Male POV Karma Short Stories & Novels

My car is parked properly in its own slot, and yet my neighbor decides to take a photo of it so that he can post it on the residents' group chat. His tone is clearly passive-aggressive. "Look, everyone! This car is parked sideways and has taken up two parking slots! Does the car owner even have a shred of moral decency? "She thinks the public parking lot is now her own property just because she's paying the parking rent!" I don't say anything at all. Instead, I just upload photos of my property deeds. "Excuse me, but first of all, these two slots are my private parking slots. Secondly, if you start counting from those two slots six times to the right, you'll find eight parking slots. Yeah, those are all mine."

I had already bought the house we were supposed to build our future in, and over the years, I had carefully set aside a substantial wedding fund. I could not wait to spend the rest of my life with my girlfriend, Jeannie Cooperd. Jeannie had always seemed delicate and timid. Even a simple remark would leave her eyes red with tears. For two years, I spoiled her shamelessly, giving in to her every whim. Every plan I made, every dollar I saved, and every dream I held revolved around our wedding and the life we would share together. Then, I received the kidney compatibility report. The moment I saw the results, my heart turned icy. The woman who normally shrank from pain was now gripping my shoulders with surprising strength, determined to push me toward the operating room. "You're healthy! What's the big deal about living with one kidney?" she cried. "Elliot is dying!" Elliot. The name alone was enough. He was the first love she had never truly let go of, the one she had kept hidden in the deepest corner of her heart. Just yesterday, he was diagnosed with complete kidney failure. To pay for his treatment and cover the debts he had accumulated, Jeannie secretly canceled our wedding, drained every cent from the wedding fund and savings we had built together, and poured it all into Elliot's medical bills and endless financial problems. That was not enough. With sweet words and carefully crafted lies, she coaxed me into coming to the hospital and persuaded me to undergo compatibility testing.

At the company's annual gala, the CEO announced that this year's top sales performer would receive a two-million-dollar year-end bonus. I was the top performer. However, my manager called me into his office the very next day and explained that the company was cutting costs and improving efficiency. As a result, my bonus had to be reduced. I initially assumed everyone's bonus was being cut. Then, I found out I was the only one getting shortchanged. Even worse, they handed my position to a useless coworker who could barely do the job. I understood everything immediately. 'So this is how it is. You're tossing me aside after you got what you wanted from me.' Fine. I stopped putting in any effort from that day forward. I clocked in, did the bare minimum, and watched the company slowly fall apart. Sales began to drop month after month. Even the major clients I had already secured began withdrawing their investments. That was when the CEO finally panicked. He showed up at my front door, begging me to fix things. I kicked the door open and looked down at him. "You think a garbage company like yours deserves my help?"

Before meeting my girlfriend's parents, she promises me up and down, "Don't worry. My dad is super easygoing. Just a little naive, that's all!" I actually buy it and show up at their door with my arms full of gifts. But the second the door swings open, I freeze in my tracks at the entryway. My future father-in-law, Mike Bennett, is standing there dressed head-to-toe as a prince. My jaw drops, but my girlfriend, Alicia Bennett, just flashes a bright smile. "This is my dad's fetish. Don't mind him." I take a deep breath and hold out the gifts with both hands. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Bennett. Here's a little something for—" Before I can even finish speaking, Mike snaps, "Why are you calling me Mr. Bennett? You shall address me as Prince Mike!"

After guarding the nation's border for ten years, I return home only to see my younger sister, Piper Wright, being trampled under someone’s foot. "Where did this country bumpkin come from? How dare you show up at a place like this?" The man in a suit throws an invitation in her face. "Take a look at yourself. What do you think you are? My sister is Velda Mercer, the top socialite of Hyporion. If you offend me, I will have your whole family thrown into the river!" I smash his nose with a single punch. I help Piper to her feet and dial Velda's number. "Velda Mercer, if it were not for me back then, you would still be begging for food. How dare you bully my sister?"

