Cerita Pendek & Novel After Death Campus

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.

When volunteers were being chosen for the dorm fire drill, I instinctively moved toward the back of the group. I had asthma, and the last thing I wanted was to be picked. But my own brother, standing at the front, called my name without hesitation. "Quinn Warren, step forward!" I had barely opened my mouth when my best friend, Kenzie Lane, coughed softly beside me and raised her hand. "Captain, Quinn isn't feeling well. Cough, cough... Why don't I take her place?" My brother's expression darkened, and somehow, that only made him angrier. He shot me a vicious glare. "Quinn, what's with the act? "Kenzie isn't even feeling well herself, and she's still offering to take your place. Meanwhile, you're always coming up with excuses to get out of doing anything. "I might let it slide any other time, but this is fire safety. Everyone's life could depend on it. This isn't just about you!" Then, without hesitation, he made me the first one to enter the simulated fire zone. The hallway was thick with choking smoke, and within moments, I could barely breathe. I turned back to him and pleaded in a weak voice. "Please... I can't breathe. Can I..." He didn't even let me finish. He grabbed me and dragged me straight into the storage room, where the smoke was at its thickest, then ordered me to stay behind as the "model student" who would be the last person evacuated from the entire floor. As the suffocation closed in, my vision slowly went black. I slid down the wall until I collapsed onto the floor. It wasn't until the alarm signaling the end of the drill finally rang that my soul walked out of the smoke.

Dad is my homeroom teacher. He loves using me to assert his authority. He firmly believes that the more I suffer, the more the other students will fear him, which, in turn, gives him more authority. When I help my classmate pass an eraser to their friend, Dad slaps me in front of everyone until my face is swollen. When I sneak a bite of my friend's leftover chips after class is over, he drags me to the podium and pokes my lips with needles until I'm bleeding profusely. Later, the school's head of discipline, Mary Milner, catches a pair of students dating on school grounds. Dad insists that I'm one of the culprits. He doesn't even give me a chance to defend myself and drags me to the hallway and strips me of my clothes. He then heads to Mary's office and says with a smile, "My apologies, Ms. Milner. It's my fault for failing to raise Zack properly. Don't worry. I'll definitely teach him a lesson he won't forget this time!" Mary frowns and asks, "Zack Curtis? He's not involved in this dating incident." Dad is briefly stunned before he nonchalantly says, "It doesn't matter. I'll still punish him as a warning to the others. Besides, Zack always breaks the rules. He has already received countless punishments. What's one more?" However, Dad doesn't know that every time he punishes me, I secretly deduct a point from him in my heart. I've already deducted a total of 100 points. I make my way to the hallway on the sixth floor and jump out of the window without hesitation. I wonder if my death will be enough to assert Dad's authority.

When Mom punishes me, her palms are sweaty. I know she's even more nervous than I am. She's scared that others will accuse her of favoring me. When the rest of my classmates perform poorly in class, all she does is tell them to review the lesson and do a few more exercises. But when I'm the one who does badly, she points at the field outside the window. Despite the burning midday heat of June, she commands, "Julia Swanson! You're going to stand out on the field and memorize all the words you messed up. You're not allowed to come back in until you know everything by heart!" Everyone in the classroom looks at me. One of my classmates mutters, "Ms. Campbell is being way too hard on her own daughter." Mom hears that comment, and her eyes flash with satisfaction. That's precisely what she wants everyone to see. No one will dare say she's biased toward me if she punishes me the most harshly out of all the students. "Why are you still here?" she barks at me. "Get out. You think you can get into a top college with grades like yours?" The classmate sitting next to me tugs on my sleeve and whispers, "Why don't you try asking her to go easier on you? It's blazing hot outside." I shake my head. The most futile thing I can ever do is ask Mom to go easier on me in school. She prides herself on her professionalism as a teacher. It's a matter of principle to her. But she has forgotten that it's over 104 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Not wanting to disappoint her, I stand out in the sun. The blazing hot air dries up my sweat—and my tears. Eventually, my vision goes blurry. The world seems to spin around me… As I collapse onto the ground, I hear Mom tell her colleague, "I'll just get a popsicle as a gesture and bring that stubborn daughter of mine back inside later." She has no idea that I won't be able to accept her olive branch anymore.

