Melodramatic Imagination Short Stories & Mistress Novels

My CEO girlfriend promised to marry me if only I handed over my billion-dollar-worth project to her first love. I agreed without hesitation. Yet on the day we were supposed to make things official, she never showed up. I called her 99 times, but she didn't pick up once. Just when I was about to give up, I saw a post from her first love on social media, featuring a picture of them holding their newly issued marriage license. [From school uniforms to wedding vows. A love that never changes.] I quietly liked the post without making a scene. Moments later, my long-lost girlfriend finally called back. "Cyrus got into a car accident trying to save me, and he lost his memory. The doctors say he needs emotional stimulation to recover. Don't worry, though. Once he gets better, we'll get married. You're the one I love most." What she didn't know was that there would be no future for us. The moment she stood me up at City Hall, the system I'd bound myself to declared my mission a failure. I had seven days left. After that, I would be completely erased from existence.

Everyone in Chama Bay knew that the mafia boss, Dakota Thomas, loved me with her whole being and was terrified I would leave. She would walk through a field of bullets to keep me safe. Yet, on our wedding night, she did not even come home. When she got back, she was holding a weak and dark-lipped man and said, “Jackson, Pierce got poisoned to save me. I can’t watch him die!” Worried that I would not forgive her, she cut six gashes into her arm. Blood stained her shirt. When the wedding ended, I heard her underlings teasing her. “You went to see Pierce before even taking off your wedding dress. How tempting must that man be?” Dakota let out a low chuckle. “The last time I was with him, we didn’t leave the house for three whole days. So, what do you think?” I was stricken and summoned the system in despair. [I wish to leave this universe.] The system’s cold voice sounded. [Once you depart from this universe, all memory of you will cease to exist.] [Counting down: Seven days until universe departure.]

Ruby Monroe's memory resets every three months, back to the day she hates me the most. She breaks my hand again and again to get revenge for her adopted son, Ricky Smith. She also loses her memories again and again after proposing to me beneath a sky full of fireflies. I live through our story over and over, waiting for the day she finally remembers everything. Until one day, I accidentally overhear her talking to her friends. "Ruby, how long are you going to keep this act up? Only a fool like Ricky would believe you really lost your memory. Every time, he gets down on his knees and begs us to play along with him, dreaming that he'll marry you. "In three days, you're going to fake losing your memory again, right? How many times has it been now?" "Nine times." Ruby's cold voice comes through the door. "His food gave Ricky food poisoning and ruined his coming-of-age ceremony. He should be punished!" She pats Ricky's head. "Nobody bullies Ricky!" My heart breaks when I hear her gentle yet cruel words. I never expect that all my years of waiting are just part of her revenge. I wipe away my tears and summon the system. "Cancel our previous deal. In three days, declare this mission a failure and erase all my memories of Ruby."

On my wedding day, I find out my wife has a system that lets her swap two people's lives. Once my love for her reaches its peak, she can make me switch lives with the man she's always loved. She makes me fall for her on purpose, all so she and that man can take everything I own. But after the swap, she comes to me with red-rimmed eyes and begs me to switch back. I smile and shove her away. "It's just cancer. Why should that stop you two from being together?"

For the 999th time, the system in my head issues a warning: [Warning! Your infatuation level has exceeded the safe limit! If you do not leave Eleanor Hayes within one hour, you will be erased!] I look up to find my CEO wife, Eleanor, standing protectively in front of her secretary, Charles Beaumont, in the hospital. He has falsely accused me of stealing his paintings, and she believes him without question. Right in front of me, she slashes the paintings I have spent three years creating and then orders me to apologize to Charles. "You stole Charles' paintings in the first place," she says coldly. "Everything I've done is to make it up to him. All you have to do is apologize. What's so hard about that?" I stare at her in silence as she shields Charles from me. I take a last glance at the paintings I have spent three years creating, then calmly speak to the system in my head. "If this obsession with her is what's causing the problem, then I want the highest level of authorization. Remove all the love I have for her. Immediately." The system replies, "Authorization request received." One hour later, I am cleared to leave the hospital. Eleanor is waiting outside. The moment she sees me, she blocks the door and grabs me, her eyes burning with anger. "Daniel, what kind of game are you playing now?" I look at her calmly. There is none of the anger, hurt, or love I once would have felt. Then I say evenly, "Ma'am, you've unlawfully assaulted me. Would you like me to call the police?"

