Short Emotional Realism Stories & Novels

I was diagnosed with cancer. After much deliberation, I called my husband. He fell silent for a long while. “Most of our mortgage is unpaid, and our children need money for school. You should go for conservative treatment.” I called my mother while weeping. “You’re so troublesome. None of my friends or family have cancer!” I stopped crying and started living for myself. God favored me and let me see reality early in my life. He even gave me a chance to start over.

After I'm abducted, I call my mother, a policewoman, for help. However, she hangs up on me and stays by my adoptive sister's side. "Go to hell if you're so keen on it!" she snaps. I calmly watch as the abductors pluck my nails and torment me until none of my skin is left unharmed. In my past life, my mother actually came to my rescue. She left my adoptive sister by the roadside, and the latter ended up being violated and murdered. From then on, I became a criminal in my mother's eyes. She received an anonymous text on my adoptive sister's death anniversary. "I bet a good girl like you wouldn't want your mother to know you hired us to abduct you, right?" She thought I orchestrated the abduction because I wanted to vie for her attention. She thought that was the cause of my adoptive sister's death. "I've saved people all my life. I never would've expected my flesh and blood to be such a shameless monster! You should go to hell as atonement for killing Charlene!" She sewed my mouth shut, shattered every bone in my body, and threw my ashes into a junkyard. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back to the day my mother makes her choice.

On the day I was supposed to donate my bone marrow, my mother called me. “You’re pretending to be sick again? We’re just asking you to donate some bone marrow. Why are you acting like we want you to die?” My brother agreed. “How could you be so horrible? You owe her this one! Even if she’s asking you to die, it’s because you deserve it!” Even my boyfriend could not hide his anger. “It’s just a bone marrow donation. We’re not asking you to die. How could you be so selfish?” They did not know that I would indeed die if I donated my bone marrow. Since they wanted me to die so much, so be it.

My sister and I got into a car crash. My heart was ruptured, and I needed immediate surgery if I were to live. My mother, being the director of her hospital, sent all the doctors to my sister instead, all just to check on her. She barely got hurt. I pleaded and begged for my mother to save me, but impatience got the better of her. She roared, "This isn't the time to take any attention away from your sister! She almost had a bone fracture!" And I died. I remember where it was. It was a freezing operating theater.

My neighbor's daughter is sick, and my mother forces me to donate a kidney to her. I've been malnourished since childhood—just drawing blood is enough to cost me my life. However, my mother says, "What does your death matter to me? Rhea is my actual daughter!" Only then do I learn that my mother switched me and our wealthy next-door neighbor's daughter at birth! I glance at my neighbor's daughter, but she's calm and unaffected. I watch as my mother signs the consent form for the operation. My father ties me to the operating table, and my brother performs the surgery. I have no strength to retaliate, so I make one last request—a DNA test with my mother. She agrees—she wants me to stop holding out hope. Later, I forget everything after the surgery, but she breaks down.

My son, Andy, had a sudden liver failure and needed a liver transplant. The only compatible match was my wife, Vivian Grant. I had begged her for 20 days to give Andy a liver transplant. Finally, she caved in. I waited the entire day in front of the operating theater, but she didn’t appear. On the same day, her first love, Jason Sanderson posted on his social media. [20th day of traveling around the world. Dr. Grant had given up her career to help fulfil my son's dream of traveling the world.] Only then did I find out that Vivian had been travelling the world with Jason and his son, Luke, since day one. That night, I received a call from Vivian. "Charlie, Luke had gotten full marks on his exam. His wish was to have his Daddy and Mommy travel around the world with him. As you know, he doesn't have a Mommy. I couldn't bear to watch him not get his wish. "We'll return in three days. We can have the surgery for Andy then." She had no idea that what awaited her at the hospital was Andy's lifeless body.

My husband was praised by my friends as the perfect husband in the world. Everyone said he loved me to death and practically put me on a pedestal. Then came my prenatal checkup. My older cousin, Catherina Bow, called him with a farewell message before attempting suicide. Without hesitation, he abandoned me and rushed off in panic. I was six months pregnant at that time. My mother expected me to be the bigger person and “lend” my husband to Catherina, who was depressed. My brother snapped at me, "The only reason you’re still in this house is because Catherina spoke up for you. Whatever she wants, you should give it to her!" I found it absurd. I was supposed to be their family. She was nothing but a cuckoo in my nest. When I finally decided to walk away from all of them, they regretted their actions.

