Reborn Short Stories & Freak Mind Reading Novels

My name is Margaret Turner. After my daughter, Sarah McDowell, becomes pregnant, I am shocked to find that I can hear the thoughts of the baby in her womb. "Grandma, please don't let Mommy get the prenatal checkup! If they learn I'm a girl, Dad will make her get rid of me. I don't want to die!" I can't believe what I'm hearing. Knowing that my son‑in‑law, Jeremy O'Brien, works at a hospital and can use his connections to learn the baby's gender, I do everything in my power to keep Sarah from being examined. But three months later, doctors confirm that Sarah's baby has a congenital deformity and is fated to be born disabled. Sarah is devastated, and guilt consumes me. Suddenly, I hear my granddaughter's voice again. "It's all because of Dad. He cheated with that nurse and returned home soaked in her cheap perfume. As soon as Mommy breathed it in, I was fated to come into the world deformed. Poor Mommy…" Rage explodes inside me. Without a second thought, I storm into Jeremy's workplace, determined to catch him in the act. I don't expect to walk in on a critical heart surgery he is performing. My intrusion throws the room into chaos, and the patient dies on the operating table. The patient's family loses control, and they cause a violent scene in the hospital. In the mayhem, Jeremy is killed on the spot. When Sarah learns what I've done, she is consumed by rage and declares she wants nothing more to do with me. At that moment, my granddaughter's voice echoes in my mind once more. "Mommy is heartbroken and needs time to heal. Grandma, please don't make things worse. Mommy will be okay after she rests." Hearing this, I force myself to stay calm. But that very night, word arrives that Sarah has thrown herself into a river and ended her life. Shattered by grief, I eventually make the same tragic choice. As my final breath fades, my granddaughter's chilling laugh echoes in my ears. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the day her voice first crept into my mind.

Petra Winslow was the universally acknowledged ice queen of our research institute, and she claimed she could hear what animals were saying. When our convoy was passing through Greyridge bear territory, she suddenly called for us to stop and pointed at a bear by the roadside. "It says it's starving. Let's get out and feed it. I can hear its thoughts. Trust me, it won't hurt us." In my last life, I had refused without hesitation. "That's a Greyridge bear, not some housecat. It'll tear through you like you're made of paper." The team backed down. Later, when news broke that the bear had died, Petra publicly blamed me for it. "I told everyone that the bear was starving, and he stopped us. He's the one who killed it." The internet tore me apart, and Petra's followers stabbed me to death. When I opened my eyes again, there it was on the other side of the windshield, a skeletal Greyridge bear standing by the road. Petra's eyes glistened with tears. "The poor thing. If we don't feed it now, it'll starve to death." The others turned to me. "Come on, Petra said it's hungry, so it's hungry." "Don't chicken out on us." I pulled the car over, reached for my seatbelt, and clicked it tight. "Sure. I'm all for it. Go right ahead."

My sister-in-law, Esmerelda Black, hates that her mother, Ruth Jennings, favors me. To make things worse, she has the ability to hear Ruth's thoughts. And she uses that gift against me. When I tell Ruth to have more vegetables to stay healthy, Esmerelda says, "Clara is such a cheapskate not to buy you meat. She doesn't ask her own mom to eat more vegetables." When I encourage Ruth to exercise more to build strength, she says, "Mom, you're already old. You should be taking it easy. Clara wants you to work yourself to death." Slowly, Ruth grows to hate me. In the end, Esmerelda acquires the family business, seizes the fortune, and trafficks me to North Maldia to die. However, when I open my eyes again, I have her gift too—I can also hear Ruth's thoughts.