Freak Short Stories & Novels

On a rainy day, I gave my pregnant neighbor a ride home since it was on my way. As a result, she became clingy and started insisting I drive her home every day. When I refused, she teared up and accused me of lacking compassion. Her husband even showed up at my door, demanding, "Why won't you take my wife to and from work? Are you looking down on us?" In the end, I sold my car and moved to a new place. If I couldn’t afford to offend them, at least I could avoid them!

After my adoptive parents finally find their biological son, Jason Miller, he decides to turn our lives into a full-blown drama about the real heir versus the imposter in a wealthy family. He has security cameras installed all over the house for no apparent reason, not even sparing the bathroom. One day, while he's showering, an electrical fault in one of the cameras sends a shock through him and lands him in the hospital. His eyes blazing with anger, he accuses me of trying to get rid of him to our parents and insists on calling the police. On another occasion, when we have dinner at a hotel, he slips and falls into the swimming pool, then tries to drag me in with him. He claims I've pushed him into the water and that if he hadn't reacted quickly enough to pull me in, I would have killed him. While our parents are out paying our hospital bills, he shoots me a vicious glare and hisses, "Let me tell you something. I'm not like those other idiots who just swallow their pride and put up with everything. You can't fool my parents about who you really are!" He then swears, "I'll make sure you get kicked out of this family." I sneer inwardly. Does this poor idiot really have no idea? I'm the one who's built this family's fortune from the ground up! If I walk away with the wealth I've earned, he won't be much of a rich kid anymore.

When I was eight years old, Kieran Blackwood, Alpha of the Ironwood Pack, saved me from a rogue wolf den. He adopted me and said he would protect me for life. When I was twelve, I met Beta Ryan Cross. He treated me as her own sister and also promised to protect me for life. But later, these two men who swore to guard me forever pushed me into the flames with their own hands. All to please their childhood sweetheart. But when I ran away from Ironwood Pack, the Alpha and Beta both went crazy.

On my wedding day, my groom's sister, Nadia Lawson, wears an elaborate ball gown and comes on stage to snatch the emcee's microphone. Before all the guests, she arrogantly says to me, "Can't you see the princess is here? Why didn't you curtsy and greet me? You deserve to be punished! Get on your knees and prostrate yourself before me as an apology!" My expression sours at her insolence. I turn around only to see the indulgent expressions on her parents' faces. The groom, Bowen Lawson, says dotingly, "We spoiled Nad silly since she was a child. You are her sister-in-law now. Don't make things hard for her." I am so mad that I can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. The clown thinks she's a princess, asking me to kneel before her? Ridiculous.

My ex-husband was dead, and when his wife called me, it was not to inform me about the funeral. She wanted my six-year-old daughter to stand vigil for her father at the funeral parlor. “People will talk if his daughter does not do it.” I was away on a business trip, and I had to ask my ex-husband’s sister to look after my daughter. That lasted until two in the morning, when my daughter left voice messages on her smartwatch. “It’s cold, Mommy. There are so many drawers. It looks like someone is lying inside. The door is locked. I can’t get out.” She was locked inside the mortuary refrigerator at the funeral parlor. Her pediatrician had said that if a six-year-old remained in forty degrees Fahrenheit for more than four hours, their organs would start to fail.

I was making a delivery to a rural village when a mob of villagers suddenly swarmed my truck. They surrounded the vehicle, pried open the cargo hold, and started looting everything inside. “We hit the jackpot this time! A whole truckload of flour! This is enough to feed everyone for ages! Grab it!” The cargo door was forced open, and white sacks spilled all over the ground. The villagers went insane, snatching my cargo like starving wolves. They divided it up without the slightest hesitation. I was pinned to the ground, my mouth clamped shut by someone’s hand. All I could do was watch as they stripped the truck clean. But what I was transporting wasn’t flour at all. It was a highly restricted agricultural pesticide powder. The kind no one was supposed to touch.