My husband is the perfect doctor… or so everyone thinks. However, he delays the critical treatment of an accident patient so he can accompany his first love's son. Later, he even secretly switches out a patient's medication and watches as she dies from the pain. That way, he can take her heart and perform a heart transplant for his first love's son. What he doesn't know is that the patient whose heart he's taken is his daughter's. She's disfigured in an accident after her treatment is delayed. He calls her family's phone number, hoping they'll agree to donate her body to contribute to the medical field. That's when he hears my phone ring.

The day my mother-in-law discovered she had uterine cancer, she packed up and moved in to our home. “I don’t have much time left. I’m all out of hope!” she choked out. “You’d be cruel to kick me out. Show me some mercy!” I looked at my speechless husband, then at my beloved son I had raised with so much love and care. I asked them, "What do you guys think?" My husband silently made a grim expression and grabbed my arm. “How long are you going to hold on to that little incident that happened after Everett was born? Mom's already so sick." My son echoed his sentiment, “Grandma doesn't have much time left. Of course we have to take good care of her!" I smiled at them and said, “Alright. You guys can take care of her if you love her so much."

Eight years ago, my cousin Wendy Cooper was involved in a drunk driving hit-and-run. Yet, my parents made sure all the evidence pointed toward me. The victim's family waited outside my school every day with gasoline, threatening to die with me. Because of that, the school took away my guaranteed admission to university. That day, my parents and brother all tried to persuade me. "Wendy's terrified. Just give her your spot to make her feel better." I refused, fought back, and even tried to talk them out of it. But the next day, they handed me over to the police themselves. Lance Stewart, my fiance and a powerful business tycoon, had orchestrated it all. As he was afraid I'd run or cause trouble, he personally pinned several charges on me and sent me to an isolated island prison. He left me with no way out. When my sentence began, he made me a promise. "Esme, just endure it for a few years. I'll get you out once Wendy graduates, and then we'll get married."

Five years after Mom and Dad died, my sister, Miley Jenkinson, sent me away to a residential treatment center to "fix" me. She flung my luggage at me and roared, "You love fighting so much, Delia? Then, stay here. Maybe I'll come back for you once you've learned to behave." Next thing I know, Miley's sworn enemy is beating me senseless. Meanwhile, Miley loses it on the other end of the line. "Fight back! Why aren't you fighting back?" My gaze is blank as I say, "Because you said fighting made me one of the bad ones."

During a mission overseas, I shielded my younger brother from an explosion—only to wake up months later, my body broken, my mind trapped in the void of a coma. Grateful for my sacrifice, he repaid me by marrying my wife. When I finally clawed my way back to consciousness and rushed home, I found my son kneeling on the ground, sobbing as his college acceptance letter lay shredded in his fists. My nephew loomed over him, slamming a steel pipe into his back. "Lick my shoes clean," he sneered. "Who are you to think you deserve an education?" And there was my wife clapping in delight, dabbing the sweat from my nephew’s brow like a doting servant. "You’re just like your deadbeat father," My wife spat. "Born to be my stepping stone." My eyes bloodshot, I tightened my fists. Every last one of them would pay for this dearly.

My sister leaves some last words before committing suicide, and everyone who sees those words die. My grandmother is the first to go, and then my father. In the end, even my mother jumps off a 30-story building. The reporters fall over themselves trying to score an interview with me, and the police interrogate me. Countless people want to know what my sister's last words are. However, I keep my silence until my sister's tenth death anniversary. I see a figure before her grave, and I'm agitated beyond imagination. I know it's time for death to take me.

The first experiment in the world of retrieving memories after death succeeds, and my memories are going to be broadcast live all over the Internet. My dad has just learned about my death, but he only says in a disgusted tone, "Who would want to see the memories of someone who is selfish, mean, and has nothing commendable at all about them? Today is the wedding day of Zoe and Cameron. Pause the live broadcast and stop being so sickening!" Zoe is my stepsister, and Cameron is supposed to be my fiance. After that, my father finds out the truth from the live broadcast of my memories. He begs for my forgiveness tearfully but… I'm already dead.

