เรื่องสั้นและนิยายในฉากAfter Death Family Emotions

When my young sister, Sharon, did something wrong for the first time, my mother downloaded an AI child education app. The AI said, "I think that punishing Sharon isn't effective. Why not punish her older sister, Sherry, whom she is close to? That way, Sharon will be disciplined because of her love for Sherry." Since then, I was used as a tool to discipline Sharon. Sharon loved ordering delivery, and my mother followed the AI's advice to dose my food delivery with ten packets of laxatives, which landed me in the emergency room. She used this opportunity to teach Sharon a lesson about food safety. When Sharon stayed out all night and did not come home, my mother followed the AI's advice to get five homeless men to drag me into the alleyway and rape me after I came home late from school to teach Sharon to protect herself. Sharon wanted to adopt a dog, so my mother took the AI's advice to release a mongrel with rabies into my room. I was bitten because I could not evade the dog's attack, as my mother locked me in the room with it. "Once your sister comes back from school, I'll show her the consequences of adopting a dog! "The AI told me that there is a one-month incubation period for rabies. When Sharon finally admits her mistake, I'll take you to the hospital for a vaccination." However, she had no idea that I had been bitten in the head. By the time Sharon returned, I had contracted rabies. My mother used my life as the price to pay for disciplining my sister.

When the Blackridge Pack invaded, I hid inside a closet with my daughter in my arms. The first rescue mech to break through the encircling wolves and leap into the building was piloted by my own brother, Kyle. But after opening the closet and taking one look at us, he simply turned around and headed for the room next door, where our adopted sister, Layla, was hiding. "Wren, you're the Luna. You're supposed to put the pack first. I'll take Layla out first. I'll come back for you and Mia on the second trip." We waited for an hour, and the second trip never came. I contacted my mate, Damian, and asked if he could send someone to get us out. His response was ice-cold. "Stop being so difficult, Wren. There are only so many rescue slots available. Kyle said you two were well hidden, so just hang in there a little longer. I'm the Alpha of the pack. You can't expect me to play favorites just because you're my mate." When I tried contacting him again, I discovered that Damian had already blocked our mate bond. Ten minutes later, wolf claws tore through the building's load-bearing walls. Half of the exterior wall came crashing inward, and the air quickly filled with wolfsbane. I used my own body to shield my daughter and preserve the last bit of space where she could survive, but there was nothing I could do as the wolfsbane slowly spread deeper through her body. I did not know how much time had passed before the next search-and-rescue mech finally arrived. They pulled Mia from the wreckage, barely clinging to life. But no one saw me, already buried beneath the ruins. My soul drifted above them. When I saw Mia being carried out, I thought at least my daughter had survived. Then they tossed her onto a metal cart. Her wolf soul was already being poisoned by the venom. Still, no one seemed concerned. The physician on duty had just picked up an antidote syringe when my biological mother, Elara, reached out and stopped him. "It's fine. That little bit of wolfsbane isn't enough to put Mia's life at risk. Save the Moondew for Layla first." Elara gently pressed down on the physician's wrist. "If Wren chose to run away by herself and abandon her daughter, then Mia should learn exactly what her mother's selfishness costs." As it turned out, they all thought I had abandoned my daughter and escaped on my own. None of them knew that I had already been left behind forever beneath those ruins.

