Short Emotional Realism Stories & Novels

My son, Tyler Youngblood, has a failing kidney. He needs a kidney transplant. My wife, Ruth Lister, asks me to donate one of mine. On the day of the surgery, I turn off my phone and disappear. My entire family frantically searches for me, and I don't show up until four hours later. Because of the delay, Tyler misses the optimal treatment window and tragically dies. My family accuses me of being heartless and stirs up public opinion against me, saying I am unfit to be a father. I leisurely sip my coffee and say, "It's not like his mother is dead. Why didn't she donate her kidney instead?"

To punish me for losing my autistic younger brother, Ezra Clement, Mom locks me inside a custom-made steel box. The box is about 20 inches wide and is welded in place in the deepest corner in our basement. "There's a walkie-talkie inside. You'll stay in there until you admit that you deliberately left Ezra beside the human traffickers' van." She locks the lid, plunging me into darkness. For the first three days, I cry and beg through the walkie-talkie, trying to tell Mom that I only let go of Ezra's hand to lure the traffickers away from him. One of the traffickers has slashed me across the back, and the wound keeps bleeding and festering. But Mom refuses to listen to anything I have to say. All I hear are her furious accusations. "Evelyn, you're just jealous of Ezra. A vicious sister like you deserves to be locked in there until you die." On the fourth day, torrential rain floods the basement. Muddy water rises past my knees, soaking the knife wound on my back in filthy water. The pain is so unbearable that I claw at the metal walls until all ten of my fingernails tear and break. I desperately press the talk button. But all I hear from the other end is Mom's gentle voice coaxing Ezra to sleep. To prevent me from disturbing him, she powers it off. When the water that is mingled with the blood from my mangled fingers rises above my head and floods into my nose, I stop struggling. Mom has no idea that on the back of our family photo, I have written down my plan to work hard, earn money, and pay for Ezra's treatment. Helplessly, I think, "Mom, I confess. In my next life, I will never be your daughter again."

My sister-in-law, Denise Snyder, sends a 60-second voice message in the family group chat with all my relatives in it. Through tears, she accuses me of being a bitch who destroyed her daughter's future. She claims I abused my power at work, deliberately kicking her daughter, Erica Cortez, off the final list of new hires and replacing her with someone else closer to me. All my aunts and uncles in the group chat gather like vultures, lashing out at me and calling me names. They flood the group chat with hundreds of messages. Even my elder brother, Simon Cortez, who has always been a man of few words, tags me and demands an explanation. I look at the insults constantly pouring in and feel all the blood drain from me. Firstly, I'm not working in the HR Department in charge of recruiting the new hires. Secondly, and most laughably of all, Erica never even made it past the first round of interviews.

When I suffered from major depressive disorder, my academic performance plummeted. When my mother saw the big red 'F' on my exam paper, she was so furious that she tied my hands behind my back and threw me into the fish pond. “I scrimped and saved to send you to tutoring classes, and this is how you repay me? “Stop with this depression nonsense! You’re just being dramatic. You need a wake-up call. Stay in that pond until you come to your senses!” The weather was cold, and the water was freezing. I was never a good swimmer, so I could only beg for mercy. My mother, however, ignored my pleas. She forcibly dragged my father away to attend my cousin’s college send-off party. The waterweed wrapped around my feet and pulled me under. I decided to stop struggling. “Mom, I’m sorry I couldn’t be the perfect student you keep hoping for. Maybe you’ll be relieved to be rid of me.”

I'm a Gen Z rookie at work. When my boss is being poured a drink, I intercept the bottle. When he gives a speech, I strike up a chat. He opens the car door, and I hop right in. I don't do overtime, and I never take the fall. My manager wants to steal my credit and pocket my bonuses? Hilarious. The company belongs to my family. Your boss is my dad!

Sitting here in the courtroom, I watch as my father is put on trial for a crime he didn't commit. He gets a heart attack and dies right before my very eyes. There's nothing I can do to stop it. As my heart burns with anger and resentment, a series of comments suddenly appears, floating in the air in front of me. [Poor Mason! He still has no idea it was his own beloved girlfriend, Christa Lowry, who served as lead counsel and used falsified evidence to incriminate his father.] [Christa teamed up with that scion, Todd Harlow. She sacrificed Mason's dad's life to net her first pot of gold!] Through these comments, I learn the truth. I wipe my tears away, tear up the acceptance letter I just received from the top art school in the country, and throw myself into the legal profession. After 15 years, I've finally been crowned the Grim Reaper of the criminal defense world, having never lost a single case. One day, my assistant comes to my office with a pile of top-secret case files. Christa is facing the death penalty for engaging in international money laundering, and I'm the only one who can save her. In the surveillance footage from the detention center, the once arrogant woman is now kneeling on the floor, begging in despair to be saved. At that very moment, those comments start appearing in my vision again. [Spoiler alert! The most satisfying moment of revenge is about to come!] [That awful woman is so deluded. She thinks that just by offering enough money, Mason will be willing to save her for old times' sake! What a joke.] [Quick! Refuse her, Grim Reaper! Send her to hell!] Reading the comments, I smirk faintly before tossing my pen into the trash. "Tell her I won't take on the case."