When the half-mile sprint test is about to begin, Quiana Sullivan, the class president, and I have applied to be exempted from it. My own mother, who's the homeroom teacher of my class, approves Quiana's application with a smile. But she then throws mine to the floor. "You're having a chest pain, you say? I can't believe you're able to come up with such lies just to avoid the half-mile sprint! I'd have known if you had a heart condition! "Quiana is weak by nature, not to mention she's on her period right now, so she can't handle the agony. What about you, hmm? You've always been perfectly healthy, yet now you're telling me that you're suffering from heart pain? "Don't go around embarrassing me just because you want to slack off! I don't want others claiming that I'm being biased toward my own child! As long as you're still alive and kicking, you must finish the half-mile course no matter what!" Left without a choice, I can only return to the field. The cold wind makes me feel even dizzier now. My heart keeps contracting uncontrollably against my will. Suddenly, it just stops pumping. The next thing I know, I collapse onto the grassy field heavily. When my consciousness is about to flicker to darkness, my mom finally walks over to me. But she merely kicks my arm with a frown on her face, and her tone remains glacial. "Stop playing dead. Get up right now." She doesn't realize that I can never open my eyes ever again. Isn't this great, Mom? No one will ever claim that you're biased toward your own child. I've used my life to prove how fair and just you are. You must be happy now, right?

Retired teacher Ryder Jensen appears on a talk show. His former students are spread across every field, with many becoming CEOs and renowned scientists. But when asked who left the deepest impression, his smile turns bitter. "The one who completely ruined his life. He was the top student in his grade, yet he dated the class' bottom-ranked delinquent. To save his future, I intercepted his love letter, rewrote it as a scathing roast, and read it out loud at a parent-teacher meeting. That broke them up. "But things didn't go as planned. He failed his exams, while that delinquent made it into a top-tier college and became a financial tycoon. Life has a cruel sense of humor." Saddened by the story, the host asks if Ryder has any words for that student. Ryder lets out a long breath, tears welling in his eyes. "He wouldn't hear me anyway. He was diagnosed with leukemia and couldn't afford the treatment. He passed away three years ago." The interview segment is clipped and posted online, instantly blowing up on social media. Meanwhile, Eliza Woods, the woman at the heart of the story, has no idea. She just wrapped up an international finance conference and is rushing to buy a top-tier graphics card for her fiance, Theo Holland.

I'm born with severe allergies, the kind where a whiff of pollen can trigger a full-blown asthma attack. But my mom, who is also the principal of my school, insists that I go on a field trip to the botanical garden with the rest of my class. I plead with her, my eyes reddened, but she stays as cold and hard as ice. "You've got all your meds, don't you? It's just a little thing. Why are you being so dramatic? I'm the principal, so I have to treat every student the same. If anything, you have even more reason to go, so people don't think I'm playing favorites!" To show what a good relationship I have with my classmates, she publicly commands me to get into the flowerbeds and pick flowers to be given to the top student in our grade, Rachel White. The moment I get close to the flowers, I start coughing and wheezing violently. A crushing sense of suffocation floods over me. Mom doesn't look worried in the slightest. Instead, she bites out, "Penelope, how long are you going to keep this act going? You're doing this on purpose to cause trouble for me and embarrass me, aren't you?" She has no idea that my throat is already swelling and closing up. Every breath I take feels like I'm swallowing broken glass. It looks like I won't be a problem for her anymore.

My dad always calls me a lazy bum. It is because I often fall asleep without warning. I sleep in class, while eating, and even while crossing the street. My homeroom teacher, Yvonne Smith, suggests that he take me to a hospital for an examination. But Dad scoffs and says, "He's just staying up all night playing on his phone." After that, he confiscates my phone and removes the lock from my bedroom door. Every time I get sleepy, he slaps me. I don't want to be hit, and I don't want to make Dad angry. So, I start pinching my thighs, pulling out my hair, and even rubbing hand sanitizer spray under my nose to stay awake. But whenever the overwhelming drowsiness hits, nothing can stop it. On the day of the final exams, Dad happens to be one of the invigilators. I bite my lip until it bleeds and silently beg myself inwardly, "Just this once, please stay awake." Still, I fail to fight off the sleepiness. Suddenly, someone flips over my desk. The chair tips with it, and I crash to the floor. My temple slams into the corner of the desk, and darkness instantly floods my vision. Dad stands over me, furious and disappointed. "Zach Davies, are you really so obsessed with sleeping that you don't even care about your final exams? If you're that lazy, then stay down there and keep sleeping!" I lie sprawled across my exam paper as my vision slowly fades away. Dad, I think I am going to sleep for a very long time…

When I was 18 years old, I did something that I would regret the most in my life, just to make Adrian Dickson change his mind and come back to me. I reported his secret love affair with a poor student, Cassandra Addams, to his wealthy parents. The next day, the poor student was made to slap herself in the auditorium in front of the entire school, calling herself a bitch, and then, she dropped out of school. I thought that Adrian would be sad about it and even resent me for it, but he didn't react as I thought he would. He still went to school with me every day, ate with me at recess, and showered me with different gifts and flowers from time to time. He even agreed to marry me and made me his fiancee. But on the day of the wedding, my parents are suddenly kidnapped, and the huge screen meant to play a video of all the sweet, tender moments between me and him begins playing a video of Mom and Dad being thrown into a snake pit, howling in pain. I cry until I nearly faint as I watch the tragic scene in the video and plead with Adrian to save Mom and Dad. However, in front of all the wedding guests, he grabs me by my hair and forces me to my knees. "Sure. Get down on your knees and slap yourself a hundred times while calling yourself a bitch, and I'll consider saving them. How about that?" At that moment, all the blood in my body runs cold. As it turns out, he's been harboring a grudge against me the entire time.

