Familial Bond Imagination Short Stories & Transmigration Novels

For six months, I pick through trash to scrape together enough money to buy Mom a beautiful dress for her birthday. I can't wait to give it to her. But the moment I hand her the dress, her gentle smile vanishes. She screams, shoves me to the floor, and grabs a chair. She brings it down on me again and again. "Did that monster put you up to this? Did he tell you to give me this dress just to hurt me? You've got his blood in your veins! I should've known you'd turn on me!" She beats me until I'm barely breathing, then runs out of the house, leaving me alone on the cold floor. As my vision blurs, a book suddenly opens before my eyes. That's when I learn the truth. I'm the tragic male lead in a dark novel. The story has that monster force himself on Mom just to give me a miserable childhood. I'm the reason her whole life was ruined. I smile and reach toward the glowing pages with a bloodied hand. I'll save Mom, even if it means I was never born.

My sister, Emily Statham, "accidentally" spills a pot of scalding Cajun gumbo onto my leg. I'm in so much pain that I roll around on the floor, but she cries harder than I do. Mom hugs and comforts her. "It's okay, it's okay. Your sister's tough." My fiance, Elliott Gray, glances over at me and says, "Just rinse it with some cold water. Stop embarrassing yourself." Comments in gold float past my eyes. [Emily just loves her sister so much that she got overexcited!] [And the mother just has a sharp tongue. Deep down, she's actually devastated!] [The male lead is just weird that way. He cares, but he's too shy to show it in public!] I look down at the blisters already forming on my leg. For the first time, I wonder if it's not the commenters who are blind. Maybe I am.

The day Dad’s hypnosis stopped working on Mom, she slit her wrists. I ran crying to find Dad. My brother just stood there laughing. "Sis is such a liar. That water's just red food coloring. She and Mom are putting on a show for you." Dad's face flipped from worried to furious. "How long are you going to keep this up?" "Vanessa's depression can't take any more stress. Are you trying to drive her to her grave?" "If you hadn't stolen her parents from her, if you hadn't drugged me and crawled into my bed pretending to be her, I never would have ended up with you." "Pull this act again and I'll throw you back to the slums!" My brother clapped his hands in delight. "Yes! I want Mom gone! I want Aunt Vanessa to be my new mommy!" Mom closed her eyes, all the life draining out of her body. I stood there, jaw clenched, watching Dad walk away with his arm around Vanessa Bennett. A cold, mechanical voice of my mother suddenly echoed in my mind: [Mission failed. Host will be terminated. Countdown: three days.] Dad wouldn’t even have the right to beg her on his knees anymore.

I was the long-lost daughter of the wealthiest family. On my first day back, I was handed a two-hundred-million-dollar trust fund. But that very night, I found out our entire family was doomed to end badly. We were mere cannon fodder in someone else’s story. My father was the overbearing tycoon who would be publicly humiliated and driven into bankruptcy by the male lead. My mother was the harsh, spiteful mother-in-law who made the female lead’s life miserable. My brother was the devoted second male lead who willingly played the fool and got cheated on. My adoptive sister was the tragic “first love” supporting character, destined for a miserable end. Me: “Wow. Just great.”