Countdown To Nothingness Novels & Stories

On the day my wife, Abigail Jefferson, and Dominic Gorman, the university student she has been sponsoring, post their pre-wedding photos on their social media feed, I don't lash out at them crazily as I usually do. Instead, I leave a like and a comment on their posts. "You two make a great couple. Everyone, let's give our blessings to the newlyweds." Everyone in elite society thinks of me as the most cowardly husband ever, who lets the side piece make a doormat out of him. One week later, Abigail comes home and explains, "This is just an act. Dominic's grandma is ill, and she wishes to see him get married before she passes away." I just nod calmly in return. "I didn't take it seriously. Of course, I believe you." In my previous life, I showed up at Abigail and Dominic's wedding to cause chaos for them. Naturally, their wedding couldn't go on because of me. Abigail began targeting my parents' company in order to punish me. My parents ended up going bankrupt and were forced to jump off a building. She had me admitted into a mental asylum, where I was tortured to insanity. Now that I'm given a second chance in life, I no longer yearn for Abigail's love. I just want her money this time. Every time she cheats on me, I'll transfer some of her assets to my name. Abigail now has three more chances before she ends up losing everything.

The Pentarchy famiglie forbid their heirs from marrying commoners. But Matteo Adorni loves me so deeply that he plays revolver roulette against his father just to be with me. Even as blood soaks through his shirt, he still holds me and smiles softly. He says, "Don't be afraid, Rosella. Only death can separate us." But later, he secretly sleeps with Giorgia Vitalis behind my back. When I discover this, he explains guiltily, "The price for the famiglia allowing us to stay together is for Giorgia to give birth to my heir. Please wait for me, okay?" After that, he sleeps with Giorgia 33 times, and they have a daughter. However, the heir must be a boy. So, he sleeps with Giorgia another 99 times. This time, when Giorgia becomes pregnant again, she tearfully accuses me of poisoning her unborn child. Matteo points a gun at me. "Why are you trying to kill Giorgia? Why are you trying to kill my child?" I am chained inside the Adornis' dungeon. All I can do is beg day after day. Finally, the dungeon doors open once again... This time, I will not wait for him anymore.

In my final year of high school, my parents died, leaving me nothing but a crumbling brick house. And yet, I somehow got myself a younger brother. He was a second-year student at our school, at the top of his grade. But no one respected him. Even when he was bullied, the teachers turned a blind eye. Why? Because even if others didn't beat him, his drunken father did it every day, while his cowardly mother never dared to fight back. I dragged him home with all my strength, patched up his wounds, and kept him with me for several days. Later, when his mother was beaten to death, I called the police and had his father arrested. "Hey," I told him, "from now on, live with me. I don't have any family left. Call me sister, and I'll put you through school." He dreamed of getting into a prestigious university. So I dropped out, set up a street stall, sold my own blood, and even took illegal jobs just to support him. When he graduated, he said he wanted to start a business. I gave him every cent of my savings. And then one day, I watched him stand beneath the dazzling lights, a radiant girl at his side, holding a trophy for a youth entrepreneurship award. I looked down at the cancer diagnosis in my hands. A bitter smile tugged at my lips. In the end, I had raised him into someone I could no longer reach. It was time for me to leave the stage.

On the day I get released from prison, Joshua Caldwell's adoptive sister, Madeline Caldwell, hosts a live stream to welcome me home. She makes sure to shove the phone right in my face. "This is my older sister, Victoria. Even though she has gotten violated by 13 people, she still has the courage to continue living in this world." The comment section explodes instantly. Joshua frowns slightly, but Madeline merely sticks her tongue out at him with a cute smile on her face. Instead of going hysterical like I did three years ago, I just smile at everyone. "A woman's body is never her weakness. The offenders are the ones who deserve to die, not me." After returning home, I don't stop Joshua from letting Madeline visit our parents' graves on their death anniversary on my behalf. I don't mind Joshua giving my room away to Madeline and telling me to stay in the storeroom. Even when Madeline pushes me into the water once again, Joshua chooses to save her despite her knowing how to swim. After I get rescued by a passerby, I just go home on my own silently. Mixed feelings swirl in Joshua's eyes as he looks at me. "That three-year sentence has changed you for good, Vicky." I just smile softly in response. All I've done is finally see reality for what it is and not harbor any hopes for him at all. Moreover, the system, which I've lost contact with, has finally returned three days ago. It told me that it could take me home in seven days. But why is it that Joshua loses his mind after I've left this world for real?

