How Does Death And Other Occupational Hazards End?

Liam Dunlap, my girlfriend's junior apprentice, bragged that he could defuse a bomb with one hand. Then he slipped. The timer began to race. Terrified, he dropped his tools and ran. I stepped in at great risk and saved the hostage. For that, I was commended. Liam, on the other hand, was condemned across the internet and faced severe disciplinary action. My girlfriend tried to speak up for him, but I stopped her. "If you defend him now, not only will your promotion be revoked—people online will come after you too." Later, unable to bear the pressure, Liam jumped to his death. Every line of his suicide note blamed my girlfriend for not standing by him. She said nothing. She simply burned the letter in silence. After that, she rose step by step from a frontline officer to a model figure in the police force. On the day I was kidnapped by criminals, she came in person to defuse the bomb strapped to me—using only one hand. She looked coldly at the device on my chest and said, "See? It can be done with one hand. Why did you all have to drive Liam to his death back then? If I had protected him at the time, the one in my position today… should have been him." The bomb detonated. I died on the spot. After I opened my eyes again, I saw her running around desperately for Liam. She didn't know—the hostage was the mayor's son.

Late one night after getting off work, I was scrolling through my company group chat when a colleague shared a piece of news. The headline was horrifying. "Night-Shift Courier Murdered During Delivery, Police Suspect Robbery." I zoomed in on the crime scene photo that had been partially pixelated, and a chill ran straight down my spine. Lying in a pool of blood, the courier who had been hacked to death was unmistakably me. I had scrolled into news of my own death. Almost at the same time, my delivery app began vibrating violently. "Urgent pickup! Destination: Unit 704 Hawthorne Ridge Apartments, Building 7. Time limit: 15 minutes. Penalty for timeout: Death." As I stared at the notification that read "Pickup failed three times", the searing pain of my brutal death surged through my body. So that was it. I had already died three times. When I forced open the half-closed security door of 704 for the fourth time, a thin delivery envelope lay quietly inside. I tore it open. A photograph slipped out. It was a picture of my dismembered body. The timestamp showed tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. On the back was a single line written in fresh blood: "Next time, remember to pick it up on time." At that moment, the red indicator light on the hallway surveillance camera suddenly went dark. I looked up. From the ventilation opening in the exact same spot, a single eye was staring straight at me. The mole at the corner of that eye was identical to mine.

At the end of the day, my colleague, Melody Christie, came to find me. She wanted me to cover her night shift. I turned her down because I had commitments after work. That night, she was caught abandoning her shift and she got fired. Melody blamed me for it. Just when I was almost going into labor, she pushed me down the stairs. "Do you know how hard I worked to get this job? If it was not for you, I wouldn't have been fired! If I'm going down, I'm taking you down with me!" I died, and my baby did not survive either. When I opened my eyes once more, I was back to the same day when Melody asked me to cover her shift. Only this time, I knew the truth. Turns out, she had left her shift for a rendezvous with my husband.

I die in the basement after being burned by acid. My family doesn't recognize me, and they don't call the cops. My mother picks up the scalpel that hasn't been used in years and debones me. My father excitedly mixes my skeleton with concrete and turns me into an exquisite statue. My sister uses the sculpture she's made out of my flesh and portrays herself as a genius sculptor whom everyone admires. Later, the sculpture is shattered, revealing half a broken finger inside. That's when everyone panics.

On the third day after my death, Eliza Sutton received the call to claim my body. She was resting in another man's arms. She said nonchalantly, "He's dead, huh? Just cremate it and call me afterward." My body was fed to the flames and reduced to ashes. When the staff were done, they contacted Eliza again. Irritation flashed in her eyes as she snapped, "I heard you. I'm on my way."

My wife’s childhood friend, Peter White, needed surgery. He requested that I perform the operation as the lead surgeon. I followed every medical protocol exactly and did my best to save him. However, after being discharged, he accused me of practicing medicine illegally. He claimed I had made him permanently disabled. I asked my wife to back me up. But instead, she said to me, “I told you not to act recklessly, but you wouldn’t listen. Now look at what has happened!” The hospital security footage even showed that I did not follow the standard surgical procedure. I had no way to defend myself. In the end, I was stabbed to death by Peter’s wife, Janet White, who had been financially supporting him. Even during my dying moments, I could not understand why the surveillance showed that I was not following the medical protocol! When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day Peter came in for his initial examination.