After Death Romance-Kurzgeschichten & Mistress Regret-Kurzromane

My wife's childhood friend and I were brought into the same hospital after a car crash. I had suffered a ruptured heart and needed emergency surgery. But my wife, Cassandra, was the hospital director. Instead of treating me, she ordered every available doctor to Miles Rowland's room so he could receive a full examination for a few minor scrapes. I begged her to save me. She only snapped, "Can you stop competing for attention for once? Do you have any idea Miles almost broke a bone?" In the end, I died in a corner where nobody found me. But when the wife who hated me most learned I was really dead, she lost her mind.

Ethan Shaw is dead. His face has been destroyed and his limbs severed. When his body reaches the morgue, the person who performs the autopsy is his own wife, Dr. Vivian Sullivan. She is a cool, rational professor of forensic pathology, and she is the woman Ethan loved for more than a decade. Six years ago he lost his voice saving her life, and she married him because of it. In all the years that followed, she remembered every one of his follow-up appointments yet never once remembered his birthday. She tended his injuries, but gave every ounce of warmth and favor she had to his younger brother. Right up until the moment he died, Ethan was calling her, over and over. And she hung up on his last plea for help so she could film a meteor shower for his brother. Afterward, Vivian finds a scar she knows on the body, a red mole behind its ear, and the ring he died protecting--the one he'd meant to give her. She finally recognizes him.

I make my way to the orphanage after receiving my cancer diagnosis, hoping to bid farewell to the orphan, Lillian Lowe, whom I was sponsoring financially. I unexpectedly find my husband, Henry Graham, who is meant to be on a business trip, and my sister, Felicity Sullivan, who is meant to be on a vacation. Their fingers are intertwined, while they use their free hands to playfully pinch Lillian's cheeks. Lillian rushes into their embrace, weeping pitifully. "Can you get rid of that mean lady at home? I just want to go home with Mommy and Daddy." I finally understand, at that moment, that Henry, whom I thought had loved me the most, is having an affair with Felicity. They even have a child together. Mom and Dad urge me to divorce Henry and make way for his new family. Lillian, the girl I once held dearly in my heart, curses me to an early death. Henry, the one who betrayed me, insists on keeping our marriage. It's too late, though. I'm already dying, just as they wished. Lillian, who once cried so much at the orphanage, now lives in a mansion with a father, a mother, and a pair of doting grandparents. Their perfect little life seems like a never-ending fairy tale. It is only when my lifeless body is before them that everyone suddenly loses their minds.

My girlfriend had always been drawn to powerful men, yet she was perfectly content to keep a useless intern on her payroll. She said she loved me with her whole life. When a routine health screening showed that the intern and I shared a rare blood type, she chose to keep him close. She claimed it was just a precaution, a backup source of blood in case I ever needed it. She cooked for him, took him on trips, made him gifts by hand, and fussed over him at every turn. She insisted it was all for my sake. To build good karma for my future. Then I was in a car accident. She arranged for blood to be brought in from over 60 miles away rather than let the intern donate a single drop. She said he had a cold and worried his blood might make me sick. The next day, the intern was diagnosed with uremic nephropathy. My girlfriend drugged me and had me wheeled into the operating room to donate a kidney before I could say a word. Her voice was gentle when she explained it afterward. "Daniel is our trump card. He has to stay healthy. He can only be used when your life is genuinely on the line, not wasted on every small setback. I had you donate the kidney for your own future, so you would stop overthinking everything. Once you are out of surgery, I am marrying you." What she did not know was that I already had mid-stage leukemia. The surgery accelerated its spread. I was dying, and I would never have the chance to marry her.

Chelsea Fischer's childhood sweetheart, Patrick Goldstein, loves fighting with me over everything. After I get reborn, I realize that I can never win against Patrick. So, I decide to attach price tags to everything I own. Since Patrick loves taking over Chelsea's front passenger seat under the guise of getting carsick easily, I slap a price tag onto the front passenger seat immediately. "That'll be 100 thousand dollars per year. If you decide to continue the subscription, you'll get a 20% discount." Patrick has his eye on my project proposal. As soon as Chelsea knocks on my office door, I say to her without even looking up, "Wire me 500 thousand dollars, and I'll change the project lead's name to Patrick's as soon as I receive the money." On the day of my daughter Callista Hammond's birthday, I reschedule all of my work matters so that I can hurry over to the kindergarten to pick her up. But Callista tells her teacher, "He's not my dad. I'm not leaving with him." While we're stuck in a stalemate, Patrick arrives at the kindergarten with the gift I've prepared for Callista. That's when Callista rushes over to hug his leg. "Take a good look, miss! This is my actual dad!" Chelsea is about to provide an explanation to me when I extend a hand to Callista. "Give me five million dollars, and I'll make sure that he gets your custody by the end of today."

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.”

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.

When I was in college, my mom had terminal cancer, and our family company collapsed due to heavy debts. Just when I was at my lowest, my childhood friend Zach Hall rushed back from overseas. For seven years, he stayed by my side and helped me heal. …Until the night before our engagement ceremony, when I was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. I wanted to tell Zach, but instead, I overheard a conversation between him and the lead surgeon who had operated on my mother. "Zach, your fiancee's mother could've been saved back then. But you stopped me from treating her, just so Jessica could get that poor woman's corneas. If Jessica is the one you love, why marry your fiancee?" "I do feel guilty toward Annie, but I don't regret it. It was the only way for Jess to pick up a brush again and keep chasing her dreams." Through the crack in the door, I saw clearly the tenderness on Zach's face when he mentioned Jessica. "What if Annie finds out?" the surgeon asked. Zach fell silent, rubbing the band on his ring finger. "I don't know. I've already decided to marry her. I'll love her, protect her, and spend the rest of my life making it up to her." The pain hit me so hard at that moment that I almost collapsed, as if my heart was being ripped out.