Three years ago, I was a leading scientist in the National Science Foundation's polar program.

But just outside McMurdo Station in Antarctica, I was brutally murdered by Amber Reed, my fiancé Spencer Grant's college sweetheart.

She destroyed my GPS locator, slashed my face with an ice axe, and pushed me, still breathing, into a bottomless ice crevasse.

I was pregnant with my second child with Spencer when I died.

She was the sole survivor, but in front of the rescue team, she twisted the truth, framing me for stealing research data and defecting.

Spencer believed her. He personally signed the report that revoked all my academic honors and erased me from the polar program.

From then on, the name Willow Hayes became a disgrace in the scientific community, a pariah to all who knew it.

Until three years later, when climate change caused the glaciers to shift, and my frozen body finally resurfaced.

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1

I hovered in mid-air, staring blankly at the corpse on the autopsy table.

It could hardly be called a person anymore. The flesh was torn and mangled, covered in a thin layer of frost.

Even I couldn't recognize that it had once been my body.

"Spencer," my former assistant, Ben, said, looking up as he entered. "You're here."

"The expedition team found this in Antarctica. Since it was discovered in that year's research zone, they sent it straight to us."

"The condition is gruesome. Her face was mutilated by a sharp object, anything that could prove her identity was removed, and her fingerprints are gone—frostbite necrosis. We're certain it's foul play."

At the mention of "Antarctica," Spencer froze for a moment before emotionlessly pulling on a pair of sterile gloves.

I floated in the air, my gaze fixed on the man before me.

Three years. I had been dead for three whole years.

After my death, my soul remained trapped in that sunless ice crevasse, endlessly whipped by the polar winds.

Until someone found me and brought me back to San Francisco.

But I never expected Spencer would be the one to autopsy me.

Seeing my unrecognizable face, even a seasoned medical examiner like Spencer recoiled slightly, his brow furrowed.

Spencer hesitated, the scalpel hovering over my body. Instead, he turned and asked his assistant in a low voice, "Does Amber know about this?"

The assistant shook his head, adjusting the recording equipment. "Amber's back home preparing for the wedding. She probably doesn't know yet."

Spencer nodded, his expression softening with a tenderness I had never seen before. "Then tell the expedition team not to mention it to her."

"She's sensitive. I don't want to frighten her." As he spoke, his features relaxed into a gentle look.

I stared at Spencer in a daze.

He never searched for me. And now, he was about to marry the very woman who had smashed my skull with an ice axe.

My fiancé was going to marry the monster who murdered me. The irony was a blade in itself.

Floating in mid-air, I looked down at my own broken body.

"Let's begin." Spencer's voice returned to its usual coldness.

Even though I could no longer feel pain, I still shuddered with every cut Spencer made.

"Forty-five wounds to the face, consistent with an ice axe."

"One fatal wound to the neck from a sharp instrument, and a ligature mark from a rope. It seems she was first strangled unconscious and then killed."

The assistant beside him drew a sharp breath. "God, what kind of hatred is this? It's savage."

His tone was clinical, but his hands moved with methodical precision.

Next was my lower abdomen, covered in a dense pattern of stab wounds left by Amber's frantic attack while I was still conscious.

"Thirteen stab wounds to the abdomen."

He paused for a fraction of a second, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. "Preliminary assessment: all wounds were inflicted pre-mortem."

He cut open my uterus. Spencer's voice caught in his throat.

"A developed fetus was found in the uterus, approximately three months old."

That was our child, who never had a chance to see the world before being frozen forever with his mother at the end of the earth.

What had I done to deserve this, to be forced to witness my own autopsy three years after my death?

I drifted down, closer to the autopsy table, gazing at the tiny fetus.

This was the first time I had truly seen my child.

Back in Antarctica, the harsh environment and intense work had made me ignore the changes in my body. I only had a vague suspicion a week before the incident, but I never had the chance to tell anyone.

I didn't cry when Amber killed me.

I didn't cry when I watched Spencer personally dissect me.

But now, as a ghost, I wept, tears I couldn't feel streaming down my face.

He already had hands and feet.

If Amber hadn't killed me three years ago, he would be over two years old now.

He would be at our home in Palo Alto, hugging me and calling me "Mommy," begging Spencer to tell him stories about polar bears.

I would have given him the world.

But that fantasy died on this cold steel table.

"The vic's identity is still unknown. Send this for lab analysis, run a DNA comparison," Spencer said, putting down the scalpel and tossing his gloves into the medical waste bin.

A shame, Spencer.

If you had just looked a little more carefully, you would have seen the scar from Yosemite, from when I saved your life.

But you didn't see it. You missed me all over again.

The assistant took the sample for testing, glanced at the record sheet, and asked,

"Spencer, you haven't given an estimated time of death yet."

Spencer's hand, which was cleaning the instruments, paused. He didn't answer, instead asking his assistant,

"Ben, how long has it been since Willow Hayes defected?"

Ben was taken aback by the question, but then replied, "Three years. You forgot, Spencer? It was a huge scandal. You're the one who signed the report that stripped her of all her honors and research qualifications."

I listened to his words in a daze. Revocation, report.

