Cerita Pendek & Novel After Death Face Slapping

When I drink the amber-colored poisonous wine, I can hear the joyful melody of a toast song coming from the manor. The wedding between Emanuela Romano and my ex-fiance, Benedetto Martini, is being held there right now. The elderly butler, Vincenzo Romano, puts away the wine glass with a blank expression. The way he speaks is as somber as one sounds when they give a speech at a funeral. "You know the Don's will very well, Ms. Andreotti. Five years are officially up, yet neither Mr. Andreotti, Mr. Martini, nor Dr. Foscari is willing to pledge their loyalty to you via the blood vow. According to the rules, you must take your own life within seven days. "The Don had left the Ashwine to you as a means of protecting… what little pride you have." Scorching pain begins spreading from my throat. I just smile at Vincenzo in return. Pride? Does a bastard spawn of a loose Iernian woman deserve to retain pride of any sort in the cruel Andreotti family? I begin making my way toward the banquet hall, which is brightly lit. As I walk past the shimmering waters of the pond in the family garden, I can tell that the waters are insanely cold. Then again, nothing is as cold as my icy heart right now. After taking a deep breath, I fall face-first into the pond… only to feel an iron-clad grip wrenching me backward. As such, I collapse onto the lawn heavily. My older brother, Alessandro Andreotti, has bits of grass covering his expensive suit. Disgust is written all over his handsome face. "Eva!" he grits out through his teeth, his voice lowered. "Must you spoil the mood on Emanuela's big day?" He then scoots closer to me, his alcohol-tinged breath fanning over my face. "You want to die, huh? Go ahead and do that, but can you die somewhere further? Don't stain the Andreotti land!" Alessandro turns to walk in the direction of the radiant lights, leaving me on the lawn, completely covered in mud. I can feel the countdown of my lifespan burning my insides. Seven days… I only have seven days to live. Meanwhile, my very own brother wants me to die somewhere further away.

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.

After I gave myself the last dose of painkiller, I stood outside the hotel all afternoon in the vintage couture gown Lucian had chosen for me himself. The black Bentley motorcade that was supposed to come for the bride never arrived. What I heard instead was the chatter of people passing by. "Did you hear? The youngest Don in New York is getting married. He and the bride have been together ten years." That stopped me, because Lucian and I had only been together seven. "They say he bought a blue diamond, the only one of its kind in the world, just to set it in her ring. He's proposing at the church today." The moment I pushed open the church doors, Lucian looked straight at me. "Cassie, I knew you'd come. Ten years ago you lost Elena, the true blood of this Family, and left her to be ground down at the bottom of the world. You had the safety and glory of the Family name while she endured ten years of hell. I let you believe in that engagement for exactly this day. I want you to feel what it's like to be thrown away by everyone." Three people I knew better than anyone sat in the front pew. Marcus spoke first. "You took the life that was supposed to be Elena's. She's back, so it goes back to her. You owe her that." My heart felt like a cold gun barrel was pressed against it. I couldn't get air. Nobody knew that a month ago I had been diagnosed with end-stage neurological failure, and that I had one day left. For my last hours all I had wanted was to hold the hand of the man I loved, with my family around me. I walked out of the church calmly and dropped the keepsake he had given me into a trash can. But now I'd changed my mind. I wasn't going to spend my last day intruding on any of them.

On the night I get dismembered, my girlfriend, Victoria Hewitt, announces her marriage to the world. Clad in the wedding dress that I've personally designed, she soon marries her first love, Joseph Danford, happily. When Victoria receives the news of my death, she merely smiles before claiming that I'm a pathological liar. But what she doesn't know is that I've died for her sake. Later on, Victoria constructs a sculpture out of my bones. She develops a habit of hugging it every day since then.

