Solomon Grundy: A Pop-Up Rhyme

When I opened my eyes once more, Flora was holding me tightly. I had secretly loved her for a decade. Her warm lips kissed my neck, telling me not to leave. This time, I pushed her away and told the butler to send her to her first love's home. Her first love was Sean Graham. In my last life, Flora drank so much that she was drunk during the celebration organized for me to celebrate me for getting an overseas college's offer letter. After the celebration, I didn't refuse her when she wanted me to stay, and that wild night came to pass. The next morning, when Sean saw me coming out of Flora's bedroom, he pretended to be amiable and said he would make our wish come true despite the darkness in his eyes. Then, he disappeared for about one month. In the end, we found a blood-stained necktie in the mountains and the skeletal remains that had been feasted on by wild animals. Flora didn't sleep for an entire night as she held Sean's necktie in her hand. After that, it was like the discovery hadn't affected her at all, as she still passionately planned for my birthday trip. But that very night during the trip, I was abducted. I begged the kidnappers to beg Flora to pay the ransom, but I heard her personally give the orders. "Don't let him die too easily. He's just some scum of the earth. Do whatever you want with him. When you're done, dump him in the Northern Barrens and clean things up. He owes Sean this much!" Flora, I'm done playing by your rules this time around.

A priest has shown up at my first birthday party. He claims that I'm a cursed soul—that my presence will bring doom to those close to me, and my existence itself can snatch everyone's luck. The only way to counter this is to give me up to an orphanage and let me live a life of poverty and suffering. Without a family, I'll be able to overcome my fate as a cursed soul. Daddy has the priest cast out of our home immediately. Meanwhile, Mommy hugs me tightly. "My son is the luckiest boy in the whole wide world!" But everything has changed when my younger brother, Andy Lawson, has fallen off the 20th floor. His body is completely shattered from the fall. I can only stand by the window uneasily. Fear is evident in my eyes as I wave my hands with all my might. "It wasn't me! It really wasn't me!" The wind that day is very strong, but it can never drown out Mommy's cries. Daddy hoists me up and stuffs me into Andy's coffin. I keep latching onto the sides of the coffin to the point my fingers are all bloodied and trampled over. At the same time, I keep screaming for Mommy. Mommy stares at me blankly at first. But her hollow gaze is soon filled with hatred. "Why aren't you the one dead? That priest told us that you'll have to stay in the coffin for seven whole days and nights just to atone for your sins! Only then can Andy's soul rest in peace! "This is your fate and your sin, Adam!" The heavy lid slowly covers the coffin, soon sealing my hoarse cries and screams away. A long time later, a few voices ring out amid the sorrowful melody played by the organ. "Why is there a tiny gap in the coffin? Hurry up and nail it shut! We can't afford to have misfortune spread to us!" When the final nail is bolted onto the lid, I close my eyes. Mommy, Daddy, I'm no longer a cursed soul.

At the County Clerk's Office, Logan Dunne's adopted sister folded our marriage application into a paper airplane and launched it across the room. For the ninth time. I was done. Then she went nuclear. "I just don't think you're good enough for Logan! Like, what are the odds you got pregnant five times and lost every single one? Maybe they weren't even his. Maybe you got rid of them on purpose! You're just a used-up tramp!" The whole lobby turned. Every stare hit like a slap. Even the clerk who'd just been calling Raine out now looked at me like I was trash. I started to snap back, but Logan's mom, Claudia, cut me off. "Raine's only acting out because she can't handle Logan leaving her. She was abandoned as a child. She's suffered enough. Be patient with her. "And you're Logan's fiancée. You should understand. Be the bigger person." I looked at Logan. He was smiling, patting Raine's head like she'd stolen a cookie. "You little troublemaker. Don't do that again." Then he faced the clerk. "Could we get another form? She'll behave this time." I slapped my hand over his. Be the bigger person? Big enough to let her trash my name in public? Big enough to let her wreck our marriage license appointment? Fine. I'd be generous. I'd give Logan back to her. I didn't want him anymore.

Set in the mid-19th century, a masked benefactor purchases a supposed 'satanic' creature on London's black market. What he gets instead, however, is someone he never knew he would fall in love with, much less be loved back. As they both heal from the scars of their past, they find their fates are more interwoven than either would have ever imagined. *Contains themes from Beauty and The Beast, Phantom of the Opera, and Frankenstein* (I do not claim rights to the cover image)

In 1612, he couldn’t save her. In 2026, he might not want to. Elias Thorne was a man of maps and measurements, the King’s most trusted surveyor, until the smoke of the Lancashire witch trials choked the life out of everything he loved. Catherine wasn’t a witch—she was just an innocent woman caught in the gears of a superstitious world. When Elias was turned into something monstrous that same year, he didn't see it as a curse; he saw it as a deadline. He had forever to find a way to bring her back. For four centuries, Elias moved through the shadows of history, building an empire of wealth and dark influence. He hunted every myth, funded every occult discovery, and bled for every lead—all to find a soul that refused to return. He grew bitter, his heart hardening into the very stone of the London streets he walked. He eventually gave up on the heavens and the hells, settling into a life of cold, immortal apathy. Then, on a Tuesday afternoon, he sees her. She’s standing in line for coffee, wearing headphones and a denim jacket, looking exactly like the woman he watched die under a grey Jacobean sky. She has no memory of the fire, the maps, or the man who has spent four hundred years hating the world for her sake. Now, Elias faces a choice: Walk away and let her live the peaceful life he once prayed for, or reclaim a love that doesn’t belong to him anymore. But Catherine has secrets of her own—and in the modern world, the ghosts of 1612 are finally starting to catch up.

"Life and Death are like green and red: you can't be both, but you can be neither. " Will you accept if you were given a chance to live forever? Or would you rather live with the fact that life ends with death? For Simon, there is no other choice than to live until everyone dies. All he wants is to be dead, but how?