Buried Onions

After my wife tortured me for the 98th time for Hudson Langdon, I gave up all hope and accepted her bestie, Mona Sachman, as my girlfriend. After a night of passion with Mona, she promised to help fake my death and we would get married overseas using a new identity. However, I woke up earlier than expected inside the coffin after taking the suspended animation drug Mona gave me. I was unable to move, but I could hear Mona talking to someone outside the coffin. "Miss Sachman, you've gained Sean Langdon's trust by instigating Sheila Edwards to torture him and pretending to save him after that. Why do you need to arrange for him to fake his death and bury him?" "That's the only way for the Langdons to believe that he had truly died, and for Hudson to secure his position as their heir. No one would ever mention that he is an illegitimate son after that." The other person asked after some slight hesitation, "Isn't it a little too long to wait seven days to dig him out of the coffin after you and Hudson Langdon get married?" "The drug is effective for five days. I've already gotten someone to put food, water, and an oxygen canister into the coffin for him. He won't die so easily."

The day I was awarded the highest service medal, I got a call that my grandfather had died. My superiors approved emergency leave, and I rushed straight back to the family estate without stopping. The moment I reached the hillside cemetery behind the house, what I saw snapped something inside me. Our family burial ground had been completely leveled. My parents' graves had been dug open. Their urns had been turned into flower pot bases, with dark-red roses planted right on top of them. My grandfather's coffin had been split apart. His body was left exposed in the dirt, already starting to rot. And my younger brother, Jerry Horton, who was on the autism spectrum, was being ordered around like a laborer by my husband's assistant, Digby Wolfe, hauling construction materials back and forth. I lost it. I grabbed Digby and slammed him into the ground with a hard shoulder throw. "You touched my family's graves and made my brother do manual labor. Are you trying to get buried here with them?" Digby coughed up blood as he struggled to his feet, sneering at me. "This was Mr. Gray's decision. He said your family plot is in a good location, with plenty of space. It's perfect for building a golf course for the future Mrs. Gray. In Joule, Mr. Gray is the law." His tone was icy. "And who do you think you are?" I swallowed my rage and called Marshall Gray. "I hear you run Joule," I said. "Well, I'm about to change that."

Yvonne Foster, my wife from an arranged marriage, is a control freak who loves me to her core. From business operations to the smallest details of daily life, she takes charge of everything herself. If someone dares to target me in business, their company is shut down for investigation the very next day. Women who set their sights on me always disappear without a trace. Yvonne always acts as if she can't stand me, but I know she is the kind of person who acts tough on the outside but cares deeply on the inside. This goes on until my parents find their true biological son, and I turn out to be the fake heir. The real heir, Fabian Madden, has spent his whole life in the countryside. I hear that he has an honest, simple personality. But when every bone in my body is shattered, and I'm thrown into an abandoned factory with my mouth stuffed full of blood-soaked dirt, he stares down at me haughtily. "You darn parasite living off a woman! You stole more than 20 years of wealth and privilege that should have been mine. Die! Just die already!" He buries my body in the garden and uses it to nourish a vast bed of roses as a birthday gift for Yvonne. Pointing at the sea of roses, he says ingratiatingly, "Yvonne, do you like this field of roses?"

On the day I receive my Distinguished Service Medal, I also receive word that my grandma has passed away. My superior grants me special leave to return to my hometown to mourn her death, so I rush to my ancestral home at once. But when I reach the ancestral graveyard behind the hill, I witness something that makes my blood boil. The graves of my deceased family members have been razed to the ground. Even my parents' graves have been brutally dug up. Their urns are now placed under flower pots filled with blooming red roses. Grandma's coffin has been pried open as well.Her body now lies strewn on the ground and has started to rot. I also see Lucy Stewart, my autistic younger sister. Melissa Abbott, my wife's assistant, orders Lucy around like a maid, forcing her to move heavy construction materials around. Enraged, I grab Melissa by the throat and throw her to the ground. "How dare you destroy my family's ancestral cemetery and make my sister do hard labor! Do you want to end up buried here too?" Melissa coughs up blood before crawling back onto her feet, her expression vicious and scornful. "I'm simply carrying out Ms. Fuller's instructions. She says that your ancestral cemetery is located in a good spot. It's also the perfect size to be turned into a private horse ranch and a garden for her future husband. "Ms. Fuller calls the shots here in Joverton City. Who the hell do you think you are, huh?" Resisting the urge to put an end to her life, I call up Eva Fuller, my wife. "I heard you call the shots here in Joverton City. Well, I shall put that to the test today!"

My brother, Theo Sorento, died in a plane crash on his way back home just to celebrate my birthday. They never found his body—only wreckage. Ever since, my parents forced me to kneel in front of his grave every year on my birthday, demanding that I repent for surviving when he didn’t. Then came my eighteenth birthday. I realized someone was following me. Panicked, I sent a few messages asking for help. Just then, Mom called, not to check on me but to lash out. “I know exactly what you're doing. You’re just making up excuses so you don’t have to kneel in front of your brother’s grave! You’re a liar. Why wasn’t it you who died instead of him? You’re a walking curse!” Before my phone was smashed under a boot, the last thing I heard was the cold click of her hanging up. Then, I was cut up into pieces, and what was left of me was tossed across the city. My father, the lead forensic pathologist on my case, didn’t even recognize me. Later, Theo returned alive with his wife, whom he had eloped with eight years ago. When they found out the pile of rotting flesh was me, they all went insane.

There are monsters in this world. And they used to be us. Now it's time to euthanize to survive in a hospice where Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. Post-infection Chicago. Christmas. Inside The Hospice, Emily and her fellow nurses do their rounds. Here, men and women live out their final days in comfort, segregated from society, and are then humanely terminated before fate turns them into marrow-craving monsters known as ‘Smilers.’ Outside these imposing walls, rabid protesters swarm with signs, caught up in the heat of their hatred. Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. But in a world where mortality means nothing, where guns are drawn in fear and nobody seems safe anymore – at what cost will this pursuit come? And through it all, the soon to be dead remain silent, ever smiling. Such is their curse. It won't be long before that snow-speckled ground will be salted by blood. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing