The Winner Dies First

In the checkout line at the grocery store, the girl standing in front of me suddenly let out a sharp gasp.

She violently sidestepped, ducking behind me like a frightened animal. Her voice was trembling uncontrollably.

You go first.

I gave her a weird look but stepped up and paid for my groceries. The second my transaction went through, a crowd of store employees swarmed me.

Confetti popped. They were grinning from ear to ear, loudly announcing that I was the store's one millionth customer. I had just won a ten million dollar cash prize.

The sheer shock paralyzed my brain for a solid minute. When I finally snapped out of it, my first thought was to find that girl and thank her.

But as I turned around, my feet glued themselves to the floor.

She was leaning heavily against a display shelf, gasping for air. Her face was chalk-white, and her expression was completely consumed by the overwhelming relief of someone who had just barely escaped death.

There wasn't a single trace of regret on that girl's face. Not a drop of jealousy over missing out on ten million dollars.

I knew that exact expression. I was intimately familiar with it.

Years ago, I was riding my bicycle without paying attention and got dragged under the wheels of a massive semi-truck.

The bike was crushed into twisted metal. The heavy tires screeched to a halt just inches away from my skull.

When I crawled out from under that undercarriage and collapsed onto the asphalt, I looked exactly like the girl standing in front of me right now.

It was the look of surviving a disaster. Gasping for oxygen. Total physical collapse.

But that reaction only makes sense when you've just stared death in the face.

Why was this girl reacting like that in the middle of a grocery store?

I opened my mouth, wanting to ask her if she was okay.

She didn't give me the chance. She turned on her heel and walked rapidly toward the exit.

Right as she reached the automatic sliding doors, she stopped and glanced back at me.

Our eyes met. A violent shudder ripped through my chest.

Because looking back at me, her eyes were completely filled with pity.

That look left a deep, crawling sense of unease in my gut.

But the moment ten million dollars officially hit my bank account, all that paranoia completely evaporated.

Sitting alone in my cramped rental apartment, I stared at the absurdly long string of zeros on my banking app. My hands were shaking uncontrollably.

A house. A luxury car. Traveling the globe.

A million different dreams were exploding in my head.

My phone buzzed.

It was a text message from an unknown number.

"Do not open the door for your food delivery."

"Freak," I muttered under my breath. I furrowed my brows, deleted the obvious prank text, and went back to daydreaming about my new wealth.

By the time I finally snapped out of my fantasy, it was late into the night.

My stomach growled. I opened up DoorDash.

Instead of scrolling through my usual cheap fast food options, I went straight to the most expensive steakhouse in the city.

Half an hour later, a heavy knock echoed through the apartment.

"Delivery for Jessica."

I pushed myself off the couch, ready to grab my food.

But for some inexplicable reason, that bizarre text message flashed in my mind.

Those ten words felt like iron nails pinning my feet to the floorboards.

Normally, I would have just ignored it.

But I was sitting on ten million dollars now. Being a little paranoid couldn't hurt.

I raised my voice and called out toward the door.

"Just leave it on the mat!"

"Sure thing. Enjoy your meal."

I heard the heavy paper bag hit the floor. The delivery guy's heavy footsteps slowly echoed down the hall, fading away.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and walked over to unlock the deadbolt.

Right as my fingers brushed the cold metal handle, I noticed something terrifying.

The light creeping through the crack under my door was still on.

My apartment complex had recently installed motion-sensor lights in the hallways to save power.

If someone was in the hall, the light stayed on. If it was empty, it turned off in thirty seconds.

The delivery guy had walked away minutes ago. Why was the light still on?

I held my breath. I pressed my ear flat against the cold wood of the door.

A second later, a freezing chill shot straight up from my heels to the top of my skull.

I heard a soft, rhythmic breathing sound coming from the other side of the wood.

The delivery guy hadn't left. He was standing right outside my door.

I bit down hard on my lip, pulled out my phone, and silently texted 911.

Every second felt like an agonizing hour. Twenty minutes later, I finally looked through the peephole and saw two uniformed police officers. Only then did I unlock the door.

The lead officer looked at me with deep skepticism.

"Ma'am, we checked the entire hallway and the stairwells. There is no one here."

"Are you absolutely certain someone was trying to harm you?"

I didn't even bother putting on my shoes. I led the cops straight down to the building's security office.

But when I demanded to pull the security footage for my floor, the night guard just clicked his tongue.

"Sorry, miss. The camera on your floor specifically shorted out this afternoon."

My heart completely dropped.

This wasn't a random creep. This was premeditated. Someone was actively hunting me.

