Historias cortas y novelas de Ruthless Biological Family

Before our wedding, my fiancée, Sarah Hargrave—a professor of medieval history—held a private ceremony in a secluded chapel in the countryside. But not with me. Under the glow of candlelight, she cradled Benjamin Wheeler—her first love, his face gaunt from the cancer consuming him—in her arms. Her smile was soft, almost reverent, as she murmured, "In the eyes of God, vows made before the altar are the only ones that matter. Even if the law says I belong to Daniel, my soul was never his." And so, to the faint echo of hymns and the scent of old incense, they drank from the same silver cup, exchanged rings, and stepped together into the dimly lit sacristy—their makeshift bridal chamber. I watched. Silent. Motionless. No outbursts, no demands for explanation. Just the quiet dialing of a clinic to undo the vasectomy I'd gotten for our future. From fifteen to thirty, I had loved Sarah for fifteen long years. But in all that time, there'd never been room for me. That space had always belonged to Benjamin, my stepbrother. So I let her go. Afterward, I joined a geological research team bound for the isolation of Antarctica—a land cut off from the world, quiet and clean. Before I left, I handed Sarah a divorce agreement…and a final gift to mark the end. I never anticipated that Sarah, who'd always met my devotion with frosty detachment, who'd never once glanced back as I walked away, would look ten years older overnight.

Six months ago, I was accidentally poisoned by wolfsbane. The poison is deadly, and my days are numbered. My body gradually weakens. Today, my wolf is completely gone, and I have three days left to live. On the last day before I draw my final breath, I agree to donate my kidney to my sister. Thrilled, my mate swears that he'll make it up to me someday. My sister is being swamped with insults on the college forum after she was caught plagiarizing my Belladonna thesis. But I come forward and claim that I'm the one who plagiarized it. Mom and Dad are pleased, saying I've finally become mature. At last, I've become the perfect mate and daughter in their eyes. But why are they crying after my body has turned cold and lifeless?

On my fourth birthday, Dad establishes a system to punish me by making me solve math problems. For every word I spell incorrectly, I'll be punished with 30 math problems. For every minute I am late getting out of bed, I'll be punished with 40 math problems. For every syllable I pronounce incorrectly while reading out loud, I'll be punished with 50 math problems. "You have to do your math problems well and make sure you outperform that woman's child! You must make the Rowland family proud of you!" Dad works incredibly hard to raise me all on his own, so in return, I must be a good, obedient boy, even when I'm so exhausted by the end of the day that I can no longer hold a pencil. Then comes our first class trip. While the other children share snacks and play games, I sit kneeling on the ground, my knees scraped raw and bleeding as I desperately grind away at math problems instead. "Ms. Carpenter, I've assigned Victor 200 math problems today. Could you please take a photo and send it to me? Make sure the little rascal doesn't slack off!" Dad tells my teacher, Ms. Beth Carpenter. The other children jeer at me and pelt me with small stones. "No wonder he doesn't have a mother! Who would ever like a kid who only knows how to do math problems?" I hang my head low, wondering if I'd still have to do all these math problems if I were that woman's child instead.

Just because I left a window cracked for half an hour, my younger brother caught a cold and ran a raging fever in the middle of the night. Enraged, Mom locked me inside a freezing, thirty-below cellar. "How on earth did I give birth to a cold-blooded monster like you?! You won't be happy until you've killed your own brother, will you?! Since you love the cold so much, get your butt down there and cool off!" Down in the dark, I sobbed and begged Mom for mercy, but the biting cold slowly drained every bit of warmth from my body. Mom didn't care in the slightest. "I'm starving you for three whole days to teach you a lesson! This is what you get for being a jealous brat!" My brother's fever broke the very next morning. To make it up to him, Mom took him on a three-day trip to an amusement park. When Mom finally came back, standing at the top of the cellar to demand if I had learned my lesson, all she received was endless, deafening silence. Because I had already been dead for three days.

