An Adventure Story

After being chosen by a horror game, I took over a food stall in a small town. A ghoul tried to eat me, his huge, bloody mouth a gaping maw, but I quickly shoved a focaccia sandwich into it. He chewed and then said, “Oh, forget it. With food to eat, I’ll kill her tomorrow.” The next day, I made delicious pierogies, then skewers and stews. All the ghouls who stopped by gave up on trying to kill me, focusing on eating instead. The audience watching me was shocked that I could survive all the way to the end with just my cooking.

Alpha Kieran personally invited me to serve as Beta of Silvercrest Pack. But on my second day in the territory, my neighbor Gloria dragged her disheveled daughter Daisy to the center of the training grounds and dropped to her knees, accusing my son Koda of sexually assaulting her barely-eighteen-year-old daughter. Daisy stripped off her clothes in front of everyone, revealing horrifying bruises and claw marks. Gloria had even paid top dollar for a witch to perform a memory trace spell. Daisy sobbed until she nearly passed out. "Koda said if I didn't do as I was told, he'd bite me to death..." The entire pack was in an uproar. Everyone was screaming for blood. "Alpha, why should someone like her be our Beta?" "Vera can't even control her own son — how is she supposed to lead this pack?" They even demanded that Alpha have Koda seized and executed on the spot. I wasn't the least bit worried. Because when they finally brought Koda to the training grounds and everyone got a good look at him — Every single person there, including Gloria's family, froze. I nearly burst out laughing. …

To pay off my student loans, I started doing spicy streams online. I never thought I'd actually blow up. Every night, my audience floods the chat, fawning over my face and my body. I love the attention, and I work hard to give them what they want. Until I was dropped into a horror game. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a rotting corpse. And for some reason, my livestream was still running. When the game’s Boss told us all to pick a weapon to die by. The other players all chose to die of old age, or peacefully in their sleep like a baby. I turned my phone to face the boss. "My fans think you're hot," I stammered. "They want me to be killed by... well, by the weapon between your legs. They said 'deeply.' Is that... an option?" The other players whispered among themselves. “This woman must have a death wish.” “Just watch. The Boss is about to tear her to shreds.” But no one expected the Boss to blush.

3:00 a.m. Insomnia gnawed at my nerves like a rusted saw, grinding back and forth mercilessly. On a whim that I couldn't explain, I opened a radio app called "Echoes from Below." The interface was simple and bare. Black background, blue text. No ads, no host introduction. Just a single audio waveform, slowly buffering on the screen. The shape of the waveform felt wrong. It didn't look like soundwaves at all. More like rows of sharp, interlocking teeth. A pop-up window appeared in the center of the screen. [Listening Guidelines] The letters glowed blue, carrying an unsettling eeriness. [This station's signal may extend into dreams. If you hear the broadcast while dreaming, firmly believe that you are awake.]

After I got pulled into the horror game, my nearsightedness made everything blurry. I ended up treating the creepy girl in the blood-stained dress like my own daughter, the final boss like my husband, and the old creepy ghosts like my loving parents. The first time I met the boss, I grabbed his abs and said, “Nice body. Shame you’re kind of short.” He actually laughed in anger, picked up the severed head in his hand, put it back on his neck, and ground out, “I’m six-foot-one. Still think I’m short now?”

Every year, the village had to choose a girl of age to become the Blossom Bride. The girl who was chosen would be sent into the cave as the village god’s wife. She would spend the entire night with him. If she came out alive, she would be honored for the rest of her life as a village elder. Any child she bore was said to be blessed, destined for a life of effortless fortune. If she died, the village would simply wait for the next year, when another Blossom Bride would be chosen. The blessing of the Blossom Bride was believed to pass on to her parents and elders as well. However, no one wanted to be chosen. To escape the ritual, families quietly left the village, one after another. I was the only one who volunteered. I had a lust problem, and I had always wondered what it would feel like to be with a god.