My parents were both highly educated professionals. The one thing they could never tolerate in this life was having a mentally disabled daughter who could not even speak. They considered me a genetic failure and devoted all their love and effort to their adopted genius daughter, Jacey Lee. In this family, Jacey was treated like a ray of sunshine, while I was seen as a filthy rat in the gutter. Their eyes were always filled with contempt whenever they looked at me. “Just seeing your vacant, idiotic face makes me sick. Stay away from us. Don’t infect your sister with your low intelligence.” When I was eight, Grandma took me to Willow Creek to visit our family graves. My foot slipped, and I fell into the water. I was wearing nothing but a thin pink padded jacket. At the same time, Jacey merely failed to answer a phone call, and my parents frantically searched for her everywhere. They completely ignored Grandma’s tearful call for help. I struggled desperately and opened my mouth soundlessly to call for help. My mother calmly analyzed the situation on the other end of the phone. “Mom, don’t let her fool you. According to child psychology, she’s pretending to be missing to get attention. If we go back now, we’ll only reinforce her distorted way of thinking.” My father impatiently cut her off. “Stop bothering us with that useless burden! With her limited intelligence, she’ll do nothing but look for food. Once she gets hungry, she’ll come crawling home like a dog. Jacey is the one in real danger!” The icy water rose to my neck. I took the piece of candy from my pocket. I had prepared it for my parents to celebrate my birthday. But the wrapper was wet, and I could not hold on to it. It slipped through my fingers. This time, this idiot would never return home.

After the accident, I came home in clothes soaked with blood. Mom and Dad took one look at the bandages covering me and immediately asked what had happened. I clenched my fists and said, “Car accident. My phone’s emergency SOS automatically sent my location to my emergency contacts and tried calling them. Mom, you hung up. Dad, you never even checked the alert.” I thought they would apologize and promise that they would never ignore an emergency alert again. Instead, Mom frowned. “Why would you put down my number? You know I have a heart condition. What if I suddenly got an emergency alert like that and passed out from the shock?” Dad waved a hand dismissively. “My blood pressure is high. I can’t handle that kind of shock either. Take my number off the list.” I stood there, stunned. Everyone in the family had me listed as their primary emergency contact. When Grandma fell out of bed in the middle of the night, when Dad was rear-ended by someone on the highway, when Mom had a sudden episode of heart palpitations... No matter what I was doing, the second I got an SOS alert from them, I would call for help and rush straight over. At the beginning of September, my younger sister started college. Mom and Dad had practically fought over who would get to be her primary emergency contact, each insisting they were the better choice. When it came to me, their whole attitude changed. I lowered my eyes and asked softly, “Mom, Dad, if I died because neither of you answered when I called for help, would you regret it?”

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?

When I'm seven years old, my sister, Ellie Corwin, and I are playing hide-and-seek when an earthquake hits. My parents pull me out first, but rescue teams search for three days and nights without finding where my sister is hiding. My parents confront me with bloodshot eyes, demanding answers, and all I can do is stammer, "I don't know… I don't know where she hid." From that day on, my parents, who once adored me, never smile at me again. This time, they're heading to visit my sister's grave. I mention that I want to come, and my mother breaks down all over again. "Get lost! Your sister died because you just had to play hide-and-seek! You wanted to hide? Then get in there!" She screams herself hoarse and shoves me into a suitcase. But she forgets the suitcase has a combination lock. Once it clicks shut, I can't push it open no matter how hard I try.

I was born with a genetic disorder. My father left as soon as he found out, and my illness quickly drained all my mother’s savings. To afford my treatment, she moved me from one stranger’s home to another, until she chose to have a child for money. After giving birth to a baby boy and receiving twelve thousand dollars, she was about to leave, but the man asked her to stay. He promised to raise me as his own and cover my medical expenses. She agreed. They married soon after. She told me I would always be the one she loved most. To prove it, she rarely held my brother and almost never smiled at him. Until the day he accidentally swallowed my medicine. As she frantically tried to save him, she broke down and screamed at me, “Why are you still alive?” I watched them rush to the hospital. Then I went back to my room, picked up the scattered pills, and swallowed them all. Mom, I wouldn't be a burden to you anymore.

I had a miscarriage and was confined in the ICU. Meanwhile, my husband was off traveling the world with his first love. It wasn't until he decided to divorce me that he finally remembered I existed. He called my mother, demanding to know how long I planned to act out. She was disheartened, looking at me, who was barely clinging to life. "Shannon will never cause you trouble again! Happy now?" she snapped.

