Campus Novels Novels & Stories

When I was nine, I was hit by the blast of an explosion while saving Simone Scott. From that day onward, I have to rely on hearing aids to get by. Overwhelmed with guilt, she suggests we get engaged and swears to me with teary eyes, "Justin, I'll take care of you for the rest of my life." But at 18 years old, to satisfy a dare from the school heartthrob, she rips off my hearing aid and humiliates me in front of him and our classmates. Disgust fills her voice as she says, "You're nothing but a burden. I've been sick of you for a long time. I wish you'd died back then instead of being saved." I clutch the hearing recovery report in my hand and say nothing. After that, I quietly change my college applications, bring my parents with me, and formally call off the engagement. Simone, this is where our paths split. There is no reason for us to ever see each other again.

My deskmate has been giving me odd looks lately. She's been keeping her distance from me and avoiding me at all costs. It's the same when we go to the cafeteria for lunch or during class. One day, I can't take it anymore. I grab her and ask, "Have I done something to offend you?" She trembles in fear and staggers backward, putting distance between us. Her gaze darts around shiftily. "No, you're not the problem!" Yet after that, she transfers to a different class. I'm confused by this and want to ask her about it, so I head to her new classroom. I stand at the door and watch as she chats leisurely with someone else. Suddenly, she shudders and screams in horror. "This really has nothing to do with you! Please, leave me alone!"

My mother despised me because I was the unintended consequence of a one-night stand. She poured all her love and attention into her students, treating them as if they were her own flesh and blood. One day, when her favourite pupil confessed his feelings for me, she flew into a rage. She slapped me hard across the face and called me a whore. Years later, as Alzheimer's clouded her mind, she forgot I even existed, yet still remembered every single one of her precious students. The irony was that not one of them ever came to visit her in the nursing home. They all loathed her just as much as I did.

After pulling an all-nighter to finish a group assignment, I wanted only one thing: sleep. I did not even get 10 minutes. My roommate, Ronda Jones, burst into the dorm, raging about class. She shouted into her headset and turned our room into a storm of insults and keyboard slams. When I quietly asked her to keep it down, she turned on me instead. Then the power went out, and a 5-dollar electricity bill became the excuse she had been waiting for. I refused to split it. That single decision set everything in motion.

In my past life, right before sitting for the college entrance exams, my best friend, Lily Shaw, and I made a pact. We promised that once we got into college, we would study finance and make a fortune. But because my exam went smoothly and I was the first to leave the exam room, I ended up on camera for an interview. Somehow, I blew up overnight. Years later, I became a top celebrity, while Lily was sent to prison for financial fraud. When she got out, I gave her a million dollars to help her get back on her feet. She repaid me by quietly forging lies about me, whipping up a wave of online hate, and doing everything she could to destroy me. I traced the truth and confronted her, but she snapped back at me, "What gives you the right to stare down at me from your lofty throne and throw me scraps, Hannah Linden? I'm prettier than you, and my grades were better than yours. Why did you get the better life?" She laid out a plan to get back at me. She knocked me out and slashed my face. She also gouged out my eyes and cut out my tongue before stuffing me into a freezer, leaving me there to freeze to death. When I open my eyes again, I find myself reborn in my senior-year classroom. There's just over a month left for the college entrance exams. I look at Lily, who sits to my left and whispers to me. I smile at her, my eyes glinting with ice and venom.

On the night of the SAT exam, my childhood sweetheart, Walter Sterling, eagerly coaxed me into sleeping with him. At the height of passion, his wild and unrestrained motions hurt me. Later, thanks to a ten-points difference on the exam score, we ended up in a four-year-long-distance relationship. Walter spent all his allowance on flight tickets to see me. Whenever we got together, he would physically live out the words, “absence made the heart grow fonder.” On his birthday, I bought a flight ticket and carried a cake to surprise him. But when I entered his rental apartment, I saw him and a strange girl intensely doing the deed. The cake in my hand fell to the floor with a thud. Then, I ran out crying. Walter’s expression changed dramatically. He chased after me like a madman. To keep me, he deleted all her contact information in front of me and even dropped out of school. My heart softened, and I forgave him. After we got married, he treated me even better than before. The improvement was so drastic that I was constantly on cloud nine. But when I became pregnant, I once again saw the girl he had completely cut ties with. She was his new secretary.

I vowed to transfer schools with my childhood friend when he claimed he was being bullied. But the day before we were to finalize the transfer, he backed out. His friend teased him. "Man, you faked being a punching bag just to get rid of Alice Wiley? That's cold. You two have been thick as thieves since forever. Are you really cool with her going to a new school alone?" Shane Page brushed it off. "It's just another high school across town. Not a big deal. I'm tired of her always being up my ass. This works out perfectly." I stood frozen outside the door for a long time. Finally, I turned and walked away. On the transfer form, I crossed out Oatheport High and filled in the international academy my parents had been pushing for. Everyone seemed to forget that Shane and I were never equals.

After the Ritualist declared that Amber would not live past 18, I, a perfectly healthy girl, became the Misfortune Vessel. When Amber broke a leg, my left leg was crippled. When Amber tried to kill herself with shards of glass, the tendons in my hand were severed. I could no longer hold a pen. From childhood to the present, every wound meant for Amber landed on my body. She never stopped testing how far she could go. Skydiving from two miles up. Chasing sharks in deep water. Survival expeditions to the extreme North. Every choice courted death. I cried. I screamed that it hurt. My brothers refused to allow it. "Enough already. It's just a small injury. How could it hurt that much? You're too delicate." "If it hurts, then endure it." So I endured until the day I turned 18. That was when the Shared-Sense System found me. I enabled family sharing, and every single one of them went insane.

I was abandoned just five days after I was born. For some reason, my biological mother dumped me outside the headquarters of the Bloods. A group of dangerous-looking men stared down at me and frowned. “Should we raise her?” And just like that, I gained ninety-nine dads. At home, I was their little princess. However, to avoid causing trouble for them, I spent over ten years living like an ordinary girl. Until I became the target of school bullying in high school. A rich girl cornered me in the bathroom with her followers, dumping cold water on me, tearing my clothes, and shoving a phone in my face while recording. “What are you staring at? You’re just some scholarship charity case. Does a loser like you actually think you can get into college?” However, they pushed me too far. Screaming, I grabbed the rich girl and dragged her with me off the third floor. When I woke up, Ms. Jones, the teacher in charge of the infirmary, was pointing at me and screaming. “So because she hit you, you tried to kill her?! Instead of reflecting on yourself after people insult you, you planned revenge?! “Call your parents! I want to see what kind of people raised you! If nobody comes today, you’re finished!” My entire body instantly went cold. Then I looked up nervously and asked, “Ms. Jones, are you sure you want me to call my dad?”

My girlfriend, Camille Chaney, gets pregnant right before the college entrance exam starts. In my previous life, I gave up on my college entrance exam and married Camille. We had a son together. Life might be nitty-gritty, but it was still rather fulfilling for me. When I was on my deathbed, Camille and her first love, Howard Salter, dropped by to visit me. "Thank you for raising our son for more than 20 years. Now, you may die in peace." Camille pulled the plug on my life support at that moment. She watched as I slowly suffocated to death. When I open my eyes again, I find out that I've returned to the timeframe when the college entrance exam is about to take place. This time, I slam the door shut in Camille's face when I hear her asking me to take responsibility for her pregnancy. "Go find someone else to play house with you. I'm not interested in becoming a father at all."