The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh

You might wonder what the bait is all about? Yeah. Life, itself, is a dirty game. Like a pass card, just to achieve the impossible at the expense of others. Here comes a clean but dirty game played amongst three. Each wants to be crowned the dirtiest and master of the game... Hardie Morrison, a drug addict and a drug Lord too. Involved in a play of lose or win, he lost his beloved and he's bent on revenge. Arlington Grayson, a young and promising lady who's just after what life decided to offer. Everyone seeks for happiness and yes, that's one of Arlington's wish everyday. What happens when Arlington met with Hardin, fell head over heels with him but all Hardie wants was just to used her for his benefit and disposed her off like a trash. Love, they say, melts a hardened heart and it sometimes heals a broken heart too. But what if reverse is the case here? What if Arlington was just the wrong bait? What if...? What if...?

Robert Blackwell promised to marry me, then postponed it thirty-eight times. The fifth time, a car crash broke eight of his ribs, and I signed seven critical-condition notices. The tenth time, on the way to get our marriage license, he and the car were thrown into the sea, and his suit was torn apart by sharks. By the thirty-eighth time, his heart disease had worsened and his life was hanging by a thread. Eight months pregnant, I changed flights three times and flew twenty-three hours across half the world to find him. When the door opened, a little boy who looked exactly like him lifted his face and said, "I thought Mom was back." Robert rushed out barefoot, panic written all over his face. I turned around and saw my best friend of twelve years standing behind me with a key in her hand. The little boy ran to her and threw himself into her arms, calling her Mom. So the fiance I had waited seven years for was my best friend's secret husband all along. "I will not wait through these thirty-eight near-death weddings anymore." "Robert, I do not want you either."

A great white shark appeared during our holiday to the beach. My wife, Eunice Fuller, was a marine animal trainer. She deliberately cut our daughter Violet’s finger and used her blood to lure the shark away. She did that to save her first love’s son. By the time I arrived, the surrounding water had turned red with blood. I called Eunice and demanded an explanation. All I got was an impatient outburst. “For God’s sake, the rescue team’s already there! What more do you want? I taught her how to swim. What’s so wrong if I told her to hold off the shark for a little while?” I stared at Violet’s mangled body. My eyes were bloodshot with fury. I should have ended this marriage long ago. I would make every last one of them pay for this.

When I'm in my senior year of high school, my mom, Bethany Stout, is diagnosed with uremia. Even after our family sells the house, we are still 300,000 dollars short on the dialysis fee. I pack my bags overnight, ready to go to work on an assembly line at an electronics factory. The class belle, Natasha Ferris, grabs my shirt tightly at the train station ticket gate. She's someone who usually blushes even when speaking a little loudly, but that day she forces a bank card into my hand. "The password is your birthday. Consider the money a loan. You're not allowed to miss the SAT." I say I may never be able to pay this money back in my entire life. With red-rimmed eyes, she scolds me, "Then pay me back slowly, but you cannot ruin your life just like this." Throughout the four years of college, she transfers me 800 dollars for food every single month without fail, and the note is always "eat more meat". Mom survives the kidney transplant surgery, and I also secure a guaranteed admission and enter a top-tier company. But Natasha cuts off all contact without any warning. Eight years later, I am the youngest partner at the major company, with an annual salary of ten million dollars. Yet, Natasha's name appears in a mockery video of a local matchmaking group. "Not only is this woman already 30 years old and has a sick mother, but she's also demanding 100,000 dollars as a wedding gift? Is she crazy or what?" When I watch the person in the video wearing old clothes, head lowered while enduring people's criticism, my eyes sting with tears. I push aside the signing ceremony for a ten-million-dollar project and pick up the bank card and my Social Security card. This time, it is my turn to catch Natasha when she falls.

The scholarship student, Izzy Waite, whom Craig Green had been funding, decided to seek some thrills by engaging in group intimacy in the open sea. They messed around in a way that drew blood and unintentionally attracted a shark. I risked my life to drag her back to shore. Once we made it to land, I warned her the ocean was full of bacteria and that she should get a check-up, just in case. She nodded and pretended to listen. However, the moment I turned my back, she ran to Craig, claiming I’d slandered her reputation. She even threatened to throw herself back into the ocean in some dramatic attempt to end it all. Craig was furious. Without giving me a chance to explain, he shoved me into the mouth of a massive, still-living shark. I beat against the inside of that monster’s stomach, screaming for help. The fishermen on the beach panicked at the sight. “Mr. Craig, please. This’ll kill her!” Craig simply held the weeping Izzy in his arms and sneered. “I heard people can survive inside a shark for a whole month. Doesn’t she love studying marine biology? Now, she can do some real research from inside.” Trapped in utter darkness, I curled up, gently cradling my belly. “Baby, this time, Mommy can’t protect you…” One month later, Craig finally came to gut the shark himself and bring me home. Unfortunately, all he found on the wind-swept shore was a skeleton.

Three hours after my engagement banquet ended, I was stuffed into a burlap sack and thrown straight into the ocean. By the time deep-sea divers found me, my body had swollen into something grotesque and barely recognizable. The police called my fiancé right away to come identify the remains, but he could not have sounded less interested. "So, she's dead. So what? I'll show up at the funeral when the time comes." Left with no choice, the police dialed the second starred contact in my phone. It was my own brother. He laughed so hard that he doubled over. "Dead? Last I checked, it's not April Fools'. Not a funny joke. And do me a favor. Tell Selene Corvin I couldn't care less about her corpse. Throw it back in the ocean to feed the fish. I don't care." He did not know that I did end up as fish food for a very long time. The moment my remains appeared on that massive screen, however, both my fiancé and my brother lost their minds.