Bias After Death Short Stories & Novels

I was the real son, finally found and brought back by my billionaire parents, only to be diagnosed with leukemia right after. The only person who matched my bone marrow was the adopted son, Doug Daniel. So my parents rushed to bring him back into the family, making him my donor. To make it up to him, they did everything they could for him. My parents handed over the inheritance. My fiancée, Moira Stevens, hovered around him every day. When the pain got so bad that I could barely stand it, my parents pointed at me and snapped, "Jay! You keep bringing up your illness. Are you really that eager to take away Doug's health?" Moira, a medical school professor, didn't hold back either. "I'm a doctor. You think I don't understand your condition? You act like you're dying every single day. You just can't stand that we're being nice to Doug." On the day of the transplant, I lay on the operating table and waited. But Moira, the one in charge of harvesting Doug's marrow, never came in. I closed my eyes and waited for death. None of them knew I had already signed up to donate my body.

On the day the SAT test results were released, my younger brother, who had always been an average student, turned out to be a perfect scorer. Meanwhile, I, the straight-A student, had my results voided because my answers were deemed poorly structured. During a reporter's interview, my brother suddenly dropped to his knees in front of me and slammed his head against the ground. "Henry, I was wrong! "I shouldn't have scored so high! I really didn't mean to refuse to take the exam for you! "Please don't send me back to the fighting ring! "Don't worry! I swear I'll never tell anyone about what you do with men at bars! Please just let me go!" My parents were heartbroken for him. They slapped me over and over while shouting. "It's one thing for you to fool around out there, but how could you bully your brother too? "Thank goodness this was the SAT test, so you couldn't force him to take it for you! Otherwise, you would've ruined his entire future!" My girlfriend immediately dumped me and got together with him instead. She said she wanted to make it up to him on my behalf. As soon as the interview aired, videos of me fooling around with other men in bars spread everywhere online. Before long, all my personal information was exposed. Enraged netizens lured me into a remote forest in the hills. "Are you this desperate? Stay here and reflect on yourself!" I was coiled by a lethally venomous snake. The pain was unbearable. My parents clearly knew what had happened, yet they refused to save me. "It's just a small snake. You're not going to die! "You're not allowed to come home until your brother starts college!" On the day of our high school graduation party, my brother and his girlfriend received acceptance letters from the country's best college, along with a notebook I had sent them.

On the day I'm found to be a compatible donor for my mom, who's suffering from late-stage leukemia, I run away from home. Dad keeps looking everywhere for me. But in the end, he has to watch Mom die in despair. Later on, Dad focuses on his research in leukemia, which brings him huge success. On top of that, he even adopts an understanding and capable young man as his own son. When we eventually meet again, it's at a research meeting about leukemia that's hosted by Dad. As he stares at my body on the table, he can't help but chuckle icily. "Julian Rivers, this isn't a place where you can screw around. Get up and get lost right now!" The host just stares at Dad, completely stunned. "You know the identity of this corpse, Dr. Rivers?" Dad flashes him a mocking smile. "How much did Julian pay you just to go along with the act, huh?" The poor host doesn't know what to do. "But Dr. Rivers, Mr. Julian Rivers already died three days ago…"

I was born with a genetic disorder. My father left as soon as he found out, and my illness quickly drained all my mother’s savings. To afford my treatment, she moved me from one stranger’s home to another, until she chose to have a child for money. After giving birth to a baby boy and receiving twelve thousand dollars, she was about to leave, but the man asked her to stay. He promised to raise me as his own and cover my medical expenses. She agreed. They married soon after. She told me I would always be the one she loved most. To prove it, she rarely held my brother and almost never smiled at him. Until the day he accidentally swallowed my medicine. As she frantically tried to save him, she broke down and screamed at me, “Why are you still alive?” I watched them rush to the hospital. Then I went back to my room, picked up the scattered pills, and swallowed them all. Mom, I wouldn't be a burden to you anymore.

Mom and Dad have given me all their love. They've decorated a princess bedroom for me, where unlimited Barbie dolls await me there. Since I love bathing a lot, they've also sunk in a huge amount of money just to custom-make a bathtub for me. They keep telling my younger sister, Olivia Grant, to protect me forever. But when Olivia and I are taking a bath together, she accidentally chokes on the bathwater. That's when Mom goes nuts. She strangles me violently while roaring at me, "We thought you'd learn to love your sister as long as we treated you well! Who would've thought that you're an ingrate who tried to drown her?" I can only shake my head in alarm. But Mom quickly shoves me into the washing machine. "You like bathing that much, don't you? Well, you can bathe to your heart's content!" After that, Mom and Dad take Olivia out to play. What they fail to notice is that they've accidentally turned on the washing machine. Water soon fills the chamber, and yet I can't climb out of the washing machine at all. As I feel myself tumbling around with the dirty laundry, I can only open my eyes with great difficulty as I look at my parents, who have returned home once again. I don't want to take a bath anymore. Can Mom and Dad please stop getting mad at me?