Despite my parents' objections, I stay by Julian Grant's side for ten years. He goes from having nothing to building his own empire. The moment it's time to fulfill our ten-year promise, I proudly tell my parents I'm going to marry him. But then, he gives the vice president position meant for me to another woman. I confront him only to overhear a woman's hesitant voice behind the door. "Mr. Grant... you gave me the VP role, but what about Ms. Jones? Aren't you two getting married?" Julian's tone is cold and sharp, though his face is calm and unaffected. "Noelle's been with me for ten years. Who else would even want her? Relax—she won't dare make a scene." The words hit me like a slap to the face. Without another word, I turn and make a call to my arranged marriage contact. "Are you free?" I ask. "Let's get married."

The company manager, Elton Baldwin, wants to promote my best friend, Lacey Donnovan, at work. In my past life, I, Giselle Ashford, told Lacey not to accept his offer. But after she realized that someone else got promoted in her place and even doubled her salary overnight, Lacey got extremely jealous. She conspired with her boyfriend, Xavier Pugh, to push me off the top of a building, cursing at me and saying, "You jealous bitch! You've always hated seeing me do well, and now you cost me such a good opportunity!" When I open my eyes again, I realize that my world is no longer a shattered one with crimson blood in my eyes. Instead, Lacey's inquisitive face appears before me. She asks, "What do you think, Giselle? Do you think I should grab this opportunity?"

My husband's first love was scalded by boiling water. To punish me, he forced me into a customized steamer half my height, turned the heat to its highest setting, and sealed me inside. "I'll make you feel the pain Jessica suffered a thousand times over!" Trapped in the suffocating space, my breath came in ragged gasps. Heat seared my skin, and my body felt as though it would melt. I sobbed, begging him for mercy. "Please! I'm going to die!" But he didn't look back. Holding his beloved in his arms, he walked away. He even locked the door after he left the room. "Don't worry, you won't die. This is the only way you'll understand Jessica's pain." Despair swallowed me whole. I screamed, my voice raw, but the boiling water beneath me splashed up, scalding my skin, stealing even the strength to cry. He left the country with Jessica that same night. A week passed before he finally remembered my existence. "That wretched woman must have learned her lesson by now. Let her out." What he didn't know was that the water had long since boiled away, the heat had faded, and inside the steamer, my corpse lay rotting—swarmed with maggots.

I ran into my boss when I was complaining to my best friend about how he actively made the workplace hostile for me. He fired off a barrage of questions, "Where's the annual report? Where's the script for the speech? I can't believe you have the gall to enjoy a meal when you have a mountain of work to do!" That was it. I slammed the table. "It's due tomorrow! What's the rush? Are you going to hold a funeral for yourself tomorrow?" My boss stormed off in a huff. I asked for the bill, but the waiter came with two. My table came up to 60 dollars, but the other ran up to 3,750. "Your boyfriend said you're paying for both. Cash or credit, miss?" Shawn Goodall put that impossible bill on my tab and called himself my boyfriend? Unbelievable! I called him, utterly incensed. Yet, he had the gall to say, "Get the receipt and claim it from finance." Then, he hung up. The waiter was going to call the cops if I didn't pay up, so I had no choice but to accept this bitter defeat. I was trying to claim the money the next day, but the cops arrested me instead. "Shawn Goodall died at midnight and was found in his house. You're his girlfriend and the last person he met. You're coming with us."

