After Death の短編小説 & Mistress Regret 小説

Three days after I died, my fiancé got a call to ID the body. He just scoffed. "She's dead, so what? Call me when she's in the ground." The cops, out of options, hit up my backup contact—my childhood friend. He actually laughed. "She's really gone? Not my problem. Burn her or whatever." Then my body hit the internet— And suddenly, both of them looked like ghosts.

The impoverished student I had sponsored, Jacob Murphy, had accumulated a massive gambling debt. When the debt collectors had kicked the door open, my childhood sweetheart, Renee Austin, had shoved me forward instead. Her voice was cold and distant. “He’s Jacob Murphy. Take him away.” In the darkness of an underground casino, they tore out my fingernails, then smashed my ribs one by one with an iron rod. When the searing pain arrived, I groveled on the floor like a dog. I was weeping and screaming, without a shred of dignity. Then, they “mercifully” gave me one chance to call for help. Clinging to the last sliver of hope, I called Renee. Her voice on the other end sounded very cruel. “If you hadn’t set him up, how would Jacob have ended up buried in gambling debt? Even if you die at their hands, you deserve it.” The dial tone after she hung up became the last sound in my world. Later, I really did die, just as she had said. However, there was not the slightest trace of a smile on Renee’s face. It was as if she had gone mad. Her eyes were bloodshot as she searched every underground gambling den in the city. ‘Renee, why were you crying for me?’ I wondered.

The day I decided to file for divorce, Dean Potter couldn’t wait to draft the divorce agreement. Five years ago, he had been forced to marry me, and now he was finally free. On the day we were finalizing the divorce, Dean arrived with his new flame, radiating delight mixed with a hint of mockery. “Veronica Byrd, look at you—you’re miserable.” I watched his figure fade into the distance, my vision blurring. Miserable? In the next life, it wouldn't happen again.

Four years after my death, the true heiress won the Best Actress award, but her sex tape was once again spread like wildfire. My Best Actor boyfriend, Nicholas Jennings, kicked open the rented house where I used to live, hoping to make me clarify once again that it was me in the video, but all he saw was a complete mess. The landlord happened to pass by and, upon his inquiry, scolded him, "You’re talking about Astrid Rhode? She died four years ago! A man saw the sex tape posted online and came here to have some fun with her, but she would rather die than comply. In a fit of rage, he killed her." Nicholas did not believe it at all. He kicked our couple's mugs. "Astrid made you say that, didn't she? She stole Maddie's life just because she looked like her. Did she think that helping Maddie once would atone for her sins? Tell her that none of the children in her orphanage will live if I don't see her clarification video in two days!" He strode away, and I shook my head with a wry smile. The orphanage had long since been reduced to ashes in the fire, and the children had already passed on to their next lives. I had made a deal with Death, wanting to come back and see him one last time. However, now, it seemed that the deal was better left undone.

Savannah Cox was my husband's first love. When she got divorced, my husband, Alex Stewart, was the lawyer who handled her case. Then he moved her into our home after getting rid of Mochi, my cat, because she was allergic to cats. Because she lost a necklace, he forced a pregnant me to jump into an icy pool to retrieve it. By the time I lost our baby and ended up in the hospital, Alex was posting Savannah's prenatal checkup report—the first post he'd made all year. "The cherry blossoms are blooming at Cherrywood Park. She arrived with spring." I quietly liked the post, feeling unwell and numb with grief as I spent the day in silence. Alex only looked at me with disgust, a cruel sneer creeping onto his lips. "Autumn, people like you deserve to lose their children. If you love kids so much, why don't you go die with the baby?" What he didn't know was that I was already dying.

