เรื่องสั้นแนว After Death และนิยาย Bias Biological Family

I, Addie Starr, am the second child my parents have after an unexpected pregnancy. My older sister, Amanda Starr, cries because she believes that I will take away our parents' love and money. After she develops depression, she constantly threatens to kill herself. My parents come to hate me for it. They swear to Amanda, "Sweetheart, you're the only princess in our family. Just think of your sister as a maid we brought to you." From then on, all the dirty and exhausting chores in the house become my responsibility. When Amanda becomes emotionally unstable and threatens to cut her wrists, my parents hold out my arm for her. They say, "Sweetheart, if you need to take your anger out on someone, just cut her here." On the highway as we drive home for the New Year, Amanda's plushie falls out the window. Mom orders me to get out and retrieve it. Amid the speeding traffic, I grab the plushie, but all I see is a cloud of exhaust fumes. I remember the hateful looks in my parents' eyes as they tell me, "You should never have been born, understand? You almost destroyed this family!" So, when an out-of-control truck comes barreling toward me... I don't move.

Mom raises me and my brother, Cameron Joyner, by herself after she gets a divorce. Cameron was born with congenital asthma and has to take medication every day. Although I'm healthier, Mom treats me better than Cameron. She always says, "You're the apple of my eye, Cassie. I don't want you to feel troubled because of Cam." From the very beginning of my life, I've always been number one in Mom's heart. However, the year I turn 15, Cameron suddenly disappears. Mom completely changes after he goes missing.

I have a congenital heart defect, and the doctors say I won't make it past 18. When I am ten, my parents bring home a blind child, saying she is my twin sister, Everly Wallace. My family spoils me rotten, but they treat Everly like a ghost. Everyone says Everly exists only to give me her heart. I try so hard to be good to this sister who shares my face, desperate to ease my guilt. When I reach 18, I lie on the operating table. Except they don't take my heart. They take my corneas. I die after that, while Everly finally sees the light.

My younger brother bullied me at school until my liver ruptured. When I was carried into the nurse's office, I begged my mother to save me. She was the school nurse. But instead of looking at me, she rushed to my brother because he had a scrape on his wrist. "Mom, please. I'm dying." She slapped me across the face. "If you're so desperate to die, then die already! How did I end up with a heartless animal like you? What if your brother scars?" So I did exactly what she told me to do. I died. By the next night, my mother had lost her mind.

When my family found out I was depressed because of a lack of love, they were all very regretful. Dad made my older sister, Rhea, give up her south-facing bedroom, the largest in the apartment. Mom gave me the new clothes she bought for Rhea. Even my younger brother, Caleb, who had always hated me, made me a birthday cake himself. They all hoped that I would get better, even though they forgot my actual birthday. So as not to disappoint them, I forced a smile. However, the next instant, Caleb threw the cake in my face. “I told you she was faking! If she really was depressed, how could she smile so easily?” Rhea rushed in from outside, her eyes red-rimmed. “You can just tell us what you want, Finley. Why did you have to fake your illness and worry Mom and Dad?” I saw Mom’s and Dad’s disappointed faces and tried to explain myself in a panic. However, the second I opened my mouth, I was choked by the sticky, creamy cake and could only look at them. They threw my hole-ridden blankets from the biggest bedroom back into the smallest one. They gave Rhea’s clothes back to her. Eventually, my vision went blurry. I could only hear Mom’s and Dad’s voices in my ear. “You’re so young but so sneaky as to fake depression to get a leg up on your sister. Do you want to drive us mad? “If we had known you would turn out so mean, we should never have had you!” I swallowed the cake, which had gone bitter in my mouth. I made the first wish ever in my life. “I hope Mom and Dad will be happy after I die.”

From a young age, I've known I was born to be a substitute for my deceased sister, Leah. On my 6th birthday, my parents take me to the market to choose a cloak for cubs. I excitedly spend ages choosing, then point at a silver one. However, Mom's expression shifts drastically, and she grabs me by the ear and screams like a madwoman, "Who told you to choose silver? Leah's favorite color can only be red!" When Dad sees Mom act up, he roughly yanks me away. I fall to the ground, hitting my head, and blood streams down my face. From then on, I desperately try to become more like Leah. No matter what I choose, I only choose something in red, the color she loved most. But one day, I break the pack's record and awaken my wolf ahead of time. Mom tears up my recommendation letter for the Werewolf Warrior selection in front of everyone and forces me to give up. "Leah didn't get chosen back then, so you can't get chosen either!" The surrounding werewolves try to stop her, but she viciously scolds them in return. "If Leah hadn't died, she wouldn't even have been born! What right does she have to become a warrior?" When I see the hatred in her eyes, I feel like I am at rock bottom. But Mom… Since you really want me to live like Leah, doesn't that mean I should also die in a fire like she did when she was 18?

