Mga Maiikling Kuwento at Nobelang Bias Pathological

When a turbulence strikes an airplane that's tens of thousands of miles above ground, the pilot, Kevin Glover, uses the opportunity to confess his love for the co-pilot, Serena Burke. Both of them come clean about their feelings for each other, not knowing that Kevin's wife, Henley Johnstone is on the plane as well. The brimming affection in Kevin's tone hurts her ears. "Serena, I'll marry you." At the same time, Henley's son, Isaac Glover, who sits in the row in front of her, pipes up in a disgusted tone, "My mom isn't worthy of remaining as my mom. I want Serena to be my mom instead." Henley feels crushed and defeated. Sorrow overwhelms her senses as well. Once the plane overcomes the crisis and lands on the tarmac, she calls her assistant, Edith Pratt. "I want to sign up as the test subject of the death-faking pill. I don't want my husband and son anymore." Henley sets the date of her death on her wedding anniversary. Once all preparations are done, she takes the death-faking pill. When she wakes up, she'll embrace her new life. Some time later, when Kevin finds out about Henley's death, he wails like a madman.

On the seventh year of our anniversary, the anniversary gift my husband, Anthony Walker, has given me is a divorce agreement that is valid for seven days. He has planned all this just because he has his eye on a female intern in his company, who is seven years younger than him. So, he wants to be in a legitimate relationship with her that only lasts for seven days. On the first day, they reserve an entire cinema for themselves. After that, they make love to each other from the doorway to the seats. On the second day, they set off fireworks at the beach. The fireworks are so bright that half of the city is illuminated by them. On the fifth day, the intern, Tanya Lindt, barges into my art exhibition. With tears running down her face, she accuses me of being the side chick in her relationship in front of the mass media. That night, news of a rising female painter becoming a homewrecker for the sake of love goes viral. More than 100 thousand malicious comments directed at me are posted in the comment section. On the sixth day, Anthony apologizes to me on Tanya's behalf. Apparently, the punishment he has set for her is that she's not allowed to go shopping for three days. On the seventh day, Anthony finally realizes that something is wrong. He calls me 99 times just to remind me that we'll get remarried the next day. "Okay," I say to him. Then, I inform my assistant to check in my baggage. What Anthony doesn't know is that I already came up with a plan to further my studies overseas seven days ago. This time, I'm not going to waste my time on him anymore.

My fated mate, Alpha Rylan, turned cold the moment our bond snapped into place. They all say I'm just a lowly omega. That I'm not good enough for him. I started to believe them. To think my wolf was broken. Maybe this wasn't a mate bond at all, just a pathetic crush. Then, on the day I finally decided to give up, a second wolf awakened in my mind: Echo. She screamed at me that Rylan craved me. That he loved me. And just like that, my hope was rekindled. He hurt me ninety-eight times in seven years. Seventy-seven of those were for his adopted sister, Morrigan. Each time, Echo insisted he just didn't know how to show his love. And favoring Morrigan? That was just to make me jealous. To see that I cared. But the ninety-ninth time was the last straw. He left me for dead in enemy territory. When I woke up, the gift he'd prepared for me was in Morrigan’s hands. I was done. Finally. I called the Elders with a single request: "I want to sever my bond with Alpha Rylan. I'm leaving. For good."

I was born broken. My Alpha mother was the one who branded me. She said emotion was a sin. A weakness. Especially for a werewolf. Especially for an Alpha’s heir. The day we were born, she clamped emotion-suppressing collars around our necks. Mine and my twin sister's. The slightest flicker of emotion, and the collar flashed red. My mother would then push the button, injecting me with a diluted "silver solution" to suppress my feelings. But my sister Cassia's collar? Always a calm, steady blue. Even when she shattered Mom's precious moonstone, it just pulsed gently. And me? I’d just whisper, "Mom, the thunder scares me," and my collar would erupt in a violent red. Then came the sting of silver poison burning through my blood.. I used to argue. But Mom always said the same thing. "The data doesn't lie. Pain is a teacher. This is for your own good." After thousands of these injections, I started to believe it, too. That I was born out of control. The night of the alliance's Moon Goddess Festival, Mom was taking my sister to the rooftop party. Something scared me during the day. The collar flashed red, and my mother started the punishment. But this time, the collar malfunctioned. It shot a dose a thousand times stronger into my neck. I collapsed on the carpet, begging, "Mother, the collar... it hurts so much... help me." My collar was flashing a frantic red. My mother just looked down at me, drenched in a cold sweat, and pressed the button for the maximum dose. "You'd lose control like this just for attention? You're a lost cause." She turned, took my sister, and slammed the door. I couldn't help but think, Mom must be right. The collar is red. It doesn't really hurt. I'm just being dramatic, looking for pity again. I'm sorry, Mom. In my next life, I'll be the perfect daughter you always wanted.