I was born with a special ability that allowed me to bear other people’s misfortune. As long as I signed my name at someone’s request, I could transfer their suffering to myself. My best friend was frail and sickly, while I was strong and healthy. Whenever she showed the first signs of a cold or fever, she would bring me a note that read: [Please bear my illness for me.] I never hesitated. I willingly signed my name every time, then fell seriously ill for three days. Whenever my boyfriend saw me sick, his face filled with concern, and he repeatedly urged me to stop pushing myself so hard. I only smiled. The next time, I still chose to help my best friend. Then, one day, my boyfriend suddenly proposed to me and gave me a villa as an engagement gift. I solemnly signed my name on the property transfer documents. At that moment, I felt happier than I had ever been. However, that very night, several people dragged me into an alley and gang-raped me. I returned home covered in injuries, only to hear my boyfriend say to my best friend, "I already tricked Lia into signing her name. She’ll take this disaster in your place. Don’t blame yourself. I’ll spend the rest of my life treating her well as compensation."

The day I give birth, I hear my newborn daughter, Kayla Green's voice. "Mommy, Daddy is going to see Ms. Knightley today." Christian Green is standing beside my hospital bed when his phone lights up. A new text message flashes across the screen. The sender's name is Summer Knightley. His thumb hovers over her name for several long seconds before he quietly turns the phone over, hiding the screen from view. "Mari, something urgent came up at the office. I have to go." "He's lying." Kayla's voice doesn't come from the tiny bundle in my arms, but it echoes directly inside my mind. "It's not work, Mommy. He's going to see Ms. Knightley. Her flight lands in two hours. Next month, he'll start transferring all of his assets. The apartment, the savings, the cars. He won't leave us a single thing. "A year from now, you and I will be discarded with nothing." I pick up my phone. "Alistair, I need you to investigate two people—Christian Green and Summer Knightley. I want everything on them."

After my mission failed, I linked myself to the Perfect Partner Program and became Gloria's perfect husband. When rumors about her and Damian blew up, I stepped in and shut them down. When Damian framed me and Gloria said nothing, I rushed to take the blame and apologize. Even after she got pregnant with Damian's child, I didn't fight. Didn't make a scene. I just signed the divorce papers and handed Damian the title of "husband." But she wasn't happy. She shoved me onto the bed, anger burning in her eyes. "Mason, I told you to behave. I didn't tell you to push me away. Are you blaming me now?" I went still, staring up at the woman above me. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

In my seven years of my marriage with the Regent, I had risked my life bearing him five children. Every single one had died. My husband grieved so deeply that he collapsed. He knelt for three days and nights before the chapel in the bitter cold, praying for my well-being. He even spent a fortune to build a memorial tower in my honor. Everyone said the Regent loved his wife more than life itself. But the System's childbearing progress remained stuck at 90%. Then came All Hallows' Eve. I walked to the river alone to float a memorial candle for my fifth child, who had only just passed. What I found instead were four children carrying turnip lanterns, gathered around my half-sister, tugging at her skirts. "Mommy! Daddy said he's lighting a bonfire tonight!" Alaric Montague stood behind her, arms looped around her waist. His expression carried the same tenderness I knew so well. Even my father, as stern as he had always been, was chuckling beside them, more relaxed than I had ever seen him. My mother held a swaddled infant nearby, wiping the corner of the smallest child's mouth. "Odette is too frail to carry children. Thank goodness Alaric came up with a way to swap them." "Watch your words, Mrs. Devereaux," Alaric cut in at once, his gaze turning cold. "Laurel owed this to Odette. The debt is paid. I'll let her keep the next one." I bit down on my lip hard enough to taste blood. In my mind, an electronic tone stirred to life after years of silence. [Laurel, five registered offspring detected alive. Childbearing mission for the heirless Regent is complete.] [Portal activation imminent. Confirm departure?]

When I gave up on my mission and confessed to the existence of the system, my girlfriend, who couldn’t seem to give up on her first love, suddenly agreed to marry me and bear me a child. I thought my sincerity had moved her and excitedly began preparing for the wedding. She, however, tricked me into going for surgery. “You’re on a mission and have unlimited lives. He has end-stage heart failure and is on the verge of death. Don’t worry, after his surgery and recovery, I’ll come back to our family and continue helping you with your mission.” What she didn’t know was that the moment she took my heart away, I had utterly failed my mission and all my memories were erased. One month later, when she called out to me sweetly and asked if I had thought of a name for our baby, I looked at her all confused. “We don’t even know each other. How could we have a baby?”