The day I get into Harton University, one of the top colleges in the country, everyone in town is proud of me. "Lindsay, you wouldn't be where you are today without your mom!" "Your dad is gone, and your mom had to raise you all by herself. It couldn't have been easy!" "We've all seen how much she's done for you over the years. Good deeds really do get rewarded." Mom smiles and tells me to get a bottle of good liquor from the cellar for everyone. I go down there, but instead of finding the liquor, I uncover a merit ledger hidden amongst the bottles. It is written in Mom's neat handwriting. "May 17. I deliberately poisoned our neighbor, Mr. Lowe, and killed him to gain blessings for my daughter's studies and help her become the top student in the country."

Dad's temper explodes when I tell him that one plus one equals two. Frank Huxley ruthlessly kicks me in the chest and roars, "Who gave you permission to learn addition? Why won't you just listen to me?" He then grabs me by the leg and drags me to the door, shoving me out of the house. "You just love learning so much, don't you? Go then! But don't ever call me your father ever again!" I wail loudly as I bang on the door with all my might. Suddenly, I can hear Dad's thoughts through the door. "He's so annoying. Why is this villain so disobedient? He needs to be an idiot so I can complete my mission. I'll give him the cold shoulder for a couple of days and deprive him of a few meals. Let's see whether he still has the guts to learn behind my back then!" I whip my head up in confusion. I don't know what a "villain" is, but I can't shake the feeling that Dad doesn't actually love me.

I knew that my father did not like me since I was young. When I wanted to commit suicide to end the pain caused by my illness, he was celebrating another child’s birthday. He hated my mother and me alongside her. So, when I told him that I was sick, he did not believe me. “Is this your new tactic to get money from me?” No one believed that the daughter of the Powell family could die because she was too poor to pay the hospital fees. My father did not believe it either. However, when he saw my dead body, the famous actor who hated his daughter actually went insane.

My parents have always been biased against me, even as a child. They leave me in the countryside while raising my brother themselves. When I'm finally brought to live with them, they neglect me because they don't want my brother to be upset. When my brother says that I'm rude and falsely accuses me of getting people to assault him, my parents believe him without a shadow of doubt. And so, I'm sent to a residential treatment center. Under my parents' tacit permission and my brother's persuasion, the teachers at the center "educate" me inhumanely. In the end, I learn my lesson, as everyone wishes. I die while learning it, too.

Ten years after being reunited with my birth family, the Lancasters, I still reign as the family's undisputed attention magnet. When Dad forgets to take his medication, I put on a pair of sunglasses, barge into the conference room, and take away his coffee. "Mr. Lancaster, you're suspected of abusing your stomach. Please come with me." He scowls as he takes his medication, while the other shareholders fight hard to contain their laughter. When Mom has insomnia and can't sleep, I put on a white bedsheet and drift into the room. "Your application for an early death has been rejected as your daughter objected to it." She scolds me for saying such cursed things, yet tears stream down her face from her laughter. When my older brother, Thomas Lancaster, sprains his ankle during a sports match but refuses to go to the school doctor, I latch onto his leg and wail loudly, "Oh, Mr. Campus Hunk, I'm a loyal fan of yours!" The school doctor learns of the injury and rushes over, so Thomas receives treatment for his ankle. I, on the other hand, become known as the girl who tried to latch onto the campus heartthrob. They are always complaining about how noisy and humiliating I am, about how I'm not as quiet and considerate as their fake daughter, Janet Lancaster. Yet, every time something goes wrong, they always turn to me first. One day, during the school's anniversary celebration, Thomas is backstage when he suffers from a panic attack. I put on a mascot costume and rush onto the stage, turning the gala into a farce. This draws everyone's attention to me, allowing Thomas to be quietly escorted away. But because of that, Janet's piano solo fails to make it onto the trending list. With red-rimmed eyes, she asks me, "Mel, do you really like to steal the spotlight from me that much?" Mom rips my mascot costume right there in public, while Dad forces me to give up my arts student recommendation slot. I look at Thomas, who ducks his head and remains silent. He doesn't speak up for me. As it turns out, even the very person I tried to protect at the risk of my own reputation thinks that I'm embarrassing. Pulling off the red clown nose, I hand Janet the recommendation form. "Fine, here you go. From now on, don't drag me into your family's celebrations or troubles."

