After Death Karma 短篇故事與小說

My husband was dead. He had saved a girl from drowning, yet he himself perished in the icy river. As I sank into a chasm of grief, the girl's father appeared at my door. He glared at me and demanded, "Where is my daughter's necklace? She was wearing it before she fell into the water!" Rage surged through me, and in the heat of our confrontation, he ended up dead. Then my phone… came alive. "Hide the body. The police are coming. I'll teach you how to dispose of a corpse…"

The sales department organized a team-building trip and turned it into a killer-instinct trail race, with a $30,000 prize for the winner. I volunteer with a search and rescue team, and I stayed up all night mapping the safest route with supply points along the way. The new VP they had parachuted in tore up my map right before we set out. "What's the fun in a paved trail? We take the undeveloped Wildman Gorge. That's how you show real killer instinct! "To keep anyone from cheating with GPS, everyone hands over their communication devices." I pointed at the thunderheads on the horizon and tried to stop him. Wildman Gorge floods easily, and going in without radios was suicide. Instead, he smashed my radio to pieces in front of everyone. "You're just jealous that I got to lead this thing, and you want to keep everyone from taking home the prize money, right?" For that $30,000, my coworkers lined up to call me a coward who cared nothing about the team. Fine. I took off my shell jacket and volunteered to stay at base camp at the bottom of the mountain. A storm was coming. If this pack of office wolves wanted to take on a mudslide in Wildman Gorge, I would sit there with a hot cup of tea and wish them a triumphant return.

My fiancé suddenly announces he's marrying my sister instead. And just as my world collapses, the cold, noble Twinkle Oriven kneels before me with a diamond ring in hand. He confesses he's loved me for years. We get married. For three years, he's gentle, considerate, and flawless in every way. Then, one day, I accidentally overhear a conversation between him and a friend. "Twinkle, Amelie has everything she has ever wanted. Isn't it time to end this fake marriage?" "Since I can't marry Amelie, it doesn't matter who I marry. All that matters is that it keeps her life undisturbed." In the chapel where he prays every day, the wallpaper is covered with one name—Amelie Ashcombe. I hear him pray to the heavens. "May all the good in the world belong to Amelie. I'd trade my own happiness for her peace and joy. I don't ask to have her in the next life… I just want her to remember me." So this is the truth behind three years of a seemingly perfect marriage. I erase my identity and stage a fake death. From now on, Twinkle and I are nothing.

The first experiment in the world of retrieving memories after death succeeds, and my memories are going to be broadcast live all over the Internet. My dad has just learned about my death, but he only says in a disgusted tone, "Who would want to see the memories of someone who is selfish, mean, and has nothing commendable at all about them? Today is the wedding day of Zoe and Cameron. Pause the live broadcast and stop being so sickening!" Zoe is my stepsister, and Cameron is supposed to be my fiance. After that, my father finds out the truth from the live broadcast of my memories. He begs for my forgiveness tearfully but… I'm already dead.

I stayed by William Gavin's side for three years and proposed to him three times. He rejected me each time. With a look of utter disdain, he said, "Every time I see that scar on Whitney Spencer's stomach, I remember the baby that died in there. It just makes me think she's dirty." The words pierced my heart like a knife. And yet, I still asked him to marry me a fourth time.

After the cruise ship strikes a hidden reef, panicked passengers shove me and Kristen Langford into the sea. My boyfriend, Elijah Jensen, is the ship's captain, so he plunges into the water. But instead of saving me, he grabs Kristen and boards the last lifeboat. I thrash and cry for help, but he slaps my hand away. "You can swim. Stop pretending for attention!" Elijah snaps. "Kristen's body temperature is dropping. I have to get her to a hospital!" The waters around me are pitch-black, and his words feel like a death sentence. When the tracking bracelet I always wear is discovered inside a shark, Elijah dives alone into shark-infested waters, searching for three days and nights. In the end, the brilliant captain who once ruled the oceans can never sail again.

My cancer relapses in the middle of the night. I beg my husband to take me to the hospital, but he turns and leaves to be with his true love. Before leaving, he says, "Your acting is getting more believable." All I get in return for a decade of my love is a broken heart. Later, his true love gets in an accident and needs to be operated on. I decide to let go and give them the happy ending they always want, so I donate my heart to her. My husband has always detested me, but he loses his mind after my death.

