Ruthless Biological Family Short Stories & Novels

While on a car trip, our car is struck by falling rocks and breaks down on a remote mountain road. My sister, Renee Olsen, is terrified. We wait three hours before a passing vehicle finally comes. The driver rolls down the window. "I can only fit three people in my car. How many of you are there?" My mom, Penny Ziegler, lets out a relieved sigh and smiles. "Great, there are three of us." My dad, Leonard Olsen, immediately shifts slightly to the side, completely blocking me from view as I cower in the back seat. They get into the car with Renee and leave. Ten minutes later, Mom sends me a message. "Renee is in shock. We're bringing her to the hospital for a check-up first. You stay right there with the car and wait for us to pick you up." I glance at my leg that is bleeding from cuts caused by shattered glass and reply, "Okay." I wait from day into night until my phone battery dies, yet my parents never return. They never pick up my calls or reply to my messages. A team conducting geological surveys nearby discovers me, barely conscious. They arrange for a tow truck and rush me to the hospital, as I'm burning up with a fever. The doctor frowns when he sees my leg. "Why did you wait until now to come in? Young lady, your wound is infected. You need surgery to debride it. Where is your family? Get them here quickly to sign it." I slowly unclench my stiff fingers and take the surgical consent form. Calmly, I pick up the pen and sign my name. "I can sign it myself. They've already forgotten about me."

A boy in my sister Lily Bennett's class slaps her. Dad is furious. He storms straight to the school and demands that the teachers explain how they could have let something like that happen. Mom completely forgets about maintaining appearances. She floods the parent group chat with angry messages, refusing to let the matter go. My brother, Evan Bennett, is even worse. That evening, he shows up outside the school with seven or eight of his friends and corners the boy responsible. By the time Evan comes home, he says the kid has been "taught a lesson". But Lily isn't grateful. Instead, she pouts. "You guys made such a huge deal out of it that everyone at school is making fun of me now. Nobody wants to hang out with me!" Mom instantly panics. She stays up making 45 cupcakes so Lily can take them to school and give one to every student in her class. Dad and Evan apologize over and over again. They even send her a huge cash gift before they finally manage to make her smile again. The next day, one of Lily's cupcakes ends up on my desk too. I stare at it for a long time. Then, for the first time, I finally work up the courage to say something. "Mom... Some kids at school are bullying me." Mom is in the kitchen making Lily's favorite soup. She doesn't even turn around. "Oh, Ashley, kids your age make such a big deal out of everything. What if they're only joking around with you?" I try Evan next. "Evan... They take my lunch money. They rip up my tests..." He's busy playing one of Lily's games for her, trying to get her to the next rank. His eyes never leave the screen. Dad overhears me from across the room. "If you leave people alone, they usually leave you alone," he says dismissively. "Maybe think about whether you're doing something to provoke them." So, I go back to my room. I spend the entire night thinking about what he said. I try to figure out what I've done wrong. I can't think of anything. The bullying only gets worse. One day, the same group corners me in an alley after school. They humiliate me, take pictures meant to embarrass me, and hurt me badly enough that I become seriously ill. I call home again and again. No one answers. Eventually, the bullies leave me there. Before they go, I hear them talking about how badly I've been hurt. One of them mentions another kid who supposedly died after suffering similar injuries. By the time I make it home, I'm bruised, exhausted, and barely holding myself together. I open the door. Mom, Dad, and Evan are gathered around Lily. She's standing in the middle of the living room in a brand-new princess dress, turning from side to side while everyone admires her. But today is my birthday. I don't say anything. I still have a little money left in my pocket, so I turn around, walk to the bus stop, and use it to buy a ticket across town. I find myself standing outside a funeral home. There is a security guard near the entrance. I walk up to him and look at him quietly. "Sir," I say, "I think I'm going to die. Can you help me arrange a grave?"

On my wedding day, my mother, Jill Turner, gets on her knees and pressures me to give my bride to my younger brother, Rupert Murphy. "Can't you be a bit more mature?" My sister, Hannah Murphy, urges me. "Rupert suffers from depression. He can't handle emotional distress." My father, Lawrence Murphy, slaps me across the face. "Stop crying, you jinx. Why couldn't it have been you who died back then?" "Don't worry, Dad," I reply inwardly. "I'll be dead soon enough." However, when the news of my death reaches my family, everything changes. For the first time, a flicker of panic crosses Hannah's usually impassive face. "That's not true. That must be a lie." Heartbroken, my father clutches his chest and cries, "How could this happen? He was such a capable young man!" My mother is utterly devastated, and she keeps telling me she was sorry over and over again. It's too late now. I'm already dead.