To shield my sister from a street thug's iron bar after she cut class, my right leg was shattered. The infection that followed left the doctors no choice but to amputate. From that day on, I spent ten years in a wheelchair. Consumed with guilt, my sister massaged my stump every single day. My parents wiped their reddened eyes and promised that everything they owned would go to me someday, to make up for what I had lost. Then my sister won the highest international ballet award, and the whole family wept with joy. Before the ceremony, she looked at my wheelchair. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "This is the greatest moment of my life. If a cripple tags along, what will the press write about me? "Dad, Mom, just this once, let the three of us go together, looking our best. Please?" My parents caved in the end. Before they left, Mom was afraid I might fall, so she lashed me to the wheelchair with hemp rope. "Be good, Audrey. I put all the knives and scissors away. Don't move around. We'll bring you back egg tarts from Belem." I sat obediently in the middle of the living room and watched the front door close, then heard the lock turn from outside. That night, the old electric blanket in the bedroom short-circuited and caught fire. The flames burned their way from the bedroom into the living room. I could not break free of the ropes. I could not reach the door handle. I could not find a single thing sharp enough to cut myself loose. The fire licked up my one remaining leg. The pain was beyond anything I had ever known. I sobbed through the smoke, begging my family to save me. They hung up. On the television, my sister stood in the spotlight, her smile radiant and dazzling.

Mom had taken me to a psychological examination for depression. When I filled out the questionnaire, I checked the option saying I felt down and hopeless nearly every day. She frowned and reached out to correct my choice. "How could you possibly feel down and hopeless? Aren't you happy with your life?" The furrow between her brows deepened when she noticed I described myself as having trouble establishing connections with other people. "You've been an outgoing child since you were young, don't you remember? Come on, you need to consider each statement more carefully." If she said so, I would not argue with her. Next, she reminded me that I had never experienced negative thoughts about myself, and I obeyed her. Following that, she told me that I slept like a log at night, so my answer on the questionnaire was that I had no trouble falling asleep at all. I filled out the questionnaire. Almost every answer had easily matched her wishes. Mom picked up the papers to review them. Finally, she nodded in satisfaction. "That's more like it. You should fill it out with more care from the beginning. You don't want to confuse them and have them diagnose you as unhealthy, don't you?" Lastly, I came out as having minimal depression. Mom breathed a sigh of relief. On our way home, I could not help but keep touching the scars hidden under my sleeve. All I could hear was my heartbeat pounding in my ears. My vision blurred, and everything began to fade from my consciousness. Everything had gone blank in my mind. And all that remained was a dead, suffocating silence.

When I was eight, a prank by my little sister, Alice, left silver poison eating away at my heart. To save me, my dad knelt at the Temple of the Moon Goddess for ninety-nine days. Only then did he win two moonstone pendants from the Goddess, enough to hold the poison at bay. After that, Alice became the family pariah. They stopped speaking to her. They wouldn't even let her smile. For my sake, my father traveled far and wide searching for a cure for the silver poison. My mom quit her work as a healer to care for me, because the moonstone pendants needed her at the Moon Temple every day to replenish their magic. I always believed the Moon Goddess watched over me, blessing me with the best family in the world. That belief lasted until the day registration for the Imperial Academy closed. Three minutes remained before the Imperial Academy's registration portal closed. Then a sudden thunderstorm drained the portal's power crystal. Without hesitation, my mother ripped the pendant from around my neck and poured its magic into the portal. I clutched at her clothes, my lips turning blue. "Mom... I can't breathe..." But she looked at me with nothing but disappointment. "Grace, you've already taken all the love and resources that should have been Alice's. Now you want to rob her of her future too? "You still have the backup pendant, and yet here you are playing the victim! I'm so disappointed in you!" She shoved me into my bedroom and locked the door. But she didn't know. Alice had borrowed the other pendant for her graduation ball.

