Short Stories & Novels

"Miss Jackson, are you certain you want to undergo hypnosis? You should know that once the hypnosis begins, it cannot be reversed. Your body will be controlled by an alternate personality, and you will fall into a sleep from which you will never wake up again," the doctor asked in a grave tone from the other end of the phone. "Yes, I'm certain," Nina Jackson replied calmly.

My ex-boyfriend’s first love insisted on dragging me onto the drop tower ride, which caused me to have severe bleeding from the trauma. When it happened, he used her fear of blood as an excuse to cover her eyes and hurry away, abandoning me in a pool of blood. In that critical moment, Steven Landers, the amusement park designer, rushed me to the hospital just in time. After losing the baby, I was completely devastated. Then to my surprise, he got down on one knee at the amusement park and proposed, promising me happiness for the rest of my life. After we got married, I became pregnant again. But I accidentally stumbled across his chat with a ride maintenance worker. "Mr. Landers, your wife already lost a child because of Miss Smith. You mentioned she has difficulty getting pregnant, so why are you pulling the same trick to get her on the drop tower again?" Steven casually touched his wedding ring and replied, "She's the reason Anne can never be a mother, so I absolutely won't let Myla give birth to a child that would upset her." "But that's your child too! How can you do this?" "So what? This is what she owes Anne. The drop tower is the perfect way to make it look like an accident. Tomorrow is Myla's birthday, and I'll personally take her on the ride. If she tries to run, I need all of you to help catch her!" So that was his plan all along—to use the drop tower to cause another "accident" and make me lose my baby!

Daddy brought me to Aunt Jenny’s party. As I was eating a piece of cake, I tasted a cherry between the layers and hurriedly spat it out. Once, I broke out in rashes after eating a cherry and nearly died, so I was deeply traumatized by that flavor even as a young child. However, Aunt Jenny looked heartbroken. “I hid a cherry in the cake as a little surprise, just like it’s good luck to get a bay leaf in a pie. How could you be so rude, Kenny?” Daddy did not even let me explain. He chased me out in the yard and made me stand there as punishment. Mommy said it had been more than a hundred degrees out lately, so she told me to stay home and not go out to play. Now I knew just how hot 104 degrees could be! My body was all itchy, too. I was finding it hard to breathe. I wanted to ask Daddy to forgive me, but he refused to open the door no matter how hard I knocked. He glanced at me coldly through the floor-to-ceiling window. He was not going to let me back in.

My uncle buys an expensive insurance policy for my grandmother, who has cancer. To avoid implicating himself, he makes me take care of my grandmother during dinner. My mother agrees and forces me into submission, saying that it's my duty to care for her. Then, she hands me my grandmother's medication, which has been switched out for poison. Later, my grandmother dies of poisoning. My uncle and his family claimed I did it to collect the insurance money and even took me to court. I end up behind bars after being wrongfully convicted. I become public enemy no.1, and everyone hates me. I am executed in the end. When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to that fateful night.

Yasmin, my so-called best friend, got scammed out of fifty grand by some loser using an AI deepfake of me. She was on her knees in public, sobbing about how that money was all she had. Begging me — in front of everyone — to pay her back. Said I made "easy money" as an influencer. The whole internet tried to guilt-trip me into paying her back. Even Zack, my own brother, joined in. Called her pitiful and said I owed it to her. I smirked. You think you can use me to get rich? Not. A. Chance.

Running late for work, I had no choice but to call an Uber. As luck would have it, my boss turned out to be my Uber driver. We stared at each other awkwardly. He raised an eyebrow and asked, "Let me guess... running late?" Me: ... Later, he docked my pay. I gave him a one-star review.

A rich kid offers to pay anyone who'll be his companion to a ball ten thousand dollars. My roommate stops me from responding. "He's just a rich guy fishing for fun—he's using money to play around with women! Are you going to offer yourself to him for money? We can't be gold diggers!" My mother is sick, though. She needs my scholarship money to save her life. To my devastation, my roommate latches onto a school board member and takes away my scholarship. She even mocks me. "With your looks, you could've sold yourself for money. Here's a hundred bucks to compensate you." That's not all—an AI face-swapped picture of me are posted online. Countless people harass me because of them. My mother doesn't want to drag me down, so she takes her life. I break down and choose to jump off a building. When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to the first day of the semester. The rich kid is looking for a female companion. I immediately say, "I'm the companion you've been looking for, sir!"

My mother is gravely ill and needs a million dollars for surgery. I run all over the city, desperately trying to borrow the money. Just when I'm at my breaking point, my childhood friend shows up, holding a check for one million dollars. His condition? He wants to marry me. Everyone's waiting for me to say yes, but I calmly refuse. Because in my last life, even after I married him, my mother still died. Her surgery failed. Later, I accidentally overhear a conversation between him and a doctor. "Christopher, you sabotaged the surgery just to transplant Alice's mom's kidney into Jennifer? Was it worth it? If Alice finds out, you’re done." "I just want Jennifer to live. And honestly, marrying someone like Alice? My life is already over." That's when I realize our entire marriage was nothing but a carefully woven lie. He did it all for the woman he truly loved.

