Scumbag Imagination 단편 소설 & 소설

On the third day of our captivity in the abandoned cannery, Adrian finally found me with his private security team. I clutched five-year-old Leah in my arms and stumbled toward the light. My coat had long since been torn to shreds, the soles of my feet were mangled by broken glass, and Leah curled against my chest, burning up with fever. Vera looked relieved to see me alive, but then suddenly turned and walked toward the kidnappers. "Vera, come back!" My voice was already hoarse from screaming. "They won't keep their word even after they get the money. Leah still has a fever. We need to call the police and get her to a hospital!" Adrian wrapped his arms around me from behind, his voice almost breaking. "They added a last-minute condition. They won't release you and Leah unless another woman stays behind. Vera volunteered to trade herself for your freedom." Several masked men shoved Vera into an SUV. Through the window, she gave me a reassuring smile before the door slammed shut. I ran after them screaming, but my legs gave out and I fell into the mud. Adrian barely glanced back at me before ordering the driver, "Take Elena to the hospital. I'll bring Vera back." I clutched Leah to me, on my knees in the cold wind, haunted by the beatings, threats, and darkness of the past three days. I couldn't bear to imagine what Vera would suffer in my place. Leah suddenly wrapped her arms around my neck and whispered, "Mommy, I heard Daddy's thoughts again. "He said the show is finally over. Now Vera can be the real Mrs. Cole without feeling like she owes you anything." So the kidnapping was real. The injuries were real. Only the so-called rescue and exchange were fake. I coughed up blood, and over Leah's terrified cries, I heard a mechanical voice I hadn't heard in ten years. [Host, do you wish to abandon your original world and remain permanently in the current world?]

After failing to win over the professor, I went back to my own world. But a year later, the system that made the deal with me came back in tears, begging me to return. It said my target—that cold-blooded psychology professor—was trying to destroy the entire world just to see me one more time. I said no. How could he lose his mind over losing me? His heart had always belonged to his stepsister Vivienne. For Vivienne's sake, he'd dropped me more times than I could count and left a trail of damage behind. Then the system sweetened the offer. Only three months. Come back, and when it was over, it would not only return my feelings but pay me a hundred million on top. So I went back to Sebastian with no emotions left to hurt. I stopped calling him Daddy and started calling him Professor. And somehow, that made him fall apart completely.