I had lost my memory for three years. I'd been through hell and high water with Adrian Vance for the past three years. He told me we'd grown up together on the same block, two kids who'd fallen for each other young. He told me that once he had a real foothold in the Family, he'd marry me in front of all of Palermo and make the whole city come to watch. I believed him. With a steady trigger hand and a mean streak, I cleared every man who stood in his way. I dragged him up from a nobody bastard son into the inner circle of the Family, one body at a time. Then the day finally came, and what he said was, "I've already asked the Don for his daughter Camilla. It's settled. I'm marrying her." "Camilla's a mafia princess. The Don's pride and joy. Not some no-name orphan girl with nothing and no one behind her. She's the one who can actually lift me up." "Be good, Vera. As long as Camilla never finds out, we can go on the way we always have." "Be good. You mean play your mistress in the dark, is that it?" What Adrian didn't know was that my memory had already come back. My real name was Hale, heir to the Hale family, the one enemy the Marlowe outfit he'd sworn himself to feared most. Childhood sweethearts, princesses, Don. In the end they were all just one more debt I'd settle on my way to paying the Family back in full.

Two years after breaking up with Evan Grey, my lung cancer finally reached its final stage. At the end of my life, I dragged my aching body to Lake Manco, where we promised we'd come together on the 999th day of our love. In the end, I was the only one who went. As the doctor's calls came in endlessly, no doubt urging me to return to chemotherapy, I silenced my phone and buried the pendant Evan gave me by the lake. "Evan, maybe this is the last time I'll think of you…" As soon as the words left my mouth, a drop of blood from my nose fell into the sand. Then, from behind me, I heard the voice I'd missed every day for the past three years, "Miss, could you please take a photo of me and my girlfriend?"

When my parents came to take me home, I accidentally switched souls with Ava, a girl from the mountains. The moment my mother saw the certificate proving that Ava had ranked first in the entire county, her eyes filled with tears. "Looks like sending you to the mountains to suffer for half a year was the right decision. "Back then, getting you to study was like pulling teeth. Now you finally understand that everything we did was for your own good." I burst into tears and rushed forward, throwing my arms around my mother's legs. "Mom, I'm the real Sophie!" She kicked me hard, sending me sprawling into the mud. "Where did this wild child come from? You're just as disobedient as the old Sophie!" My parents took away the "me" carrying Ava's soul, leaving the real me behind in the mountains. For the next five years, I endured endless hard labor, slept in a pigsty, and suffered relentless abuse before I finally found a chance to escape. But when I returned home, my mother looked at me with disgust and drove me away. "My daughter just made it through the national competition. How could she possibly be someone like you? If you dare spout that nonsense again, I'll have you locked up in a mental hospital!" I cried until my entire body shook, but I refused to give up. That night, I climbed over the wall and slipped back into the house. That's when I heard my father ask my mother, "We didn't know about the soul swap back then. But now that she's found her way back... are we really not going to acknowledge her?" My mother let out a cold laugh. "What would be the point of taking her back? Should we let her ruin the Sophie we have now? She's hopeless. Even being thrown into the mountains couldn't change her. Someone like her deserves to die." A sharp pain ripped through my stomach. I coughed up a mouthful of blood. "Mom... This body has stomach cancer. Just as you wished... I'm going to die."

My mother was an education expert who believed in the teaching method of using others as a cautionary tale. She had high hopes for my big brother, Joe, and I was used as a tool to discipline and educate him. Every time Joe did something wrong, my mother would double the punishment for me to make him remember his mistakes. When we were young, Joe touched a socket with a wet finger. As such, my mother tied me to a metal chair that was connected to electrical wires. I convulsed and started foaming at the mouth and lost control of my bowels. It scared Joe so much that he never touched another socket again. Another time, Joe saw a homeless dog and reached out to pet him. As a result, my mother found a ferocious mongrel and locked me up in a metal cage with it. I was badly bitten by the dog and wounded all over. Since then, Joe never touched another animal. My mother's methods took a turn for the worse before Joe took his SATs. He could not take it any longer and said, "I want to cut all ties with you after my SATs. I'd rather die than live as your puppet!" Joe's words prompted my mother to grab me by the hair and lock me up in a coffin. "How dare you threaten me with death? You should learn what death really looks like today!" However, my mother forgot that I had asthma. I smiled with relief as my body started becoming lighter. Mom, this would be the last time I would serve as my big brother's cautionary tale.