The ninety-ninth time my mate, Valeria, the pack's Alpha Female, blocked our mind-link, I dragged myself, ravaged by Soul-Decay, into the Hall of Covenants. The cold marble steps bit at my bare feet, each one sending a lancing pain through my chest. In the final stages of Soul-Decay, I'd lost my healing abilities. Even the simple act of walking was agony. "I'm here to request a severance of my mate bond." The covenant official took in my pale, gaunt frame, his gaze softening with pity. "Sir," he asked quietly, "don't you have a pack to support you?" I've been invisible to my parents ever since my father brought home my adoptive brother, Silas, when I was ten. And while Valeria was my mate, it was in name only. We had never held a public marking ceremony. She rarely brought me to pack gatherings. Most of the pack wouldn't even recognize me. I wiped away the blood welling at the corner of my mouth. "That doesn't matter anymore," I told the official. "A dying wolf needs no pack."

When I was 17 years old, I got hit in the head by a falling beam just to save Victoria Chandler, who was stuck in a blazing place. Since then, I become a dummy. In order to save up money for my physical therapy, Victoria gives up on pursuing her studies. Instead, she starts taking up all sorts of odd jobs and manual labor. Ten years have passed since then. Victoria is now the youngest businesswoman of Jeronich. Meanwhile, I'm still the dummy who still needs her to help tie my shoelaces and feed me. But later on, Victoria begins going home later at night. There's only disgust in her eyes when she looks at me. One day, I accidentally break the music box her assistant, Mike Tate, has gifted her. That's the first time she loses her temper at me and drags me all the way to the rooftop. Then, she orders me to jump off the 50-floor building. I have no idea why Victoria wants me to do this. All I know is that I'll get rewarded for being a good boy. Since young, I've been terrified of tall heights. But now, I'm even more terrified by the idea of Victoria abandoning me. With a smile on my face, I back away from Victoria slowly. "Please don't be mad at me, Vicky. I'll always obey your orders."

My parents always said the world had no sympathy for the weak. So from the moment my younger brother and I could walk, they put us through what they called the 'Strong Child Program.' At five years old, we had to run five kilometers every day. If we could not finish, we were not allowed to eat. At seven, my brother broke his arm. My parents refused to let the doctors use anesthesia, saying enduring pain was a lesson every strong person had to learn. At nine, I burned with a 104℉ fever. Instead of taking me to the hospital, they wiped my body with ice water and forced me to endure it because 'sick children grow stronger immunity.' Then, on the first day of summer vacation, my father announced this year's special training: We were going to learn to swim in the Roaring Spine River. No life jackets. No safety gear. "You only learn after choking on water a few times," my father said. But my brother choked over a hundred times and still could not swim. I desperately swam toward him, trying to pull him back to shore, but somehow the distance between us only kept growing. I called my father, screaming for help, begging him to call emergency services. But after listening to me, he only snorted coldly. "Who learns swimming without swallowing some water? "Your brother isn't made of paper. "Stop yelling and focus on learning to swim." But by then, my brother had already been swept away by the current…

The fake daughter only sneezed. My three brothers reacted as if she were on her deathbed, crowding around her anxiously and refusing to let her out of their sight. So when she pointed her finger at me again, insisting I had shoved her into the pool, they accepted her story without a second thought. They hauled me to a deserted walk-in freezer, sealed the door behind me at -58°F, and made sure the only escape was out of reach. I screamed for my oldest brother, the CEO, to let me out. He called me a cruel attention seeker. I begged my second brother, the doctor. He told me I finally got what I deserved. I begged my third brother, the big-shot attorney. He just sneered. "You've always been jealous of Chloe. Now you pushed her into the pool when you knew she was fragile? You really are rotten. Someone like you needs to stay in there and cool off." Then, they bundled Chloe into their arms and rushed her to the hospital over a sneeze. Bit by bit, warmth seeped from my body, until it seemed like ice was flowing through my veins instead of blood. After thirty-six hours, I slipped away, lost to the cold. Three days later, Chloe returned from the hospital, and only then did my brothers remember I existed. But by then, the freezer had already claimed me.

