Are TV Shows 'Based On The True Story' Exaggerated?

My father, Terence Locke, is covered in mud. He grabs my shoulders desperately, and his eyes are bloodshot. He says, "Emma, my company has gone bankrupt, and I accidentally killed a business rival. You have to run away with me." I believe him. Suppressing my fear, I follow him deep into the untouched mountains. To find food for him, I eat bugs and drink dirty water. When a pack of wolves closes in on our cave, my first instinct is to stand in front of him. "Dad, I'll lure them away. Run!" I look back at him one last time before finally making up my mind to trade my life for his. But after I leap off a seemingly bottomless cliff and fall to a pulp on the rocks below, I somehow "see" him inside a slowly descending helicopter. He is popping a bottle of champagne in celebration. At that moment, I finally understand everything. The whole desperate escape over the past few days that ultimately pushes me to sacrifice my life is nothing more than a reality show staged by him. He is merely putting on a performance, while I am truly dead...

Caked in mud, her eyes bloodshot, my mother grabbed me by the shoulders. "Elliot, the company's collapsed. I… I killed a competitor. It was an accident. There's no way out now. You're the only one who can come with me." I believed her. I swallowed my fear and followed her into the mountains, deeper and deeper until there was nothing left of the world I knew. To keep her alive, I searched for food, forcing down insects, drinking whatever murky water I could find. When a pack of wolves began circling our shelter, my first instinct was to step in front of her. "Mom, I'll lead them away. You go." I glanced back at her one last time…and made my choice. I would give up my life for hers. However, when I leapt from the cliff and my body shattered against the rocks below… I still saw her. She was inside a descending helicopter, calm and composed, lifting a glass of champagne. Celebrating. That was when it finally clicked. The desperate escape that had driven me to sacrifice myself… was nothing more than a carefully staged show. She had been acting the entire time. I…was the only one who had actually died.

I've been caught in a relationship with a divorced man for eight years. We've broken up and reconciled too many times to count. In the end, I tallied ninety-four breakups and five divorces between us. One more would make it an even hundred, but I'm too exhausted to continue this cycle. The first breakup happened when I was giving him my virginity. Halfway through, his ex-wife called asking him to pick up some bread, and he simply left. The fifth breakup occurred when he abandoned me, newly pregnant, on the highway to comfort his ex-wife who was having complications with her own pregnancy. I ended up in a car accident and miscarried. He arrived at the hospital with his clothes disheveled. Despite all the pain he caused me, I could never bring myself to truly leave him. Our most recent divorce happened for an equally absurd reason. His ex-wife and their child were participating in a family reality TV show that required them to appear as a complete family unit. To protect his ex-wife's public image, he divorced me yet again. When filming wrapped, he called to discuss remarrying. This time I refused, because I'm going to marry someone else.

In the fifth year of being locked up in a psychiatric hospital, my husband, Cole Foster, finally agrees to discharge me. But when the ward door is opened, I see multiple cameras aiming at me. "Congratulations, Ms. Lawson. The five-year reality show in the psychiatric hospital has officially come to an end!" R-Reality show? I look thunderstruck by the news. At that moment, Cole, who's supposed to sweep me into a hug, shows up. He says calmly, "Joanna, this is a reality show that Natalie has planned. You're just a trial subject whom I've chosen to help her record this show." 300 million people have participated in the voting session. Just like that, Natalie Jackman becomes the most popular director in the reality show world. Meanwhile, I've gotten electrocuted to the point I keep shuddering violently. It's a norm for me to drool subconsciously and go into lapses of haziness from time to time. Cole personally unlocks the handcuffs that have bound me for the past five years. "Now that the show is over, you may go home."

To save my mother who's been bitten by a zombie, I exchange my own kidney for the only vial of serum that's available. I'm not given any anesthetic during the surgery. I bite down on a wooden rod until it snaps, but I still don't make a single sound. But when I rush back to the shelter to look for Mom, I catch her talking to someone on the phone. "You should drop the act soon, Mrs. Sawyer. Mr. Sawyer is going to collapse if this continues!" I recognize the voice. It belongs to Mom's assistant, Richard Peterson. "What's the rush?" Mom replies flippantly. "Although Terence is my son, he's never faced any hardship since he was a child. He doesn't know how hard it is to earn money. "I had to overcome many challenges before I became the richest person in the city. What if Terence is only treating me well for my money? He must pass this test to prove that his love for me is genuine." I clench my fists. The life-saving serum drops to the floor. It turns out that the apocalypse and the man-eating zombies aren't real. I have carried Mom on my back while darting through ruins for the last month. I eat rotten meat and even sacrifice my kidney without any hesitation for her, but everything is just part of a test that she designed. I look down at the bloody hole that wasn't stitched up properly on the side of my waist. Mom thinks that everything is just part of an act, but she has no idea that the doctor who wandered onto the set and performed the surgery on me is real.

The day I found out that I was a fake heiress who had taken the place of the Jones family’s real daughter, my husband, Timothy Lane, was brought back as the true heir of the Lane family. The man who once said he loved me quickly abandoned both me and our daughter. At that very moment, the real heiress, Nancy Jones, decisively broke up with the fake heir of the Lane family and got together with Timothy. According to them, this was simply ‘making things right’. After losing everything in the blink of an eye, Micah Lane, the fake heir, kidnapped my daughter and me, forcing me to call Timothy for help. However, Timothy ignored our desperate pleas and mocked us. "You two are really something. Of course the fake heiress and fake heir go together. No wonder you make such a perfect pair of actors." On the other end of the line, I could occasionally hear Nancy's raspy, suggestive voice. As I listened to them, Micah stabbed me and my daughter to death. I died a tragic, painful death. After we died, my daughter and I were my husband's final assignment as a mortician before he left the job. The man who claimed he did not care about us fell apart the moment he saw our lifeless bodies. "Wasn't it all supposed to be a lie?! Why weren't you lying to me?! "Please, don't die! Don't leave me!"