When I practice standing at attention during the freshman orientation program, my mom, Jasmine Miller, decides to lock me up in a car with fully sealed windows just because I'm the first one who wipes sweat off her brow. "You were never able to stand properly ever since you were a kid! How dare you embarrass me in front of everyone with that slump of yours! In that case, you might as well reflect on yourself in the car!" The temperature in the car soon rose to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. I could only grip my throat, which is closing up rapidly, as I bang on the car window and plead to Mom to let me out. But she merely glances at the temperature shown on the monitor inside the car before locking all the doors with a jab of the remote control. "It's only 96.8 degrees inside the car! Heck, it's even a degree lower than the temperature outside! Keep putting on that act of yours, why don't you?" But what Mom doesn't know is that the car's system has already gotten disconnected from the Internet a long time ago. Seeing as the temperature inside the car is still increasing, I have no choice but to ask my orientation leader, Edwin Styke, for help. But he actually agrees with Mom's approach to things. "If every parent were as strict as Ms. Miller, none of the youngsters would grow up fragile and whiny!" Driven by sheer despair, I can only slump in the backseat. Soon, my consciousness fades away completely. Some of my peers try to plead on my behalf, only to witness the way Mom tosses her car key into the dumpster. "Kate really is enjoying her break, huh? Now that she's lying inside the car, she refuses to even move a muscle! Well then, she can lie there all she wants!" But Mom, I don't need you to free me anymore. After all, I can feel myself ascending slowly from the car. Finally, I'm free from this sauna! As I stare at Mom's furious face, I can only grip the hem of my sweat-soaked shirt uneasily. I'm sorry for embarrassing you in front of everyone again, Mom…

After my last exam, I spotted Mom waiting in the distance in a bright red dress. I was about to run to her when my twin sister, Rosie, beat me to it and threw herself into Mom's arms. "Sweetheart, you must be exhausted." Mom stroked Rosie's hair while Grant handed her an ice-cold juice and took her backpack. I stood where I was and watched the three of them climb into the family car, with Mom and Grant fussing over Rosie from either side. Just as the car was about to pull away, Rosie suddenly said, "Wait. We're missing someone." For one foolish second, I thought she meant me. I hurried toward them. Instead, Rosie waved at someone behind me. "Ethan! Over here!" Only after Ethan Cole climbed into the car did everyone finally notice me standing beside the open door. "Vivi? What are you doing here?" "Aren't you a year behind Rosie?" Because of my health, I'd started school a year later than my twin. Once I recovered, though, all their attention shifted to Rosie. They never even realized I'd skipped a grade. I looked at their confused faces and smiled. "I just came to wish Rosie luck." "That's sweet of you." Mom pulled two dollars from her purse. "Do you have enough for the bus? I can give you more if you need it." I looked at the two dollars in her hand, lowered my head, and whispered, "It's enough." The car door shut without hesitation. By the time I looked up again, even the exhaust had disappeared. I sniffed, pulled out my phone, and typed a question into the search bar: [Can you start college early?]

After the fire, my younger brother, Ethan Harper, and I have become comatose. Our own parents choose to deliver us to the rebirth trial. If we pass the trial, we'll regain consciousness and be granted a brand new life. The sensory caps are attached to our heads and soon connected to our brainwaves. Ethan chokes out, "Since Mom and Dad loves you so much, you'll definitely receive their votes, Emma." I turn to look at the judge instead. "After I'm reborn, can I request a new pair of parents? It's fine if the answer is no. My parents will still die, anyway."

I had been a copycat since childhood, but I only ever copied my older sister, Solana Darnell. When she took a liking to a strawberry cake from a particular dessert shop, I bought out every new product from that shop and kept eating it until my stomach hurt. When she took up equestrianism, I fell off a horse and broke my leg. The first thing I did after getting my cast removed was to go back to the stables with her. Whatever designer brand she wore, my closet would inevitably have the same piece the very next day. Later, Solana married the eldest son of the Creese family, Arthur Creese. I turned down every arranged marriage my father set up and instead married the Creese family’s second son, Alden Creese. Our friend group made fun of me for copying her even in marriage. She said to me angrily, “You’ve been copying me for over twenty years. When are you finally going to leave me alone? I can’t take this anymore!” That night, she left a suicide note and jumped off Harlow Bridge. Everyone said that I had driven her to her death. My parents forced me to apologize publicly in the funeral hall and admit to my fault. Alden lashed out at me, calling me so jealous of Solana that I wanted to steal her life too. Little did I know that the suicide was actually set up by my family, including Solana. The day Solana jumped, a rescue team was already waiting under the bridge. My family just wanted to scare some sense into me to force me to learn to be myself. But the only thing I took away from it all was the fact that Solana was dead. So I would copy her in that, too.