Twelve years after I burned to death at the border sanctuary, I stood before Ryan again during his final Moonlight Trial. My name was Erin. At eighteen, I was the packless lone wolf everyone on the border knew as trouble, and Ryan Blackwood was the nameless boy who had grown up beside me. We hunted together, fought together, and survived winters that should have broken us. Before the fire, his wolf had already recognized me as his fated mate. We had not completed the bond yet. We thought we had time. Then an enemy pack attacked the sanctuary at night and set the cabins on fire. I dragged Ryan, bleeding from a silver wound and barely conscious, through a burning hallway and shoved him outside. Then I went back for Mara and the last pups. I never came out. Ryan survived with severe smoke inhalation, broken memories, and a wolf that went completely silent. When he woke, he no longer remembered me, the promise he had made to me, or the bond his wolf had already chosen. Vera Ashford stayed beside him and gave everyone a simpler story. She said she had saved Ryan. She said I had sold the sanctuary routes and caused the fire. For the next twelve years, she stood beside him through trial after trial. The pack came to treat her as the woman who would one day stand beside the heir for good, even though Ryan's wolf never woke enough to complete a true mate bond with her. By the time his hundredth trial began, my grave had been cold for twelve years. The first sign that the trial had called me back was not a voice. Every wolf in the stone hall lifted its head at once, hackles rising as a faint smell of charred wood drifted through the moonlight. Then I stepped out of the forest mist.

Seven years after my death, an engagement invitation from my ex-girlfriend arrives at my house. Back then, I had broken up with her in my lowest, most desperate days and married someone else. Now, she has reinvented herself as a rising powerhouse worth hundreds of billions, driven by revenge and eager to see me regret everything and beg for mercy. Unfortunately for her, I am not the one who shows up. She looks around in open contempt, convinced my absence means guilt, shame, and fear. When I finally appear, all she sees is an urn.

My husband's true love developed acute kidney failure, and I was the only matching donor. To save her life, he forced me to terminate my pregnancy at six months. Despite his gentle tone, he said the most heart-wrenching words, "Can't you be a little kinder? You're just losing a child, but she's losing her life." I resisted with every fiber of my being, but he threatened his own life to force my hand. On the operating table, both my child and I died. Meanwhile, his true love's transplant was a success, and she lived. Although the outcome was exactly what he wanted, he spiraled into madness upon hearing news of my death.

It's my third year living with ALS, and my 11th day since losing the ability to speak completely. My wife, Renee Sutton, bursts into my hospital room with a lawyer and a notary in tow, gripping a so-called expert report that concludes all of my symptoms can be faked. She throws it onto my bed. "Miles, you're really a hell of an actor," she says. "You had me fooled for three years. Today, you're finally going to tell the truth." I look at her and open my mouth, but no sound comes out. She shoves a divorce agreement in front of me. "Sign it. Admit you faked your illness to swindle marital assets. You're not walking away with a single cent." I look down at the pen, then at my right hand lying motionless on the sheet. Her eyes hold nothing but a cold sneer. "Still faking? Fine. Keep faking. "Back then, you told me you didn't love me anymore, and I believed you. You said you wanted to marry that older woman, and I believed that too. "Now you've circled back and landed flat on your back, needing someone to take care of you. Did you really think I'd go soft on you again?" A nurse rushes in from the hallway and forces a writing board into my stiff left hand. "Ms. Sutton, he had a tracheotomy just yesterday! This board is the only way he can speak!" Renee stares at the board. Her expression slowly shifts as she lowers her head to look. Scrawled across it, in two shaky words, is my answer. I pour the last of my strength into every stroke. "I'm sorry."

To help my husband, Julian Parker, pay off the debt from his stock-market losses, I agreed to sell one of my kidneys. But on the day of the surgery, our six-year-old daughter, Ella Parker, ran to the clinic all by herself and frantically called Julian for help. Julian sounded conflicted. "Mom's only having one kidney removed. It'll get Dad out of this mess for good. But if she doesn't do it, Dad's whole future is ruined." Ella kept begging him to stop the surgery, but Julian simply hung up. Then he hurried toward a private hospital suite nearby, his face filled with worry. Inside lay Claire Morgan, the woman he'd never gotten over. Her face was deathly pale. "Don't worry. We've got a kidney for you. You're going to be fine." He lowered his voice. "And don't feel guilty. I'm the one who chose to lie to her. She's still young. She can live just fine with one kidney." Claire's transplant was a success. Julian was in such a good mood afterward that, for once, he even suggested taking Ella and me on a trip, calling it a belated honeymoon. But he had no idea I was already dead. After my kidney was removed, I couldn't even afford $9.90 for the antibiotics I needed. The wound became infected, and I died. And Ella finally gave up on her father, too.