Ava sacrificed her wolf to save Cole from a fire, only to be rejected by him three years later for the sister who stole the credit. Heartbroken but unbroken, Ava accepts the rejection and vanishes. She finds sanctuary with the feared Alpha King Kaelen, a man rumored to be a monster but who treats her like a goddess. As Ava heals and discovers her true power, Cole's pack falls into chaos. When Cole finally discovers the truth, that the woman he called weak was his true savior all along, he is shattered. He demands her back. He threatens war. But he forgets one thing: Ava is no longer just a rejected mate. She is the King's obsession. And the Alpha King does not share.

In the tenth year of being held captive by Kevin Hemsworth, he lost his memory in a car accident. When he woke up and saw my bloated figure, he frowned in disgust. "Who are you?" Recalling his past threats, I was terrified this was just another test. So I told him the truth that I had been by his side all these years. He laughed sarcastically. "Don't joke around. You're not my type." Laura Powell, my friend who had secretly loved him for ten years, pointed at me and cursed, "Just because you look a little like me, you barged into Kevin's life and became his maid. Fine. But how dare you pretend to be his lover?" As punishment for lying, Laura had me dragged away from Kevin. She broke my hands and slashed my face. Lying on the ground and barely alive, I smiled at Kevin. For the past ten years, he never allowed me to escape, but he wouldn't let me die either. Now, I leaped off a cliff under his cold gaze. He wouldn't have my body even after I died.

Lucien Varelli loved me best when my madness belonged to him. I tracked his convoy routes, checked his burner phones, and almost turned the city upside down whenever he disappeared for more than five minutes. At first, Lucien loved it. He kissed the signet ring on my hand and swore no woman, no family, no power in the city could ever take him from me. Until the night I cut off a call from Celeste Ardian. After that, I was no longer his wife. I was a problem. A scandal. A woman too unstable to stand beside the heir of a ruling house. So Lucien signed the papers and sent me to St. Dymphna House. They called it a private residential clinic. What it really was, was a place where inconvenient women were broken down and rebuilt into something quieter. Five years later, Lucien came to take me home. The director told him I had done beautifully. I no longer screamed. I no longer fought. I knew how to lower my eyes, soften my voice, keep my hands still, and smile like a proper Donna. Lucien thought they had cured me. He was wrong. They had not cured my madness. They had only killed the part of me that once loved him.

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."

My heartbeat is so steady that sometimes, I don't resemble a human being at all. The fluctuations in my heart rate are very small even though I might be sleeping, suffering from a fever, or losing too much blood. When I'm 18 years old, the Ziegler family admits me into a rehabilitation center. My new home is now a temperature-controlled intensive unit located on the top floor. Oh, Aiden Ziegler doesn't love me at all. It's merely because the one and only artificial heart present in this world—and also in his chest—needs to be fine-tuned with my own heartbeat as its primary frequency. If my heartbeat is steady, he gets to live. If not, he dies. Three months ago, a nurse accidentally took off one of the monitoring pads on my chest. Five minutes later, Aiden, who was ten thousand miles away, went through a temporary crash where his heart stopped. The next day, the third-party medical company filed for bankruptcy. Everyone who was involved in this incident got banned by the medical world. Because of that incident, all of the sounds get eradicated from the top floor. Even the elevator's chimes get muted when it reaches the top floor of the rehab center. Everything changes when Aiden flies to Iropa. That's when his fiancee, Mandy Sutherland, takes over the rehab center. As she flips through my medical bill of nine figures, she sneers at me. "So, the Zieglers are basically sustaining a loser who does nothing but gasps for breath while lying in bed, huh?" After that, Mandy tears off the monitoring pads and unplugs the sync line. Then, she forces me to get on a treadmill. "That'll be a six-mile run for you. You can forget about returning to the top floor if you can't finish the run." As I grip the handrails tightly, I can feel my heart rate turning erratic for the first time ever. It feels as though my heart is about to burst out of my chest. As soon as the alarm goes off, Mandy turns it off immediately. What she doesn't know is that Aiden's artificial heart has already gone crazy, just like mine, while he's stuck in a place that's 12 time zones away.