As the older brother, I agreed to marry a dead woman just to get the five hundred thousand dollars for my younger brother to get married. My younger brother insisted that the middle-aged couple, who had lost their daughter, only wanted their daughter to experience being married before her death. My girlfriend also persuaded me to do it. She said I just needed to lie in the same bed as her for one night and do nothing. I nodded and agreed. But when I got to that family’s house, the parents pulled out a white bedsheet and handed it to me. “You have to actually be intimate with my daughter. Otherwise, I won’t pay you a single cent.”

At the Halloween Carnival, my younger brother and I got separated. Not long after, the headless body of a teenage boy was found in an alley. My father was consumed with rage—he blamed me entirely. He locked me in the chapel and forced me to chant prayers and light candles for my brother's soul for eighty-one days and nights. After that, he had me sold to a brothel in the city's red-light district, so I could spend the rest of my life atoning for my brother. He instructed the brothel manager there to give me only the most depraved clients—and to make sure I was left barely breathing. The brothel manager, paid to follow orders, assigned me to women with twisted tastes. Night after night, I was tormented. When I came down with consumption, I was denied any care. The hands I'd once used to turn pages—the hands of a scholar—were deliberately broken, crushing whatever hope I had left for the future. Eventually, one client went too far, and I died on the bed. The brothel manager had my body rolled up in a straw mat and dumped in a mass grave outside town. A year later, on New Year's Eve, my brother came back.

After my body was taken over by a conqueror for five years, I finally got it back. Full of hope, I rushed to see the family I had missed so much. What I got instead were their cold and complicated expressions. My girlfriend even asked me directly, "Why did you come back?" I was deeply disappointed, but I still refused to believe that they had already given their hearts to the conqueror. In my despair, I made a deal with the System. "Please bring that conqueror back." My family happily welcomed his return. But they never knew the truth. The conqueror's real goal was to push them all into absolute ruin.

The day my daughter, Holly Rivera, got her acceptance letter from Bellmont University, I filed my tenth lawsuit against her homeroom teacher, Natalie Martin. The result was exactly what you would expect. I lost again. Outside the courthouse, a group of parents pointed at me and started yelling. "Ms. Martin got the whole class into top schools, and Holly still made Bellmont. Why are you suing her ten times?" Holly stood there as well, looking at me like she didn't recognize me anymore. "I'm done being your daughter," she said. I didn't answer. By then, I already knew the lawsuits weren't going to change anything. That same night, I threw Holly a celebration dinner and invited her entire class. When the parents came to pick up their kids, they found 40 bodies hanging in the banquet hall. Holly was one of them. The police took me in on the spot. An officer dropped the surveillance footage on the table, each frame capturing me stringing them up. His eyes were bloodshot as he leaned in. "Start talking. Why did you kill 40 people? Even your own daughter?" I leaned back and opened my hands. "Why did I do it? Ask Ms. Martin. She'll explain everything."

As I washed my wife's underthings, I discovered semen stains. It had been over two months since I last did it with Winona Sundown. She always looked down on me for not lasting long and being as boring as a dead fish. I silently accepted her criticism and mockery. That was until I saw a stranger messaging Winona with a hotel room number. The hotel just so happened to be my workplace, Pinnacle Hotel. The room number was 8102. I camped by the room, waiting to catch my prey. However, the woman at the door was a young and sensual woman. Unbeknownst to me, I had fallen into Winona's trap long ago...

In my previous life, my girlfriend's childhood friend impersonated a rich heir and messed around with the fake power he had. I exposed him, and he crashed his car into me. In my final moments, my girlfriend's sister begged on her knees, pleading for my girlfriend's aid, hoping she could save me, but my girlfriend did nothing. "He wouldn't do that. Zacharias is beyond this. He would never dirty his hands for a nobody like this guy. He might be my boyfriend, but that doesn't mean he can do anything he wants. He'd better know his place." My girlfriend's sister remained on the ground for three days. In the end, Zacharias dragged her away, violated her, and killed her. Even at my dying breath, my girlfriend was still covering up for her childhood friend. She refused to believe Zacharias hit someone with a car and violated her sister. And then I was reborn. This time, I did not beg and plead for my girlfriend to give me a moment of her time. I called my brother instead. "Hey? Yeah, it's me. Some bastard impersonated me and is dragging my name through the mud. I need you to take that guy out. Also, I'm not marrying Annabelle Lawson. I'm taking her sister instead." I gave the Lawsons a lot of resources so they could grow, and what did I get in the end? An ungrateful woman who would leave me stranded and dying all for another man. With all their resources pulled, Annabelle and her childhood friend would be saying goodbye to their good old days and hello to their personal hell.