I'm Julian Johnson, and I love cake. My mommy, Charlotte Davis, brings me a small cake every day after work. My daddy, Peter Johnson, buys a full set of ovens and baking tools. For my sake, he then patiently learns how to bake cakes. I use to think I'm the luckiest kid in the world. That is, until the day my parents get divorced, and the man who comes to pick up Mommy turns out to be the bakery owner, Larry Patterson. Daddy suddenly whips around and glares at me with bloodshot eyes. "This is all your fault! If it weren't for you and your constant cake cravings, your mother never would've had an affair!" He stretches out his burn-scarred hands and shrieks hysterically, "My hands have never been free of wounds, all because I kept making cakes for you. But how do you two repay me? You're both convinced that whatever comes from outside tastes better!" Daddy strikes me hard with the baking tray. I bite my lip tightly, not daring to cry out. That night, Daddy brings home a little boy, Dustin Decker. Despite the pain racking my body, I drop to my knees and plead for Daddy to forgive me. "Daddy, I'm sorry. Please don't abandon me. I promise I'll never eat cake again!" Daddy slaps me several times in fury. Then, still not satisfied, he throws me into the large oven. "Don't call me that! I'm not your father! If you love cake so much, then stay in there and think about what you've done! You and your tramp of a mother both deserve to die!" After Daddy slams the door and leaves, Dustin skips cheerfully over to the oven and smugly presses the switch. "From now on, your daddy is mine!" The oven starts up. The temperature climbs around me, and yet I smile. Maybe this is for the best. At least Daddy can finally be happy now.

A boy in my sister Lily Bennett's class slaps her. Dad is furious. He storms straight to the school and demands that the teachers explain how they could have let something like that happen. Mom completely forgets about maintaining appearances. She floods the parent group chat with angry messages, refusing to let the matter go. My brother, Evan Bennett, is even worse. That evening, he shows up outside the school with seven or eight of his friends and corners the boy responsible. By the time Evan comes home, he says the kid has been "taught a lesson". But Lily isn't grateful. Instead, she pouts. "You guys made such a huge deal out of it that everyone at school is making fun of me now. Nobody wants to hang out with me!" Mom instantly panics. She stays up making 45 cupcakes so Lily can take them to school and give one to every student in her class. Dad and Evan apologize over and over again. They even send her a huge cash gift before they finally manage to make her smile again. The next day, one of Lily's cupcakes ends up on my desk too. I stare at it for a long time. Then, for the first time, I finally work up the courage to say something. "Mom... Some kids at school are bullying me." Mom is in the kitchen making Lily's favorite soup. She doesn't even turn around. "Oh, Ashley, kids your age make such a big deal out of everything. What if they're only joking around with you?" I try Evan next. "Evan... They take my lunch money. They rip up my tests..." He's busy playing one of Lily's games for her, trying to get her to the next rank. His eyes never leave the screen. Dad overhears me from across the room. "If you leave people alone, they usually leave you alone," he says dismissively. "Maybe think about whether you're doing something to provoke them." So, I go back to my room. I spend the entire night thinking about what he said. I try to figure out what I've done wrong. I can't think of anything. The bullying only gets worse. One day, the same group corners me in an alley after school. They humiliate me, take pictures meant to embarrass me, and hurt me badly enough that I become seriously ill. I call home again and again. No one answers. Eventually, the bullies leave me there. Before they go, I hear them talking about how badly I've been hurt. One of them mentions another kid who supposedly died after suffering similar injuries. By the time I make it home, I'm bruised, exhausted, and barely holding myself together. I open the door. Mom, Dad, and Evan are gathered around Lily. She's standing in the middle of the living room in a brand-new princess dress, turning from side to side while everyone admires her. But today is my birthday. I don't say anything. I still have a little money left in my pocket, so I turn around, walk to the bus stop, and use it to buy a ticket across town. I find myself standing outside a funeral home. There is a security guard near the entrance. I walk up to him and look at him quietly. "Sir," I say, "I think I'm going to die. Can you help me arrange a grave?"