When I was five, my elder sister, Mabel, lost the use of both legs saving me in a car accident. From that day on, there was one thing my parents said to me more than anything else. “You ruined Mabel’s life.” When I got into a top university, Mabel locked herself in her room and cried all night. My mother, eyes red from crying, tore my acceptance letter to pieces. “Wait until Mabel can walk again. Then you can go to college.” So I spent sixteen hours a day delivering food, saving every penny for Mabel’s rehabilitation. When my stomach pain became so bad I could barely stand, my parents accused me of being jealous of Mabel’s nutritional supplements and faking it for attention. I secretly went to the hospital. The diagnosis came back and showed that I had severe anemia, pelvic inflammatory disease and a stomach ulcer. The medication cost more than two hundred dollars. I did not have it. So I told myself I would get the medicine after I saved enough to buy Mabel a pair of knee braces. Then came the day of the torrential rain. Terrified of being late with a delivery, I ran a red light. A dump truck hit me and sent me flying. I lay there in the rain, still clutching the knee braces I had just bought. I never got the chance to hand them to Mabel myself.

As the only child born after Mom and Dad's remarriage, everyone says that I'm the most obedient and well-behaved one. I'm also the best role model for my older half-brother, Matt Hammond, and my older half-sister, Carrie Hammond. Matt is a troublemaker who loves getting into trouble. He once stole Mom's diamond necklace and sold it to buy skins for his online games. But as Mom is his stepmother, she finds disciplining him hard and therefore only lashes out at me when she catches me eating tortilla chips and gives me a good beating. "Were you the one who bought these chips? How dare you eat them without asking permission first? That's stealing! You're behaving like a thief!" Meanwhile, Carrie is naturally rebellious and dreams of being a pop star to go after her idol. Because of that, she refuses to go to school. But as Dad is her stepfather, he finds disciplining her hard as well. So, he lashes out at me instead by sending me off to the countryside for two months of "reformation" just because I missed a couple of points on the midterm exams. "Since you don't care about studying hard, then you might as well just work as a laborer in the countryside for the rest of your life!" Soon after, Matt and Carrie decide to run off before the SAT. Matt wants to go and meet his online girlfriend, Tracy Wilkins, and Carrie wants to attend a concert. As punishment, Mom and Dad tie me up tightly to the bed before locking the bedroom door from the outside. The more I struggle, the tighter the knots become. I stare at the locked door and say to myself, "If there ever is a next life, I don't want to be the 'good' kid anymore…"

The year my sister turned fifteen, my father, Grant Davis, became obsessed with holding auctions at home. Everything in the house, from a plate of meat to a turn with the washing machine, from school lunch money to after-school activity fees, had to be won by bidding with family credits. I worked odd jobs until I dropped, sleeping only three hours a night, and finally saved up a thick stack of family credits, the paper soft and warped from my sweat. All Melody had to do was sit on the couch and shed a few tears, and my father would stuff fistfuls of credits into her arms. "Girls deserve to be spoiled. Can't have Melody feeling left out." That day, the item up for auction was an old necklace that had belonged to my grandmother, Ruth Bennett. Eyes burning, I pushed everything I had onto the table. "Eight thousand." Melody tossed out ten thousand without a second thought, her voice sweet and wheedling. "This necklace would go perfectly with my new dress." I begged my father through tears. "This is the only thing Grandma ever left me. Please." My father slapped me so hard my ears rang and my vision blurred. "Highest bidder wins. That's the rule! You're too poor to win, so don't blame anyone else!" Melody snatched the necklace, gave it a look of disgust, and casually tossed it into the roaring fireplace. "Oops, the fire's getting low. This'll make good kindling." I threw myself at the fireplace. The back of my hand split open instantly from the heat, the skin blistering and peeling away. They left, slamming the door behind them, complaining that my screaming was bad luck in the house. Later, I couldn't stop thinking. If I put my own life on the auction block, how many credits would you bid?

My mom was a computer genius with a PhD who works in Silicon Valley. Shortly after I was born, she created an AI robot sister modeled after me. Mom said my AI robot sister was equipped with the world's most accurate child behavior evaluation system. The moment I made a mistake, it would detect it. From then on, my AI robot sister became the judge of my life. Whenever she issued a warning, even when I had done nothing wrong, all I received was punishment. I tried to defend myself before. But Mom said the robot she built with her own hands could never make a mistake, and she became even more convinced that I was an inferior child. On my birthday, Mom took my sister and me to participate in an Outstanding Children Competition. When I saw the rock-climbing challenge towering dozens of meters high, I shook my head desperately and refused because I had a fear of heights and a heart condition. But my AI robot sister coldly pulled up my medical data report: “She is completely healthy. This is a lie she created to avoid participating in the competition.” Mom's face darkened instantly. She grabbed my ear and dragged me toward the climbing wall. “You're still lying? Today, you're going up there!” Trembling, I began climbing upward. My breathing grew faster and faster. The moment my foot slipped, the pain in my heart felt as if it had been torn open by a blade. I fell into the foam safety pit, and slowly, my breathing stopped. Meanwhile, outside the arena, Mom was still cursing me for my terrible performance. Mom, I'm dead. From now on, I'll never be your embarrassing, stupid daughter again.