Mom always says that depression is nothing more than an illness born of idleness. People who are truly busy studying don't have time to be depressed. So, during my senior year of high school, I lie awake through countless nights, my hair falling out in clumps as I tremble over endless mock papers. Mom only slides another mock exam booklet in front of me. "Finish this booklet, and you won't have time to wallow in self-pity." At family gatherings, my relatives notice that I keep my head down and barely speak. They ask Mom, "Why has she gotten so quiet?" Mom's face darkens at once. "It's because she's guilty about something, duh. Go on. Tell everyone what you've done wrong this time." Later, even my homeroom teacher calls to say I don't seem like myself anymore. The moment Mom hangs up, she rounds on me. "So, now, you've started tattling to your teacher?" It isn't until I collapse before a mock exam that she finally listens to the doctor's advice and brings home a tiny orange tabby. Through the darkest days of my life, that cat becomes my only reason to keep going. Eventually, I make it into college. When I come home for the Independence Day holiday, I step through the door and call out instinctively for him. "Tangy?" No answering meow. Even the cat bed on the balcony is gone. "Stop calling," Mom said flatly. "I dumped him back where I found him the day you left." I stand there, frozen for several seconds before turning and darting outside, only to realize I have no idea where to go. The sounds around me become muffled, as though separated by a pane of glass, drifting farther and farther away. At that moment, my last connection to the world quietly snaps.

My mother was a veteran HR director, so she built a performance scorecard for my entire childhood. A perfect test score earned me ten minutes on my phone. Finishing first in school earned me a milkshake. Whatever I wanted, I had to earn with grades. After I entered Crestmont Institute of Technology, I spent three straight years at the top of my program. According to her rules, that was worth one thousand dollars. When I came home, she tossed a single dollar bill at me. "So what if you're still first? Your GPA has slipped by a tenth of a point every year. You have the nerve to ask for a reward?" Beside her, my brother lounged with the keys to his new Hawthorne sedan spinning around one finger. My stomach sank. "When I got into Crestmont Tech, you said I wasn't valedictorian, so all I deserved was a used scooter. "Why does he get a new car for barely making it into community college..." Mom's eyes flashed. "You and Tyler are completely different. "He went from having no chance at college to getting accepted somewhere. That's progress. You're moving backward. "Since you've chosen to coast, I'm cutting off your living expenses next semester. We only invest resources in people who improve. "Raise your GPA by finals, then come trade your grades for money." I walked outside without another word and made a call. "You really are me, ten years from now. You were right. Her performance system only applies to me." Future me answered calmly. "Tomorrow, sell the artwork Dad left you. Three of the pieces are genuine old masters. "Put every dollar into your research project. No matter what anyone says, don't abandon it. That project is your way into Crestmont's tech elite. "Let this family lose a future multimillionaire over one thousand dollars."

I'm an energetic child, while my parents are elegant and refined. They're the type of people who don't make a sound even when they're flipping a page of a book. They want me to be quiet, but I just can't do it. Dad gets rashes all over his body whenever I just run a few steps around the house. "It's all your fault for being so unruly," Mom snaps, shooting an icy look at me. "That's why your father developed an allergy. Stay away from him from now on." I nod, feeling stunned. Mom and Dad send me to live with Grandpa in the countryside when I'm seven years old. They promise to take me home once a year has passed. I count the days on my fingers that are covered with chilblains, waiting year after year. During the winter of my sixth year in the countryside, Grandpa closes his eyes and doesn't wake up again. Mom and Dad finally remember that I'm still in the countryside. As the days turn warmer to herald the coming of spring, I finally return home. However, when I step across the threshold, I see a young boy quietly reading a book. Mom pats the boy's head with a tenderness that I've never experienced. "This is your brother, Seth Jameson," she says. "Look how quiet and well-behaved he is." It turns out that I've lost my place in this home a long time ago.

My mother is a powerhouse, but she somehow ends up with me, a coward with claustrophobia. "What claustrophobia? You're just being dramatic!" In order to help me "desensitize," she builds a pitch-black, soundproof room in the house. In elementary school, I scream and cry in terror the first time she locks me inside, and she punishes me by not letting me eat for three days. In middle school, I try harder to hold it together and only let out a few quiet whimpers, but she makes me kneel in the snow for a full day and night. I tough it out all the way through senior year, telling myself that getting into college and leaving home will fix everything. But on the day of my acceptance party, she decides to show off the results of her desensitization in front of all the guests and locks me straight into the dark room. "Mom!" I drop to my knees, crying and begging as my dignity gets shredded to pieces. "My claustrophobia is gone, I swear. I'm begging you, please don't lock me in there." The look in her eyes is almost unhinged. "No! If you don't go in, you'll never go to college." But eventually, I really am cured. So Mom, why can't you smile anymore?