Romans & histoires Death Stare

Just because my sister, Yvonne Lindell, claims I swapped Grandma's medicine with sugar pellets and caused her death, Mom locks me inside the cremator. I kneel and beg, but Mom spits at me in disgust. "You wretched girl, stay still! You killed your grandma by secretly switching her medicine. Now go repent to her properly!" Dad hesitates, unable to bear it. "Maybe we should let her out. What if—" "What are you afraid of? Don't forget that she killed your mother! If we don't teach her a lesson this time, who knows who she'll kill next!" The voices outside the door gradually fade, and my heart sinks to the bottom. The flames slowly begin to lick at my body. In despair, I clutch Grandma's cold hand beside me. "Grandma, I'm sorry. I should've taken better care of your medicine. But I swear, I didn't replace it with sugar pellets. Maybe only in death, can I truly atone for this sin…"

I'm cursed with the most deadly spell of the werewolf pack—leaving me with only a month left to live. However, no one in my family knows about this. Ever since they'd adopted Natali Fisher, an orphan who greatly resembles my older sister, they've poured all their love and attention into her—and stopped caring about me. And at that very moment, I'm curled up in a corner of the woodshed, with blood steadily dripping from the corners of my lips. Dad, Mom, and my older brother, Kent Greene, probably think that I'm throwing another tantrum and am deliberately hiding from them. But that isn't the case this time. They are currently outside cooking Natali's favorite mushroom soup in the courtyard. Their happy laughter fills the air, painting the picture of a warm, loving family. Maybe I could even believe this is a happy family if I weren't about to die soon.

Kendrick Fisher, the worst student in class, has worked extremely hard and ended up getting into a prestigious college just for my sake. But I choose to break up with him at that very moment. I cling to the arm of Daniel Ziegler, the best student in class, as I mock Kendrick relentlessly in a high and mighty manner. "It's not that I look down on you, Kendrick. The thing is, your family has gone broke. Right now, you don't even have a single penny in your pocket. "On top of that, you also have a heart disease, which means you can't live for more than three months. What makes you think we can stay together, hmm?" With a pallid face, Kendrick parts his lips, but he ends up fainting from the pain while listening to my mocking laughter. Four years later, I curl up on the floor in a factory's dormitory while munching on a stale sandwich and scrolling through the news. It turns out that the AI company founded by Kendrick will be going public soon, and it's already worth ten billion dollars. Meanwhile, Daniel is currently using my identity to apply for online loans just so he can continue gambling in Mireholm. Everyone is waiting to watch the spicy drama of Kendrick getting his revenge on me. Thank goodness I've already died by then. When Kendrick makes a glorious comeback by having his convoy drive into the city, my artificial heart has already stopped beating. Unfortunately, his afterparty and my wake are held in the same hotel on the very same day…

When my brother Beau Campbell and I drowned together at the age of four, I was the only one who survived. From that day on, my mother came to loathe me. She would often creep into my room at night with colorful "candies" in her hand, trying to pry open my mouth. However, Dad always stopped her just in time. Later, I cut off my long hair and threw away all my dresses, desperately trying to become Beau's shadow. Only then would Mom spare me a glance. Three years passed, and Mom got pregnant again. She said it was Beau coming back to us. I was happy for her and told myself it was good that Beau was back. After all, it also meant this family no longer needed the stand-in who had lived in his place. So, I found the same "candies" Mom once tried to force into my mouth, and I quietly swallowed them.

Three years ago, I broke up with my girlfriend—Audrey Hades—while she was on the verge of going bankrupt. Immediately after, I got engaged to her biggest rival, Clara Sterling. Later, she turns into a celebrated and adored rising star of the business world. She allows people around her to mock and label me as a gold-digger who leeches off rich women. But what she doesn't know is that I've been dead for three years.

I was the real heiress in a case of a mistaken identity. Three months after my return, the imposter heiress disappeared.   My brother, Caleb Carter, accused me of jealousy, believing I had driven the fake heiress away. The disappointed look on my parents’ faces revealed their true thoughts.   I was confined in the basement, subjected to daily torture.   Even after my death, my family donated my brain to a research institution.   Later, I watched from heaven as my family broke down upon watching my memories.

Six years ago, I was accused of kidnapping Fiona Carter’s adopted younger brother, Ryker Carter. The kidnapper insisted I was behind it. I begged Fiona for help, but she looked at me with pure disgust. "Xavier, you broke Ryker’s leg. This is the punishment you deserve!" Six years later, Fiona came to the prison to take me home, only to be handed a death certificate. She refused to believe it. "Xavier, even if you run to the ends of the earth, I’ll find you!" Later, she knelt in front of my grave and personally severed Ryker’s tendons.

Five years after my death, my wife, Charlotte Blake, once again asks me to take the fall for Leo Cane, her first love, in his drunk driving case. She barges into my home with fabricated evidence but finds no trace of me anywhere. Left with no other choice, she knocks on my neighbor's door. My neighbor tells her something unexpected. "Shane Foster? He's been dead for a long time. I heard the victim's family from the case he was convicted for wasn't satisfied with the verdict. "They abducted him the day he got out of prison and tortured him for three days straight." Charlotte refuses to believe it. She furiously accuses me of making up any lie to escape responsibility. She storms at the neighbor, shouting, "You think I don't know Shane paid you to cover for him? "Tell him there's no use in hiding. If he doesn't contact me within three days, he won't get a single cent of child support for that bastard." But she doesn't know that the person Leo killed in that drunk driving accident is the very "bastard" she keeps referring to.

Three months since my husband, Julian Moretti, disappeared. I walked into his favorite den, the grief so deep it stole the air from my lungs. I just wanted to breathe him in, to find any trace of him that was left. Then I heard it. A familiar laugh. And the soft moan of a woman. Through a crack in the door, I saw him. My husband, the man "missing" for three months, had his hand tangled in another woman's hair. "Baby, just a little longer," he said. "Soon as I siphon enough cash from the family's books, we're gone. You and me." In his arms was Bianca, from the Rosso family. "What about your wife?" she purred. "Let her play the grieving widow. She's nothing without me anyway." My fists clenched. The world went quiet, my blood turning to ice. The next day, I put the word out to the entire Family. "I'm holding a memorial mass for my husband." At the service, he stormed in, a ghost returned from the grave, roaring that he was alive and there to take back what was his. But I was standing next to his uncle, Dante Moretti, and all I did was stare him down. "Then explain," I said, my voice cutting through the silence. "Explain the woman. Explain the money. Explain your betrayal... to the Family. And to me."

To save her first love, who suffered from uremia, my wife, who was a judge, used her influence to pressure the hospital into awarding one of my kidneys to him. I explained to my wife that I had kidney failure. Transplanting another kidney would mean certain death for me. However, my wife yelled at me in disgust, “His illness is serious, and you’re still acting jealous and competing for my attention? Do you even have a heart?” With the lawyer she hired, she won a court ruling that sent me to the hospital for the kidney transplant. In the end, my kidney failure worsened. I died alone in a forgotten corner of the hospital.