The night before returning to the Cantrell residence, I had a dream where I was the despised antagonist in a book. In the story, my father had adopted a girl who bore an uncanny resemblance to my late mother. On the day he came to pick me up, he got into a devastating car accident. After that, my second brother, Shawn Cantrell, lashed out, calling me a curse, while my eldest brother, Seth Cantrell, treated me with cold indifference. In the end, I was abandoned by everyone, meeting a tragic and lonely end.

My sister-in-law and I have always been close, and we happened to be pregnant at the same time. However, during a routine check-up, she was diagnosed with uterine fibroids. I urged her to have surgery as soon as possible, but she refused and instead claimed her sallow complexion was a sign she was carrying a "child of fortune." She then retreated to the countryside to rest and nurture her pregnancy. Nine months later, while I grieved the loss of my stillborn child, she came back from the countryside with a baby girl in her arms. Consumed by the suspicion that the child was rightfully mine, I demanded a DNA test. That same night, my own mother and brother conspired to take my life. After my death, I discovered it was all a conspiracy. My family had orchestrated everything to swap my child for hers. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back to the moment before I took her for that fateful check-up.

Claudia Hepburn had seduced his fiancé, Arthur Maxwell, ninety-nine times. However, he was still into her sister, Fione Hepburn. Not only was he nowhere to be seen on the day of the wedding, but he even went ahead and registered his wedding with Fione instead. Claudia was turned into a laughingstock after that. While she was drowning in despair, Arthur’s brother, Brett Maxwell, showed up and took her into his arms. He confessed that he had been secretly in love with her for ages and beckoned her to turn to him. Enchanted by his devotion, she decided to marry him instead. Even after five years of marriage, Brett still doted on her endlessly. That was until a shipwreck took him away. On the day of the funeral, she was so heartbroken that she felt the urge to smash her head against his coffin to end it all right there. It was only when she found she was pregnant that she gave up on the idea of ending it all. She decided she would live on and grieve her late husband for the rest of her life. Just when she was expecting the rest of her life to play out that way, she happened to eavesdrop on a conversation between her ex-fiancé and his friends. “Brett, your brother was the one who died in that shipwreck, but here you are pretending to be him. Did you do it so you could be together with his wife? Aren’t you worried about someone finding out about this?” “I can't be bothered to worry about all that now, I’ve loved Fione from the beginning. I had to endure so much humiliation and marry Claudia just so I could prevent her from ruining Fione’s happiness. Now that God has given me such a perfect chance, I will not sell myself short anymore!”

Before my birthday party, Grandpa and I talked about my engagement in his study. He asked me which one from the Zachary family I intended to marry. Without hesitation, I chose Matthew Zachary—a decision that shocked Grandpa. After all, everyone in the circle knew that I was deeply in love with Jeffrey Zachary and would not marry anyone else. In a past life, I married Jeffrey Zachary, but later found out he had a relationship with Rosalie Larson. He begged for forgiveness, saying it was an accident. He tearfully knelt and begged for my forgiveness. "I beg you. It was really just an accident." Despite me forgiving him, Grandpa still found out and ordered someone to send Rosalie away. Jeffrey wrongly thought I was behind it and hated me for it. Over time, the elders in my family passed away one after another; rivals got ahead in business, and the company’s secrets were stolen. Tragically, I was killed when I found out I was pregnant. In my new life, I gave my blessing to Jeffrey and Rosalie. Unexpectedly, Jeffrey crashed my engagement party and proposed to me.

It was the third Valentine's Day after our marriage. Samuel was complaining to his friends about me, "Noelle's very uptight. She's so boring in bed. It's like doing it with a blow-up doll. I'd never have married her if she wasn't rich." I went to a club and got a model with an eight-pack to please me. Enraged, Samuel demanded an explanation. I eyed him and snickered. "Look at you. You're so flabby. I'd never have married you if you weren't at least good-looking."

My movie star husband's girlfriend suspected I was the other woman. She confronted me in public, beat me until I lost my child, and even left my face scarred beyond recognition. "You shameless homewrecker! How dare you seduce someone else's man—and even get pregnant?" she screamed in rage. "I'll send you and that child of yours straight to hell today!" And as for my husband, he didn't even spare me a glance. All he cared to say was, "Why did you bother hitting her yourself? Did your hand hurt?" But when he finally discovered that the woman his girlfriend had scarred and caused to miscarry was me, he lost his mind.

