Reborn Crime Short Stories & Novels

My art studio caught fire. I risked my life to pull my boyfriend, Vincent Parcelle, out of the flames. Vincent wanted to rush back inside to save his first love, Tammy Reese, who was trapped inside. But I stopped him. The fire destroyed her face and left her legs amputated. Unable to face her disfigurement and disability, Tammy took her own life by overdosing on pills. Afterward, Vincent and I moved forward and got married. On our wedding night, he slit my throat without thinking twice. "If it weren't for you, Tammy wouldn't be dead. Go to hell and pay for your sins!" Only after dying did I realize—Vincent had hated me to the core ever since the fire. For some reason, I was reborn. Grateful that the heavens had given me another chance at life, I ran without looking back this time. To hell with love. I was determined to survive.

My in-laws-to-be are poisoned, but my fiancé insists on going fishing with his true love. I don't stop him. In fact, I lend him my car. In my past life, he chose to take his parents to the hospital after I stopped him. However, his true love died at sea and ended up being eaten by the sharks. My fiancé was normal after her death. However, when we were on our honeymoon, he stabbed me and pushed me into the ocean. "It's all your fault, Fiona! I failed to save Lauren because of you! Now that she's dead, you don't deserve to live, either!" The scent of my blood attracted the sharks. They ripped me to pieces before I could drown. When I open my eyes again, I find my in-laws-to-be lying in their bed. My fiancé runs off to save his true love. Ultimately, he still regrets his actions.

Samson Carroll's father, who is the CEO of Carroll Group, is hospitalized, and my sister decides to return to the hospital to work as a nurse. She throws herself into the role—donating blood, helping with emergencies, and keeping watch at his bedside around the clock. Soon, everyone's calling her a hero in scrubs. One night, she blocks the hospital room's security camera. She plans to kill the patient and forge a will so that Samson will marry her. I tell her it's too dangerous. The Carrolls are an influential family with deep pockets and powerful connections, after all. A few kind words and a forged will aren't enough to sway them. But she lashes out at me, calling me an idiot. She says that everyone in Jansbury knows Samson does whatever his father tells him to do. I drag her home, still trying to talk sense into her. "The Carroll family has ties to both the authorities and the underworld. They're untouchable," I explain. "If Samson finds out you lied to him, the consequences are unimaginable." Halfway home, she grows increasingly agitated. "Tonight was my only chance, and you ruined it! You're just jealous I'm about to become a rich man's wife! Go to hell!" Then, in a fit of rage, she shoves me into an open manhole by the side of the road. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the night I brought her dinner at the hospital.

A gorgeous new lawyer named Charlotte Lowell joins our law firm and claims she has been reborn. One day, a publicly listed company offers us a massive ten-million-dollar case. Charlotte warns our boss, Levi Howard, that the company has major issues. If we accept the case, we'll lose in court and be hit with a huge payout. Levi isn't sure if she's bluffing, but in the end, he listens and passes. The next day, that very company collapses. And the rival firm that took the case is hit with a compensation claim worth tens of millions of dollars. To celebrate dodging the bullet, Levi asks me to book a restaurant. But Charlotte immediately tells him not to go to that restaurant because that place is about to have a gas explosion. Hours later, the restaurant blows up just as she mentioned. News of it hits the trending list. After those two incidents, Levi is all-in on believing Charlotte's claim of having been reborn. In order to keep Charlotte, he gives her the executive position that was initially promised to me. When I hand in my resignation, Charlotte urges Levi to stop me. "If Yelena jumps to another firm, she'll use the resources she gained here to crush us. A year from now, we won't even have a firm left." Upon hearing Charlotte's words, my boyfriend and colleague, Finley Smith, steps forward to back her up. "Charlotte's right. I saw a job offer from Vera Legal in Yelena's email. She's really petty. If she joins Vera Legal, we'll surely face her revenge." Levi believes them and rejects my resignation. I file for labor arbitration, but it's no use. In the end, I'm demoted to a janitor at the firm. Driven by resentment, I fall into depression and end up hanging myself at the entrance of the firm. When I open my eyes again, I've gone back to the day Charlotte claims she has been reborn.

