10,000 Hours: You Become What You Practice

In my previous life, I was eight months pregnant when my mother-in-law and husband forcibly dragged me to grab decorative gift boxes from the Christmas tree. I told them there was nothing inside, but my mother-in-law slapped me across the face while my husband pulled me into the crowd. A stampede broke out. They clutched their gift boxes and fled to save themselves, while my child and I were trampled to death. They eagerly tore open all the gift boxes with high hopes, only to find exactly nothing, just like I'd warned them. But as I lay dying, I noticed something in the final gift box. A Black Widow spider with an hourglass pattern on its belly crawled onto my mother-in-law's hand. This spider carries deadly venom. Anyone bitten either dies or suffers permanent disability. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on Christmas Day. This time, watching my mother-in-law and husband gear up to fight over those Christmas gift boxes, I won't try to stop them!

When Alexander Smith stands in front of me and says he's going to marry someone else, that's when I realize he's been reborn too. I remember our 20 years of love in our past life. A plane crash. And then, rebirth. "This is to save Sophia," he says. "In our past life, she was sold to a Vostmark oligarch after her father's political scandal. Not long after, she took her own life due to abuse. I can't let that tragedy happen again, so I need to get engaged to her." As he speaks, he hands me an orange prescription bottle. "If you take this, you'll forget me for a little while. You won't feel the pain. It's just seven days. Once her father's scandal blows over, you'll stop the medication and your memory will return. Then I'll end the engagement and officially propose to you." I stare at the bottle, knowing it's a lie. Not the part about Sophia's suicide. The lie is about the drug. He thinks it only causes temporary memory loss. But I know better. The suppressant causes permanent damage to emotional memory. The seven-day countdown isn't the time it takes for my memories to return. It's the time it takes for my love for him to die.

Everyone in the upper echelons of society knows that Lewis Alvarez has someone he cherishes like a priceless treasure. He allows her to spend money like it was nothing, flies into a rage at the slightest insult to her, and would willingly sacrifice his life for her. However, those same people also know that Lewis was married to someone else. She’s a mute woman who might as well doesn’t exist. She was only a fragile flower that relied on Lewis to survive.At least, that’s what Lewis thinks of his wife, Josephine Vance. That is until the day she hands him a divorce agreement. That’s what breaks his cool aloofness.

Whitney. 28 years old. Hopeless romantic. Book worm. Whitney has never been the type to party. She would rather sit at home with a good book and read. Her parents left her a fortune when they passed away a few years ago so she has no need to work. The one night her friends , Jeniffer and Kassie, talk her into going out to a new club that had just opened up, she is bumped into my the club owner, Ethan. There is so much tension between the two of them. Ethan is a playboy who only wants sex. He doesn't do relationships. Whitney doesn't do relationships or sex. The two of them are at a game of who will give in first. Will he give into her and beg her for the attention he wants or will she give in to his pretty boy charm and give him exactly what he wants?

Sometimes, you can have the right love at the wrong time. For Dash, love can wait but for Cassy it should be something that they should be fighting for. Two young souls crossed path but fated played at them. What could happen to their shattered hearts? Would they still believe in love when it gone all wrong?

One day, everything is still normal. And another day when their dad had to offer them a tip for travel- or as what it seems. Faye Elanise, along with her twin sister, Zaye Eranice, followed his order which led them meeting four strangers. Stuck inside a room of vines, a man appeared out of nowhere giving them the key for a vine-covered door which they later found. He left them hanging, questioning their identities. And that is when the mystery behind them started to awaken. A starting point to find... what lies within them. All Rights Reserved ©Trixie Sherice/plumints