On my third day at the company, my supervisor suddenly patted me on the head. “Anna! I saw you won the lottery! I’m giving you a chance to make a good impression. The day after tomorrow, I’ll get everyone together for a private party aboard the luxury yacht Black Pearl. It’ll be your treat, of course!” Before I could even decline, Sarah was already rattling on. "There are over a dozen people in our department. We'll need at least ten bottles of XO, Australian and Boston lobster for everyone to pick from, and we all need terrace suites." “You can afford a little thing like that, can’t you, Miss Moneybags?” I frantically tried to explain that the ticket was one I'd bought for someone else. I didn't have any money at all. But Sarah just shot me a look of pure contempt and walked away. That night, the work group chat exploded. She announced to the entire group, "To celebrate Anna winning the lottery, we're having a blowout bash on the Black Pearl the night after tomorrow! Everyone sign up!" Over fifty people jumped on the list within seconds. Even the cleaning lady signed up with her three grandchildren in tow. "Oh my God, our parties are usually just drinking beer in someone's apartment. We've never been on a luxury yacht! Thank you, Sarah!" Sarah's private message came through. "Anna, I noticed the account you used to claim the lottery ends in 0663. The club booking is already confirmed. We're counting on you, Miss Moneybaaags~" I stared at the booking screenshot she sent, breaking into a cold sweat. That lottery ticket was one I'd claimed on behalf of the company's CEO!

The butler's son took my secondary credit card and burned through my money so he could play the part of a trust-fund prince everyone envied. He made me, his employer's real daughter, bring him lunch every day and run errands for him. In front of his classmates, he smeared me as his family's servant and a desperate girl chasing after him. He even stole my family's heirloom jewelry to impress the campus belle. I finally hit my limit. I decided to give him a lump sum and cut ties completely, treating it as payment for the life-saving favor he once gave me. But after I brought it up, he and his father poisoned my family's food and seized every bit of our property for themselves. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my college classroom. Facing the butler's son, who was still flashing the wealth he stole from me, I took his card and cut it in half. "If you keep pretending like this, your butler dad's salary won't cover the act."

My mother-in-law threatened to teach me a lesson about wasting money. While I was visiting my parents, she planned to team up with my sister-in-law and livestream themselves dumping my expensive skincare serum, worth thousands of dollars, down the toilet. "Once a woman gets married, she should learn to be frugal and take care of her household! This stuff is ridiculously expensive. Today, I'm dumping every last drop just to hear it splash!" "My sister-in-law is so vain! Mom is teaching her how to be a good wife!" "Going live at 2 pm sharp! We are cleaning out that wasteful woman's vanity!" The moment I saw the announcement in the family group chat, I started panicking. I immediately called my husband, Chester Lloyd, and begged him to stop them. "Stop your mother! Don't let her pour the stuff in those bottles by the sink down the toilet!" Chester sounded completely unconcerned. "What am I supposed to do? My mom can't stand watching you waste money. "They are just a few bottles of skincare products. So what if she dumps them? Why get upset with an older woman over something so trivial? "Once you learn to stop wasting money and start living frugally, I will buy you a cheaper set." I was frantic. "But ..." Before I could finish, Chester hung up and went back to his video game. The problem was, what she had taken was not skincare serum at all. It was highly concentrated industrial sulfuric acid, the kind that could trigger a violent explosion when it came into contact with water.

I get picked up by the cops in the middle of the night for street vending. While questioning me, they pull up my file. One officer eyes me suspiciously through my mask and asks, "What's a Clairefield University graduate like you doing selling stuff on the street at midnight?" I freeze and lean over to look at the file. The ID number matches mine, but the photo has been replaced with one of Madison Bass. That's when it hits me—20 years ago, I was the one who got accepted to Clairefield University! Dazed and numb, I stumble home only to hear my husband, Joseph Gunther, speaking on the phone. "Madison, don't worry. I won't let Lucy interfere with your life. Just go abroad in peace." It's him! Joseph helped Madison steal my identity and my future. My stomach twists. I turn to confront him, to expose the truth. But before I can, he strangles me to death with a belt. "I'm sorry, Lucy. You can't ruin Madison's future…" When I open my eyes again, I'm back in the classroom. Our homeroom teacher is handing out university application forms. This time, I'm taking my life back.

A patient was dying in the ER when my neighbor offered to drive me to the hospital. But the second we hit the highway, she slammed on the brakes and slowed the car to ten miles an hour. I begged her to go faster. Every second could cost that patient their life. She sneered, “In such a hurry to see your lover? Don’t play dumb. I know you’ve been seducing my husband behind my back! “I called him twenty times, and he never picked up. His location is right beside your hospital! “Then I’ll drive as slowly as I want. I’ll make sure you two adulterers suffer every inch of the way.” But when we reached the hospital and she saw who the patient was, she dropped to her knees before me and smashed her forehead bloody.