My sister was autistic. The doctors called it "severe sensory overload." The rule was simple: No sudden noises. Ever. So my whole life was set to mute. I never wore heels. I never raised my voice. I wasn't even allowed to laugh. It was all to keep her from having a meltdown. My father, Victor, the Don of the Castellano family, would grip my shoulder. His face was a mask of apology. "Sera, you're my good girl. Protecting your sister is our duty. You're healthy and strong. You can sacrifice a little for her, can't you?" That day, I was on the second-floor terrace and accidentally knocked over a pot of white roses. The sound of it shattering sent my sister, who was sunbathing in the garden below, into a meltdown. For the first time, Victor glared at me like I was the enemy. He roared, "Can't you just be quiet? Do you want to drive her insane?" My sister backed away in terror, right into a glass table, and let out a piercing scream. Victor charged past me, a blur of rage and panic. He slammed into me on the stairs as I was running down to help. I lost my footing and crashed chest-first into the sharp corner of a wrought-iron banister post. Pain exploded in my chest. I opened my mouth to scream, but only silence came out. My family swarmed around my shrieking sister. No one even glanced at me. My lungs filled with blood. I was drowning on the floor. They all thought my sister, the one with autism, needed the family's comfort. They thought I just took a fall. That I could wait. They were wrong.

Four days after my death, my four-year-old daughter finally sensed that something was terribly wrong. The fridge door slammed into her forehead when she tried to get a snack. Normally, I would've been there in a heartbeat—arms open, kisses ready, whispering, "You're okay, sweetheart, Mommy's here." But this time, I just lay on the bed, cold and still.​ She didn't understand. She thought the sweet treat would make me respond. So she held the final piece of chocolate up to my mouth. "Here, Mommy. Have some chocolate..." But I didn't even blink. She climbed into my arms, clutching my clothes tightly. "Mommy... Mommy, wake up..." She waited for me to stroke her hair, to tell her that everything was going to be fine. There was only silence.​ Completely lost and scared, she found my phone. "Daddy, why is Mommy still sleeping?" she asked, her voice filled with desperation.​ In response, Oliver sent a photo of himself having Christmas Eve dinner with his childhood sweetheart. His voice was icy cold when he replied, "She's just sleeping, not dead. It's Christmas Eve, and I'm busy. Tell her to stop playing games and come apologize when she's done sulking." Then he hung up.​ But when the truth finally hit Oliver—when the coroner's report came, when the police knocked on his door right in the middle of his laughter, when he realized I'd been lying dead for four days while he toasted—he broke.

I was once the Pythia, an oracle of Apollo. After marrying the late king, I became known as the Oracle Priestess. When my husband died in battle, I faked my death and returned to the temple. From then on, I devoted myself to protecting the capital with the gods' blessing. Then one day, they brought my daughter's body into the temple. She was covered in raw, unhealed wounds, and her eyes were still open. The attendants tossed her body, wrapped in nothing but a straw mat, onto the floor. Then they stood nearby whispering. "Poor princess. The king cared more about the Rose of Highcourt than his own sister. He let her suffer until her wounds became infected and she died in agony. "King Theron was the one who sent her to the beastmen for a marriage alliance. Duke Charles was supposed to marry Princess Callista, but he later fell for Naia instead." So that was what had happened. While I was hidden away in this temple protecting Ostan, my son had turned his back on his sister for another woman. He let Naia take Callista's place, then sent his sister to live among savages. Callista survived the beastmen and everything they did to her. When they were finally defeated, she must have thought she could come home and put it all behind her. But Naia still wouldn't leave her alone. She bullied Callista every chance she got. Then she framed Callista for plotting to hurt someone, and Theron had her thrown into the dungeon. As I held my daughter's body, I couldn't bear to imagine what she had gone through in that dark, waterlogged dungeon, where prisoners were interrogated on the upper level and executed below. A corrupt kingdom like this didn't deserve the gods' protection. I begged the gods to forgive me. If this was how they treated my daughter, then I no longer cared what happened to this country.

The yacht I'm steering crashes into a huge wave, scaring my husband's junior, who has a heart condition. So, my husband orders someone to tie me up and dangle me in the ocean by a rope. He even tells the captain to head straight into the waves. "You know Wren has a heart condition, yet you still scared her! How can you be so evil?" I beg him to let me go and tell him that I was following a charted path; I didn't mean for anything to happen. However, he just mocks me. "You've been a yacht driver for so long. Haven't you experienced anything like this before? I'll make you go through what Wren did! Let's see whether you'll pull this again!" After a day and night of this torment, he relents and decides to pull me back up. It's too bad he doesn't know that the waves have already torn me to shreds.