At four months pregnant, I went to pick up my prenatal test results with my husband, Aiden Carter, who was an OB-GYN. The smile at the corner of his lips froze the moment he saw the report. Without a word, he grabbed my hand and tried to schedule an abortion. I stood there in shock. The attending physician, Dr. Marianne Cole, had just told me the baby was perfectly healthy! I tore myself free and demanded, "Why do you want me to get an abortion?!" He didn’t answer and had already scheduled the procedure. When I tried to run, he yanked my arm tighter. "There's no way we are having this child!" Clutching my belly, I hurried to call my parents, who were both OB-GYNs themselves. Dad, who had always doted on me, raised his fist, aiming straight for my stomach. Mom’s face twisted in horror, shaking her head wildly. "No, this won’t work. It can’t be like this." "Find a few men. Lock Clara Hart in with them." I didn’t understand why they were so desperate to destroy my child. All I wanted was to escape. Instead, they locked me inside a pitch-black room. When I felt the blood trickling down my legs, I knew my baby was gone. Mom came smiling to fetch me. I fought, demanding to know why they had done this to me. Without responding, she turned around and sent me straight to Ravenwood Asylum. I was tortured to death there. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day I went to collect my prenatal report. Aiden looked at me, his face glowing with joy. "Baby, this is our first child. I can’t wait for the day he’s born."

I'm reincarnated a week before the college entrance exam. Despite being the soon-to-be top scorer, I stab my eye with a syringe. In my past life, Marianne Quentin, my boyfriend Lance Russell's childhood friend, reported me for cheating off her during the final mock exam. The teacher compared our papers and found that my essay was identical to hers. He harshly criticized me and warned me not to repeat my mistake. However, Marianne reported me for copying her answers again during the math exam. Once again, my answers were found to be identical to hers. The teacher scolded me for being incorrigible and sent me home to reflect on my actions. I couldn't understand what had happened. Clearly, I'd never cheated, but my answers were nearly identical to Marianne's, whether in writing and language or in math. As the SAT exam loomed over me, I could only suppress my doubts as I stepped into the exam hall. I finished the writing paper and thought I was safe. However, Marianne stepped out and accused me of cheating again. I tried to defend myself, yet the answers on my paper were identical to hers. In the end, I was disqualified, kicked out of the exam hall, and banned from taking any exams in the next two years—just because I "cheated". I succumbed to despair and leaped from the rooftop. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to one week before the SAT.

After my mom, Margaret Hale, dies of a heart attack, she starts appearing in my sister Claire Dawson's dreams. In a dream, Mom tells Claire to climb Mount Mistwood before sunrise and burn the entrance ticket for her, or the other ghosts will bully her. Claire doesn't tell me anything. She packs a bag in the middle of the night and forces herself to the summit. While she's gasping her way up that mountain, I'm asleep at home when I suddenly go into cardiac arrest. I wake up in the emergency room with doctors shouting over me. I barely survive before Mom appears in Claire's dreams again. This time, she says skydiving is her last wish. If Claire doesn't do it for her, she won't rest in peace. Claire signs up right away, ignoring everything I say. But then, her parachute refuses to open, and she plummets toward the ground. Luckily, she gets snagged in a tree and walks away without a scratch. Meanwhile, I miss a step going downstairs, tumble to the bottom, end up covered in bruises, and break five ribs. While I'm recovering in the hospital, Mom shows up in Claire's dreams again. Now, she wants Claire to go to the South Pole for her, saying she can finally move on and be reincarnated once Claire completes the trip. Claire doesn't hesitate and books a tour on the spot. While she's taking pictures with penguins, I freeze to death back home during a 104-degree heatwave. Only after I die does it finally hit me that Mom's missions for Claire always end with me on death's doorstep. What I don't understand is how Mom keeps shifting the danger meant for Claire onto me instead. The next time I open my eyes, I'm back on the morning after Mom first appeared in Claire's dream.

During the annual awards gala, I stepped out to use the restroom. When I came back, my year-end bonus was gone, canceled for allegedly assaulting a new coworker, Elan Crowe. In my first life, I desperately tried to prove my innocence by showing my fitness tracker’s movement data, proving I had been in the bathroom. Calder Roane, the department head, flew into a rage. "Everyone in the department saw you hit him. And you still want to deny it?" I struggled and explained frantically, but in the chaos, I accidentally fell down the stairs and died on the spot. In my second life, I took medical leave and skipped the gala entirely. I never expected that just past noon, the police would surround my home. "Lyra Vale, you’re suspected of intentional homicide. You need to come with us." Elan’s enraged family had then rushed forward and stabbed me repeatedly. I died again. In my third life, I ran to the city plaza, started a livestream, and rapped on camera, turning every viewer into my alibi. That night, the police still came. "The evidence is conclusive. Please come with us." At the station, they pulled up surveillance footage. It clearly showed me sneaking into the gala hall, arguing with Elan, then picking up a knife and stabbing him straight in the back. I was completely stunned. Three days later, I took a bullet. After endless rebirths, I finally laughed in anger. This time, I stormed straight into the gala hall, pressed a knife across Elan's throat, and said, "This is a kidnapping."