After bringing me into this world, Mom develops postpartum depression. It lasts for 18 long years. On my fifth birthday, Dad buys me a small cake. Mom hurls it onto the floor. "I almost died giving birth to you, and you actually have the nerve to celebrate?" On my tenth birthday, Grandma forces me to kneel before Mom and press my forehead against the floor. "Your birthday is the day your mother suffered. You should be grateful she didn't strangle you at birth!" On my 15th birthday, I secretly make a wish, hoping Mom will get better soon. After overhearing me, she slaps me across the face. "I'll never get better as long as you're in my life!" On my 18th birthday, my family takes down my birthday candles and changes the name on the cake to "18 Years of Suffering". Mom makes her one and only wish in front of all our relatives. "I hope she never shows her face in front of me again." Grandpa and Grandma urge me to be the bigger person. After a prolonged silence, Dad says quietly, "Maybe your mom really will get better after you move out." I smile and nod before blowing out the candles in Mom's place. After returning to my room, I dig out the birthday cards I've saved for 18 years and carefully write on the last one. "Mom, this time, your wish will definitely come true."

I have always known since I was young that I am not the Luther family's biological son. I accidentally break my younger brother Henry Luther's limited-edition figure while cleaning the room, and Dad punishes me by making me kneel in the rain all night. Dad actually defends Henry when he accidentally blinds me in one eye with a high-powered laser pointer, saying, "Henry didn't do it on purpose. He just got rowdy while playing around, Julian." Henry flashes me a triumphant smile once I go permanently blind in my right eye. "That's what you get for living in our house when you're nothing but an outsider!" I am nothing but an outsider to them. I have done everything I can to please them for the past 18 years, but I have never managed to become part of their family. I accidentally discover a shocking truth one day—the paternity test clearly proves that I am Dad's biological son, whereas Henry is the adopted one. In that instant, my breath catches in my throat.

My little brother, Rylan, wanted to go to the park. However, Dad told me to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't wander off. So, Rylan said he wanted to play hide-and-seek at home with me, and I agreed. Unfortunately, I couldn't find him after he hid. I searched everywhere for him. I looked through all three floors of the house and even searched the yard. At the time, I just thought that Rylan had found an incredible hiding spot. It wasn't until that evening that our neighbor brought him home with the police. Only then did I realize that Rylan had slipped out of the house while I'd been counting with my eyes covered. Terrified that Dad would find out he'd snuck off to play, Rylan threw his arms around Dad's leg and burst into tears. "Dad, Caleb threw me out of the house!" Dad flew into a rage and slapped me across the face. "How could you be so cruel? Your brother is only five years old! You told me he was playing hide-and-seek with you. You rotten liar!" But Dad... I was only seven. I tried to explain, but Dad never believed another word I said. From that day on, I ranked lower than even the chauffeur in our house. Every day, I was fed spoiled leftovers and forced to sleep in the doghouse. When I was 12, a bad woman kidnapped me and made me call Dad for ransom money. All I got in return was his furious voice yelling over the phone. "You rotten liar! You really will say anything for money, even something like this. If they won't let you live without it, then go ahead and die." The woman was so furious that she kicked me off the unfinished balcony of an abandoned building. I hit the ground, and my body was splattered beyond recognition. Before I even had a chance to feel the pain, I found myself drifting upward. Dad… I hadn't been lying.