Since there was no footage, the cops just told me to lock my doors and call them if anything else happened.

Back in my apartment, I buried myself under the thick duvet on my bed.

If I hadn't received that warning text, if I had just opened the door like a normal night, I didn't even want to imagine what would have happened to me.

Suddenly, a realization hit me like a bolt of lightning.

The person behind that unknown number knew there was a killer outside my door.

And since they warned me, they clearly weren't the enemy.

If I could just get a hold of them, maybe I could figure out who was trying to kill me.

My fingers trembled as I dialed the unknown number.

The phone rang. And rang.

Every single dial tone made my heart stutter.

I was terrified they would hang up. I was terrified they just wouldn't answer.

On the fifteenth second, the ringing clicked off.

"Congratulations. You're still alive."

The words completely paralyzed me.

But what shocked me even more was the voice on the other end.

I knew that voice. I had heard it today.

It was the girl from the grocery store. The one who pushed me forward in line.

I didn't care about anything else anymore. I gripped the phone and unleashed every question burning in my mind.

"Who the hell are you? How did you know someone was going to kill me?"

There was a long, heavy silence on the line. Then, her voice came back, trembling violently.

"Because that is exactly how I died in my last life."

The neon lights of the 24-hour gaming lounge were blinding.

The sound of keyboards clacking and teenagers yelling at video games was usually annoying, but tonight, it made me feel incredibly safe.

I sat in a private booth, staring at the girl sitting across from me. My mind was completely reeling.

Her name was Sophie.

After the phone call, we decided to meet somewhere public and highly secure. The gaming lounge had dozens of cameras and was packed with people.

The very first thing Sophie told me completely shattered my reality.

She was a reincarnator.

In her previous life, Sophie had kept her place in line. She was the one who won the ten million dollars.

The night she won the money, she did exactly what I did. She ordered an outrageously expensive meal to celebrate.

But the moment she opened her door to grab the food, a man shoved his way inside and plunged a hunting knife straight into her heart.

The killer was dressed entirely in black, wearing a heavy mask and a pulled-down baseball cap. Before her eyes finally closed for good, she never got to see his face.

When she woke up back in the grocery store, the sheer, paralyzing terror of her own murder made her step back. She willingly gave up the ten million dollars just to survive.

But the guilt of passing the death sentence onto me ate at her. She memorized my phone number at the checkout counter and sent me that warning text.

Listening to her story, a massive wave of gratitude washed over me.

If she hadn't been a good person, I would be bleeding out on my apartment floor right now.

I reached across the table and grabbed her hands.

"Thank you. You literally saved my life."

"I'll split the money with you. Half of it is yours. It was supposed to be yours anyway."

Sophie's face instantly contorted in pure terror.

"I think the killer is explicitly hunting the winner of the money."

"He failed tonight. Next time, he is going to be far more prepared and far more lethal."

"And I can't protect you anymore. I have no idea when or how he's going to strike next."

I furrowed my brows, forcing my brain to work.

"Think back to your last life. Did you notice absolutely anything about the killer before you died?"

Sophie shook her head slowly.

"The moment the knife went into my chest, my vision went blurry."

"The pain was so blinding I couldn't even formulate a thought before I died."

"Black clothes, black hat, black mask. That's all I saw."

She fell silent. Then, her eyes suddenly went wide.

"Wait. I remember something. I smelled him!"

She frantically rubbed her temples, trying to drag the memory out.

"It was a really specific smell. I know I've smelled it before, I just can't pinpoint what it was!"

I told her not to panic and to just keep thinking. My own brain was spinning in overdrive.

"Here is what I don't understand. How did the killer track us down so fast?"

Sophie pulled up her phone. She opened a news app.

"I know what you're thinking."

"The grocery store filmed the entire millionth customer celebration for a PR stunt."

"The video went completely viral on TikTok and Twitter. My face was plastered all over the internet. So I couldn't tell if the killer was a total stranger who tracked me down, or someone I actually knew."

I stared at the viral video playing on her screen, then slowly shook my head.

"But my situation is different."

"When I went to the store today, I didn't have makeup on. I hadn't washed my hair. I was wearing a massive hoodie, a baseball cap pulled down low, and a surgical mask because I've been getting over a cold."

"Unless someone knew me intimately, they would never be able to recognize me from this video."

"And based on the break-in, the person trying to kill me is the exact same person who killed you."

"That leaves exactly two possibilities."

"One. The killer was physically in the grocery store, followed us home, and memorized our addresses."

"Two. The killer is someone we both personally know."

Sophie bit her lip. She held up two fingers.

"I think it has to be the second option."