Everyone in my family knew I was a Bond-Seeker with ninety-nine lives. And still, not one of them loved me. During the holiday, I woke up early making breakfast for my family. My mother threw it all angrily. “You filthy little curse. Don’t dirty my kitchen.” When my father was hospitalized after a car accident, I stayed by his bed for three days and three nights. The moment he woke up, he grabbed the IV bottle beside him and smashed it against my head. “Was killing your twin sister not enough for you? Now you want me dead too?” I used my scholarship money to buy my elder brother a brand-new laptop. He threw it straight off the balcony and watched it shatter on the ground below. “I’m not using anything bought with a cursed girl’s money. I don’t want it shortening my life.” On my eighteenth birthday, I handed a love letter to Ethan Whitmore, the boy next door I had secretly loved for years. He tore it to pieces right in front of me. “What, were you hoping to trade my feelings for points? Get lost, Natalie. I don’t want you getting me killed.” In the end, the System ruled that my bond had failed. Then it took my life back. I thought no one would grieve for me. But before it disappeared, the System spent the last of its energy broadcasting every memory I had across every major platform.

After I was kicked out of the house, my sister, Nicole Thompson, and I met at a nightclub five years later. She was the VIP client who spent millions to celebrate Michael West's, her godbrother's, birthday, while I was the male host in the hype team. We didn't talk to each other the whole time until she saw me chugging two bottles of whiskey for a 500 dollar tip. When she saw my pallid face, she questioned coldly and unhappily, "You'd rather do this disgusting job than come home and apologize? Jack, you really are unbelievable!" I just smiled indifferently and held out my hand to her. "500 bucks. Cash or Venmo?" Times had moved on, and I no longer wished to bring up past grudges. However, the 500 dollars I had just earned was just enough for me to pay the balance due for my cremation urn.

In the Valenti Family, you're born with a chip. It's fused into the bio-watch on your wrist, its digital face counting down every second you have left to live. Everyone could see the numbers ticking down on my twin sister's watch. And on mine. They all knew she would die on our 18th birthday. So Vivian became the untouchable princess of our brutal world. Every diamond-stitched gown was hers. The rarest jewels were hers. Even our father's last shred of humanity was hers. That single sliver of warmth he showed only after his gun was holstered. I used to pity her. Her time was running out. But God, I envied her. She had everything I never did: our parents' love. Then, the night of her 18th birthday party. My parents worried I'd make a scene. That I'd piss off the Don of an allied Family. So they locked me in the cellar. Damp. Cold. While a deadly fever burned through me. I pounded on the heavy oak door, my voice cracking. "Mamma, please! Let me out! I'm burning up. My head is splitting open…" Outside, my mother's voice was a steel trap. "Enough, Sienna! Today is your sister’s 18th birthday. Her last day alive! Stop the theatrics! Can't you suffer in silence for the Family's honor?" "But I'm really sick..." Her footsteps clicked away, fading into nothing. Then the darkness swallowed me whole. And on my wrist, the bio-watch was flashing a critical alert. CRITICAL ALERT: Vital signs mismatch. Paired chip data incompatible. Please verify user.

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...

I'm the fake heiress of a wealthy family. The system has given me three conquest targets to choose. As long as the affection score belonging to any of them becomes full, I can change my predestined death at the age of 23. But I've completely failed in my mission. The conquest targets have fallen for the true heiress, Evelyn Swanson, who has reunited with the family at the age of 18. As long as Evelyn says something, they can easily aim their malice and hatred at me. That's why I choose to take my own life in advance. Strangely enough, everyone is filled with remorse after I die.

All I did is ask my dad why not send the fake heir, Ryland Jones, back to his actual home. In return, Dad forcibly sends me to an institution, where I go through the AI Obedience Conditioning program. Since then, I become the most obedient son Dad ever has. I will carry out all orders that he gives me. One day, I secretly stalk Dad and Ryland to a banquet. That's where I hear Dad chatting with his friends. "I was left without a choice. The moment Callum got home, he began targeting Ryland simply because Ryland isn't related to us by blood. "That's why I can only send him to the program and condition him into an obedient son. I'm doing this for his own good." At that moment, Dad's controller begins vibrating. It signifies that I'm not home right now. His expression changes drastically. Then, he punches in the order with his fingers. "Go home right now and get down on your knees!" I lose total control of my body and begin bolting for the streets. On the way home, I get hit by a speeding car, but I still scramble up to my feet and continue running. At the same time, I keep muttering, "I'm sorry, Dad. I'm going home right now to carry out my punishment." By the time Dad reaches home, he sees me kneeling in a corner with my head bowed. His lips curl into a satisfied smirk. What he doesn't know is that my heart has already stopped beating. Even my body is ice-cold to the touch.