Spencer knew. He knew that for a scientist like me, who had clawed her way to that position through scholarships and working herself to the bone, reputation was more important than life itself.

How could he?

Based solely on Amber's one-sided story, without any real investigation, he had single-handedly destroyed everything I had once been so proud of.

"What's wrong, Spencer? Did you think of something?"

Ben looked at Spencer, then glanced quizzically at the tragic corpse on the autopsy table. "You don't think... it's her, do you?"

"How could it be?"

"Spencer, don't overthink it. Willow Hayes took off with data worth hundreds of millions. Who knows what country she's living it up in right now."

A dry, humorless laugh escaped him. "It's nothing. Just a stray thought."

"Make a note. Time of death is approximately three years."

"I'm leaving now. Amber's waiting for me at home for dinner."

My soul, tethered to Spencer against my will, followed him home.

The home we once shared in Palo Alto now bore no trace of me.

Every corner was filled with the evidence of Amber and Spencer's life together.

"You're back?" The moment Amber saw Spencer, she glided over and wrapped her arms around his waist.

Spencer gently held her, resting his chin in the crook of her neck and closing his eyes, as if only her scent could bring him a moment of peace.

What a heartwarming scene.

Spencer had never been so intimate and natural with me.

"Does your hand still hurt?" Spencer took Amber's right hand, gently stroking her arm.

Amber smiled and shook her head. "It doesn't hurt anymore!"

Spencer looked at her with a pained expression. "Have you been taking painkillers behind my back again?"

"When Willow pushed you down back then, your arm was so badly injured. The injury still acts up, even now."

I floated in the air, wanting to scream, "It wasn't me! I didn't!"

Why was I convicted based on nothing but Amber's baseless accusations?

Spencer, you never believed me.

Before I started dating Spencer, I didn't know about his college sweetheart, Amber.

The year they graduated, Amber dumped Spencer for a Silicon Valley tycoon.

I met Spencer while pursuing my PhD at Stanford.

After we got together, he took impeccable care of me. All my friends called him the perfect boyfriend, and even I started to believe we would last forever.

But the year we were preparing to get married, Amber came back.

At first, Spencer told me, "Willow, she's just an old college friend. She's hit rock bottom, let's help her out."

I believed him. But I never expected I was letting a wolf in the door.

Spencer began to pull away.

I can't count how many times he abandoned me for Amber, even repeatedly postponing our wedding for her.

"Can't you stop acting like a lunatic?"

"Amber and I are just friends. Stop being so paranoid."

But would a "friend" abandon his fiancée in the dead of night, rushing to another woman's side just because she whispered, "I need you"?

Would he stay silent as his friends called her his new girlfriend?

I can still feel my heart shattering.

That day, Spencer and I had the most intense argument ever, only for him to throw these heartless words at me:

"Willow, are you insane?! If you dare give Amber a hard time at work over our history, the wedding is off!"

Disheartened, I applied for the expedition to Antarctica, hoping to use the six-month separation to give us both space to breathe.

But I never imagined that Spencer would use his connections to place the inexperienced Amber on the team as well.

That was the beginning of the nightmare.

It was only in the third week in Antarctica that I discovered I was pregnant.

To avoid troubling everyone, I kept the news to myself, planning to figure things out when I returned.

But I never returned.

Due to Amber's mistake, all of us were trapped outside the station.

The rest of the expedition team left Amber and me, the two women, at the camp, intending to search for help nearby.

But Amber tried to steal all the emergency survival equipment to escape alone.

When I discovered her, a struggle ensued, and all the equipment fell into an ice fissure.

"Are you satisfied now? Now no one can leave! It's all your fault!"

In the distance, a rescue ship was heading towards us.

Without a moment's hesitation, Amber grabbed a nearby rope and strangled me.

After I lost consciousness, she stabbed at me again and again with an ice axe. Fearing I would be recognized, she completely disfigured my face.

Her axe was colder than the Antarctic ice, slicing through my skin inch by inch.

Finally, with my last breath fading, she shoved me into the bottomless abyss.

"Go to hell, Willow. Once you're dead, Spencer will be mine. Besides, if you just disappear, I can pin the blame for this whole disaster on you."

Once she had cleaned everything up, she inflicted several deep cuts on herself and turned the tables, framing me:

"I'm so sorry! Willow ran off with the data... She said the price they offered was too good to refuse..."

"It's all my fault, I couldn't watch over those things."

And so Amber condemned me, claiming I had defected after stealing data.

Now, watching Amber lean against Spencer, reveling in the life that should have been mine, a furious rage boiled inside me.

Why should I be dead while she, the murderer, gets to live so well?

She took my fiancé, my house!

Amber leaned into his embrace. "It's okay. If this small injury could make you see Willow's true colors, I think it was worth it!"

"So Spencer, after we get married, don't go looking for Willow anymore, okay? Let the past be the past! I don't want that woman to disturb our lives again."

Spencer looked at Amber with heartache, his tone full of pity. "I've seen how the pain keeps you up at night."

"Whenever I think about it, I just wish I could find Willow and make her suffer the way you have!"

But Spencer, you already have.

Wasn't I the one you personally dissected?