In my third year as a blind massage therapist, Henry Young took his employees on a company retreat. By sheer coincidence, he ended up booking me. When he saw me, he remained perfectly composed, so much so that even his breathing did not falter. I served him the same way I treated every other client. Then his phone rang. My hands paused for a moment as my own voice, young and girlish, came through his phone speaker. His employees immediately started teasing him. Henry simply explained in a gentle voice, “My wife recorded that when she was young and didn’t know any better.” Just as he was leaving, Henry suddenly turned around. “Anya Walt, I’ve never forgotten you. “Are you really going to keep living this hard life, with my child by your side?” I rubbed my fingertips again and again, but said nothing. It seemed he still had no idea. Back then, I kept our child and delivered the baby. But the baby was stillborn.

As my due date approaches, my husband's precious mistress falls into the water at a banquet. After being rescued, she immediately accuses me of pushing her. To "avenge" her, he throws me into a modified stainless steel water tank. I beg him, pleading for the sake of our unborn children. But he only sneers. "Don't try to use the babies to guilt me! You've still got a week before you're due. I know exactly how vicious you are—any child of yours would be just as rotten. Stay in there and reflect on your behavior. I'll let you out when you finally admit you're wrong!" Five days later, my husband returns home from a night out with his mistress, calling for me to come downstairs and serve them, as always. He doesn't know that my babies and I have already rotted beyond recognition.

My wife, Caroline Bailey, was a forensic pathologist. For her first love, Ian Lawson, she was willing to break every rule she held sacred and allowed him into the autopsy room to observe. She even let him throw acid onto a corpse's face. That was, until Caroline took on a new case. As she stood over the disfigured body on her operating table, she began to fall apart. The acid-burned face was starting to look more and more like mine.

My grandfather, Terry Sims, suffered from bipolar disorder and was prone to anger and mood swings. My mother, Catherine, was his only chill pill. On the day they were hunted down by enemies, my mom went into early labor and lost her life in an attempt to save him. Devastated, my grandfather could not see a way out of his disorder and poured all his love into me. He would pull out the tongues of those who mocked me and fed them to the dogs. The families of those who hurt me would meet their end. It was known to the people of Mistvale that the granddaughter of Terry Sims was untouchable. Due to my congenital heart disease, he reluctantly sent me abroad for medical treatment. After my surgery, I rushed back to his side for his birthday, thinking of giving him a surprise. However, I was mistaken for a gold digger by a carer and locked in the basement. “Of all the things you can do for your age, you throw yourself at men. Since your parents won’t restrain your behavior, I’ll have to do it for them.” She pulled out my tongue, dumped acid all over me, and dug out my snewly transplanted heart to give as a birthday gift to my grandfather, who had been waiting for my return. “Mr. Sims, the skank tried to impersonate Ms. Sims, but I got everything sorted out for you.”

After my family went bankrupt, my husband, Felix Skye, paid the price. The debt collectors drowned him in the river. To pay off the debt, I took a job at an underground casino as a human punching bag. Every punch I took earned me five dollars. Then one night, I was sent to deliver drinks to a private room. Through the crack in the door, I saw Felix, my husband who was supposed to be dead, sitting at the head of the table and slowly savoring a glass of fine red wine. "It's been more than three years since I last saw Avery. I wonder how she's doing." My supposedly bankrupt mother, Ivy Schotz, sat there dripping in gold and jewels. She sighed. "She'll just hide away and grieve for a few years. Once she's over it, she can remarry. "No matter what," Mom went on, "as long as she believes you're dead, you and Riley can finally live in peace." Riley Mackenzie was the daughter my mother had with her first love. Every face in that room was familiar, including my best friend and the very "enemies" who had supposedly killed Felix. It had all been an act from start to finish. The only thing real was the three years of hell I'd lived through. Holding twenty bottles of beer, I smiled and shook my head. Once I scraped together enough money for my coffin, they would all be free.

I had lost my memory for three years. I'd been through hell and high water with Adrian Vance for the past three years. He told me we'd grown up together on the same block, two kids who'd fallen for each other young. He told me that once he had a real foothold in the Family, he'd marry me in front of all of Palermo and make the whole city come to watch. I believed him. With a steady trigger hand and a mean streak, I cleared every man who stood in his way. I dragged him up from a nobody bastard son into the inner circle of the Family, one body at a time. Then the day finally came, and what he said was, "I've already asked the Don for his daughter Camilla. It's settled. I'm marrying her." "Camilla's a mafia princess. The Don's pride and joy. Not some no-name orphan girl with nothing and no one behind her. She's the one who can actually lift me up." "Be good, Vera. As long as Camilla never finds out, we can go on the way we always have." "Be good. You mean play your mistress in the dark, is that it?" What Adrian didn't know was that my memory had already come back. My real name was Hale, heir to the Hale family, the one enemy the Marlowe outfit he'd sworn himself to feared most. Childhood sweethearts, princesses, Don. In the end they were all just one more debt I'd settle on my way to paying the Family back in full.