When I found Silas Pembroke, he was carefully untangling a strand of another woman’s hair from his tie clip. The two of them were wrapped around each other, far too close to pretend otherwise. He let out a mocking laugh. “Jenna, what exactly are you going to accuse Sienna and me of this time?” Sienna Vale smiled sweetly. “Mrs. Pembroke, you stayed away longer than usual this time.” I steadied myself and said, “I’m not Jenna. I’m her twin sister, Summer Sinclair.” Silas burst out laughing. “What is this, your latest stunt?” Then his expression hardened. “Keep pushing me, and I can’t promise you’ll stay Mrs. Pembroke forever.” I only looked at him and said quietly, “Silas, my sister left three keepsakes behind for you.”

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.

After being reincarnated as the villain in a story where everyone doted on the heroine, the system appeared. It told me that if I could win over any one of the male leads, I would regain a healthy body and return to my original world. But I failed to win over any of them. There was my adoptive brother, the fake heir, who grew up with me. My rebellious high school deskmate, the real heir, who became a boxer. And my childhood sweetheart, the genius surgeon. Even my own son, whom I carried for ten months. Without exception, they all fell in love with that cold, stubborn damsel while growing to deeply despise me. The system sighed and told me that if I could die at the hands of any one of the male leads, I would be able to see my parents in the original world. In the end, I used every method possible and was finally killed by them, with their own hands. But why did they all go mad afterward?

To prove she was fair, Valerie forced me into the family's live-fire drill. She knew I had a severe heart condition. She knew I couldn't stand the sight of blood. Three hours under the blistering sun. My hands shook wildly. I stared at the trembling rabbit tied to the target, terrified to pull the trigger. "You can't even kill a freaking rabbit? How are you supposed to lead this family?" Valerie's icy voice lashed at me from behind. Tears filled my eyes. I finally pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through the rabbit. Blood spattered everywhere. The smell and all that red triggered my blood phobia instantly. Everything went pitch black. Chloe, the intern medic, walked over and grabbed me roughly. Her eyes were full of pure malice. "Underboss, her vitals are totally fine. Is she faking it just to escape training?" Valerie looked down at my pale face. Disgust and disappointment covered her face. "Gemma, is this how I raised you? Everyone else finished. You don't get special treatment." "You finish this drill today—even if it kills you!" Then, my chest stopped moving. Dead silence. My soul floated into the air. I looked down at Mom, filled with guilt and despair. I'm sorry, Mom. This time, I really couldn't hold on.

The annual Family dinner was in full swing, the clink of glasses and hum of conversation filling the air. Paige, never one for a kind word, stumbled over, a glass of wine in her hand, her breath reeking of cheap booze. "You know," she said, a sly, knowing grin on her face, "I used to be jealous as hell of you. He's a Capo. He runs a whole borough." "A lot of good that's done you, huh? Still stuck in the slums, where gunshots are your nightly lullaby." I heard the mockery in her voice. The list for the Family's secure compound was out, and once again, my name wasn't on it. I held my own glass, my voice steady. "They're Family rules. Not even Dean can break them. A Capo's wife still has to toe the line." She let out a sudden, sharp laugh. "Five years ago, when the first group moved, your name was at the very top of the list! Dean crossed it off himself. Five years in a row, all to build that pristine reputation of his..." Before she could finish, one of the dock enforcers nearby clamped his hand over her mouth. I glanced around the room. The men and women who had been flirting and laughing just moments before now avoided my gaze. Only Dean remained as he was, sitting ramrod straight, not a flicker of shame on his face. He held a half-smoked cigar between his teeth, his voice low and gravelly. "What she said is true. I approved the placements for the compound." "They're for the widows of our brothers who bled and died for this Family. They need a safe place more than you do." "Let others fight and claw for survival. You are my woman. A Capo's wife. You have to understand what it means to see the bigger picture." I smiled, but tears streamed down my face. So that was it. So, does our son have to be an orphan on paper, the child of a fallen hero, to finally get a private doctor and a safe home?