I was a top ER nurse at the city hospital. Over the years, I helped save thousands of lives. During my day off, I received an urgent call from my department chief. “Zayn, there’s a child at a daycare near your neighborhood suffering from a severe allergic reaction. The ambulance is stuck in traffic. Please get over there immediately and administer first aid.” I grabbed my emergency kit and rushed to the daycare. When I arrived, one of the teachers falsely accused me of being a child trafficker. He shoved me aside and shouted, “He’s a trafficker. Do not let him touch the child.” Furious and desperate, I pulled up my digital nursing license. “I am an ER nurse. If you keep stopping me, this child could die.” He insisted my credentials were fake, and I had no choice but to wait for the ambulance. When the ambulance finally arrived to take the child to the hospital, the teacher jumped in again. He claimed we were working together and refused to let us leave. Everything changed when the child’s mother arrived with a DNA test report in her hand. His entire world collapsed in an instant.

After a century of wandering and sealed away in seclusion, I came home to the Ashveil Order. The one who received me was the youngest apprentice of the current generation. Taking me for a fresh recruit, he put me through a so-called pre-training inspection and helped himself to my travel pack. "You're carrying this many rare reagents and relics? For someone just starting out, that's nothing but a burden. I'll go to the trouble of taking some off your hands." "Why do you have so many elixirs and warding sigils? Did you rob someone? That's dangerous. I'll keep them safe for you, so no one comes hunting you for them." Then he laid a hand on my soul-bound blade and said, "This sword carries far too much killing edge. It clashes with your gift and will tear at your soul if you wield it. Lucky for you, it suits mine perfectly. I'll take care of it for you." I'd had enough. I backhanded him across the face. Did he have any idea that the Ashveil in Ashveil Order came from me—Rowan Ashveil?

Before my grandmother passed away, she set up a will for the kids to inherit her pasta shop. My younger brother, Richard Lane, immediately pushed the responsibility to me so that he could take up a job offer that paid $4,000 a month. No one could have expected a fire to break out at the hotel during one of his trips, causing his entire face to be burned off. Meanwhile, things went great for me after I took over the shop. I fell in love with a billionaire's daughter and found my happily ever after with her. My younger brother poisoned me in a fit of jealousy. After we were sent back in time, my brother immediately chomped at the bit to take over the shop before I could do anything. I scoffed as I rolled my eyes. He was digging his own grave.

My wife, Charlene Weber, has taken me to the Scumbag Court. If I'm found guilty, all my assets will be taken from me, and I'll face 10 years of imprisonment. Charlene, on the other hand, will get to marry her ideal man—Joel Quinlan—as she wishes. If I'm acquitted of all charges, Charlene will be made to divorce me without alimony. She'll also be cursed with bad luck and disfigured so badly she'll be the ugliest woman in the world. Conversely, I'll be given 10 million dollars in reparations and gain a lifetime's worth of good luck. Everyone is advising me to admit to my mistakes, but only because Charlene has always been a virtuous, devoted wife in their eyes. They think that there must surely be some complicated grievances between us at the moment. However, they are unaware that I've been reborn. This time, I'm going to tear off Charlene's mask of hypocrisy.

Right after my father dies, I receive a call from the hospital, urging me to settle the hospital bills. "You're the next of kin for Carl Stone, Bed 23 of the Neurology Ward, correct? You still owe the hospital 246,000 dollars. Kindly settle the bill as soon as possible." The call completely catches me off guard. I turn around to look at my father's body in the casket. A rush of anger courses through me, but I suppress it and say, "I'm afraid you've made a mistake. My father is no longer a patient at the hospital." "I knew people like you would never admit to it. Do you think you can get away with it just because you snuck him out of the hospital without permission? "I'm giving you 24 hours to complete the payment. You don't want to find out what will happen if you don't!" Well, now I'm furious. "Go ahead and test me."

