After Death 短篇故事與 Hypocrisy Face Slapping 小說

During the SAT exam, My sister and I both had an emergency at the same time. Overwhelmed by stress, I suffered a heart attack and was on the brink of death. Yet my mom, who was working as an invigilator that day, rushed to tend to my sister—who only had a stomach ache—without a second thought. I begged her to save me. But she kicked me away fiercely. “Can’t you pick the right time to put on a show for attention? If you ruin your sister’s grades, I’ll beat you to death, you beast!” Later, I failed to respond to resuscitation and died in the hospital. Mom collapsed overnight.

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.

All because I talked to a girl from school, my parents decided I was too young to date and sent me to a behavioral correction camp over winter break. I spent 14 days there before they came for me. When Mom reached for my backpack, I flinched and dropped to my knees. "Mom, I'm sorry. I'll carry my own things. Please don't touch me. You're the opposite sex." Her expression soured. "I told you to watch out for girls out there, not treat your own mother like one of them." I kept my head down and said nothing, because responding to the opposite sex was also a violation. On the drive home, Dad noticed me sitting rigid and perfectly still. He laughed, pleased. "Look at him. He's so well-behaved now." "It worked even better than I expected. We'll have our family dinner tonight and send him back in the morning. They need to straighten him out for good." I said nothing. I just turned and looked out the window. There would be no tomorrow. Tonight was my farewell gift to them.

When the prestigious Mercer family finally tracked my brother, Shawn, down, he was digging through a dumpster, trying to scrape together enough bottles and cans to pay for my surgery. He didn’t care about the fleet of luxury cars in front of him. His only condition for going with them was that they had to take me, his blind little sister, along too. However, when we arrived at the Mercer estate, their spoiled daughter, Ava—who was Shawn’s biological sister—looked at the two of us in our dirty, tattered clothes with absolute disgust. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel Shawn's protective arms around my shoulders. He leaned down and whispered, "Don't be afraid, El. I'm right here." With his exceptional talent, Shawn quickly outshone Ava in everything, and before long, her disgust for him turned into worship. However, he also left me far behind. Eventually, I could no longer join in on their conversations, and the younger sister Shawn spoke of was no longer me, but her. The breaking point came on the day he officially took over the Mercer family empire, when Ava and I both fell into the river at the same time. "Ava!" Shawn rushed over from a distance. There was a loud splash as he dove into the water and saved her, forgetting I was even there. My heart sank as I drowned in the water. I didn’t even try to struggle. Shawn lied to me. We were never actually family.

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!"

The day Grandma died, my parents, both of whom had remarried, began arguing over who would have to take me. In the original timeline, I had been concerned about Dad working himself so hard and chose to live with him so that I could be there for him. I even picked the numbers on the lottery ticket that won him a multimillion-dollar jackpot. After he became rich, he bought a nice place and luxury cars for my stepmother and their children. Yet he would not spend a cent on my pain medication. By the time doctors found the tumor in my brain, I could only lie in bed and endure the pain until it killed me. In the new timeline, Dad frowned and sighed again and again. “Your mom married a wealthy businessman. You’ll have a much better life with her. “I already have too many children at home. There just isn’t room for you.” Mom fiddled with her freshly manicured nails and replied indifferently, “That’s not fair. More children just make a home livelier. “My husband runs a very strict household, and the twins from his first marriage are impossible to deal with. “She has always done whatever she wants. They’ll eat her alive if she comes home with me.” Their attempts to push me toward each other no longer stirred any feelings in me. When they finally lost patience and demanded that I choose, I quietly picked up my suitcase and walked over to Mom. Her face immediately darkened. Dad, meanwhile, breathed a sigh of relief. He was unable to suppress a pleased little smile. However, he did not know that without me there to intervene, my stepmother would toss the winning lottery ticket into the washing machine and reduce it to a pile of soggy scraps. Having traveled back in time, I only wanted to live comfortably during whatever time I had left.

When my boyfriend, Caleb Steele, loses his family and everything he has, I walk away. After he makes a comeback, I come to see him every year. The first year, I hold my daughter, Claire Sutton, in my arms. Caleb throws fifty thousand dollars at me and tells me to stay away. The second year, I bring my late-stage cancer diagnosis, and he doesn't even look at it. Instead, he gives me a hundred thousand dollars and tells me to disappear for good. In the third and fourth years, I vanish just as he wants. Then, in the fifth year, he gets a call from Claire. "Mommy, when are you bringing me dinner? I'm hungry."

