Nouvelles Crime Mystery/Thriller & Romans

I gave birth prematurely, just twenty days before the due date. Two hours after I entered the surgery room, I had a stillborn baby. I did not cry at all. I did not even spare a glance at the dead baby. I endured the pain from childbirth and calmly walked into the hospital nursery. After the door was tightly shut, I turned down the temperature of the air-conditioning. The temperature inside the nursery would be too cold for newborns to bear after an hour. The doctors and parents were begging me on their knees to let their babies live. They screamed and cried. They said I was a mother and hoped that I would understand. Instead, I laughed and said, “Yes, I was a mother. But my baby died!” The gynecologist knelt on the floor and begged, “We may be at fault for not being able to save your baby, but these babies are innocent! “Please don’t be reckless just because you lost your baby! You’re so young. You’ll have more babies in the future.” I gritted my teeth and roared, “But my baby isn’t dead! “She’s still alive. I’ll give you one hour. Bring her back to me!” But I was unsure if she would still be alive after an hour.

Lately, my seatmate had been looking at me strangely. Whether we were going to the cafeteria or heading to P.E., she kept her distance like she was afraid of me. I finally couldn't take it anymore and asked her, "Did I do something to offend you?" She flinched, backed several steps away, and avoided my eyes. "No. It's not your fault!" But the next day, she voluntarily transferred out of the honors track and into a regular class. Confused, I went to ask her what was going on. The moment I arrived at the door of her new classroom, she'd been chatting casually with other students. Then she saw me, started shaking all over, and screamed in terror. "It really has nothing to do with you. Please stop looking for me. Please!"

I live alone. At eleven o'clock on a rainy night, an unexpected call came through. The voice on the other end said my car window was left open and urged me to go downstairs. Cautious as a woman should be, I didn't act rashly. Instead, I called the property security office, only to discover that even the security was fake. It hit me suddenly—I was ensnared in a vast conspiracy. Someone was orchestrating all of this. But for what purpose?

I was killed seven times by the home invader who broke into my house, trapped in a cycle I could never escape. The first time, I fought back. The second time, I was terrified. By the sixth, I had gone numb. And by the seventh, I was determined to take him down with me. With my last breath, I ripped off his mask and found my husband's face staring back at me.

After my mom, Margaret Hale, dies of a heart attack, she starts appearing in my sister Claire Dawson's dreams. In a dream, Mom tells Claire to climb Mount Mistwood before sunrise and burn the entrance ticket for her, or the other ghosts will bully her. Claire doesn't tell me anything. She packs a bag in the middle of the night and forces herself to the summit. While she's gasping her way up that mountain, I'm asleep at home when I suddenly go into cardiac arrest. I wake up in the emergency room with doctors shouting over me. I barely survive before Mom appears in Claire's dreams again. This time, she says skydiving is her last wish. If Claire doesn't do it for her, she won't rest in peace. Claire signs up right away, ignoring everything I say. But then, her parachute refuses to open, and she plummets toward the ground. Luckily, she gets snagged in a tree and walks away without a scratch. Meanwhile, I miss a step going downstairs, tumble to the bottom, end up covered in bruises, and break five ribs. While I'm recovering in the hospital, Mom shows up in Claire's dreams again. Now, she wants Claire to go to the South Pole for her, saying she can finally move on and be reincarnated once Claire completes the trip. Claire doesn't hesitate and books a tour on the spot. While she's taking pictures with penguins, I freeze to death back home during a 104-degree heatwave. Only after I die does it finally hit me that Mom's missions for Claire always end with me on death's doorstep. What I don't understand is how Mom keeps shifting the danger meant for Claire onto me instead. The next time I open my eyes, I'm back on the morning after Mom first appeared in Claire's dream.

The rideshare I was in broke down on a mountain road. None of our phones had a signal, so we couldn't even make a call. We waited from midnight until 3 a.m., but not a single car passed by. After it started raining, we had no choice but to get back into the car. That's when we noticed the female passenger in the front seat was still asleep. "Do you want something to eat?" the driver asked as he pulled out a few sandwiches and gently tapped her shoulder. Her body suddenly tilted to one side. Then she collapsed. The driver jumped in fright and tried to help her up. But the moment he leaned closer, his face turned pale. "She's dead!" he screamed. His frantic movements twisted the woman's head around until she was facing us. The dim light inside the car fell across her face. Her eyes were wide open. Blood was still running from the corner of her mouth. We all screamed and rushed out of the car. I followed them outside. Then I looked at the others and said coldly, "Let's introduce ourselves."