In the fifth year of my marriage, I died in my sleep. However, I was born with a strange ability. Every time I died, I would come back to life at the exact moment before my last death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at 11:11 p.m. on the night I died. Unable to find the killer, I became trapped in an endless loop. The second time, I stayed up all night trying to catch whoever was behind it, but found nothing. The moment I let my guard down during the day and closed my eyes, I died instantly. The third time, I refused to believe it and had my husband, Emmett Berkeley, lock the bedroom and seal the windows. I still died the next day. The fourth time, I stayed alone in the bedroom, forcing myself to stay awake for three days straight to find the killer. By the third day, I couldn’t hold on any longer. My vision went black, and I died again. By the fifth time, I had gone insane. Right in front of Emmett, I grinned and hacked something to death. Blood splattered across the entire wall. Looking at Emmett trembling in the corner, I licked the blood from my lips and smiled faintly. "Honey, don’t you love me? Help me take the fall, okay?" The man who used to love me deeply pointed at me in horror, screaming, "Y-you found out… You knew, didn’t you…?"

As the news broadcast reported a random serial killing near my residential complex, I knew—I had been reborn once again. In my first life, my husband insisted on going out in the middle of a snowstorm to buy weapons for self-defense. I locked every door and window, waiting at home, anxiety clawing at my chest. I never imagined the killer could pick locks. Before I could even react, a blade plunged into me, and I died on the couch. In my second life, I didn't hesitate. I hid in a concealed storage room, holding my breath. But the door was still pulled open. A man wearing a rabbit mask stared straight at me. "Found you," he said. In my third life, I ran to the police station. I rushed inside and told the officer on duty that the killings weren't random—that the murderer was coming for me. They looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Then my husband arrived in a hurry and took me away. But the moment we reached our front door, a heavy hammer smashed into the back of my head. Through the blinding pain, I forced my eyes open, but I never saw who killed me. Now, staring at the grave expression on the news anchor's face, agony surged through every inch of my body. Rebirth isn't a reset. The damage accumulates—and sooner or later, it will torture me to death. Without hesitation, I walked into the kitchen and set a pot of oil to heat. And I waited… for the moment the lock began to turn.

After my girlfriend of seven years checked in from the foreign third-world country, Bayndemar, she suddenly vanished without a trace. That same night, I received a video from her phone. In the footage, a man wielding an electric baton sneered at the camera. "Bring five million dollars to the compound if you want her back alive." Beside him, my girlfriend's clothes were torn, her body covered in blood. Trembling, she begged through tears, "Ryan! Save me! They promised they'd let me go once the money's paid!" Without hesitation, I went alone. But the moment I landed, I was drugged into unconsciousness. In the end, I was tortured to death. Meanwhile, my girlfriend returned home with one-third of the ransom money and married the student my family had sponsored. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the very day she disappeared.

When my son suffered a heart attack in the middle of the night, I rushed him to the hospital where my wife worked. Instead of taking charge herself, she handed the operation to an intern. "New doctors need opportunities to learn. I'll be right there supervising. Nothing will happen." But before the surgery even began, a phone call pulled her away, leaving a trembling Marvin Vance alone in the operating room. My son never made it off the operating table. I collapsed in the hallway, sobbing in grief. Yet I overheard my wife gently comforting Marvin. "For your first surgery, you held on this long. You've done an amazing job, my little cinnamon roll." Awkwardly copying trendy slang younger people used online, she reassured him with endless patience. Then she turned to me with a cold expression and demanded that I sign a letter forgiving Marvin. "He has his whole future ahead of him. You can't destroy his life." I tore the document to pieces and threatened to call the police and expose what had happened. In response, she arranged for a medical donation and had my son's body dissected that very night. Driven insane by grief, I threw myself from a building while clutching my son's ashes. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day of my son's surgery. This time, I immediately contacted my parents and transferred him to another hospital. But that night, they still dissected a child.