Eliza Ward, my adopted younger sister, and I both get diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The very same day, an apocalyptic disaster hits. Her combat superpower awakens, but I get nothing. Mom doesn't hesitate to hide me in an abandoned clinic on the edge of town. Owen Ward, my older brother, tearfully fences off the clinic with metal bars. My fiancé, Andrew Harris, looks heartbroken as he clutches my hands through the metal bars. He says he would rather die with me than live alone. Touched by their reactions, I burst into tears. I don't want to add to their trouble, so even when my body racks with pain, I bear it in silence all by myself. When I run out of supplies, I rely on dirty water from the ground to keep myself going. Before long, the agony of my condition makes it hard for me to even breathe. I can't even take a few steps without stumbling. It is at this point that I remember what my doctor told me. "If you don't receive treatment in time, I'm afraid you won't survive for long." Knowing that I don't have much time left, I use every bit of strength I can muster to climb over the walls and escape the compound. I don't want to be a burden anymore. I want them to give up on me. To my absolute shock, I see people walking along the streets and going about their lives, looking perfectly fine. The supermarket is operating as normal, too. When I reach the chapel in the heart of town, I see a wedding ceremony taking place. Andrew carefully puts a ring on Eliza's finger, while Mom watches with a tearful but joyous smile. "Ellie has finally married the man she loves. She won't have any more regrets in life," Mom says. Owen also has a contented smile on his face. "Once the ceremony is over, we should tell Sophia the truth. We only did this to fulfill a dying person's wishes anyway. I'm sure she'll understand." Mom frowns. "But didn't Sophia also get diagnosed with—" Owen shakes his head, his tone indifferent as he reassures her, "She's always been in perfect health. Why would she be sick? It's just one of her schemes to get attention because she's jealous of Ellie." This is how I find out that the so-called apocalypse is just a lie they concocted to fulfill Eliza's wishes. Right from the very beginning, they have only ever believed that she's the one who's sick. But this doesn't change the fact that I'm about to die.

For as long as I can remember, I know I'm nothing more than a stand-in for my deceased older sister, Jenna Lockwood. The day before starting elementary school, Mom and Dad take me to buy a backpack. With a wide smile, Mom asks me, "Blue or red—which one do you want?" When I choose blue, Mom's expression changes instantly. She clamps her hands onto my shoulders and screams hysterically at me, "Why didn't you choose red? Jenna would only ever choose red!" Dad slaps me right across the face when he sees that Mom is having another episode. The blood running from my nose is a glaring, bright red. From then on, I don't dare to pick anything except the red items Jenna would have liked. Once, while playing with my classmates, some glue gets stuck in my braid, so my teacher kindly cuts it off for me. But when Mom comes to pick me up, she completely loses it. "Jenna has long hair. You're not my daughter!" She shoves me off the back of the bike, and I run after her, crying. It takes me half an hour to get home. To avoid triggering Mom any further, I begin imitating Jenna in every way. It's not until after the SATs, and I get named top scorer, that Mom demands I apply to a vocational college near our home. "Jenna was accepted to this same college back then. You have to go!" My teacher calls to reason with her, but Mom shuts her down with a few sentences. "If Jenna hadn't died, Jennifer would never have even been born. She wouldn't have had the chance to be the top scorer at all!" As I watch her spiral into hysterics, I suddenly feel that everything is meaningless. Since I have to imitate Jenna in every way, then I have to ensure I meet the same ending she had at 18—death by drowning.

On the day the SAT scores came out, I got a perfect 1600. My older sister’s expression instantly darkened, and she locked me in the basement. Just because our cousin scored 200 points lower than me, she ordered people to drive two hundred nails into my body. I kneeled on the ground and begged for mercy, but my sister remained entirely unmoved. One hundred and ninety-nine nails were driven deep into my flesh. The final nail was slammed straight into my heart. My sister looked at me in my weakened state. Her voice was cold. "You deserve this! You have the love of Mom, Dad, and me, but Zachary lost his parents at a young age and has been all alone. You are already happy enough, but you just had to score higher than him to humiliate him! "Your life has been too easy. Today, I am going to make you feel true agony!" I lay there as my strength faded. My spirit was completely broken. To comfort our cousin, my sister rented a luxury yacht for him for an entire month. When our parents were about to return to the country to celebrate my success, my sister finally ordered her men to release me. That was when she received a frantic phone call from the housekeeper. "The hospital has delivered Mr. Steven's death certificate!"