After my husband's brother died, he took Miranda, his widowed sister-in-law in. He claimed that he would give me his love—but gave all his money to her. He said that since she had no official status, being with him would make her the subject of gossip, so he took her with him and left me behind in the countryside. Every month, he wrote me three love letters, yet sent all his allowance to her. During the famine, she and her two children sat in a warm little house eating well, while my two children died before I could return from selling my blood. One froze to death, the other starved to death. Later, my husband finally came back, but he didn’t shed a single tear for the children. Instead, he told me he wanted a divorce. "Nathalie, to apply for housing, we need a marriage certificate. It hasn’t been easy for Miranda all these years. I want to give her a home. Don’t worry, even if I marry her, I’ll still divorce her afterward—because you’re the only one I love." In the end, I was devastated and threw myself into the icy river. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my children were about to die. This time, I shook them awake, ready to go reclaim everything that was rightfully mine.

I was three months pregnant when my fiancé left me to marry his first love, Isabella Thompson. Soon after, I was in a car accident. I survived, but our baby didn't. My childhood friend, Daniel Smith, found out and insisted on marrying me despite his family's objections. He spent a fortune on the best doctors to ensure I recovered fully. Later, he arranged a grand proposal, confessing he had loved me for years. I was touched and agreed to marry him. But three years later, I overheard his conversation with his friend, Mike Perez. "Remember years ago when Isabella stole Jessica's fiancé? To avoid any future trouble for Isabella, you married Jessica and even caused that car accident, which killed the baby she was carrying. Now, can she even get pregnant anymore?" Mike asked. "No, I love Isabella," Daniel replied. "I just didn't want to have any babies with Jessica, so I put birth control in her water." I trembled, unable to believe what I had heard. It turned out Isabella was also Daniel's first love. I figured it was time for me to leave.

I hid behind a thick tree trunk and watched silently as a grizzly bear attacked my husband. In my previous life, I was a guide. I led my husband—an environmental photographer—and his female colleague into a nature reserve to film wildlife. While scouting the route, I discovered a nursing grizzly bear and immediately warned them not to take any photos and to retreat slowly. To my shock, they intentionally bumped into me, causing my right leg to be cut and bleed. The scent of blood enraged the bear, and it charged straight at me, sinking its massive jaws into my abdomen. After the bear left, my husband calmly stripped me of all my equipment. Then, wrapping his arms around his female colleague, he kissed her. He turned to me with a sinister smile creeping across his face. "Kate," he said, "I'll be honest. I never loved you. You're dying. Now, all your assets will be mine." I bled out and died. When I opened my eyes again, it was the morning of the day we entered the mountains.

The day my husband, Eric Johnson, brought his foster sister home from overseas, he gave her our master bedroom. "Yvonne just lost her husband. She's heartbroken, so I want her to feel comfortable," he said. I nodded obediently. "Okay." The next day was my birthday. Yvonne said she was feeling down and wanted her brother, Eric, to go stargazing with her. Eric turned to me and said, "She really needs me right now. I'll celebrate your birthday with you later." Still, I smiled and nodded. "Okay." Ten years of marriage and I was ready to walk away from it all… Because I have lived this life once already. In my previous life, I made the mistake of asking Eric to stay with me on my birthday. I did not let him go stargazing with Yvonne. She ended up falling into the water in her sorrow and was rushed to the hospital. After that, Eric shoved my head into a bathtub and held me there until I drowned. In this second life, when Eric handed me the divorce papers and said, "I’m only marrying Yvonne to help her revoke her foreign citizenship and restore her citizenship here. Once it's done, we'll remarry." I did not hesitate. I signed my name without a second thought. By the time he came looking for me again, I was already sitting on his archenemy's lap, smiling like a flower in full bloom.

The life trial system "If You Think You Can Do Better, Prove It" burst onto the scene like a traveling circus promising wonders. The idea was plain enough: "If you reckon someone's life is a mess, and you think you can do better, go ahead and prove it. There's a reward waiting if you do." Before I knew it, my whole family had me pegged for the fool in the middle of the show. There was my mother, dreaming of turning me into some grand goose; my husband, who'd spent years dodging his rightful share of the family load; and my son, mortified by the very sight of me. They shoved me onto the "judgment seat" like I was the villain of the tale. Every last one of them swore up and down that, given my place, they'd manage my life better than I ever could. The stakes? Well, if they pulled it off, my consciousness would be erased—gone, wiped out like a mistake on a chalkboard—and turned into their personal servant. On top of that, they'd waltz off with a cool million dollars. But if they couldn't? Then I'd be the one raking in three million dollars. Now that's a gamble for the ages, isn't it?

After Chester Caldwell loses his vision, I donate my corneas to him without hesitation. He vows that he'll never let me down, yet he delays our wedding time and time again after his true love suddenly returns to the country. On the day of my birthday, his gift arrives, albeit late. I accept it expectantly only to find that they're two movie tickets. I question him about it, but he answers impatiently, "Who said anything about the blind being unable to watch movies? "You willingly gave up your vision back then—I didn't force you into anything! Stop thinking you can hold that against me forever!" His true love makes it sound like she's being charitable. "Sorry, Riley. The movie wasn't to my liking. You can throw the tickets away if you're not going to watch it, either!" I rip the tickets in half and leave. Later, I hear that Chester goes mad when he can no longer find his bride.