I have been dating my manager boyfriend, Caleb Frost, for five years. He calls off our wedding 52 times for Gina Lowe, an aspiring actress on the set. On the day I am ready to give up on him and walk away, Gina falsely accuses me of using expired makeup on her that caused an allergic reaction. So Caleb shoves me into a sealed cellar and locks me inside. As he pushes me down, his face is twisted in disgust. "It's one thing to pick on Gina, but to use expired makeup on her and cause an allergy? Do you know how important an artist's face is? "Stay down there and think about your wrongdoings." With that, he drags the crying Gina to the hospital. The cellar's air vent is blocked. Every breath I take grows harder until I suffocate to death inside. Three days later, Caleb remembers me only after attending a gathering with Gina. But little does he know, I am already dead from the lack of oxygen in that dark cellar.

My name is Gabriel Wilson, and my sister is Isabelle Wilson. Growing up, Dad runs our house by making an example out of me. In elementary school, whenever Isabelle misses a single math problem on her homework, Dad forces me to write it out a hundred times. I scribble until my fingers cramp into a knot and I can barely grip the pen, which terrifies Isabelle so much that she stops making careless mistakes altogether. During middle school, Isabelle uses her allowance to buy a ten-dollar bag of snacks for a boy she likes, and the moment Dad finds out, he slashes my monthly allowance from 1,200 dollars down to a measly 200 dollars. For the next month, I survive entirely on cheap, stale bread until I'm rushed to the ER for throwing up bile. Even so, Dad only relents when Isabelle breaks down in tears and promises never to waste another dime. When college rolls around, Isabelle insists on applying to the police academy. Dad tries to talk her out of it, but when he realizes she won't budge, he tells her, "You want to be a cop? Fine. Let me show you what real cops actually have to deal with." He wipes my social security number from the system, stages my disappearance to look like a kidnapping, and dumps me right in the middle of a serial killer's hunting ground. I spend days confined in an abandoned cabin, calling for help until my voice goes hoarse. Blood begins to pool beneath my feet as the serial killer slices my skin with a rusted blade. Back home, Isabelle frantically begs Dad for my tracker. "Dad, please!" she screams. "Just tell me where Gabriel is! I won't join the police force, okay? I'll drop the whole thing!" Even though I'm just on the other side of the wall from them, I can no longer make a sound. My soul drifts in midair as I watch Isabelle collapse onto the floor in despair, sobbing. Dad, I'm done letting you make an example out of me.

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?"

My father, Terence Locke, is covered in mud. He grabs my shoulders desperately, and his eyes are bloodshot. He says, "Emma, my company has gone bankrupt, and I accidentally killed a business rival. You have to run away with me." I believe him. Suppressing my fear, I follow him deep into the untouched mountains. To find food for him, I eat bugs and drink dirty water. When a pack of wolves closes in on our cave, my first instinct is to stand in front of him. "Dad, I'll lure them away. Run!" I look back at him one last time before finally making up my mind to trade my life for his. But after I leap off a seemingly bottomless cliff and fall to a pulp on the rocks below, I somehow "see" him inside a slowly descending helicopter. He is popping a bottle of champagne in celebration. At that moment, I finally understand everything. The whole desperate escape over the past few days that ultimately pushes me to sacrifice my life is nothing more than a reality show staged by him. He is merely putting on a performance, while I am truly dead...

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.

Three days after I died, my fiancé got a call to ID the body. He just scoffed. "She's dead, so what? Call me when she's in the ground." The cops, out of options, hit up my backup contact—my childhood friend. He actually laughed. "She's really gone? Not my problem. Burn her or whatever." Then my body hit the internet— And suddenly, both of them looked like ghosts.

Mom raises me and my brother, Cameron Joyner, by herself after she gets a divorce. Cameron was born with congenital asthma and has to take medication every day. Although I'm healthier, Mom treats me better than Cameron. She always says, "You're the apple of my eye, Cassie. I don't want you to feel troubled because of Cam." From the very beginning of my life, I've always been number one in Mom's heart. However, the year I turn 15, Cameron suddenly disappears. Mom completely changes after he goes missing.

At Greg Jenson’s birthday party, an obituary suddenly created a huge ruckus in our school year’s group chat. “Oh my God, Luanne Lee is dead” “It’s got to be fake news. A bad thing never dies. How could a malicious woman like her die so easily? Back then, she literally took Greg...” Sitting at the head of the table, Greg twirled his phone in his hand, his eyes dark. “It's fake. I just got a call from her this morning. She said she was coming to my birthday party.” However, someone hesitantly held up their phone, showing the screen to the room. “If I'm not mistaken, this person really is Luanne. The memorial service is at the funeral home in the neighboring city. Should we go check it out?” On the screen was a photo of a funeral hall, and there I was, lying peacefully right in the center. Greg’s expression turned to panic. He bolted upright and headed straight for the exit, but the moment he opened the door, he froze dead in his tracks. The deceased ‘me’ was standing right at the doorway. Looking into those deeply familiar eyes, I smiled and said, “Greg, it’s been ten years. I'm here to wish you a happy birthday.”