My girlfriend, Selena Jenkins, and I are committed to a strict 50-50 relationship. We are three years into our relationship, and we split everything down to a single bottle of water. Then, out of nowhere, I get a call from a kidnapper. "We have your girlfriend. Have 150 thousand dollars ready, or she dies!" I calmly launch our app, SplitMate. According to the algorithm, this unexpected incident falls under "shared risk", meaning she is responsible for 50% of the cost. However, after factoring in the personal insurance policy I took out on her behalf, she only needs to pay 35,550 dollars. I send the calculation results to the kidnapper. "This is her share. Please contact her family for the payment. I'm only responsible for my own portion." The line goes silent. A few minutes later, I receive a livestream link. The livestream shows Selena tied to a chair, smiling at her phone. The live chat in front of her is blowing up. "Holy shit! This guy's a monster. This is the craziest livestream I've seen all year!" Later on, she follows the 50-50 rule to a T, but I'm no longer on board with it.

On the day I get promoted to the department manager, I take my parents on a trip during the holidays. But my dad invites my older brother, Jacob Hunt, and his family over as well. He even posts on social media about the event. "My oldest son really is amazing. The first thing he does is sponsor a trip for me right after he receives his salary." Jacob comments on that post, "It's my duty to care for my parents." All of my relatives compliment Jacob right away. They even text me on the family's group chat and tell me to learn from Jacob. As I quietly stare at my dad's social media post, I decide to unlink the family sharing account from my credit card right away. This time, I want to see how Jacob will care for our dad without my money.

When we're playing cards during the holidays, my cousin, Owen Thompson, suddenly calls it boring and tells us that he wants to make a big gamble. Then, he tosses his BMW keys onto the table and asks if we're bold enough to follow up with our own bets. I know that Owen is just trying to flaunt the fact that he's bought himself a BMW. Everyone is stunned by his antics. They quickly say, "This is just a game. We're not going to bet anything else." After that, they start complimenting how amazing Owen is to be able to own a BMW at such a young age. I, on the other hand, hesitate to do so. After all, my trump cards are a set of Ks. Having gotten his ego boosted by the compliments, Owen is about to flush the deck when I put my car keys belonging to a cheaper, rundown car. Then, I mumble, "I'm going to follow up with a bet of my own." Everyone falls silent at my statement. They just stare at me in disbelief, whereas Owen widens his eyes out of shock. Almost immediately, things grow heated between us. The moment both of us place our car keys onto the betting table, our feeble relationship as cousins is quick to vanish. But I don't regret my decision. Owen is the one who has decided to bet his BMW, after all. Since he's capable of being this ruthless toward his own relatives, I might as well not give a damn about his feelings at all. Owen lets out a cold chuckle before saying, "How much do you have in that pocket of yours, huh? You really think you can scare me, chump? I have a BMW, for crying out loud! You should gather more money first before placing your bet! Don't go around scamming others with just a shitty car!"

"You built an elevator on a mountain. It's obviously a code violation!" Walter Grady lifts his walking stick, the muddy tip coming inches from my nose. The massive mountain completely boxed in our town, forcing everyone to endure a brutal two-hour hike just to leave town. That is why, the moment I made my fortune, I paid out of my own pocket to install a massive outdoor elevator. For five years, I've been charging a 50-cent fee just to cover the costs of electricity. Knowing the town is mostly comprised of elderly folks and children, I bought the most expensive, heavy-duty materials available and hired a 24-hour maintenance crew for the elevator, never expecting them to report it to the city council as a code violation. I feel completely blindsided, but I still hold out hope that the people I spent years helping will stand up and speak for me. Instead, Martha Bell rolls her eyes and remarks, "Who ever heard of an elevator charging a fee? You're just ripping us off!" Marcus Crowe chimes in with a sneer, "You're just lazy and using us as an excuse to line your own pockets." I let out a bitter, angry laugh. To keep the residents comfortable, I keep the air conditioning running inside the cabin. Now, the city council is giving me a three-day deadline to tear it down or face a fine. Walter is practically gloating, saying that it's about time. I sign the citation on the spot and immediately call a demolition crew. If they enjoy hiking so much, they can be my guest. I'm officially done serving them.