Three years ago, on a full moon night, my mother jolted awake at midnight, claiming the Moon Goddess had delivered a prophecy: On the day of my twentieth birthday, the feral gene inside me would spiral out of control. I would shift into a wolf and kill my sister. At first, my parents were skeptical. But after I awakened my wolf at eighteen, my sister would seize up whenever she was near me, clutching her chest and collapsing to the ground in violent fits of gasping. To protect her and force my wolf into dormancy, my parents resorted to every harsh measure they could devise. They poured suppression potions down my throat that ate away at my organs, and clamped a restraining collar around my neck so my sister could keep me on a leash. Eventually, my wolf vanished completely. And somehow, I survived to my twentieth birthday. A flash of joy hit me, and I reached for the cake on the table. My father backhanded me so hard I went flying. "That feral gene in your blood really is impossible to tame! "If anyone eats first, it's your sister. What makes you think you can touch it?" Clara stepped forward as if to soothe things over, but my mother pulled her behind her back, eyes full of wariness as she edged away from me. Then my father dragged me up to the attic and bolted the door shut. Through the door, they said, "Stay put and get through tonight. The prophecy will be broken. "After this, we'll give you half the love we've shown your sister." I sank my teeth into my lip, not daring to make a sound. Years of the suppression potion had already hollowed out my body. My consciousness was fading, piece by piece. Mom, Dad, in that dream the Moon Goddess sent you, did she happen to mention this part? That the one dying today might be me?

Josephine Ellery was dead, and everyone said Tessa Wrenford had killed her. "Tessa Wrenford, you have been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. I sentence you to five years in prison." The judge brought down his gavel. Still dressed in her jail uniform, Tessa was led out of the courtroom by officers gripping her arms. From the gallery, Beckett Lockridge watched her with an icy stare. He was the man she'd loved for ten years. Now he was also the man who had put her behind bars. When their eyes met, she could almost hear the words he wanted to say: "Tessa, I'll make your life a living hell."

Right after I reunited with my biological Alpha family, my brother, Henry, forced me to go mountain climbing with him for training even when I had asthma. He was convinced that his family's bloodline was too powerful for someone as physically weak as me to exist among them. Not wanting to disappoint him, I pushed myself to keep up despite my condition. Halfway up the mountain, I suffered an asthma attack, collapsed, and began suffocating. As I struggled to reach my asthma medication, my adopted sister, Ella, kicked my backpack away and sneered. "Eleanor, that's such a pathetic trick. Do you really think Henry will believe you?" She turned to Henry and said in a sweet voice, "Eleanor is faking it again. She's even trying to use her medication to get out of training. I threw her bag away. You won't blame me for that, will you?" Henry shot me a cold, impatient glance. "Eleanor, no werewolf is as fragile as you. Don't even think you can fool us with your little act! Nobody is allowed to help her! Let her get up on her own!" I lay on the ground and struggled to breathe with my hand stretched desperately toward my backpack. I kept reaching until the last of the oxygen in my lungs was gone. Then everything went black, and I lost consciousness. When I opened my eyes again, I had become a spirit floating in the air. Looking down at my small, lifeless body, I forced a bitter smile. 'Henry, I'm dead. This time, I really can't get back up anymore.'

I'm kidnapped at the same time as my husband's true love. I call him on the verge of death and beg him to save me. However, he thinks I'm putting on an act and only pays the ransom for his true love. He leaves me and his brother to die. Before hanging up, he snaps, "Drop the act, Marlena! Can't you see how terrified Sue is? I'll get even with you for hiring someone to kidnap her!" It's too bad Howard Jenne will never get even with me for this. The moment he turns his back on me and his autistic brother, the kidnappers kill us.

While they slice me apart, I desperately call my brother, Nathan Slade. He finally picks up as my consciousness starts to slip and answers in an annoyed voice, "What now?" "Nathan, help—" I don't get to finish before he cuts me off. "Can't you ever go a day without drama? Gemma's graduation is at the end of the month. Miss it, and I swear I'll kill you!" Then, he hangs up without a second thought. The agonizing pain swallows me whole, and my eyes close for good, tears still trailing down my cheeks. Well, good news, Nathan… You won't have to kill me because I'm already dead.