I'm cursed with the most deadly spell of the werewolf pack—leaving me with only a month left to live. However, no one in my family knows about this. Ever since they'd adopted Natali Fisher, an orphan who greatly resembles my older sister, they've poured all their love and attention into her—and stopped caring about me. And at that very moment, I'm curled up in a corner of the woodshed, with blood steadily dripping from the corners of my lips. Dad, Mom, and my older brother, Kent Greene, probably think that I'm throwing another tantrum and am deliberately hiding from them. But that isn't the case this time. They are currently outside cooking Natali's favorite mushroom soup in the courtyard. Their happy laughter fills the air, painting the picture of a warm, loving family. Maybe I could even believe this is a happy family if I weren't about to die soon.

My mother is a hospital director. To give my brother, an intern doctor, more hands-on experience, she assigns him as the lead surgeon for my brain tumor operation. I beg her to let someone else do it and tell her it's my only chance at survival. But she slaps me hard across the face and screams, "How did I raise such a selfish, ungrateful child? Your brother has just started his internship—can't you help him improve his skills? Is that too much to ask?" Later, the surgery fails. I die on the operating table. And my mother seems to have aged decades overnight.

My younger brother had stage four kidney cancer. Our parents demanded that I donate a kidney to save him. I told them I only had one kidney left. The transplant would kill me. Instead of listening to me, they forcibly strapped me to the operating table. “It’s just one kidney! Stop being so selfish!” they yelled. They did not care that I was telling the truth. Years ago, I had given my other kidney to save my father after his car crash.

On New Year's Eve, my little sister, Lily Brooks, begged me to play hide-and-seek with her. The moment I finished counting to thirty with my eyes covered, the eraser in my brain started working again. I stood frozen for a few seconds, then turned around, went back inside, and started watching TV. An hour later, Mom crouched in front of me. "Sweetheart, where's your sister?" My sister? I blinked. "I don't have a sister." Mom's expression changed instantly. Nobody even touched our New Year's Eve dinner. Everyone rushed out into the heavy snow to look for her, but no matter how hard they searched, they couldn't find her. Mom raised her hand and slapped me hard across the face, her eyes red with anger. "Didn't I tell you to stay with Lily and keep an eye on her? I told you not to let her out of your sight! Where is she now? Which way did she go? Answer me!" I was shoved to the ground, landing in the snow and ice. "Why couldn't it have been you who got lost, you stupid girl? It's not like you'd remember anything anyway! "You forgot Lily this time. What about next time? Will you forget your dad and me, too?" Mom charged at me again, ready to hit me, but Dad stopped her. They kept crying. I felt awful, too. That's right... Why couldn't it have been me who got lost, the stupid girl who couldn't remember anything?

In my sophomore year of college, my family went bankrupt. My mother was diagnosed with cancer, while my father was diagnosed with depression. Without hesitation, I dropped out of college and took on the responsibility of supporting them. I went from being the privileged heir to the Lawson family fortune to an exhausted laborer barely scraping by almost overnight. My skin grew tan from working under the sun. My hands became covered in calluses. Eventually, prolonged exposure to toxic levels of formaldehyde at one of my jobs gave me leukemia. I refused treatment and kept the diagnosis from my parents. Instead, I worked harder than ever. I was not afraid of dying. I was only afraid that I would die before I had saved enough for their surgeries. One morning, after coughing up a mouthful of blood, I took a cab straight to work. Just as I had intended, I died at my desk, leaving my parents with a strong claim for compensation from the company. However, after my death, I saw them living happily in a luxury home downtown, doting on a little girl who looked about ten years old. It turned out that my family had never gone bankrupt and that neither of my parents had ever been sick. The entire ordeal had been nothing more than a test they had devised for me.

