A Story Beside

My best friend, Kahlan Ellis was invited by an online acquaintance to explore an abandoned school. I told her it was dangerous and urged her not to go. A young woman nearby overheard our conversation, got curious, and went with him instead. Later, the local news blew up with a trending story about how a wealthy heir and a village girl who met during an exploration adventure had fallen in love and lived happily ever after. Around that time, I was preparing to get married. On the night before my wedding, Kahlan pushed me off a high-rise. "If you hadn't stopped me from going back then, I'd have married rich by now! You deserve to die!" It was only then that I realized how much she had resented me all this while for stopping her that day. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn to the day she first asked me to go on that exploration. In the parking garage, Kahlan looked at me excitedly and asked, "Patricia, do you think I should go explore that abandoned school with Robert?"

The powerful Stratton family, a tech industry titan, claimed I was their long-lost son. They brought me back from my remote mountain sanctuary. However, when I arrived, my father accused me of peddling superstition and called me a fraud. My adopted brother, the false heir, spread rumors that I was practicing dark magic and cursing the family. My uncle sided with him. He put on a serious face as he warned me. “Ethan, the Stratton family built this empire on technology. If you insist on this occult nonsense, you’ll leave us with no choice but to disown you!” Confronted with their ignorant ridicule and malicious setup, I felt the urge to roll my eyes. I thought. “Whoever said I came back to reconnect? I came down from that mountain to save your lives! Are you really too blind to see everything is about to come crashing down in your family?”

While on a business trip, I stumbled into my brother-in-law, Julian Zeller, mid-act with a male colleague in a hotel parking lot. Furious, I blew the lid off his fake marriage and helped my sister, Yvonne Sutton, escape that scumbag. But after the divorce, she lost his financial support. She spiraled, blaming me for destroying her perfect marriage. She even killed me for trying to stop her from going back to him. Then, everything resets. I wake up, and there he is—slipping into the car while hugging the same man. I pocket my phone. This time, I won't ruin Yvonne's happy ending.

From a stall in the office restroom, I overhear someone badmouthing me. Henry Fielder, the intern I've been mentoring for three months, grumbles, "The guy's got zero people skills. He's a total fossil, like a robot stuck in one mode." I'm about to push the door open and jump in when someone laughs and piles on. "The paperwork is incomplete. The receipts aren't compliant. I can't reimburse it without a manager's signature. We could recite his canned empathy lines in our sleep!" Once they're gone, I quietly head back to my office. Later, Henry drops a thick stack of expense reports onto my desk. "Quit waving the rulebook and rejecting everyone's reimbursements." I skim the fake receipts, and for once, I don't call him out. Instead, I give a thin smile and say, "I have a headache. I can't make out the words."

I was framed by my boyfriend's childhood sweetheart and spent five years in prison. While I was locked away, he moved her into my home, seized my property, and built a perfect life, thriving off everything I worked for. However, I would take back everything that they stole from me.

A group of unexpected guests suddenly barged into my relative’s funeral. The woman, Xena Carter, leading them claimed to be my husband’s girlfriend and declared that she was here to punish me, the supposed mistress. Out of respect for the funeral, I did not want to make a scene, so I calmly suggested she wait until it was over. But out of nowhere, she lashed out and ordered her group to shred all of my clothes. My relatives around us did nothing and watched coldly as it happened. I calmly dusted myself off, stood up, and led her over to the urn. "This urn for my mother was bought by your boyfriend. It cost nearly a million!" As expected, the mistress flew into a rage, smashing the urn to pieces. "You shameless family of lowlifes! Don’t think you’ll get a single cent from my boyfriend, even in death!" What she did not know was that when I said "mother," I was referring to my husband’s mother, my mother-in-law. She was causing a scene at my mother-in-law’s funeral, and she had just smashed her urn to pieces.

My three-year-old son looked nothing like my husband. Suspicious, my father-in-law secretly took my son for a paternity test. The results showed that there was no biological relationship between them. Furious and humiliated, my father-in-law erupted in anger, hurling insults at me and even threatening to kill us. My husband, just as enraged, slapped me hard across the face. "You shameless wrench! You've made me raise another man's child for three years!" As I stared at their accusing faces, I calmly produced another report—the paternity test between my husband and his father. It confirmed they weren't biologically related either. Their expressions froze in shock. With a faint smile, I said, "Looks like we don't know for sure who isn't part of this family, do we?"

I had just returned from studying design abroad when my grandfather insisted that he had already arranged a childhood betrothal for me. The moment I got back to the country, he dragged me straight to the Hunt family's residence to discuss the engagement. The adults talked endlessly, and I quickly grew bored sitting there. Slipping away quietly, I wandered into the Hunt family garden for a walk. Out of nowhere, a woman rushed toward me and slapped me hard across the face. "Where did this shameless woman come from? How dare you steal my things!" I covered my cheek and stared at her in shock. The woman lifted her chin arrogantly, her tone dripping with condescension, as if she were granting me charity. "That ruby on your hand was a birthday gift from the young master of the Hunt family. A poor girl like you—how could you possibly afford to wear it?!" I opened my mouth, about to explain that it was mine. But before I could say a word, she struck me across the face again. "Do you even know who I am? I'm the Hunt family's future daughter-in-law—the future Mrs. Hunt! The entire Hunt family will listen to me!" I pulled out my phone and, right in front of her, sent a message to the contact labeled Fiancé. "Lucas, there's a mad dog in your house. Are you going to do something about it or not?"

Our entire class gets dragged into The Tyrant's Atonement game. The only way to escape alive is to reach a 100% atonement score. The system lets us choose our roles. The class belle, Isolde Adler, picks the tyrant's first love. Her atonement score shoots straight to 99% on the first day. The class president, Asher Brooks, chooses to be a loyal chancellor. His atonement score jumps to 80%. Spectators watching the game flood the screen with comments. "This new batch is smart and way better at picking roles than the last. They might just clear the game in three days." "Even if just one person hits 100%, the whole class goes free. I'm looking forward to seeing who finishes first." "My money's on the first love. She's already at 99%." Just as everyone starts celebrating, the next morning hits us with bad news. All 20 classmates who picked their roles are dead, and Isolde suffers the cruelest fate of all.

I'm a dance major who's preparing for her exams. Everyone thinks I'm a good girl, but there's one thing they don't know about me—I've fantasized about being violated more than once…