Ethan Hale was the name every pilot at North Ridge Air Base looked up to. I was Ava Morgan, his wife and his only flight partner. To earn my ace qualification, I had to complete three final evaluation missions within the review period. I failed all three. I refused to accept it as coincidence, so I followed the access logs, flight records, and maintenance files until every abnormal detail pointed to one person. Chloe Bennett. When I took the evidence to Ethan, I heard him arguing with his deputy, Liam Reed, behind the office door. "You are putting Chloe forward for the ace-track recommendation? She can barely hold steady in a back seat," Liam said, his anger barely restrained. "Ava is my wife and my flight partner. Chloe is different. She has nothing." Standing outside the door, I suddenly laughed. Then I turned around and accepted the return offer from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Before I left, I gave Ethan three things. And he would regret them for the rest of his life.

My husband, Jacob Morris, wrongly believed that I had pushed the woman he loved down the stairs. So, he locked me in the basement to make me reflect on my actions. He hired people to punish me, trying to break my spirit. I suffered inhumane torture. My tendons were cut, and my face was disfigured. Four years later, he finally remembered me and let me out. But by then, I was too broken to love him anymore.

I had been married to James Tennant for seven years. In that time, he had already kept twenty-nine mistresses, like pretty little canaries in gilded cages. Now, I saw the thirtieth one in our bedroom, young and draped in nothing but a bath towel, lounging across our bed. I turned to him and asked coldly, “Can’t get enough out there, huh? Did you really have to bring her home?” The girl deliberately tugged her towel lower, her pale skin showing as she sneered, “Mr. Tennant says you’re like a dead corpse in bed! He wanted me to teach you how to please a man.” That night, I was forced to watch their little performance right in front of me. The next morning, James was furious at my indifference, resenting me for not reacting. However, he seemed to forget that our marriage was nothing but a contract, and in just one week, that contract would expire.

I'm famous in the rich wives' society for having an ostrich-like personality—cowardly and often loves escaping from reality. In my three-year marriage, I've personally conducted cosmetic surgeries on 99 substitutes of Callum Holden's first love, Alice Teller. Veronica Dane, the 99th substitute, stares at her reflection in the mirror in delight. There's a trace of mockery in her eyes at the same time. "Mrs. Holden, I heard that you've been alone throughout your marriage. What a shame… To think that the nation's best plastic surgeon can't work on altering her own face. "In order to thank you for your efforts, I'll give you a glimpse of Callum's bedroom performance when the time comes. How about that?" I tune out Veronica's mocking words. After all, I've gone through similar situations 98 times in the past, and I have fought back before. But all Callum said to me was, "You owe me this much, Talia. You can never finish atoning for your sins, even if it takes you your entire life!" The thing is, he has forgotten that I've given him 99 substitutes, just as I had promised. Now, I will never go looking for the love that is never mine, to begin with.

Three days ago, Damon Ashford marked me. The night he became Alpha, he sank his fangs into my neck under the moonlight. When his wolf blood mixed with mine, my wolf soul trembled violently. I thought the bond was taking root. I was too excited, too happy to tell the difference between real blood transfer and the simple sting of broken skin. This morning I went to City Hall without telling him. I wanted to pick up our certificate and frame it for our bedroom wall. I wanted to surprise him. The clerk checked the system, then looked up at me. "Whitmore, the mark on your neck is fake. There is no trace of wolf blood exchange." "Also, Ashford completed a formal registration with a woman named Clara Wellick two weeks ago." Under wolf law, a mark must be registered within seven days or it becomes invalid. I came to register, only to find I was never registered at all. I took off the scarf covering my neck and dropped it into the trash can outside City Hall. Standing on the steps, I sent my brother a message. Marcus, I’ll go with you for the closed medical research.

"Amara…I regret it. Spending this life with you was the biggest mistake of my life. If I were given another life…I would choose to be with Planette." I had believed that through sixty years of wind and rain, they had become the inseparable flesh and blood of each other’s lives, waiting only to renew their vows in the next life. But his words were like a venomous dagger. My lifelong pride, the man I had poured my entire soul into loving, had trampled my sixty years of devotion into the mud and shattered it completely, using the most vicious method at the very end of his life. "Puff." A mouthful of blood suddenly sprayed across the pristine white bed sheet. I didn't even have time to let out a complete cry of agony. My pupils instantly dilated and lost focus as I fell rigidly backward. In the end, I couldn't survive the night. When I woke up again, I was reborn back to the age of twenty-eight, the very day after we got married.