For ten years, I raised the finest bodyguard money could buy, and for a nanny's daughter, he turned his blade on me. I didn't spare a thought for the years between us. I had his tendons cut, his skills stripped away, and I threw him out of Meridian City. The live comments practically caught fire. [Somebody help, Celeste Ward has gone too far! Julian protected her for ten years, and the one time he didn't put her first, she's going to ruin him?] [This is the kind of love that terrifies me — if she can't have him, she'd rather destroy him. What did Julian even do wrong, trying to save the woman he loves?] [Run, Julian! A viper like her doesn't deserve your loyalty. Go to Amber — she's the one who can actually save you!] Me? Going too far? A traitor who turns on his own mistress for an outsider — if anything, I went easy on him. I gave a cold laugh, tore up his lifetime contract in front of everyone, and had every last one of his belongings burned. Then I went straight to the underground fight club and picked out the meanest, most reckless guy I could find. A month later, word reached Julian. He fought his way through every guard at my gate, half-dead by the time he made it to the door. He dropped to his knees in front of me, eyes rimmed red, clutching the hem of my skirt. "Miss Ward," he said, "that mongrel covered in tattoos — what does he have that I don't?"

When I found out about Kenneth Hale, I didn’t argue with Claire O’Neill. I simply handed her the divorce papers. Her eyes turned red as she sat there. After struggling with the decision for a moment, she tore them up. "Give me ten days. I’ll send Kenneth far away, and he’ll never appear in our lives again." So over the next ten days, Claire went whitewater rafting with him, climbed snow-covered mountains, bungee jumped, and went skydiving. They did every thrilling thing they could think of. They watched the sunrise together by the ocean and went to Silver Pines Retreat to meditate, filling those days with every romantic experience imaginable. Then, on the ninth night, after I had packed all my belongings, I accidentally answered a video call from myself ten years in the past. "You really are me ten years from now! Then Claire and I must already be married with kids, right?" Pain flickered in my eyes. I walked straight onto the balcony and pointed the camera down at Claire and Kenneth, who were holding each other tightly, unable to let go. "This is what happens." Finley Morton looked as if he’d been struck by lightning. "That’s impossible…" My voice was exhausted, as though every last bit of strength had been drained from me. "Finley, please. Don’t marry her."

On the last day before my study-abroad application closed, I was about to give up my full scholarship offer. Then, out of nowhere, I got a call from my future self. "Don't give it up. Click confirm enrollment. Right now." "Harley locked in his own graduate placement three months ago. The only reason he wants you to stay is that Katy needs you to finish her senior thesis for her, and he needs your money every month to live on. "Two weeks after you turn down that offer, the two of them go public with their relationship. "That so-called best friend of yours, Katy? She already betrayed you. She's been sleeping with him." I froze, my finger hovering over the mouse. The voice kept going, speaking faster and faster. "Listen carefully. Once you confirm the offer, take the twenty thousand dollars left in your account and put every cent into the Eklund Growth Fund. It goes public next March. It'll grow eightfold within the year. "Once you're abroad, apply to your advisor's AI lab before your first semester ends. That project gets acquired by Coogle two years from now, and as a core team member, you'll get a share of the payout. "Twenty-two-year-old me, I'm begging you. Stop wasting yourself on people who don't deserve it." The voice cut off. I took a deep breath and moved the cursor to "Confirm Enrollment." The instant I clicked, my mind was made up. I wasn't going to bury my own future for anyone who wasn't worth it.

When Adrian Hale chose Rosalie Quinn for the tenth time, I was hanging helplessly over the cliff’s edge. He clutched a rope in one hand, the web between his thumb and forefinger worn raw and bloody. Rosalie was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe. “Adrian, I’m scared…” He hesitated for only a second before pulling out a dagger and cutting through the rope on my side. “Clara, hold on. I’ll come back for you after I save Rosalie.” The system counted down in my ear. [The tenth abandonment has been confirmed.] [Life countdown: zero.] Before I fell, I didn’t wait for him to turn around like I had the previous nine times. I only smiled at him. “Adrian Hale, we’re even now.”

