Plot Twists Imagination 短篇故事與 Homewrecker 小說

On my thirty-eighth birthday, my husband, Hugh Shaw, nearly forty, found the love of his life. He asked me for a divorce. "Mina’s only twenty. She’s sweet and kind, while you’re old and boring." I nodded at my own reflection, looking worn and lifeless. That explained Hugh’s strange behavior lately. He’d started caring about his appearance. He never left the house without putting on cologne, and he bought a bouquet of flowers every day. No matter how busy he was, the first thing he did when he got home was work out at the gym. Before the divorce, Hugh asked me, "Maya, you’ve been a housewife for seven years. Can you really bring yourself to divorce me? Don’t come crying to me later!" I smiled. "I won’t." Because that girl he fell in love with was me at twenty.

In 2300, a virus swept across North America, turning huge numbers of people into zombies and giving a few survivors special abilities. I stayed behind to cover the retreat of my fiancé, Adrian Walker, and the Federal Defense Force from Old Saint Clair. During the fight, a high-tier Mutant bit through my neck. Everyone believed I had died in the Surge. But I hadn't. I had become the Zombie Queen and somehow kept my human mind. I could control nearby low-tier zombies, but my face was ruined, and I could no longer speak. I'd always cared about my appearance, so I couldn't bring myself to return to the human fortress. I hid in the basement of an abandoned lakeside villa, cleaning the engagement ring on my left hand every day with my still-intact right hand. Adrian had put the ring on my finger himself just before the evacuation. Two weeks later, he finally came looking for me. I was so excited that I almost forgot what I looked like now. I was about to step out of the shadows when I saw him by the shattered fountain, placing his black combat jacket around another girl's shoulders. Her name was Erin Bell, an Awakened healer who had recently joined his team. She pointed at the zombies behind me, her eyes lighting up. "Adrian, that high-tier zombie's energy core is so pretty. Can you get it for me? I could make it into a necklace. Everyone at the fortress would be jealous." Adrian adjusted her collar, as if he was worried the cold wind would hurt her. But when he looked at me, his eyes were filled with disgust. To make Erin happy, he ordered his team to search the entire ruined city for the high-tier zombie. He had no idea the monster he was hunting was the fiancée he'd been searching for these past two weeks. I slowly backed into the shadows behind a crumbling wall. Adrian gripped his thunderblade, its blade glowing white in the darkness. I tried to call his name, but only foul black blood came out of my mouth. "A... Adr..."

Ten minutes before the wedding ceremony is about to begin, I receive a disturbing photo on my phone. In it, a man with deeply sunken eyes is crawling on the ground like a dog. He is so skinny that he's nothing more than skin and bones. Meanwhile, my bride, Waverly Suther, is looming over the man on the floor as she gazes down at him with a disdainful sneer. Just as I'm about to block the number of the person who sent me this disturbing prank photo, that person sends me another two messages. "Run away from the wedding! Right now! Don't marry Waverly Suther, no matter what!" "That man on the floor is you ten years from now!"

On my 24th birthday, an app suddenly appears on all the other digital devices in my family except my phone. The one inside that app is another version of me, another Cordelia Winchester. But she's so much better at everything than I am. Mom's bakery has been in the red for three years. "Cordelia" casually tweaks one recipe, and the cakes sell out that same day. Dad has failed to earn his promotion three times. "Cordelia" revises his presentation, and the very next day, his boss grants his promotion. My fiance, Chase Jensen's company is about to run out of cash. "Cordelia" spends ten minutes reworking his pitch deck, and the investors immediately put in another 20 million dollars. From then on, Mom starts asking her how to develop every new dessert. Dad prints out screenshots of everything she says. Even when Chase chooses an engagement ring, he asks her opinion first. On my 25th birthday, before we even cut the cake, Mom suddenly stares at the app and asks, "Does she really have to stay inside the phone?" Dad lowers his voice. "Is there any way to bring her here for real?" Chase taps open customer support. [Apply for a parallel-life exchange?] Customer support replies, [After the exchange, the Cordelia from your world will be sent to the other world. Confirm exchange?] They barely hesitate. I watch as they hit "confirm", my nails digging into my palms and drawing blood. I force a strained smile. "Since you guys adore her so much, I hope you don't regret this." The next second, a red line of notification appears on the screen. [Exchange sequence initiated. Countdown: 7 days.]