When Mom is pregnant with me, Dad has an affair. The happy family that my older sister, Zara Johnson, once has falls apart after my birth. From then on, my parents become a couple who splits the bills. They keep track of every penny they spend raising me in a cold and calculated manner. By the time I'm undergoing my third round of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with cancer, they've been arguing nonstop. "This good-for-nothing child was conceived in the year you cheated on me. Why should I pay half of his medical bills?" "Because you enjoyed yourself in the process too! If you don't want to pay, then let him die. But don't you dare touch the tertiary education fund I've saved for our daughter!" Frustrated and furious, my parents storm out of the house one after the other. Right then, my illness flares up. I've already run out of pain medication at that point. The pain swallows me whole and even radiates deep into my bones. Clenching my teeth, I gather every penny I've managed to save and beg Zara to buy me more painkillers. She's in a hurry to meet her friends. So, she impatiently stuffs a handful of chewy candies into my medicine bottle before tossing it back to me. "Just take these. Stop pretending you're dying and keep dragging everyone down. I'm sick of looking at you," she says irritably. I stare at the chewy candy I'm holding in my palm. In that moment, my heart shatters into tiny little pieces. Maybe the only way Mom, Dad, and Zara can ever be happy… is if I disappear.

Mom had taken me to a psychological examination for depression. When I filled out the questionnaire, I checked the option saying I felt down and hopeless nearly every day. She frowned and reached out to correct my choice. "How could you possibly feel down and hopeless? Aren't you happy with your life?" The furrow between her brows deepened when she noticed I described myself as having trouble establishing connections with other people. "You've been an outgoing child since you were young, don't you remember? Come on, you need to consider each statement more carefully." If she said so, I would not argue with her. Next, she reminded me that I had never experienced negative thoughts about myself, and I obeyed her. Following that, she told me that I slept like a log at night, so my answer on the questionnaire was that I had no trouble falling asleep at all. I filled out the questionnaire. Almost every answer had easily matched her wishes. Mom picked up the papers to review them. Finally, she nodded in satisfaction. "That's more like it. You should fill it out with more care from the beginning. You don't want to confuse them and have them diagnose you as unhealthy, don't you?" Lastly, I came out as having minimal depression. Mom breathed a sigh of relief. On our way home, I could not help but keep touching the scars hidden under my sleeve. All I could hear was my heartbeat pounding in my ears. My vision blurred, and everything began to fade from my consciousness. Everything had gone blank in my mind. And all that remained was a dead, suffocating silence.

On my birthday, the family's fake heiress threw herself into the sea. She left a suicide note saying she was giving me back my rightful place in the family. I'd already spent every day in the Carter house walking on eggshells, and in a single moment her death dropped me straight into hell. My parents hated me. "We brought you back into this family and gave you everything. Was that still not enough for you? Why couldn't you let her stay?" My brother blamed me. "You were raised in foster care like some wild animal. You don't belong in this family at all. Chloe was the one who begged us to bring you home. Don't you have an ounce of gratitude?" Not one of them mentioned that my life of supposed privilege meant living in the Carter house as Chloe's maid and errand girl. After pleading for me to come home, Chloe beat me, cursed me, and humiliated me whenever no one was watching. Whatever happened, they took her side without question. From then on, they locked me in the dog kennel behind the house, and no one asked about me again. That winter, the housekeeper decided it was too cold to come out and feed me, so I ate snow to fill my stomach. The snow aggravated my already weak stomach, and before long, I developed a high fever. The agony lasted through the entire night before I finally lost consciousness. I never learned whether the fever killed me or whether I froze to death. Not long after I died, Chloe came home.

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.