After the evening study session, I was just about to return to the dorm when my first boyfriend, the school's valedictorian and undisputed top student, suddenly tore across the courtyard toward me. Before I could react, he grabbed my wrist and, in full view of a crowd of stunned students, dragged me into a frantic run toward the front gates. I exclaimed, "Julian, have you lost your mind? Graduation's six months away. Are you really trying to run off with me now?" I struggled the whole way, twisting and pulling against him, but his grip never loosened. "Autumn, don't ask any questions. Just come with me. Hurry!" he said, his voice trembling with panic. We fled the school, jumped into a taxi in the middle of the night, and rushed to another city, where we checked into a rundown budget motel. Arms folded and brow furrowed, I glared at him. "So you hauled me out of school like a lunatic just to hole up in a cheap motel?" His cheeks turned bright red. He flailed his hands in frantic denial, then thrust a phone into my hands. I barely had time to unlock the phone and start dialing my parents before a breaking news alert flashed across the screen. My eyes locked on the screen, and I went rigid with shock. The headline reported, 'Mass Death at Blackwood High: All 5,000 students and faculty found dead last night after experiencing catastrophic bleeding. Only two students who skipped the study session survived.' I looked up at Julian in horror. He was staring at the screen too, his face white as paper, cold sweat running down his forehead. "You knew, didn't you?" I asked. "What the hell is going on?"

Now everything is changing...with everyone of us sweeping under the carpet the scars of yesterday's sins. Those scars are what kept me alive until you are all born to hear the story. The world government was powerful and taking advantage of the human colonial minds, they buried our freedom and equity. But now that we the Elites whom they educated and rose to revolts against the fingers that had fed us... What do you call it? Oh! yes they had termed it Rebellion. They did call us rebels, for seeking a small ration part of the best that nature has given to mankind. Al-sural-tu-Nas. This for mankind, tell ye that the beast you trained in the dark had turned to an angel in the day. We are filled from the pot of lies now that our bellies cannot contain what they obtain, the promises that were compromised, treaties that were breached, least they covered the black mails and lies with a blanket of Diplomacy. But now is the snatch of the gallon beer from the drunkard because now there is what when diplomacy fails.....is war. "Now we are free." Later in the future a seed germinates bearing fruits of the YESTERDAYS as she possess the abilities to time travel and set broken pieces together but this has consequences in the future of mankind. Read along

While exploring the wilderness, my younger sister—Charlotte Forrester—and I accidentally stumble onto the territory of supernatural beings. She grabs the hand of the noble, elegant male elf, her posture coy and intimate. Before I can react, a wolfman with a scar on his face wraps his arm around my waist and leads me away. Charlotte, who judges others by appearance, is unaware that the male elf—Elwin Duskwood—belongs to a tribe of half-elves. Half-elves are beautiful but possess no real capabilities. They are considered a marginalized group among elves and struggle to make ends meet every day. On the other hand, the wolfman—Morgan Nightshade—is a mid-tier wolf tribe's Highlord. After giving birth to an extremely rare silver wolf for him, I have become the Highlady of the tribe. I'm respected by everyone in the tribe and feast on delicacies every day. Meanwhile, Charlotte becomes emaciated after suffering from starvation for several months. When she sees how plump I am, she goes insane from jealousy. While the wolf tribe is entertaining guests at a banquet, she uses poison to kill me. The next time I open my eyes, Charlotte and I are back at the moment we first entered the supernatural beings' territory by mistake. Charlotte immediately hugs Morgan by the waist and kisses him. She showers him with flattery about his strength, calling him the man of her dreams. I can't help but laugh out loud. Silly Charlotte. As a wolfman, Morgan is ill-tempered, and he easily loses control of his emotions. He also becomes even more bloodthirsty after transforming. It's not all sunshine and rainbows being his mate. But I never imagined the elves could be so… in that regard.

Before the flight takes off, my fiance, the pilot, boards the plane with a suitcase. He says it's a gift from his childhood sweetheart and warns me not to touch it. I can't shake the uneasy feeling creeping into my heart, so I sneak inside. To my shock, I find high-risk contraband hidden in the luggage. I report it immediately and use my commendation to cover for Edward's mistake and save his career. However, his precious childhood sweetheart is arrested, detained, and sentenced. He doesn't say a word after the incident. However, during another flight, he cuts the cord to my parachute. "Jade, I know you're jealous of Cindy! You sabotaged her during her flight attendant training and framed her afterward! Do you think this will make me love you? Dream on! I would never marry a petty woman like you!" I plunge from ten thousand meters above the ground, leaving nothing but blood and broken bones behind. When I open my eyes again, I see Cindy sending Edward off, and he's carrying the same suitcase. I quietly step back and decide I won't save him this time.