The day they threw me into the horde was the same day I planned to propose to Sasha Frost. The crystal-core ring I had bought with every last cent I had rolled across the ground. It was stomped into the mud by someone in the garrison uniform. It was my best friend, Rafe Donovan. "Nico, don't blame me." He looked down at me without a shred of guilt in his eyes. "Sasha deserves better. And you, some deadbeat who talks to corpses, were never going to give her a future." I stared past him at the familiar figure behind his shoulder. Sasha, the woman I had loved for three years, was leaning into Axel Kain, the base commander's son. She did not spare me a single glance. Her eyes were locked on the ring on Axel's finger, forged from an S-class crystal core. It was 10,000 times brighter than my pathetic little stone.

I guided 3,600 souls across the River Styx. I endured the fires of Hell 3,600 times on behalf of the rich and powerful. I turned down 3,600 offers from the King of Hell to be reborn into a life of wealth and privilege. Finally, after I earned enough merit, the King of Hell allowed me to return to the day of my father’s wedding. I shoved my way through the guests and screamed until my voice gave out. “Dad! Don’t marry her!”

When I woke up that morning and happened to glance at the mirror, a scream tore from my throat before I could stop it. Because on the face I had always taken such pride in, there was now a jagged, horrifying scar. As terror gripped me, a cool, detached female voice cut through the air beside me. "What are you shrieking about so early in the morning? Scared by your own ugly face?" I looked up in shock and realized the voice belonged to my girlfriend, Alicia. Only—she wasn't the same girl from yesterday. Gone was the youthful innocence I remembered. In its place, every movement, every glance radiated the allure of a mature woman. The words slipped out before I could hold them back. "Babe… you're gorgeous…" But Alicia's brows knit together, her gaze colder than ice. "Kurt, drop the act!" Act? I was at a loss. Why would she accuse me of pretending? "Don't call me the way you used to five years ago. It's disgusting." Five years ago? But… I'm still twenty-three… am I not?

At my wedding with my childhood sweetheart, Zoe Sutherland, I see live comments in front of my eyes all of a sudden. "This is so funny! The male supporting lead doesn't even know that the bride is a fake one! The actual female lead, Zoe, is actually keeping the male lead company in the hospital!" "It doesn't matter who the bride is! The female lead just wants to get married for the sake of her company's funds! After all, this story is about childhood sweetheart losing to the true love who's come out of nowhere!" "The female lead will end up screwing the male supporting lead's life over. Jeez, now I feel a little bad for him." Concealing the shock in my eyes, I go through the rest of the wedding while pretending to be kept in the dark about the truth. I don't want to become the stepping stone that will tie the two main leads together as the cannon fodder who dies a horrible death. Since Zoe doesn't want to marry me at all, I might as well marry the fake bride for real.

I had just found out I was a perfect match and was preparing to donate a kidney to my wife’s foster brother. That night, he left his iPad in the living room, and the screen lit up with a chat history between him and a doctor. “Doctor Evans, whatever you do, don’t tell my brother-in-law,” the message read. “If his kidney is removed, his hidden heart condition will flare up, and he won’t last three months.” The next day, I decisively canceled the donation. My wife was furious, calling me cold-blooded and forcing me to sign a divorce agreement that left me with absolutely nothing. A day later, I overheard his smug laughter from outside his hospital room. “He’s so stupid,” Boyd said. “I just photoshopped a fake chat log, and he actually believed he was sick. Now, we’ve stolen his luxury penthouse, and we can finally be together out in the open.” My wife kissed him. “Good boy. I’ll buy you a better kidney on the black market later.” Standing outside the door, I sneered. Of course, I knew the record was fake. After all, I had just reincarnated from the future. In half a month, a zombie apocalypse would strike, and this toxic pair of secret lovers would not only steal my medicine but also throw me to the undead. This time, with only three days left before the city is overrun by zombies, I want to see something. I want to see exactly how many days a sick bastard without a kidney transplant and a heartless woman without any survival supplies can last inside my luxury penthouse.

After successfully completing the mission, I return to my original world. I awaken from my vegetative state to find my now-grown children waiting at my bedside. My husband pulls me into a tight embrace. My parents and mother-in-law are overcome with tears of joy. Just as I'm about to say goodbye to the System and choose to remain in my original world, a woman who looks almost exactly like me pushes open the door. My children rush over to her, calling her "Mommy" affectionately. Everyone looks at me awkwardly. The woman gives me a provocative smile. I stop the System. "Let me think about whether I want to stay here."