I am a miserable nurse. During the Halloween season, there was a three day break but I was not given any days off. Upset, I decided to join a game featuring a haunted hospital. There was an old man wrapped in IV tubes chasing after a player. I sprinted forward and shoved him into the chair. After effortlessly jabbing the IV line back in him, I told him off, "It’s just an IV drip, not an action movie. Sit. Down. Move again and I’ll strap you to the chair!" The old man did a double take before blinking in a flustered manner. "Sorry for causing you trouble, ma'am." At night, children ghosts began to run and laugh wildly in the corridor. I grabbed one in each hand and hauled them up. "If you’re not going to stay put in the ward, I’ll give you an injection!" Why did I still have to work in a game? I was so tired. The other players cried out, "Clem! That's a ghost. Are you not scared?" I sneered, "Sorry, but burnt-out workers hold more grudges than ghosts ever could."

Right after my exchange program interview, I become the center of a campus scandal. The headline is brutal. "Top Student Caught Getting Into a Rich Woman's Bentley Late At Night. Did He Earn His Exchange Spot or Sleep His Way Into It?" The post includes a 12-second clip of a middle-aged woman stepping out of a Bentley and opening the door for me. Mark Stone, the campus heartthrob, wastes no time spreading rumors that I'm a sugar baby and that I stole his spot in the exchange program by sleeping my way to the top. Bruce Jagger, my academic advisor, pressures me to give up my spot. Hugo Lawson, my roommate, even packs up and moves out overnight. But Mark isn't done. He publicly challenges me to bring the woman to campus and face him head-on. So, I make one phone call and summon the very woman he's accusing me of sleeping with to come to campus. Everyone expects me to get exposed in front of the whole school. Instead, the woman walks up to me and addresses me respectfully in front of the entire crowd. "Mr. Durham, you called for me?"

My child-free husband went back to his hometown for a funeral, and after he returned, he suddenly wanted me to have a baby. He was one of the best obgyns in the state, so he handled my IVF procedure himself. After more than 160 hormone shots, we finally heard the baby’s rhythmic heartbeats for the first time, which made my usually calm husband tear up. Soon, he tightened every part of my routine, from a strict diet to my schedule, and once my belly started showing, he barely let me get out of bed. I thought he was just being overly protective. But then, right by my ear, I heard a nasty little boy’s voice. [Which player starts their mission inside the womb? And she’s not even my mom!] [Just four more months. My dad will make sure she dies on the operating table so he can keep only his son.] [After that, he’ll bring my real mom back, and my mission will be complete!] I canceled my afternoon checkup immediately as soon as I heard this. Did the system forget to tell him that he wasn’t the only player in this world?

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.

My sister-in-law is eight months pregnant. One day, she gets pushed to the ground and starts bleeding heavily. She's then taken to the hospital right away. As I drive by, I quickly roll up the window and pretend not to notice. I step on the accelerator and speed away. In my past life, though, things were different. The moment I saw her collapse, I sprang into action and took her to the hospital without delay. She was in critical condition. After the heavy bleeding, she developed amniotic fluid embolism. My husband was the city's top obstetrician. Thus, I called him urgently, pleading for him to come straight to the hospital. However, he accused me of jealousy. He was having dinner with his first love's family, after all. He claimed that I was exploiting my sister-in-law's accident to force him to come back. By the time my in-laws arrived, my sister-in-law had already succumbed to the amniotic fluid embolism. Her family blamed me for her death, convinced I had stirred trouble with my husband and brought about her demise. Having just returned from out of town, my brother-in-law believed their accusations without question. Overcome with grief, he stabbed me to death at the funeral. Opening my eyes again, I realize I've been transported back to the very day my sister-in-law is knocked down.