In the third year after my death, my wife, a lawyer named Serena Collier, wants me to take the blame and go to prison for her first love, Declan Merritt, once again. She arrives at my hometown carrying a confession statement she prepared, only to discover the place has long since fallen into ruin. Feeling panicked, she has no choice but to ask the neighbors where I am. My neighbor says, "You're asking about Fletcher Whitmore? He's been dead for a long time! I hear that a victim's family hunted him down for revenge and beat him to death after he got out of prison." Serena refuses to believe it. She thinks that my neighbor is in cahoots with me to deceive her. With a disgusted expression, she lets out a cold snort. She sneers, "All I did was put him behind bars for a few years. Now, he even dares to lie to me! "Tell him this for me—if he doesn't show up in court that day, he can forget about me giving another cent to his mother in the mental hospital!" After saying that, she storms off angrily. Watching her stubborn figure disappear into the distance, my neighbor sighs heavily. "But his mother already starved to death in that mental hospital a long time ago…"

I was adopted. They were so good to me that every night before I fell asleep, I prayed to grow up healthy and happy in this home. Then Mom got pregnant. I hid under my covers and cried all night, quietly packing the little suitcase I had arrived with. But they didn't send me away. They loved me even more. The day my brother was born, Mom took my hand and gently stroked my head. "Having an older sister," she said, "is why we have a younger brother." Dad lifted me above his head and spun me around laughing. "Lily is our family's lucky star — our most beloved baby!" I finally stopped dreading every single day. I thought I had truly become part of this family. Then my brother snapped my favorite Barbie in half. I pushed him. He stumbled, sat on the floor, stared for two seconds, and burst into tears. Mom panicked, shoved me aside, and pulled him into her arms, asking over and over if he was hurt. Dad came running. He grabbed my shoulders and slammed me against the wall, eyes blazing. "Is this what I raised you all these years for — to bully your brother? Believe me when I say I will send you straight back to—"

I'm adopted by my parents. They are very nice to me—so nice that they keep praying for my health and happiness before my bedtime every night. Later on, Mom is pregnant with a baby. I hide under my blanket and spend the night crying. Then, I secretly pack the tiny suitcase I've brought with me. But my parents don't send me away. Instead, they treat me even nicer. On the day my little sister, Freya Walker, gets born, Mom takes my hand and pats me gently on the head. "You're an older brother now. That's why you have a little sister to be with you." Dad lifts me over his head while spinning me in circles happily. "You really are our lucky charm, Ash! You'll always be our beloved darling!" Finally, I don't have to keep worrying about getting kicked out. From that day onward, I really think that I've become a part of the family. That is, until Freya smashes my favorite toy car model one day. I'm so angry that I smack her on the spot. She stumbles away from me, soon plopping to the floor. At first, she's stunned for a few moments, only to start bawling immediately after. Mom loses her mind instantly. She shoves me away before scooping Freya into her arms and keep asking her if she's hurt. Dad rushes over and starts strangling me immediately with frighteningly bloodshot eyes. "We've kept you around for so many years, and yet you have the gall to bully Freya? Believe me when I say I'm definitely sending you back to—"

After my dad's first love moved into our house and became my tutor, my mom never raised her voice at her again. She just coughed worse and worse, until one day I found the lab report she'd thrown out. Stage IV lung cancer. That afternoon, Dad came home with his arm around her, and walked right into Mom sitting on the couch. There was a flicker of guilt on his face. "Helena, if you've got something to say, just say it. Don't make a scene in front of the kid." Mom was eerily calm. She pointed at the woman and said, "She gets on her knees and apologizes to me three times. And you sign over half the company. Then we're done." Dad thought she'd lost it. But in the end he signed the share transfer. After that, Mom's pills kept multiplying and her appetite kept shrinking. But she hired the best lawyer in town, and over and over she taught me how to manage those shares once I was old enough. Dad never figured out the one thing that mattered. Mom was already on her way out.

It was at our engagement banquet that I finally learned the truth. I wasn't the true heiress of a noble human family. I wasn't the "fated bride" destined to bear a half-blood child for the vampires. I was just the wrong baby someone had brought home from the hospital. A fake. I'd thought that Alexander, the boy who'd risked his life to drag me out of a burning house, the boy I'd grown up beside, would love me the same as always. Instead, in front of everyone, he let go of my hand and looked down at me with cold eyes. "Without that bloodline, do you really think you deserve to stand beside me?" Then he reached out and slid the engagement ring off my finger himself. He turned, and led the true heiress up to the high platform. Everyone laughed at me. The fake heiress, delusional enough to think she could marry the vampire heir. I was thrown out of the only home I'd ever known. The only kindness left to me was Alexander's, a scrap of charity that let me stay at his side as the lowest thing a vampire could keep. A blood slave. And then, later, I died in an explosion. Saving him. Alexander knelt in the blood and lost his mind, screaming at everyone around him to save me. But there was something he didn't know. I hadn't died. Later still, at a vampire banquet, he saw me again at last. I walked past him on another man's arm, smiling. And this time, it was his turn to lose his mind begging me to look back at him.