After being out of contact for a month, my wife finally remembered me. 'Mason's still one song short. Bring me that score of yours.' But this time, she never received a reply from me again. Mason tried to persuade her carefully. "Vega, forget it. Maybe I'm just not meant for this award. Don't fall out with Blaine because of me." Vega reassured him that I was only sulking. Then she went home, found my score, and handed it to Mason, thinking she could explain everything to me once I came back. But she never got the chance. I had been by her side the whole time—she just could not see me anymore.

The day I discover that my husband, Nick Goldberg, is cheating on me, my severe depression drives me to climb up to the rooftop. My older sister, Natalie Swift, stabs him before dragging him over to apologize to me. From then on, Natalie moves in with us and becomes his strictest watchdog. Every time he so much as twitches, Natalie is even more anxious than I am. With Natalie keeping watch over Nick, he genuinely changes. He deletes all of the female contacts he has and comes back home on time. It's to the point that he even reports to me when he's just going out to throw the trash. Because of this, I think that this battered, broken marriage of ours is finally getting a fresh start. However, that only lasts until I receive a call from me ten years into the future. As I take in the gaunt, hollow-eyed woman in front of me, I ask tentatively, "It's been ten years. Is my depression still not cured?" Instead of answering, she curls her lips into a smile that was more a horrible grimace and shows me a video. The video she shows me is of Nick pinning Natalie to the closet wall. His eyes are filled with suppressed pain as he says, "For three years now, we've stayed under the same roof, yet we still can't openly be together. Just how long do you plan on punishing me?" Natalie shuts her eyes, tears trailing down her cheeks. "What we did to Lena was unforgivable. Only by being apart can we atone for our sins." I stiffen, feeling as though I've been plunged into freezing waters. As it turns out, the woman I've been searching the entire city of Hollerton for is none other than my beloved older sister. Nick truly is quite skilled at hiding her, to the point that she's been living right under my nose for three entire years without me being any the wiser. The screen abruptly cuts back to my future self, who leans in closer with a crazed smile on her lips. "You hear that? As long as you still breathe, everyone is suffering. Only with you dead can everyone be free."

There is a running joke in Salbury. "If your husband is giving you trouble, just send him to Ian Rutherford. He's the only man who can watch his wife bring a different man home every night and still put up with it for the sake of their child." Whenever a group of married women gets together, someone always jokes, "I wish my useless husband had even half of Ian's patience." But they don't know that the man they see as the most patient and accommodating husband is done. I ask for a divorce, and I don't even want custody of our child. However, no one believes me, not even my wife, Celine Erwin.

Colin Mathers did not show up to our daughter's viewing. I held her memorial portrait and called him 33 times. He did not answer once. Then I saw a video the real estate agent had posted. [The boy's godfather spoils him rotten. He might as well be his real dad.] In the video, Colin was holding the hand of Ariana Lisle's son as they looked over the balcony of a house in a top school district. Ariana asked him, "Colin, are you really giving this house to Noah?" He smiled and ruffled the boy's hair. "Of course. His schooling comes first." The video took me back to the night before my daughter passed. She had been in so much pain that her face had gone white, yet she still clung to my hand and asked, "Mommy, did Daddy go get my medicine?" I could not bring myself to look her in the eye. All I could do was nod. She gave me a sweet little smile. "Then I won't sleep. I'm scared that if Daddy comes back and sees me sleeping, he'll sneak away again. "Mommy, I'll be good and take all my medicine from now on. Then Daddy won't leave me." She waited until the very end, but her father never came. That was when a staff member from the funeral home walked in with an eye bank coordinator. "Mr. Mathers already signed the consent form, and we've found a match for your daughter's corneas. Before the cremation, we need confirmation from one more immediate family member."