As the long-lost daughter of a wealthy family, I returned to my biological parents, only to watch their company collapse. Overwhelmed by massive debts, my dad jumped to his death. My brother was left crippled by vengeful creditors. My mother, unraveled, would one moment tear at my hair, cursing my existence, and the next, cling to me, sobbing and vowing to cherish me. To save them, I shredded my college acceptance letter and took every job I could find. When my brother's condition worsened, I auctioned off my virginity to fund his surgery. But when I arrived at the hospital with the money, I overheard their conversation. "Kathy works day and night to earn money. I don't think she is after our fortune," said my mom. "She dropped out of college and ruined her future for us. Maybe we should stop this." My brother, supposedly half-paralyzed, stood by the window in a crisp suit. He shrugged. "She chose to skip college and work like that. What's it got to do with us?" My "dead" father broke his silence. "We need to be careful. People like her are like leeches. Once they latch on, you can't shake them off. Let's keep watching." I listened quietly, tossing the pendant they had given me into the trash. I had repaid the debt of my birth, and now, we were done.

After three years of marriage, I suddenly began to realize that my wife might have a low libido. One evening, my older neighbor, who was sympathetic, kindly invited me over. That night, I stumbled upon his wife in the middle of a passionate entanglement with another man through a crack in the door. The next day, my neighbor said to me, "Hey, Cyril, you know, Heather has always liked you."

My car was passing by the entrance of the office when I saw both my sisters 'wrestling' vigorously with a bum. I wasn't surprised, however, even recording a video of it and sending it to the biggest news outlet of the country, saying, "I want it seen across the world before 7pm." After all, in my last life, those two sisters were so keen to please Harold Langford that they allowed him to steal my birthright all he wanted. I bore with it because they were family, and ended up resting in pieces. But now that I had a second chance, I would return the favor. At the company gala, Harold once again took my seat as he snorted at me haughtily. "Hmph! If Ellie and Jennie didn't insist on showing you how the world works, a poor college student like you wouldn't even make it through the front door!" "Know your place and don't cause me trouble, or they will have you beaten to a pulp!" Seeing that he was still running his mouth, I kicked him three feet away as I chuckled. "Who do you think you are? How dare you strut when you're just a gigolo who only knows how to please hags!"

I died on the day I won the Global Medical Doctorate Award. Fresh from celebrating the sixteenth birthday of my younger sister, my parents, brother, and my fiancé finally returned home, but it was three hours after my death. My family photos were beaming with happiness on social media, while I laid in the suffocating basement drenched in blood. Before I died, I had struggled to slide my tongue across my phone screen in a desperate attempt to call for help. My parents and brother had blocked my number. Only my fiancé answered my call. The moment his voice came through, he snapped, "Winona, Winnie's sixteenth birthday is important. Stop trying to hijack attention with your pathetic excuses. Enough with the theatrics!" It murdered my last spark of survival. In that electronic death rattle, my heart flatlined. The 100th time they chose her. The 100th time they abandoned me for her. But it was also the last time. They thought I had ran way to get their attention again, and that if they taught me a harsh lesson, I would come crawling back pathetically. But not this time. Because I didn't leave home. I had been lying in the basement of my house.

Fresh out of college, Clara Stewart asked me to take on a $500,000 mortgage for her. When I refused, she turned around and bought an $800,000 villa in full, for another guy. Holding up the property deed, she told me: "Jayden, the truth is, I'm actually rich. I've been pretending to be poor to test you. Unfortunately, you failed. I'm disappointed in you. Let's break up." I simply smiled and walked away without a second thought. The irony? I'm the son of the richest man in the country. I was pretending to be broke, too. Fast forward four years, we met again at the National Wealth Summit. Clara had just barely made it into the top 50 on the list, clinging to the arm of Henry Brown as they entered. She spotted me in simple clothes with no visible brand, holding a child in one arm and the keys to a Porsche Cayenne in the other. Thinking I was someone's driver, she sneered: "Jayden, you really went all out just to see me again? Let's be real, you're just a driver now, and I'm on the wealth list. We live in completely different worlds. Don't waste your time fantasizing." I did not bother replying. Honestly, I was only there because my billionaire dad insisted. I had finally cleared a day to spend with my son and now I had to waste it on that.

I'm a special kind of courier. Instead of packages, I transport beautiful women. I drop them off at designated locations and pick them up afterward. Each round trip earns me a thousand dollars. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that my crush would climb into my car one day. What's more, she'd brought my sister along, saying they wanted to make some quick money together.