At a private spa retreat, my husband’s assistant brought me a glass of iced coffee. I was parched and about to drain it when a stream of comments appeared before my eyes. [Drink it, you wicked villainess! The coffee is laced with enough sleeping pills to knock you out. Don’t ruin the leads’ big moment!] [I’m dying. The male lead is sleeping with his sister-in-law right under the villainess’ nose.] [The leads are all over each other in the sauna! This is getting spicy!] Suspicious, I lowered the glass, and the comment stream erupted. [Why isn’t the villainess drinking it?!] Were they calling me the villainess? I glanced toward the sauna, then walked straight over to it. I pulled a floor cushion over, sat down outside the steaming wooden door, and called to a staff member, “Excuse me, could you turn up the heat? I want to sit here and sweat it out.” [What?! No! Our precious leads are going to be cooked alive!]

A serial killer targeted me. My sister-in-law was assaulted and murdered while trying to save me. Not only did I refuse to call the police, I pushed my father-in-law and mother-in-law down a flight of stairs when they came to help. I even helped the killer destroy the evidence. When my husband learned that his entire family got killed, he broke down in tears. He grabbed me by the collar and demanded, "Why? Why would you do this?" I deliberately waved photographs of his family's gruesome deaths in front of him and burst into laughter. "Why?" I sneered. "Because they deserved it." My parents begged me to cooperate so I wouldn't be sentenced to death. Instead, I publicly severed all ties with them. Meanwhile, the murderer who escaped justice struck again, claiming another victim. As public outrage reached its peak, I was selected for the Memory Extraction Program. Before the sentence was carried out, my husband asked me one final time, "The Memory Extraction System is still a prototype. You could die during the procedure. "Tell us the truth now, and there's still a chance to make things right." I slowly raised my head to look at him. "You're not getting a single word out of me." The crowd instantly erupted. People shouted that a worthless life like mine deserved to die. But when my memories were finally extracted, they were the ones crying and begging someone to save me.

My answers were a 100% match with my younger brother, Jacob Scott's, answers for 20 consecutive major exams. No matter how fast I completed my exam papers, he would always manage to complete his one second ahead of me. My class teacher had talked about this to me three times, and I was given a warning for cheating. When my classmates saw me, they said, "Hey, copycat, did you get caught again?" How could our answers be the same when I had never touched his papers at all? This continued until our SATs, when I suddenly saw a live chat overlay floating in the air. [Jacob is the chosen one. It must feel great for him to suddenly have the power to read minds! [He's been getting all the right answers by reading Jonah's mind. It doesn't matter that Jonah is a genius when he's relegated to a stepping stone for Jacob's road to success!] When I read through the exam papers, I started humming the alphabet song, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G…"

Eight years ago, I was transported into this post-apocalyptic power fantasy novel as the same-named expendable nobody. I had the ability to create a large-scale radiation shield that could block zombies. I was the only S-Rank ability user in the entire colony. But because my younger brother, Samuel Grant, failed to awaken his ability, my only purpose became providing him with "upgrade materials." I tried to fight against the story and refused to hand over my crystal core. But the story's inertia twisted everyone's minds. My parents accused me of working with the Zombie King just so they could forcefully transplant my crystal core into Samuel. My ex-wife, Chloe Carter, went even further. While I was unconscious, she personally cut open my chest and took half of my crystal core. I survived. But my spine was severely damaged. My ability circuits were destroyed. I became a cripple who could never stand again. After I was released from prison, I could only work at a chemical protection laundry plant on the outer edge of the colony. Then, a mutant zombie horde carrying extreme radiation surrounded the colony. The old shield generator was burned out by the radiation. Suddenly, my entire family knelt in the dirty wastewater and begged me. "Ethan, you're the only one who can manually guide the remaining power in your ability to repair the shield! You have to save Samuel! He's still fighting on the front lines!" Sitting in my wheelchair, I pointed at the eight-inch scar across my chest. Then I pointed at my withered legs. "The crystal core is inside Samuel's body. My broken spine is buried in the mud under your feet. I can't even stand anymore. And you want me to go into the radiation zone? Are you hoping to watch me die?"