After being forced to donate the blood from my heart to my Alpha's beloved witch, I die in the cottage that he'd built for me. Before my death, my five-year-old daughter runs to the castle in the forest to beg him thrice. The first time, she runs into the study and tells him I'm coughing up blood. My mate, Alpha Alaric sneers. "Is this one of Clara's new tricks? I can't believe she taught a child to lie!" He orders his attendant to take our daughter away. The second time, she knocks on the door cautiously and tells him I'm trembling all over. Alaric snorts contemptuously. "What's with the act? All I did was take some of her blood, not gouge her heart out. She'll heal on her own soon enough!" Once again, his attendant chases our daughter out. The third time, she kneels by the study door and weeps, saying that I'm already unconscious. She begs Alaric to save me. This time, he gets mad. He grabs her by the arm and throws her out of the castle. "I told you your mother won't die! Lie to me again, and I'll kick her out of the Wolffang Pack. She can die at the hands of those Rogues!" He breaks her arm in the process, and she clutches it. She has no choice but to pass the family heirloom—a ring—that represents her identity as the Wolffang Pack's heiress to a passing merchant. "I can give you everything valuable I have, Mr. Merchant! I don't want to be an heiress—I just want my mother to stay alive!" The merchant accepts the ring and soon brings a herbalist. However, Alaric's beloved witch, Elena has him taken away. "Sorry, but your father is worried that I'll be upset because my darling black cat is sick. He's ordered all of the herbalists in the pack to focus on treating my cat first." She snorts. "Your mother can wait."

My fiancé's first love was taking photos on a cliff before the landslide. To save her, he actually left me behind on the crumbling edge. I pleaded with him to save me. "Lucy isn't physically strong—she can't handle this alone. You've always been resilient. I'll get Lucy to safety first, then come back for you." Their silhouettes vanished over the ridge. After a brief commotion, everything went silent. Including me, with my freshly sprained ankle. When he saw the news of my death, he completely fell apart.

My father had a PhD in AI, and he built me an AI little sister named Ava. He said she could see through every lie I told, so I could forget about pretending to be sick to get out of school. From that day on, every time I said I didn't feel well, my father asked Ava first. If she flagged what I said as a lie, it didn't matter whether I was telling the truth. All I got was a cold look from him and hours locked in a room. I argued. I fought it. But my father would just look at me as if I were a failed experiment. "I built Ava myself. The system doesn't make mistakes. You do." On Halloween, for the first time ever, my father took Ava and me to an amusement park. The Zombie Drop Tower stood right in front of us, rated ten out of ten on the scare scale. Pain gripped my heart. I clutched my chest and shook my head as hard as I could. But Ava coldly pulled up a data report. "Nora Whitaker's heart rate is elevated because she is lying. A full-body scan shows she is completely healthy." My father's face went hard. He grabbed my wrist and dropped his voice. "Nora, you're allowed to be scared. You're not allowed to lie. The data is right here. Get in." "Dad, my heart hurts... it really hurts..." His expression didn't change. "Here we go again. You've been embarrassing me since you were little." The moment the ride dropped and the holographic zombies lunged at my face, my heart hurt so much I couldn't breathe. My vision blurred, but beside me, he was still speaking in that same cold voice. "When are you going to stop lying your way out of things?" Tears of blood slid from the corners of my eyes. Dad, I really wasn't lying this time. I'm dead now. I'll never lie again.

I was human once. Three years ago, Count Dorian Draven turned me into a vampire and took me as his wife. Back then, I believed he truly loved me. But he would often get lost staring at an oil painting that hung in the tower. I knew it was a portrait of Lenore Blackwell, his dead lover. Then, one night at midnight, I saw it with my own eyes. Dorian's soul slipped into the painting, where he wrapped his arms around a completely naked Lenore. Dorian's voice was lazy and husky. "By tomorrow, you'll be fully alive again. Then you'll take Alyona's place as Countess." Lenore laughed softly. "Dorian, I knew there was no vampire more powerful than you. To think you actually found a way to use necromancy to resurrect my soul in her body." I stood outside the door, my face expressionless. So he'd never loved me. He'd only turned me to bring his lover back to life. I didn't storm in and confront him. Instead, while they were lost in each other, I ripped down the blackout curtain and draped it over the painting, covering it completely. Then I fastened the curtain securely to the frame with the Holy Silver Lock. Now that his soul was inside the painting, the frame would be his prison forever. I sold the painting to the Blood Pit, the most depraved underground nightclub in the city. It was a haven for every kind of vice, and I made sure the painting hung right at the center of it all. For a single copper coin, anyone could humiliate the pair however they pleased. I used my power to reverse the necromancy spell, trapping their souls in an endless loop along the edges of the painting. No matter how far they went, they'd never find a way out. Once so proud and untouchable, Dorian was now trapped inside the painting, humiliated again and again until he finally snapped.