Decim Death Parade

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.

"Selene, your bloodline is too lowly. You don't deserve to be a Luna! You must let your Alpha mark his sister-in-law!" My mother-in-law despises me because I'm a lowly Omega. When my mate's brother dies in an accident, my mother-in-law wants me to allow my mate, Eugene Latham, to have pups with his sister-in-law, Kristy Unwin, because of her superior bloodline. Otherwise, Eugene will lose his right to become Alpha! Eugene wraps his arms around me tenderly and says, "You're the only one in my heart, but you need to understand that the pack can't go without an Alpha. I'll announce to everyone that you're my Luna once Kristy's pregnant and I become Alpha, okay?" I love him deeply, so I believe him. However, when Eugene goes from sleeping with Kristy once a month to sleeping with me once a month, I realize he's no longer a mate who belonged to me alone. When Kristy announces that she's pregnant and that she and Eugene are going to get married, I'm the only one who's kept in the dark. My heart shatters into pieces when I see the glimmering Luna's ring on her finger. If this is what Eugene wants, I'll fake my death and leave him. I won't ever return.

In the third year of my relationship with Aden, he died in a war between werewolf packs. His beta twin brother, James, brought back the obsidian pendant that Aden had dropped on the battlefield. He told me in a choked voice, “Emily, Aden isn’t coming home.” I fainted on the spot. After waking up, I went mad and tried to go to the battlefield to die with Aden. However, James held me back. Later on, I attempted suicide multiple times, only to be saved by James and his mother, Louise. All the werewolves in Moon Forest Pack said that Aden and I were deeply bonded. It was not until the third month after Aden’s death that I finally discovered the one who died wasn’t him at all.

Four days after my death, my four-year-old daughter finally sensed that something was terribly wrong. The fridge door slammed into her forehead when she tried to get a snack. Normally, I would've been there in a heartbeat—arms open, kisses ready, whispering, "You're okay, sweetheart, Mommy's here." But this time, I just lay on the bed, cold and still.​ She didn't understand. She thought the sweet treat would make me respond. So she held the final piece of chocolate up to my mouth. "Here, Mommy. Have some chocolate..." But I didn't even blink. She climbed into my arms, clutching my clothes tightly. "Mommy... Mommy, wake up..." She waited for me to stroke her hair, to tell her that everything was going to be fine. There was only silence.​ Completely lost and scared, she found my phone. "Daddy, why is Mommy still sleeping?" she asked, her voice filled with desperation.​ In response, Oliver sent a photo of himself having Christmas Eve dinner with his childhood sweetheart. His voice was icy cold when he replied, "She's just sleeping, not dead. It's Christmas Eve, and I'm busy. Tell her to stop playing games and come apologize when she's done sulking." Then he hung up.​ But when the truth finally hit Oliver—when the coroner's report came, when the police knocked on his door right in the middle of his laughter, when he realized I'd been lying dead for four days while he toasted—he broke.

After my death, I found myself inside a romance strategy game, where the system assigned me three male leads. If I followed its instructions and successfully captured the heart of any one of them, I would return alive and well in the real world. Drawing on my experience, I crafted careful scripts to win their affection. Yet, every attempt ended in failure. The reason was simple: each of them had already fallen for the dazzling heroine of their world. They hurled cruel words at me, as if wishing I would just drop dead. In the end, I fulfilled their desire—when my strategies failed, the system erased me. But the moment I died, they all regretted it. One by one, they begged the heavens to return me to them.

Once upon a time, Kayla thought she and Winston would be together until the day they died. She would never have expected them to take separate paths so soon. After retrieving her diagnosis report, she sees him holding another woman in his arms. A final tear trickles down her face. She's tired and doesn't want to use whatever time she has left to argue with him. She makes the arrangements for everything that will happen after her death. Then, she prepares a final gift for Winston. From this day onward, she'll leave for the afterworld while he remains on Earth. They won't see each other again.

When my fiance's student argued with me, she knocked over a gas cylinder and caused an explosion. As the fire spread, my fiancé rushed into the lab wearing a gas mask. However, his priority was to carry his student to safety. As he left, he said, "Wait for the rescue team! A teacher should treat their students like how a parent treats their children. If something happens to Amanda, you don't deserve to be a teacher!" In the end, I inhaled too much toxic gas and died, never having waited long enough for the rescue team to arrive. Since I was the only one who had mastered the core data of the lab, no one could take my place. This meant that five years of hard work in the lab were destroyed, and Astran University was kicked out of a global research project. Later, William, the once esteemed professor of Astran University, became a pariah—someone whom everyone scorned and reviled.

The Rogue King disguises himself as a food delivery person to assassinate my mate—Lucas Wolfgang, the Alpha of Moonbane pack. It's Valentine's day, but Lucas is spending it with his childhood sweetheart. When the Rogue King's assassination fails, he threatens me with my daughter Tina and forces me to ingest wolfsbane. I speak to him to drag things out while contacting Lucas through our mind-link. "Lucas, Tina and I need you…" However, Lucas has cut off our mind-link. He doesn't respond, and I have no choice but to take the wolfsbane. Before the Rogue King leaves, he mocks me for being a failure. I'm the Luna of Moonbane pack, yet I don't have my husband's heart. Tina calls Lucas. "Come home, Daddy! Mommy's bleeding everywhere!" He merely says coldly, "I've told you this many times, Tina. Stop being a liar like your mother!" I've never lied to him, and neither has Tina. Ultimately, he kneels before my grave in tears, looking like a poor little puppy. He begs me not to abandon him.

I am diagnosed with severe systemic lupus erythematosus, and I only have three days left to live. When my husband rejects my 188th plea for help, I take my test results and enter the hospice care center. "Hello, I'd like to schedule my own cremation process and apply for government aid." Ten minutes later, they arrive. Before I can speak, my lawyer husband, Jasper Horton, coldly slaps me across the face. "You're faking a terminal illness just to steal attention from Janice?" My doctor brother, Casey Carter, snatches the medical report from my hand and scoffs at it. "Lupus? If you're going to fake being sick, at least make it believable. Only one in a million people gets this." I endure the pain in my body, return to the counter, and hand in the application form and my medical records once more. The staff member sees the butterfly-shaped rash on my wrist and sympathizes with me. "I have no family left," I say. "I'm requesting cremation in three days, location doesn't matter. I just don't want my death to burden anyone."