Three years ago, on a full moon night, my mother jolted awake at midnight, claiming the Moon Goddess had delivered a prophecy: On the day of my twentieth birthday, the feral gene inside me would spiral out of control. I would shift into a wolf and kill my sister. At first, my parents were skeptical. But after I awakened my wolf at eighteen, my sister would seize up whenever she was near me, clutching her chest and collapsing to the ground in violent fits of gasping. To protect her and force my wolf into dormancy, my parents resorted to every harsh measure they could devise. They poured suppression potions down my throat that ate away at my organs, and clamped a restraining collar around my neck so my sister could keep me on a leash. Eventually, my wolf vanished completely. And somehow, I survived to my twentieth birthday. A flash of joy hit me, and I reached for the cake on the table. My father backhanded me so hard I went flying. "That feral gene in your blood really is impossible to tame! "If anyone eats first, it's your sister. What makes you think you can touch it?" Clara stepped forward as if to soothe things over, but my mother pulled her behind her back, eyes full of wariness as she edged away from me. Then my father dragged me up to the attic and bolted the door shut. Through the door, they said, "Stay put and get through tonight. The prophecy will be broken. "After this, we'll give you half the love we've shown your sister." I sank my teeth into my lip, not daring to make a sound. Years of the suppression potion had already hollowed out my body. My consciousness was fading, piece by piece. Mom, Dad, in that dream the Moon Goddess sent you, did she happen to mention this part? That the one dying today might be me?

After my sister was born, my mother's love turned into a game decided by a coin toss. Mom had a custom gold coin made: the flower side stood for my sister, and the number side stood for me. For ten years, that coin decided who got the bigger slice of cake, who got a new dress, and even who went to the doctor when we were sick. But the number side never once landed face up. I cried, because none of it was fair, and Mom just looked at me coldly and said, "Your luck is worse than hers. Who are you going to blame for that?" The day my acceptance letter from the elite prep school arrived, all I wanted was a steak cooked by Mom. So I secretly swapped in a rigged coin engraved with a number on both sides. The coin hit the floor. Mom spotted the trick at once and kicked me hard, through the doorway and into my room. "You vicious little rotten thing. Get in there and think about what you did!" She didn't know that when she kicked me across the room, my head slammed into the sharp corner of my desk. Blood flooded my vision in an instant, and the pain was so intense I couldn't make a sound. I crawled toward the half-open door in desperation. I got a hand on the panel and tried to pull myself upright to call for help, and then a dead, silent dizziness rolled over me. My legs gave out, and my body, already unconscious, pitched straight forward. The momentum of my fall yanked the wooden door shut with a bang! I lay there limp as mud, and my own weight wedged that inward-opening door shut for good. Mom's furious voice came through from the hall. "So now you've got an attitude? Slamming doors at me? Then you can starve in there! "Don't be scared, Chloe. Mommy's taking you out for a big seafood dinner." Her heels receded down the hall as warm blood spread across the floor, inch by inch. I'm sorry, Mom. In my next life, I'll win with my own luck.

The sales department organized a team-building trip and turned it into a killer-instinct trail race, with a $30,000 prize for the winner. I volunteer with a search and rescue team, and I stayed up all night mapping the safest route with supply points along the way. The new VP they had parachuted in tore up my map right before we set out. "What's the fun in a paved trail? We take the undeveloped Wildman Gorge. That's how you show real killer instinct! "To keep anyone from cheating with GPS, everyone hands over their communication devices." I pointed at the thunderheads on the horizon and tried to stop him. Wildman Gorge floods easily, and going in without radios was suicide. Instead, he smashed my radio to pieces in front of everyone. "You're just jealous that I got to lead this thing, and you want to keep everyone from taking home the prize money, right?" For that $30,000, my coworkers lined up to call me a coward who cared nothing about the team. Fine. I took off my shell jacket and volunteered to stay at base camp at the bottom of the mountain. A storm was coming. If this pack of office wolves wanted to take on a mudslide in Wildman Gorge, I would sit there with a hot cup of tea and wish them a triumphant return.