Whenever my son, Ethan Shaw, cried, my mother-in-law, Jacqueline, would pat his back and call his name. She said it was to keep his soul from leaving his body when he got scared. I thought she was just being superstitious until one day, an old woman stared at my son and her face went pale. "Why are his pupils so dilated? He only has one-tenth of his soul left! Has anyone tried to summon his soul?" A chill ran down my back and I told her about his grandmother. She said, "She isn't calling his soul back. She's calling it out of his body! I'll give you the candles. Take it home and light it, or your son will die." I was a little wary. Was I really going to suspect my son's own grandmother of hurting him just because some stranger said so? But my son had become easily lost and slow to respond, and even the doctors didn't know how to help him. "Don't worry," the old woman said. "I'm not asking for money. I just want to save him." She pressed the candles into my hand and left. Back home, I lit one of the candles with my hands trembling. The tip had barely begun to glow red when Jacqueline called. "That's a Soul Severing Candle! Put it out now, or Ethan will die!"

Three years after I landed on the wanted list, all 88 pieces of my dismembered corpse were thrown in front of the police station. After the forensics team put my body together, they identified my body as Julian Colt, the fiancé of the Organized Crime Department, Captain Kyra Schneider. Everyone, from elders in their eighties to young children, wanted me to see justice because not only had I betrayed Kyra and her team, but I had also publicly joined the criminal organization and become the lover of its leader. I was fired from the police force and hated by my loved ones. Kyra hated me the most, and she used the most cruel method of retrieving my memories to be broadcast to the world. On judgment day, the city square was filled with spectators, but when my memories were retrieved, along with the huge word 'innocent' splashed on it, everyone went crazy. "Traitor! A man like him should have been executed." "The evidence clearly points to his guilt. How is he innocent? Everyone knows how he helped the criminal organization to kill numerous police officers!" "Don't be tricked by him! He must have altered those memories!"

Ten years ago, a fire broke out at my school. I saved four friends, but the flames left me an idiot. The four of them stood beside my hospital bed and cried, swearing they would spend the rest of their lives making it up to me. They were afraid I would get bullied, so they gave up their spots at two of the country's top universities and went to community college with me instead. They were afraid someone would trick me into leaving them, so the other three pushed Joshua Summers to confess his feelings for me. I had once said I envied people who lived in houses that didn't leak, so all four of them saved every cent they had and bought me a house for Joshua and me to live in after we married. Then came the party the night before my wedding to Joshua. When I returned from the bathroom, I heard everyone inside playing a round of Truth. The topic was "Secrets Loretta Doesn't Know." Curious, I pressed my ear to the crack in the door. Calvin Dawson's drunken laughter drifted through. "That little idiot has no idea tomorrow's wedding is actually for Nisha." I froze. After a moment of silence, my sister picked up where he had left off. "Loretta doesn't know that when Josh confessed to her, he only did it to spite Nisha. Who would've guessed she'd say yes? This wedding was supposed to be Nisha's from the start." My best friend's eyes reddened. "If my family hadn't forced me into marriage, I never would've taken Lori's wedding from her. I only want the ceremony. She can keep the title. As long as she's happy, my own happiness can wait until the next life." Joshua's eyes flickered. With a resigned expression, he revealed the final secret. "This morning, I got worked up enough to consider sending Loretta to her death, but I gave up on it in the end. We owe her a life anyway. Let's call this one paid off." I didn't know how long I stood there before I finally stumbled back to my room in a daze. I opened Joshua's bag, and there it was: an opened bottle of pills. My heart shuddered. The happiness I had cherished for ten years had never been anything more than repayment for a debt. Through my tears, I put the pills into my mouth one by one. There was no need to wait for the next life. In this one, I would give them the happiness they wanted.

Everyone around us knows I'm in love with Ryland Wood. But from his 21st birthday on, he despises me. It takes three years and my accidental death for him to finally be free of me. When I open my eyes again, I find myself reborn, right back on the day of his 21st birthday. This time, I choose to run. Now, I refuse to be the lovesick fool, and I refuse to cling to him.

While ordering food for my brother, I forgot one note, ‘no peanuts.’ My mother, Victoria Miller, bought a hundred pounds of fresh lilies and dragged them inside. I am severely allergic to pollen. She shoved me into the flower-filled room anyway and slammed the door shut behind me. "How many times must I tell you? Your brother is allergic to peanuts!" she screamed. "You left it out on purpose! What kind of monster are you? "You hate that I love him. Today, I'm curing your cruel heart!" Pollen choked the air. Thick clouds. My throat swelled instantly, cutting off my breath. My little brother, Toby Miller, rushed forward. He grabbed the handle. "Mom, I'm fine!" he sobbed. "Let her out! Please!" She didn't care. She yanked him back and turned the key. Click. "She tried to hurt you again!" her voice boomed through the wood. "Stop defending her! Today, she will learn her lesson." I slid down the cold door frame and sank into the sea of petals. To her, I was always the villain. My vision blurred. Air wouldn't come. I stopped clawing at the door and stopped begging. I collapsed onto the floor, dying among the blossoms. Mom, if the monster dies, will you finally be happy?

The doctor said I had a hundred days left. I didn't want a miracle. I just wanted one real family portrait. One where I sat dead center, impossible to cut out. I searched through every album in the house. My sister, Yvonne Miller, had her professional glamor shots. My brother, Daxton Miller had his milestone baby portraits. My parents had their framed wedding photo. There wasn't a single picture of just me. I remembered our old family photo from primary school. Mom told me I blinked, so she creased the paper down the middle and folded my side back. After that, I was always placed on the far left or the far right. It made it easier to crop me out. I saved up and booked time at a downtown photo studio. I even bought a navy silk dress, the most expensive thing I had ever owned. The night before the shoot, Mom smoothed out the fabric, folded it carefully, and handed it to my sister. "Your sister has a dinner date tomorrow with a barrister," Mom said. "It’s a big deal. Let her borrow it first." Dad didn't even look up from his paper. "Your brother has his regional final tomorrow anyway. We’ll reschedule the shoot. Once you're feeling better, I'll take you back and we'll do ten portraits." "What if I don't get better?" I asked. Silence filled the room. Daxton kept mashing buttons on his controller in the lounge. Yvonne was in her bedroom, admiring herself in my dress. I folded the studio receipt and slipped it into my coat pocket. The next morning, I went to the studio alone. I sat straight on the wooden stool in the middle of the backdrop. "Should we wait for the rest of your family?" the photographer asked, adjusting his lens. "And give me a smile?" "No need to wait," I replied softly. "And no need to smile." No one would have to crop me out anyway.

Two years ago, I was the Donna of the Costa family. When I was on my way to attend the family meeting, I was killed by my husband's childhood sweetheart, Isabella Rossi. She shattered my limbs and smashed my belly before throwing me into an abandoned mine pit. It was such a shame that I was pregnant with the heir Matteo Costa had been waiting for the past five years when I died. Not only did Isabella frame me for working with the enemy forces, but she also broke her own legs and claimed that she got hurt from stopping me. Matteo publicly announced that he decided to sever all ties with me. He also placed a bounty on my head. Just like that, I fell from my position as the Costa family's Donna to a traitor who was wanted by all. Two years later, the mine pit collapsed on itself. That was when the workers dug out my rotten corpse.