Anonymous Noise

Penelope Rivera's little boy toy, Theodore Schneider, is throwing another tantrum. She slides the divorce papers across the table toward me. "Just sign them for show. It's to keep Teddy happy." I clench the cuff of my suit and nod in silence. I sign my name in one swift stroke. As I'm walking out, I hear one of her girlfriends teasing, "Samuel's way too easygoing. Does he actually do everything you say?" Penelope takes a graceful sip of red wine and smirks. "Wanna bet?" They bet that I will quietly go through with the divorce at the courthouse, even if my eyes are red with tears. Listening their laughter, I rub my thumb over my phone screen and reply to the message I've just received. "Will you marry me?" it says. "I will."

The day before our engagement, my fiancé, Shawn Williams, said he would accompany me to look for a wedding dress. He still was not there by the time the bridal shop closed. I received a text from him on my way home. Shawn said: [Britney said she ran out of pajamas, so I'll accompany her to go shopping.] I called him, but his junior answered the phone. "Shawn is taking a shower. I can pass along a message if you have something to tell him." Shawn and I had been in a relationship for four years. Whenever I had something important to do, his junior would suddenly need his help with something trivial. He would always abandon me and rush to her side. As expected, he did not hesitate to abandon me on a day as important as today. Feeling exhausted, I calmly replied, "Tell him the wedding is canceled. I don't want to marry him anymore."

My mother, Winona Barlowe, who was the medical director at the hospital, decided to let my intern sister, Mia Barlowe, practice her skills by performing a brain tumor surgery on me. I begged my mother to assign another doctor since it was my only chance at survival. She slapped me across the face and cried out, "How did I ever give birth to a selfish girl like you? Mia just started her internship. Can’t you give her the chance to practice?" When I died from the botched surgery, she turned gray overnight.

I had been dating Andy Lawson for five years. He had gone bankrupt, and during the worst of it, we had to sleep in parks and scavenge leftovers for food. After a hundred days of that life, I was just going to the blackmarket to sell some blood for money when someone sent me a video. [Surprise.] It was a livestream site, set up for rich kids to prank the common folk—and a video of me was pinned to the top. My finger trembling, I tapped on it and saw myself hidden in a corner of a park, munching on leftovers to nourish my frail body. On the split video, Andy was reclining against the armchair of a five-star hotel and savoring his gourmet menu. "Oh, this is amazing! All Andy has to do is say that he's sick, and she's selling her blood for him!" "On the sixteenth prank, she fell into the ocean… And on the fifteenth, she was sent flying in a car crash! Why is she so hard to kill?" "Well, Andy already made it clear that if she survives until the end, he will marry her and swear off women!" "One month to go! Will she die from the pranks, or marry into the Lawson family with pomp and circumstance?" "I'm betting fifty mil that she dies tragically! Hahaha!"

In my last life, my sister, Raven Webster, and I rescued two eggs. Her egg hatched into Snowviper, while mine became Blazewing. But Raven stole Blazewing from me. None of us could have imagined the world would end in a brutal heatwave apocalypse. Raven died from heat stroke in that inferno. And before she died, she tricked my husband, Snowviper, into strangling me with his own tail. Somehow, we were both reborn on the very day those eggs hatched. This time, Raven snatched up Snowviper. She thought having him would keep her safe through the heatwave apocalypse. What she didn't know was that Snowviper's powers could only be fueled by drinking fresh human blood every single day.

As we make our way to the city hall, Paisley Doyle is struck by regret once again. After seven years together, this is the 11th time we've found ourselves at this crossroads. Every time we reach the city hall, she claims she needs more time to care for her sick first love and can't bring herself to marry me. Unable to hold back any longer, I finally decide to confront her. "If his condition never improves, does that mean you'll never marry me? Tell me, what do I even mean to you?" Paisley's temper ignites, and she snaps back at me without a second thought. "I promised to take care of him for the rest of my life! Can't you stop being so selfish? "Besides, we've been together for seven years. What does it matter if we're not legally married?"

This is my 18th time coming to City Hall, yet Tessa's still nowhere to be seen. Right as I'm about to call and ask her how much longer she'll be, her childhood friend's post popped up on my screen. "Celebrating 1000 days of marriage with my wife. May we always be this happy." The photo highlights a marriage certificate, and Tessa Cross' name is right there under "wife". As for the license date, it shows February 14th, three years ago. So this is why she hasn't shown up the last eighteen times. It turns out that she's already somebody else's wife.

Faltava apenas um mês para o meu casamento quando descobri que meu noivo já planejava ter um filho com sua amada. Eu não aceitei aquilo, mas ele insistia nesse assunto todos os dias. Duas semanas antes da cerimônia, um exame de gravidez chegou até mim. Foi então percebi que a tal amada já estava grávida havia quase um mês. Meu consentimento nunca foi sequer considerado. Naquele instante, todos os anos do nosso relacionamento evaporaram como fumaça. Cancelei o casamento, apaguei todas as lembranças e, no mesmo dia em que deveria estar vestida de noiva, vesti meu jaleco e mergulhei de cabeça no laboratório. Dali para trás, eu não tinha mais a ver com ele!

One month before my wedding to my boyfriend, he announced he wanted to have a child with his "first love." I refused, but he brought it up every single day. Two weeks before the ceremony, I received a prenatal checkup report. That’s when I discovered his so-called "first love" was already nearly a month pregnant. It turned out he’d never intended to seek my consent at all. In that moment, years of affection evaporated like smoke. So, I canceled the wedding, destroyed every trace of our memories, and on what should have been our wedding day, I walked into a closed-off research lab. From then on, he meant nothing to me.

The night before our wedding, my fiancee, Winona Yale, sleeps with her first love. He tells her he has cancer and wants to lose his virginity before he dies, and she agrees to fulfill his dying wish. Later that night, I, Liam Parker, receive photos of them together in bed. I laugh coldly and text back, "If she's that much of a saint, she's all yours." The next morning, I cancel the wedding and announce a party to celebrate staying single. Winona panics, showing up in her white dress with red-rimmed eyes. Her voice shakes as she sobs. "You don't want to marry me anymore?"