On my little brother, Clover Shaw's birthday, I tear up my stomach cancer diagnosis report and use the money I've saved for treatment to buy him the gift he's been talking about for ages. But when I wake up in the early hours of the night while coughing blood, I hear the disdain in his voice. "That piece of crap he bought is just 5,000 dollars. It's not even worth as much as my cheapest game! Who would want that garbage? "He's such an idiot. It's been over 20 years, and he still hasn't figured out that we've been playing poor. He's out there working himself to the bone to scrape together my tuition fees! On top of that, he stinks so much every day! It's disgusting! Mom, who has always called me the backbone of the Shaw family, angrily speaks up. "He deserves it! You wouldn't have ended up in the ICU right after you were born just because he stole all your nutrients in the womb. You'd grow up to be young and healthy. "The fortune teller was right. He's nothing but a leech, and if we don't find ways to torture him, he'll only make your life suffer." While I collapse on the floor, tears stream down my face nonstop as I stare at the blood pooling in the trash can. "Don't worry, Mom. You won't have to fuss over my future because I won't have one…"

A curse is cast upon everyone in this village, reducing us to mutes. But once a villager's lover takes three laps around the back mountain and marries said villager successfully, the curse on that villager will be broken. My childhood friend, who's the same age as me, has already gotten married and embraced his life as a regular person. Even my cousin, who's just turned 18 years old, has her curse broken as well. I, on the other hand, am about to turn 30 years old soon, and yet I'm still a mute. Whenever I'm about to get married, all of my ex-fiances, who kept telling me that they'd love me with all their hearts, would do anything just to terminate our engagements right after they came out of the back mountain. In order to proclaim his deep love for me, my tenth fiance, Isaac Jameson, tells me confidently that he'd definitely marry me once he's done with his laps around the mountain. But as soon as his words fall, his expression changes the moment he sets foot into the mountain. To my horror, Isaac picks up an axe from the ground and begins hacking at me with it. "Why are you still alive in this world? Why can't you just die already?" I can only lie on the ground while suffering from intense pain. I have no idea what's in the back mountain and why the same outcome will happen every time. Why is it that the entire village can break their curse so easily, and yet I can never get married despite having gone through it ten times in a row?

My parents were both highly educated professionals. The one thing they could never tolerate in this life was having a mentally disabled daughter who could not even speak. They considered me a genetic failure and devoted all their love and effort to their adopted genius daughter, Jacey Lee. In this family, Jacey was treated like a ray of sunshine, while I was seen as a filthy rat in the gutter. Their eyes were always filled with contempt whenever they looked at me. “Just seeing your vacant, idiotic face makes me sick. Stay away from us. Don’t infect your sister with your low intelligence.” When I was eight, Grandma took me to Willow Creek to visit our family graves. My foot slipped, and I fell into the water. I was wearing nothing but a thin pink padded jacket. At the same time, Jacey merely failed to answer a phone call, and my parents frantically searched for her everywhere. They completely ignored Grandma’s tearful call for help. I struggled desperately and opened my mouth soundlessly to call for help. My mother calmly analyzed the situation on the other end of the phone. “Mom, don’t let her fool you. According to child psychology, she’s pretending to be missing to get attention. If we go back now, we’ll only reinforce her distorted way of thinking.” My father impatiently cut her off. “Stop bothering us with that useless burden! With her limited intelligence, she’ll do nothing but look for food. Once she gets hungry, she’ll come crawling home like a dog. Jacey is the one in real danger!” The icy water rose to my neck. I took the piece of candy from my pocket. I had prepared it for my parents to celebrate my birthday. But the wrapper was wet, and I could not hold on to it. It slipped through my fingers. This time, this idiot would never return home.

My father's adopted daughter was only locked in the cramped storage closet for around fifteen minutes, yet he punished me by tying me up and throwing me inside. He even sealed off the ventilation with towels. "As Wendy's older sister, if you can't take care of her, then you should also experience how scared she was," he declared coldly. He knew I was claustrophobic, but my desperate pleas for mercy, my terror, were met with nothing but heartless reprimands. "Let this be a lesson on how to be a good sister." As the last sliver of light disappeared, swallowed by the oppressive darkness, I struggled helplessly. A week passed before my father finally remembered my existence and decided it was time to end my punishment. "Let's hope this week served as a good lesson for you, Jennifer. If this happens again, you will no longer be allowed in this house." He would never know that I had already taken my last breath in that suffocating room. My body had begun to rot in the darkness.