When our whole family saw the death timer for my sister will end on her sixteenth birthday, she became the most important person in the family. She suddenly took priority in everything, from food to dresses, and even bedtime stories. I felt for her, but I was also jealous that she was given everything. However, a day before her sixteenth birthday, my parents locked me up in the storeroom in fear that I would make a mess of things. I kept hammering the door, crying, "Mom, let me out! I'm having a fever, and my head hurts!" Mom didn't believe me. "Just stop! Your sister will die in just a day, and you're playing sick to gain our sympathy?! Don't you understand anything?!" "No…" I tried my best to argue, only to hear my parents comforting my sister. Eventually, my consciousness blurred, and I heard nothing…

In the chaotic aftermath of a devastating earthquake, I frantically tore through the rubble in search of my missing daughter. Amidst the panic, my phone rang. To my shock, it was my husband calling me from five years in the future. "Valerie, you have to listen to me carefully," Brent Serrano said. "I am the only one who can save the girl." Without a single shred of doubt, I directed the rescue team straight to the coordinates he detailed. Within minutes of digging, the faint, muffled cries of a child echoed from beneath the heavy concrete slabs. Overjoyed, I sobbed into the receiver, "Thank God, Brent! I found her!" On the other end of the line, Brent let out a soft, distant chuckle. "Good. I'm finally fixing my greatest regret." But when the rescue crew hoisted the massive wall of concrete, the one they pulled from the debris wasn't our daughter. It was Zoe—the daughter of his late best friend's widow, whom Brent had taken under his care. As I stood frozen in horror, he breathed a sigh of relief across the timeline. "In my timeline, Madelin was shattered when Zoe died in this disaster. She had no one left but me, and that was the night we finally crossed the line and fell into each other's arms. "I'm sorry, Valerie. I had to use this call to rewrite history for Madelin. Our daughter is trapped on the opposite side of the mall. Hurry, you can still save her." By the time I raced to the other end of the ruins, Brent's voice returned, brimming with smug pride. "See? Told you she'd be here." I lost my voice, staring down at Juliet's cold, lifeless body. Numb with a grief that swallowed the world, I hung up the phone.

When Damian was eighteen, he could barely afford a decent dinner. Still, he spent half his first commission on the cheapest silver ring in the store for me. He slid it onto my finger, his expression stern. "Wear this for now. When I have a real name, I'll get you a better one." I laughed at how cheap it was, then hid my hand behind my back and refused to give it back. Later, he did get a name. He was the Moretti family's long-lost heir, the man destined to lead its vast empire. But I never got that better ring. Five years ago, on the night a gang war broke out, I dragged a badly wounded Damian out of the fire. I never made it out myself. When he woke, huge pieces of his memory of me were gone. Cecilia Russo sat beside his hospital bed and told him I had despised him for being poor, betrayed him, and even sold the location of our old safe house to the enemy. She also told him she was the one who had saved him. Five years later, my ghost appeared in the final family trial he had to face. By then, another wedding ring sat on his hand. Cecilia was his wife. When his memories returned, he lost his mind.

"Ms. Clarke, you have successfully purchased a Final Memories recording package. We have arranged hidden cameras to record you anytime and anywhere. From this moment on, no matter where you go or what you do, everything will be secretly filmed until the day you pass away." The staff member handed the contract to Lila Clarke and asked her to confirm everything one last time. Without hesitation, she signed her name. The reason she ordered Final Memories was because she had been diagnosed with cancer. She had no more than one month left to live.

Jim Hartley, the most respected veteran specialist at Lydian Medical Center, sat for his final interview before retirement. When the host asked if any patient had left a lasting impression on him, he fell silent for a long moment, then let out a heavy sigh. "There is one. My worthless daughter. "She graduated from one of the country's top medical schools, and then threw it all away to be with some penniless nobody. "I only wanted what was best for her future. The night they'd secretly arranged to meet, I locked her in the house and kept them apart. "What I never imagined was that the boy would go on to study medicine himself. These days, he's the youngest oncologist at Fairview General Hospital." A murmur rippled through the studio audience. Sensing an opening, the host pressed further. "If it were happening now, would you still keep the two of them apart?" Jim faltered. His eyes slowly reddened. "It's too late for that. My daughter died of stomach cancer three years ago." The segment went viral the moment it aired, climbing straight to the top of the trending charts. Robbie McAvoy, the story's leading man, had no idea any of it had happened. He'd just wrapped up a critical stomach cancer surgery and was on his way home to meet his wife, Whitney Portman.