The day I proposed to Hannah Amell, we discovered that we were characters in a romance novel about a woman destined to save a broken man. She was the heroine, fated to devote her life to redeeming the male lead. I was nothing more than a nobody in the background. Hannah’s eyes had blazed with fury. Defying the fate written for her, she dragged me to the courthouse to make our marriage official, then held a lavish wedding with me. As I held her in my arms, she made me a promise. “Leon, I don’t believe in some stupid book or its ridiculous redemption plot. The only thing I believe in is that I love you.” In the years that followed, everyone saw us as the perfect, devoted couple. I really thought we could spend the rest of our lives happily, growing old side by side. Then, in the third year of our marriage, the novel’s hero got drunk, rode his motorcycle the wrong way down the road, and came hurtling straight toward me. In a split second, I wrenched the wheel aside and slammed hard into the roadside barrier. I was covered in blood. A shard of glass had pierced my heart. Every beat sent another burst of fatal pain through my chest. Hannah, sitting in the passenger seat, was shaken but completely unharmed. She struggled to force open the car door. The moment she saw the unconscious man lying on the ground, all the color drained from her face. “Cedric!” In that instant, the blood in my veins ran cold. Cedric. That was the name of the novel’s hero.

My husband, Ryan Costa, is one of the most renowned scientists in the apocalypse. To retrieve a reagent, he goes deep into the high-risk zone with his secretary, Clara Gibson. I, Alice Ashford, lead an elite squad to protect him all the way. But when a zombie horde besieges us, he refuses to retreat. "With the reagent Clara brings back, I can develop a serum that saves all of humanity! Just ten more minutes! Ten minutes, please!" Ryan insists. I feel torn as I see the zombies closing in. I can't gamble with the lives of my squad on a vague, uncertain sliver of hope. In that split second, I knock Ryan out and drag him onto the helicopter. As a result, Clara dies being torn apart by the zombies. When Ryan wakes up, the first thing he does is slap me hard across the face. He rages, "How can you be so selfish? You've doomed all of humanity!" I am sentenced to be burned at the stake. I die in unbearable pain as the crowd curses me relentlessly. When I open my eyes again, I am back at the moment when Ryan stands in front of the helicopter, blocking our retreat. I am just about to speak when I suddenly hear his inner voice, "Clara should have grabbed her makeup bag by now. Hopefully, she brings something back with her. Otherwise, I'll have a hard time explaining myself to Alice." My mind goes blank, and I stare at him in shock. He smiles at me just like he did in my previous life and asks, "Darling, don't you think we should wait?"

I was teleported to a parallel world by the system. After a decade of waiting, I finally received the news that I could leave. The system gave me seven days to say goodbye to this world. In my final seven days, I became exactly the person Rose Lewis wanted me to be. She and her dream man, Eden Carter, stayed up all night together, but I remained unperturbed. She used all her savings to open a store for Eden, and I happily agreed. She wanted to have a baby with Eden, and I nodded with a smile. Before leaving, I packed my luggage, wanting to bring some things from this world. Suddenly, she pushed the door open, her eyes showing an unprecedented panic. "This is your home. Where are you going?"

At the company's year-end party, a colleague asks me teasingly about when exactly my boyfriend, Hayden Potter, and I will get married. Hayden's female buddy, Melissa Somers, instantly speaks up for him. "He's not in a rush. After all, Hayden's main priority is his career." At first, I don't think much about Melissa's response. But the next thing I know, I suddenly hear her internal thoughts. [Marriage? When Hayden was sleeping over at my place, he promised me that he'd marry me!] I freeze up on the spot before whirling around to stare at Hayden and Melissa. At the moment, Melissa is taking a sip from Hayden's drink through the same straw he just used. Hayden never once looks at me. In fact, he even has an arm wrapped around Melissa's shoulders.

On my hundredth hospital admission, I saw the comments floating across the screen. They revealed that I was the frail supporting character, destined to die young, while my fiancé, Julian Frost, was the male lead. While I was unconscious in the hospital, Julian was busy playing hero to the insecure woman he supporting financially. Even as I was rushed to the ICU and resuscitated, he still had condoms in his pocket for the two of them to use. Everyone in the comments was hoping I would die and set Julian free. Later, just as they wished, I left Julian’s world one spring. But Julian went mad and never escaped that spring for the rest of his life.

One afternoon, I received a text from seven years in the future. The sender was me, Delilah Hanson. I assumed it was some new kind of scam, so I didn't even bother reading the message before firing off an angry reply. [Drop dead, scammer!] The sender responded with a photo of an empty bottle of sleeping pills. [I'm not a scammer, but I really am about to die. Break up with Caleb. Today is the first day he cheats on you. His first love just came back from overseas. Her name is Savannah Gordon.] I froze. The whole thing was so ridiculous that I almost laughed. I was Caleb Wheeler's first love! Right then, the door opened behind me. Caleb walked in with a woman beside him, smiling as he introduced us. "Delilah, there's someone I want you to meet. This is Savannah, my foster sister. She just got back today."