"I am a deeply paranoid person. I watch way too much true crime. When I won that money, I was terrified of being followed."

"I took three different Ubers. I walked through two separate shopping malls. I took the most convoluted, insane route back to my apartment."

"The odds of someone tailing me through all of that without me noticing are virtually zero."

I nodded. We both pulled out our phones, opened our contacts, and started cross-referencing names.

When I saw a very specific profile picture pop up in Sophie's mutuals, my right eyelid twitched violently.

It was my absolute best friend in the world. Fiona.

Right at that exact second, a text from Fiona popped up on my screen.

"Babe, I'm running a terrible fever. I feel awful."

"Can you come over and keep me company?"

The video of me winning ten million dollars was sitting at the number one spot on the trending page. If Fiona had seen it, she would have recognized me instantly, mask or no mask.

Knowing her personality, the second she realized it was me, she would have called me screaming with excitement.

But she didn't.

I stared at her text message. My thumbs hovered over the keyboard, but I couldn't bring myself to reply.

Still, it was just a theory.

Fiona and I were as close as sisters. I refused to believe she would ever try to murder me.

Taking a deep breath, Sophie and I kept scrolling.

The second suspect was Gary. My landlord.

He managed the building Sophie and I both lived in.

He had come over to fix my radiator once when I was wearing that exact same oversized hoodie.

The third suspect was Luke. The maintenance guy who delivered the heavy five-gallon water jugs to our apartments.

Just like Gary, he could have recognized me in the video.

Both of these men fit the profile perfectly. They knew what we looked like, they knew where we lived, and they had access to our buildings.

But when I pictured their faces, my suspicion completely wavered.

Gary was a sweet old man who was always smiling. When I was tight on cash and needed an extension on rent, he always agreed without a second thought.

Luke was a shy, hardworking guy who blushed every time I said thank you. Last week he carried a heavy massage chair all the way up three flights of stairs for me, and he refused to take a single dollar for a tip.

I just couldn't picture either of them plunging a knife into someone's chest.

We had our suspect list, but how the hell were we supposed to prove anything?

While I was racking my brain, Sophie suddenly let out a blood-curdling scream.

She kicked her legs violently against the underside of the table, shoving her chair backward. Her head slammed hard against the wall of the booth, but she didn't even seem to feel it.

I jumped out of my seat in a panic. Sophie's eyes were wide open, locked onto me with absolute terror.

She lunged forward, gripping my hands so tightly her nails dug into my skin.

"I just reincarnated again!"

"In five minutes, the power in this lounge is going to cut out. The door to this booth is going to swing open, and the killer is going to chop your head clean off!"

"It was so warm. The smell of iron. Blood was everywhere!"

Sophie clutched her own throat. Sweat poured down her forehead.

"It hurt so much!"

"He walked over and slashed my throat. I couldn't even scream."

She took a few ragged breaths, then leaned in close. Her eyes were practically glowing with manic adrenaline.

"But before I died, I managed to hit the power button on my phone."

"The screen lit up. And in the glow, I finally saw the killer's face!"

I swallowed hard. My voice was a terrified whisper.

"Who was it?"

Sophie stared right into my eyes and slowly spoke the name.

"Fiona."

My brain completely flatlined. My knees went weak, and I had to grab the edge of the table just to stay standing.

For a split second, I desperately wanted to accuse Sophie of lying to me.

But the brutal reality was that Sophie had absolutely zero motive to lie.

Then, a chilling memory hit me.

Because we were two women living alone in a big city, Fiona and I had installed a location-tracking app on our phones for safety.

If she could see exactly where I was, why the hell did she just text me asking where I was?

My hands were shaking so violently I almost dropped my phone. I opened the location app I hadn't checked in months.

The next second, my heart completely stopped.

On the digital map, the red dot representing Fiona's phone was almost perfectly overlapping with my green dot.

Fiona was right outside the lounge.

I snapped my head up, locking eyes with Sophie. We grabbed our bags and sprinted out of the building.

Bursting through the front doors, we threw ourselves into the back of a taxi idling on the curb.

"The Grand Plaza Hotel. Step on it!"

The Grand Plaza was a luxury five-star hotel with incredibly strict security.

It was the safest place I could think of right now.

The locks clicked into place. The engine purred.

Watching the neon sign of the gaming lounge shrink in the rearview mirror, I closed my eyes and let out a massive, shaky exhale.

The next second, the engine roared. The car violently swerved off the main road and down a pitch-black alleyway.

The driver looked in the rearview mirror. He smiled, exposing a row of yellowing teeth.

"Where are you rushing off to so late at night, Jessica?"