Lillian Cowfer, a human trafficker who had been on the run for ten years, was finally caught. On the day of her public trial, she listened to the charges against her. Then she suddenly smiled. "I object. The indictment says I kidnapped 23 people, but that's not true. I kidnapped 24." The entire courtroom fell silent. Lillian's smile grew more mysterious. "You all say I destroyed 23 families and that I'm guilty of the worst crimes imaginable. But this 24th victim didn't have a family to begin with. I even found her a new family. Isn't that a good thing?" The prosecutor leaned toward the judge and whispered, "Your Honor, there have only been 23 kidnapping cases over the years. She may be making this up on purpose to delay the trial and buy herself more time." But just as the judge was about to bring down the gavel, Lillian suddenly shouted. "Your Honor, your daughter hasn't come home in three years. Don't you want to know where she is?"

Wyatt Clark, my fiance; Wanda Stone, my adopted sister; and I get into a car crash on the way to register our marriage. Wanda and I are both taken to the hospital. Mom, a renowned surgeon, glances at my back, which is covered in blood, then urgently gathers the doctors and nurses to treat Wanda's two-inch cut. "Wanda's injury is in a visible spot. If we don't treat it immediately, it will leave a scar. "I'm your biological mother, after all. If I were to treat you first, people might accuse me of favoritism. I'll treat your injuries once I'm done with Wanda." I have no choice but to grab Wyatt, who has just changed into his white coat. "S-Save me—" Wyatt coldly pulls away from me before I can even finish speaking. "You were in the back seat—the safest spot. Wanda, on the other hand, was in the passenger seat. How could your injuries be worse than hers? Do you really have to compete with Wanda for attention every single time, Gloria?" He doesn't even look back at me before he rushes into the ER. He seems to have forgotten that when the accident happened, he swerved to protect Wanda in the passenger seat, leaving me in the back to take the full force of the impact. Mom seems to have forgotten the orange wristband on me, which indicates that I am in critical condition. I gradually start losing consciousness, knowing that the glass shard lodged inside me is about to take my life.

I don't understand the words people say in anger. When I was seven, my foster mother complained that I ate too much and told me that if I didn't work, I wouldn't get to eat. I washed dishes for three days with a high fever. Only after I collapsed did I dare take half a moldy dinner roll. When I was twelve, my teacher told me I couldn't go home until I'd memorized the entire passage. The next morning, when the security guard forced open the classroom door, I was still standing in front of the empty desks, reciting the final paragraph. When I was sixteen, a doctor got angry when I refused treatment and snapped that if I didn't want to live, I should never take medicine again. From then on, I never touched another pill. They all said they'd only spoken out of anger. But if they didn't want me to do what they said, why say it at all? When I was twenty, the Fosters found me. The first thing my biological parents taught me was never to take anything that belonged to Gemma Foster, the daughter they'd raised in my place. So I gave her the sunny bedroom, agreed to keep my identity private, and even handed over the engagement that had originally been arranged for me. I thought if I was obedient enough, they'd let me stay. But on the night of Gemma's birthday, she left behind a suicide note and disappeared. The last time she appeared on security footage, she was outside my bedroom door. Mom slapped me. Dad demanded that I tell them where she was. My brother, Nolan, threw the car keys at me. "If Gemma doesn't come back, don't you ever come back either!" Half an hour later, Gemma sent me a location pin by the sea. She said I had to come alone, or she'd jump from the lighthouse. I didn't tell anyone. If I found her, I'd bring her home. If I couldn't, I wouldn't go back. Either way, they'd be satisfied. At eleven that night, she suddenly unsent the location she'd sent me. But by then, I was already standing beneath the abandoned lighthouse that would be submerged at high tide.

I have pica. I have had a compulsion to eat hair for as long as I can remember. Whenever I feel strands of hair tugging inside my stomach, I feel strangely calm. I look at my thin wrists and the sharp outline of my ribs, and I feel proud. Sometimes Mom cries and asks why I became like this. Seeing her hurt because of me fills me with satisfaction. Dad runs himself ragged trying to get me appointments with specialists, his hair turning completely gray from the strain. And somehow, that makes me feel happy too. My therapist asks whether there is some knot inside me I can't untie. I shake my head and say that my parents have always favored and spoiled me. How could there be a knot? It isn't until Mom completely breaks down in the consultation room that the truth begins to surface. She drops to her knees in front of me, presses her forehead to the floor, and sobs. "Please forgive us. Please stop doing this to yourself, okay?"