Just because my sister, Yvonne Lindell, claims I swapped Grandma's medicine with sugar pellets and caused her death, Mom locks me inside the cremator. I kneel and beg, but Mom spits at me in disgust. "You wretched girl, stay still! You killed your grandma by secretly switching her medicine. Now go repent to her properly!" Dad hesitates, unable to bear it. "Maybe we should let her out. What if—" "What are you afraid of? Don't forget that she killed your mother! If we don't teach her a lesson this time, who knows who she'll kill next!" The voices outside the door gradually fade, and my heart sinks to the bottom. The flames slowly begin to lick at my body. In despair, I clutch Grandma's cold hand beside me. "Grandma, I'm sorry. I should've taken better care of your medicine. But I swear, I didn't replace it with sugar pellets. Maybe only in death, can I truly atone for this sin…"

When I was six years old, I became an actual dummy after playing a silly game with my older sister, Hannah Hubbard. My mental age is stuck at six years old. Because of that, my grandma receives a huge shock, causing her condition to deteriorate. Since then, Hannah has completely transformed into a brand new person. Thanks to her scholarship and her efforts to collect and sell trash, Grandma and I are able to survive under her care. Hannah is such a prideful person, and yet when her classmates call her stupid nicknames, she doesn't get mad at them at all. But if anyone is to call me an idiot, Hannah will seek justice for me no matter what. That night, Hannah gathers me in her arms while crying soundlessly. "My Oliver isn't an idiot at all. You just haven't grown up yet. Oliver, promise me that you will never leave me, okay?" I just nod blankly. For the next three years, I cling to her like glue. That is, until Blake Mueller appears in our lives. When I'm done playing with the mud, I forget to wash my hands, so I accidentally soil Blake's white shirt with my soiled hands. That's when Hannah suddenly breaks down emotionally and kicks me out of the house. "Oliver Hubbard, you've dragged me down my whole life! Are you going to cause trouble for Blake as well? Can you please be more understanding and stop causing more trouble for me?" Finally, an idea sparks inside my dim-witted brain for once. It turns out that my existence brings nothing but misery to Hannah. So, I hide inside the casket Grandma has custom-ordered for herself. There, I close my eyes and begin counting down quietly. Three, two, one. Let the game begin.

After my parents moved into their new house, they kept refusing to let me see it ahead of time. It wasn't until Labor Day that my mother, Gloria Grant, finally sent me the address, being all mysterious about it. Mom: [Allie, come home, quick! This year, the five of us are spending our first Labor Day together in the new house.] I hurried over with a box of pumpkin tarts in hand. In the entryway, four pairs of custom-made slippers sat in a neat row. There was gray for my father, Martin Grant, and off-white for Mom. My older brother, Fred Grant, and my younger sister, Lily Grant, each had a pair too. I looked down and searched for a long time before Mom finally dug a pair of disposable hotel slippers out from the bottom of the shoe cabinet. "I forgot to have a pair made for you. You hardly ever come home anyway, so it doesn't matter what you wear." I said nothing, not until Lily excitedly dragged me off to tour the rooms. She had a walk-in closet, and Fred had a gaming room. Even the space by the balcony had been partitioned off into a tea room just for Dad. I came to the last door. Inside was a folding bed. Mom smiled. "This is the guest room. You'll stay here whenever you come back." I stood there, stunned, for a long time. So when they moved, they hadn't simply forgotten to ask which room I wanted. From the very beginning, it had never occurred to them that this home needed a room for me. At dinner that night, Dad raised his glass. "From now on, our family finally has a real home." I smiled and clinked glasses with everyone too. But under the table, I quietly withdrew from the job that would have kept me in the city and accepted a position twelve hundred miles away. They had already moved into their new home. It was time I went to find mine.

My younger sister, Melody Judd, and I are twins. We look alike, and our bodies work much the same way too. Because I'm in the wrong position during birth and delay the delivery by a few minutes, Melody doesn't get enough oxygen and grows up frail. From then on, I became her "test subject". When Melody, who is allergic to peanuts, wants a peanut butter sandwich, Mom shoves a handful of peanuts into my mouth. My whole body swells up, and I end up in the ER at 2:00 am to have my stomach pumped. On the day I graduate from middle school, Melody wants to get her ears pierced but worries she'll scar easily. Mom buys a piercing gun and puts more than 20 holes through my ears, from my earlobes to my cartilage, just to see if Melody will heal normally. On our 18th birthday, Melody, who has always been afraid of water, suddenly decides she wants to learn to swim. Without hesitation, Mom pushes me into the sea. "Go try it out for your sister," she says. "See if she can overcome her fear and learn to swim." As the waves swallow me, I smile. This is the last time, Mom. You've brought me into this world. Now, I shall repay that gift with my life.

On the day Grandma dies, my parents, who have both remarried, argue nonstop over where I should go. In my past life, I feel sorry for my overworked mom, Melissa Tanner, so I volunteer to stay with her. The lottery ticket I help her pick even wins her a ten-million-dollar jackpot. But once she strikes it rich, she showers my stepdad, Tristan Walker, and my younger siblings with mansions and luxury cars, yet refuses to buy me even a few hundred dollars' worth of painkillers. In the end, I'm diagnosed with a brain tumor and die in agonizing pain in my bed. This time around, Mom frowns and lets out sigh after sigh. "Your dad's married to a rich woman now. Go with him and live a good life. I've got too many kids at home. There's just no room for you." My dad, Derek Bennett, twirls his car keys, his tone indifferent. "That's not fair. The more kids, the merrier. Besides, there are a lot of rules at my place, and those twins from Rebecca's previous marriage are a real handful. Felix is used to running wild. If he comes with me, those twins will make his life miserable." As they keep passing the buck back and forth, I feel nothing. When they impatiently ask me who I'm going with, I silently pick up my bag and walk over to Dad. Dad's face darkens instantly. Mom, on the other hand, lets out a long sigh of relief, unable to suppress the gleeful smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. What she doesn't know is that without me there to stop Tristan, he will toss the lottery ticket into the washing machine, reducing it to a pile of useless scraps. Now that I have a second chance, all I want is to live a little more comfortably before I die.