Emotional Inflammation Novels & Stories

Heating starts on the 15th, so I give my mom the money to pay the heating bill two days in advance and ask her to pay it for me. But a week passes, and it still feels like an icehouse in my apartment. I am on the phone complaining to my younger brother's wife, Selena Lyons, who lives upstairs. "You are right not to pay the heating fee. I paid, and it made no difference. We're freezing to death here." From the other end of the call, I faintly hear my nephew shouting, "Mom, it's so hot! I want a popsicle!"

Carina Lewis, the head of the department, has been a friend of mine since college. While she successfully climbs up the corporate ladder, I'm stuck being the workhorse at the bottom of the totem pole. When she's late for work, I sign in for her. When she messes up, I clean up for her. I'm happy to play along with her, of course. It's not easy to find someone dumb enough to be the scapegoat. One day, a billionaire investor shows up at the company's doorstep, and the senior executives instruct me to take care of him during his visit. This evening, when the rest of the office is empty, Carina takes my hand and tells me earnestly, "Bailey, investors like him are ruthless. You won't even know what's coming for you. An innocent woman like you won't be able to handle him. Let me, your best friend, test the waters with him first. Once everything is settled, I'll make you a manager." I nod sweetly in response. Hours later, I scurry over to the presidential suite at the hotel, where the billionaire investor is staying, and kick down the door. "Open up, Dal!" It's one thing for Carina to constantly take advantage of me, but how dare she dream of becoming my sister-in-law to steal half of my family's assets? That deluded pipe dream of hers will even make the marble statues in my family's garden roll their eyes.

I was a retired mercenary. A middle-aged man like me, without any ‘proper’ skills, could only work as a stockkeeper at a private company. On my first day at work, the warehouse lost an important item, and I was accused of stealing it. My new colleagues scoffed. "Hand over what you stole, you penniless loser! This warehouse hasn't lost anything for eight years. If you hand over the stolen item, we'll submit an appeal letter on your behalf when you get arrested by the police." I stepped forward to look at a mark left behind in the corner. "I can find what was stolen." The entire warehouse fell silent. When my boss arrived after hearing the news, he scrutinized me condescendingly. "If you can find the stolen item, I'll give you half of the company shares. If you fail, you'll have to pay with your life!"

On my mother’s seventieth birthday party, I ran around handling various matters, paying out of pocket and putting in all the work. I did not even have the time to sit down and drink a sip of water. When I finally found the time to surprise her, I prepared eighty-eight grams of gold jewelry as her gift. Just as I was about to give it to her, I heard her talking to the other relatives. “See that? My daughter is truly my sweetheart. She woke up so early this morning to bake me this cake. I wouldn’t trade this cake for gold.” Our relatives immediately began praising my younger sister, Jessie Radley, for being so devoted. Only a couple of them pushed back. “Why aren’t you praising your eldest daughter, Mary? I heard she handled the entire birthday party.” “Tch. She only knows how to muddle through things. None of it had been done to my liking. Jessie is the good one. She got up at seven in the morning just to bake me this cake.” I turned around and walked away from the doorway. Since she loved Jessie so much, she could pay for this birthday party, worth eighty thousand dollars.

Late that night, I was scrolling through social media when my finger slipped, and I liked a rant that said, "No women would like to date Aries men." A few minutes later, Rachel Lewis, my ex-boyfriend's current girlfriend, flooded my private messages. [Stop trying to get Marcus's attention with these pathetic little tricks.] [You already broke up.] [A decent ex stays dead.] [You're damaging Marcus's reputation.] [I'll give you one chance to delete it.] [Otherwise, you'll face the consequences.] I laughed. I had broken up with Marcus Gibson, my Aries ex-boyfriend, three years ago. [I dumped that piece of trash out three years ago. I don't care if you picked him up and started treating him like a treasure, but stop acting like someone's trying to steal him from you every day.] That pushed Rachel completely over the edge. She sent me an Excel spreadsheet right away. [Fine. Since you're so over him, pay back every cent Marcus spent on you while you were dating. Otherwise, that proves you still want him.] I looked at the bill. Eighty-seven cups of coffee, eighteen movie tickets, that sad bouquet of roses he bought me for Valentine's Day, and even the chamomile tea he bought me when I was having my period... [The total is 4,300 dollars. If you don't transfer the money within three days, I'll make sure the whole internet knows who you are.] I stared at it, stunned. Then, I ignored the madwoman. The next day, my social media exploded.

After passing five rounds of interviews, I secure an offer from Larson Group based on my own abilities. I can't wait to share the good news with my boyfriend, Noah Gardner. However, he reports me to HR, causing me to lose the job. "Isabelle can't find a job and is really anxious, so I gave the position to her. You can just send out a few more resumes. It's not like a few extra days matter," he said nonchalantly. After Isabelle Buchanan starts working at Larson Group, everyone showers her with praise. I laugh in exasperation and call my older brother. "Mr. Larson, can our company hire me as the CEO's executive assistant?"

My husband, Samuel Dalton, is known to be a person with a "heart of gold". When my boss gets the bills all wrong, I launch a protest at the company while heavily pregnant. