Cerita Pendek & Novel After Death Face Slapping

At the reunion dinner, my adopted brother, Isaac Johnson, whispers in my ear, "The Johnson family only needs one son. You're just a country bumpkin. We don't need you here." I think he's right. So, I run straight into traffic at the intersection. My family is terrified. They rush over and manage to pull me back from the road. My sister, Rebecca Johnson, turns pale with anger and warns me not to upset Isaac again. I obediently nod. Then, late that night, I turn on the gas and leave a suicide note. "It's my fault for upsetting Isaac. I'll take the whole family to heaven with me. None of us will ever have to suffer again." My family stares at me as if I've gone mad. Later, at a party, Isaac and his friends push me into the pool. But I don't struggle. I simply let myself sink slowly to the bottom. Isaac panics and has no choice but to jump in and pull me out again. "Idiot! What if you really drowned? Mom and Dad would hate me! Couldn't you at least struggle?" What he doesn't know is that I've fought back before. But every time, it only ended with me dying a horrible death. This is my tenth time being reborn. This time, I just want to die.

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!"

Ever since I was little, my dad taught me that no matter what happened, I should put my studies and exams as my top priority. When I was eight, I accidentally broke my leg during gym class, but my dad insisted that I finish that day’s class before taking me to get it treated. When the doctor said I was brought in too late and would have to be hospitalized, my dad looked troubled. “Third grade is a crucial transition period in elementary school. My child absolutely cannot waste any time right now!” So, I went to school in a wheelchair during the day and returned to my hospital room at night to finish my homework. When I was discharged, I was left with a lasting condition. Ever since then, I walked with a slight limp. When I was eleven, I ran a high fever of 102 degrees and started babbling incoherently. But my dad took forever to arrive. The teacher was so anxious that she took me to the hospital first, only to be berated by my dad when he finally showed up. “The transition from elementary to middle school is a critical moment for a child’s future. If my son, Teleus Costa, misses these three classes, just think how far behind the other kids he’ll fall!” Even though I had not fully recovered, my dad sent me back to school the very next day. From then on, I suffered from severe myocarditis. At seventeen, I developed a serious heart condition that put me at risk of sudden death at any moment. But my dad insisted I wait until after the SATs to seek treatment. “The SATs are the pivotal moment that determines your future. Missing even one class at such a time is tantamount to suicide!” One night during evening study hall, my heart seized up again, and I stumbled down the stairs. Lying in a pool of blood, I mustered my last ounce of strength to press the emergency contact button on my smartwatch to call for help. But on the other end, I heard my father’s voice. “There’s still one more session of evening study hall left. Can’t you just hang in there until it’s over?” ‘Dad, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I could make it,’ I thought.

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."

Mom and Aunt Denise Taylor fell off the balcony in the midst of their heated argument. Dad rushed in just as they hit the ground, each with a broken arm. Without hesitation, he left Mom behind and hurriedly took Denise to the hospital instead. Later, Mom filed for divorce. Dad's face twisted in anger as he yelled, "Enough, Nicole! So what if you broke an arm and can't hold a scalpel anymore? What's the big deal? Dee is a genius designer. If she had lost her hand, her life would've been over! Of course, I had to save her first!" Watching all this in my ghostly state, I couldn't help but laugh. Did Dad really think that Mom had only lost the use of her hand? Mom didn't just lose her hand. She lost me. After all, I had severe heart failure, and the only person who could perform the life-saving surgery was Mom, the medical master herself. But none of that matters now, because I'm already gone.

After I was taken into the mountains, I became the whole town's slave. If one field remained unharvested or one family's firewood went uncut, they beat my face bloody. They avoided my arms and legs only because they expected twice as much work from me the next day. On New Year's Eve, I finally decided I couldn't survive another day and went to the river to end my life, only to hear two people whispering behind the trees. "Watch yourself. He is still the Hawthornes' biological son. They sent him to Red Willow Hollow to learn discipline, not for you to use however you want." "Biological son? His parents haven't asked about him in years. They already have another boy, the polished young heir who visited last time. The difference between them is night and day. "If anything happens, we'll blame him. Mrs. Hawthorne said that a boy without manners doesn't deserve to be her son. He may as well die out here." I stood frozen above the river, forgetting even why I had come. My mother always boasted that her family came from old money. She said a gentleman's most important quality was proper conduct. So why, after seeing my body, did she abandon every rule of dignity she had ever demanded from me?

A priest has shown up at my first birthday party. He claims that I'm a cursed soul—that my presence will bring doom to those close to me, and my existence itself can snatch everyone's luck. The only way to counter this is to give me up to an orphanage and let me live a life of poverty and suffering. Without a family, I'll be able to overcome my fate as a cursed soul. Daddy has the priest cast out of our home immediately. Meanwhile, Mommy hugs me tightly. "My son is the luckiest boy in the whole wide world!" But everything has changed when my younger brother, Andy Lawson, has fallen off the 20th floor. His body is completely shattered from the fall. I can only stand by the window uneasily. Fear is evident in my eyes as I wave my hands with all my might. "It wasn't me! It really wasn't me!" The wind that day is very strong, but it can never drown out Mommy's cries. Daddy hoists me up and stuffs me into Andy's coffin. I keep latching onto the sides of the coffin to the point my fingers are all bloodied and trampled over. At the same time, I keep screaming for Mommy. Mommy stares at me blankly at first. But her hollow gaze is soon filled with hatred. "Why aren't you the one dead? That priest told us that you'll have to stay in the coffin for seven whole days and nights just to atone for your sins! Only then can Andy's soul rest in peace! "This is your fate and your sin, Adam!" The heavy lid slowly covers the coffin, soon sealing my hoarse cries and screams away. A long time later, a few voices ring out amid the sorrowful melody played by the organ. "Why is there a tiny gap in the coffin? Hurry up and nail it shut! We can't afford to have misfortune spread to us!" When the final nail is bolted onto the lid, I close my eyes. Mommy, Daddy, I'm no longer a cursed soul.

At the Christmas dinner table, my drunk uncle suddenly turned on my mom. “You know, Sis, you’re pretty shameless, aren’t you? Every year, I give Anna five hundred bucks as a Christmas gift, but you’ve never given my daughter anything!” The rest of the family had clearly been holding this in for a while. Since someone had said it out loud, they all jumped in at once to accuse my mother of always taking and never giving. They called her selfish and stingy. My mother suddenly grabbed me by the hair and slapped me. “Anna, why didn’t you tell me you got money from them? Have you been hiding cash? You made me look like I can’t return a simple favor! Happy now?” I had clearly given her everything I ever received! With the way she twisted the truth, I ended up becoming the liar in everyone’s eyes. As a result, later that night, when a fishbone got lodged in my throat and I choked, everyone just sat there laughing and watching. They were convinced that not only had I lied about the gift money, but I was also trying to scam them for medical bills.

After losing his entire retirement savings to a scam, my father-in-law, Kyle Knight, tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills. I frantically called my husband, Joshua Knight, a psychology expert, hoping he could talk his father out of it. "Dad lost his entire retirement fund to a scam. He left a suicide note, and he's trying to kill himself. Come home!" Instead, Joshua snapped at me for making such a big deal out of it. "Your dad's made plenty of bad decisions before. Maybe this'll finally teach him a lesson. Don't bother me with stupid stuff like this again. I'm trying to watch a movie with Vanessa." For a second, I thought he hadn't heard me clearly. I was about to tell him that the man dying was his own father. Then Vanessa Morgan's voice came through the phone. The horror movie scared her. Joshua immediately turned to comfort her. Later, he casually told me to put together a PowerPoint on how my dad got scammed so he could use the case in one of his anti-scam livestreams. I swallowed everything I was about to say and obediently said, "Okay." After all, the person who scammed Kyle out of his retirement savings and drove him to suicide was Vanessa's mother.

My father had a PhD in AI, and he built me an AI little sister named Ava. He said she could see through every lie I told, so I could forget about pretending to be sick to get out of school. From that day on, every time I said I didn't feel well, my father asked Ava first. If she flagged what I said as a lie, it didn't matter whether I was telling the truth. All I got was a cold look from him and hours locked in a room. I argued. I fought it. But my father would just look at me as if I were a failed experiment. "I built Ava myself. The system doesn't make mistakes. You do." On Halloween, for the first time ever, my father took Ava and me to an amusement park. The Zombie Drop Tower stood right in front of us, rated ten out of ten on the scare scale. Pain gripped my heart. I clutched my chest and shook my head as hard as I could. But Ava coldly pulled up a data report. "Nora Whitaker's heart rate is elevated because she is lying. A full-body scan shows she is completely healthy." My father's face went hard. He grabbed my wrist and dropped his voice. "Nora, you're allowed to be scared. You're not allowed to lie. The data is right here. Get in." "Dad, my heart hurts... it really hurts..." His expression didn't change. "Here we go again. You've been embarrassing me since you were little." The moment the ride dropped and the holographic zombies lunged at my face, my heart hurt so much I couldn't breathe. My vision blurred, but beside me, he was still speaking in that same cold voice. "When are you going to stop lying your way out of things?" Tears of blood slid from the corners of my eyes. Dad, I really wasn't lying this time. I'm dead now. I'll never lie again.

After a century of war, the three races finally reached a fragile peace. The human kingdom, the vampire noble houses, and the wolf clans signed the Covenant of Three Realms. The Royal Court would stand above the races, and only a mixed-blood royal heir would rule all three realms. When my turn came,I chose Owen, Alpha of the Bloodmoon Pack. Our marriage ceremony took place on the Night of the Full Moon Oath. Owen’s foster sister, Nora, fled the Bloodmoon territory after the rite. She crossed beyond the pack’s borders and ran straight into a hunter’s silver trap laid in the forest. The silver tore through her wolf spirit. She died there before anyone could reach her. When Owen arrived, he did not rage. He simply carried her body back to the pack lands and performed the ancient wolf burial rites with his own hands. After that night, he continued to play the role of the perfect mate. But the night I gave birth to our hybrid child, he drove a blade through my throat, his eyes filled with hatred. His voice was filled with cold hatred. “If your bloodline weren’t the only one capable of producing a ruler for the three realms, I would never have married you.” “Nora would never have fled the pack lands. She would never have died in a hunter’s trap. My first child would still be alive.” Pain swallowed everything. When I opened my eyes again. I had returned to the day the king ordered me to choose between the vampire houses and the wolf clans.

My parents forced me to drop out of school and work eight jobs just to support my cousin Lola. I was only allowed to keep twenty bucks a month. One day, while working on a construction site, I got buried in a collapse. Dying, I called them—but they were busy throwing a lavish birthday party for Lola. Turns out they'd faked bankruptcy. Every penny went to her. After I died, they spread rumors that I'd run off with some guy. When the truth came out, my parents lost their minds. Their company went under. Later, I found out Lola was actually my twin sister—she'd been sent away as a baby to avoid some legal trouble. In the end, my mother poisoned Lola, then killed herself. Only then could my soul rest. My aunt came to my grave and whispered, "Next life, come to me."

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…

While my corpse was rotting in the morgue, my fiancé, Ron Corleone, was comforting my murderer. Lisa Corleone sobbed as she said, “After we were kidnapped and brought here, Wendy disappeared. We don’t know if she managed to escape. It was all my fault. If I hadn’t insisted on going out with Wendy…” Ron’s face was ice cold. “The future mistress of the Corleone family actually abandoned my sister and fled on her own. If she dares to come back, I’ll break her arms and legs and turn her into a maggot that only deserves to live in the dark!” In fact, I did die in some random corner with my limbs broken. The truth about my death made Ron, who had vowed to make me regret my existence, crazy.

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.

In the fifth year of my marriage to Jordan West, he cheats on me with a blind woman. She's young, pretty, and demure. Jordan scours the best hospitals in the country to treat her eyes. In the end, he fixes his gaze on me and tells me he wants me to donate my corneas to her. "They're just a pair of eyes, Hazel. Please help her. Can you really stand by and watch as she withers away?"

The day Mom's 17th love letter is listed on eBay, Dad, who is usually calm and easygoing, completely loses his temper. He calls Mom three times in a row. "I just gave you ten thousand dollars for the last love letter. How have you already spent it all? "How many times do I have to repeat myself? Wendy just came back from ten years in the future. She's emotionally unstable. If something happens to her because of all this nonsense, I'm going to hold you accountable!" As Dad rages over the phone, I hold up my fingers and do the math. What is he talking about? The love letters are only 200 dollars each. Mom takes me out for hamburgers every time she gets the money. But this time, she's sleeping too soundly. No matter how hard I try, I just can't wake her up. "I'm hungry, Dad. Can you take me out for some hamburgers?" "Did your mom put you up to this?" Dad asks, sounding slightly exasperated. "She's doing everything she can to get my attention." A moment later, his voice softens. "Stella, can you show me your mother's love letters? If you do, I'll take you out for hamburgers."

A rival pack invaded, plunging our pack into the worst crisis we had ever faced. The witch, Morgana Vale, said that only a blood sacrifice could save the entire pack. So despite my anemia, I was dragged onto the altar. Morgana slit my wrist, and the moment my blood dripped onto the totem, the ritual began. When the bleeding got to be more than I could take, I tried to call it off, but my mother stopped me cold. "Sweetheart, hold on a little longer. You're the Alpha's daughter. Making a small sacrifice for the pack is only right. It's just a little blood. It won't kill you." I gritted my teeth and held on, my heart pounding like it would burst. The ritual lasted from morning until dusk, and my blood never stopped flowing. "Mom, I really can't take it anymore." My face was ghost-white, and my vision was starting to blur. But she just gave my bloodless face a cold glance. "Sacrificing for the pack is an honor. Being the Alpha's daughter doesn't mean you get to shirk your duty. I did not raise you to be selfish." By midnight, everything went black, and I collapsed on the altar. I'm sorry. I failed to do my duty. I'm sorry, Mother. I let you down.

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.

I died in the year my husband hated me most. Unable to endure his endless silent treatment any longer, I swallowed a bottle of pills and ended my life. At the crematorium, watching the flames roar inside the furnace, he allowed himself a rare smile. “Someone as vile as her doesn’t deserve to be laid to rest whole.” So when the staff handed him the urn, he flipped it over. My ashes scattered across the floor in an instant. All this time, he had believed I was responsible for the death of his first love. That belief was why he had schemed and plotted for years, all for this precise moment of final desecration. When it was over, he stepped over my ashes and walked away without looking back. Though not long after that, he fell to his knees and begged the crematorium to give my ashes back to him.