, stop wasting our time and get out of the way! Carter, your life is honestly worth way more dead than alive! So stop wasting our time and get out of the way!"

So, in the eyes of this disgusting pair, I had been nothing more than a cash cow they could drain dry and toss aside.

I let out a bone-chilling laugh that echoed through the comm and made both of them go silent for a second. "What are you laughing at? Have you lost your mind?" Summer spat with disgust.

[Oxygen Remaining: 1 minute 20 seconds.]

Dark spots were already creeping into the edges of my vision from oxygen deprivation. I let out a bone-chilling laugh that echoed through the comm and made both of them go silent for a second.

"What are you laughing at? Have you lost your mind?" Summer spat with disgust.

I did not answer her. Instead, I turned around, my back to the bottomless trench, and reached for the heavy-duty tool belt at my waist. Clipped there was my highest-powered deep-sea plasma-cutting torch, the one I used for emergency pipeline repairs.

I yanked it free, expertly flipped off the safety, and aimed the torch's nozzle directly above the diving bell. It was right where the main load-bearing cable, the communication fiber, and the lifeline supplying power and oxygen to everything inside were.

Zachary's voice cracked through the comm as he spotted my movements on the monitor, finally betraying a hint of panic. "Carter, what are you doing with that cutting torch? Put it down!"

Even though he was an outsider to this line of work, he knew exactly what that cable meant.

I pressed the plasma cutter's nozzle firmly against the main load-bearing cable and spoke slowly and coldly through the comm, my voice cutting through 300 meters of icy seawater.

"Summer, Zachary... Did you forget that the lifeline of this old diving bell is all out here? Since you love the deep sea so much, and since you think livestreaming down here is so entertaining, why don't you stay down here forever and enjoy the scenery with me?"

The comms instantly erupted into chaos.

Summer's shrill scream tore through the speaker, her voice cracking from sheer terror. "Carter! Don't you dare! This is a live broadcast! Millions of people are watching! If you do anything crazy, you'll be a murderer! You'll go to prison!"

I let out a bitter laugh, feeling the increasingly violent spasms in my lungs. "Prison? You're already trying to kill me, and you think I'm afraid of prison time? In my current state, even if I took you both out, it would just be written off as an accident caused by deep-sea psychosis. That's the cause of death you already picked out for me, isn't it?"

I let out a bitter laugh, feeling the increasingly violent spasms in my lungs. "Carter, stop trying to scare us! The diving bell's glass is military-grade bulletproof, and that cheap torch of yours can't cut through it! Get away from there right now, or I'll kill you when I get back up!"

"Who said anything about cutting the glass?" I said as I stared through the porthole like I was looking at a couple of corpses, my eyes ice-cold.

"What I'm cutting is your lifeline: the cable!"

The instant I finished speaking, I slammed the cutting torch to maximum power without hesitation.

They both shouted, "No!"

"Carter! Honey! I was wrong! Please don't cut it! I'll open the door! I'll open it right now!" Summer finally realized things were spiraling out of control as she wailed through the comm, frantically pounding on the inner hatch.

She had forgotten that Zachary had welded the door shut with a blowtorch, and there was no way to pry it open in time.

Zachary broke down, too, screaming, "Stop! I don't want to be a director anymore! Carter, I'll give you all the money back! Just stop!"

Under the searing heat of the plasma flame, the load-bearing cable began to melt and snap rapidly.

A loud crack echoed, and the warm yellow lights inside the diving bell went out instantly as all the communication cables and oxygen lines were severed at once.

Accompanied by Summer's utterly desperate screams and Zachary's hysterical curses, the heavy diving bell, now stripped of both the mother ship's support and its buoyancy, plummeted rapidly into the pitch-black abyss of the trench below.

The static in my earpiece cut off abruptly, and the world fell into deathly silence.