At 9:00 a.m., just as I arrived at the office entrance, two police officers stopped me. "Mr. Clarke, someone reported that you haven't shown up at work for a long time and that they couldn't reach you. They were worried that you might have been in an accident." I was shocked. I thought they had the wrong person. I had gone to work on time every day for the past six months. Sometimes, I even stayed late at the office until midnight. How could my company not be able to contact me? "You must have the wrong person. I go to work every day. Everyone at my company can prove it!" "The people who reported you missing are from your company."

There are no grown men in our village. When girls turn 18, they participate in a coming-of-age ceremony in the ancestral hall. Dressed in ceremonial clothes, they line up to enter, and when they come out, their faces show a mix of pain and joy. When my eldest sister turned 18, Grandma forbade her from attending. However, one night, she snuck into the hall. When she came out, she was limping, and blood was dripping between her legs.

At four months pregnant, I went to pick up my prenatal test results with my husband, Aiden Carter, who was an OB-GYN. The smile at the corner of his lips froze the moment he saw the report. Without a word, he grabbed my hand and tried to schedule an abortion. I stood there in shock. The attending physician, Dr. Marianne Cole, had just told me the baby was perfectly healthy! I tore myself free and demanded, "Why do you want me to get an abortion?!" He didn’t answer and had already scheduled the procedure. When I tried to run, he yanked my arm tighter. "There's no way we are having this child!" Clutching my belly, I hurried to call my parents, who were both OB-GYNs themselves. Dad, who had always doted on me, raised his fist, aiming straight for my stomach. Mom’s face twisted in horror, shaking her head wildly. "No, this won’t work. It can’t be like this." "Find a few men. Lock Clara Hart in with them." I didn’t understand why they were so desperate to destroy my child. All I wanted was to escape. Instead, they locked me inside a pitch-black room. When I felt the blood trickling down my legs, I knew my baby was gone. Mom came smiling to fetch me. I fought, demanding to know why they had done this to me. Without responding, she turned around and sent me straight to Ravenwood Asylum. I was tortured to death there. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day I went to collect my prenatal report. Aiden looked at me, his face glowing with joy. "Baby, this is our first child. I can’t wait for the day he’s born."

I suspected someone was impersonating my husband. Maybe it wasn't even human. Because lately, Luther had been acting far too strange. After more than ten years of being left-handed, he'd suddenly started using his right hand. The birthmark on his thigh had disappeared too. But the strangest thing happened this morning. As he crossed the balcony on his way out, the morning light slanted across the floor. And somehow, he cast two shadows. One in front. One behind. Yet whenever he held me, I could still hear the strong, steady beat of his heart. I told myself I was being paranoid. Until that evening. I had the TV on while I cooked in the kitchen when the news anchor suddenly cut in with a breaking report. “Authorities have identified the body of the man who drowned in Lake Yandee last week.” “The deceased has been identified as Luther Miller, male...” My mind went completely blank. Behind me, the front door opened softly. Then Luther's gentle voice drifted in. “Honey, I'm home.” My entire body started shaking. I spun around and raised the kitchen knife toward him. “Who the hell are you?”

When I finally met my online boyfriend in person, he asked what I wanted in a future husband. I didn't even have to think. "He can't be named Jamie Bloom." He looked completely lost, but I didn't explain. Because a fortune-teller once told me I'd die at the hands of a man named Jamie Bloom. That evening, he went to take a shower, and a message popped up on his phone. One glance, and my blood ran cold. "Jamie, sweetie, you got there and didn't even text Mom to say you made it safe?"

After the college entrance exam, my sweet, well-behaved daughter suddenly turned into a monster. She stabbed the grandmother who had raised her with her own hands over and over again, leaving her to bleed to death. She threw her little brother, who had always adored her, straight off the tenth floor. My husband and I were horrified. We begged her to stop, our voices shaking. But she only laughed like a maniac. “Grandma and my brother were too good to me. That's exactly why they had to die! “And you two worked yourselves to the bone to support me, pay for my schooling, and give me a good life. You were good to me too. “So you have to die as well!” Then she set the house on fire with my husband and me still inside. I closed my eyes, furious and unwilling to accept it. But when I opened them again, I found myself back one week before my daughter's college entrance exam. This time, I secretly installed a camera in her room. No matter what it took, I was going to uncover the truth behind why she'd murdered our entire family. But when my husband and I finally saw what the camera had recorded, neither of us could say a word.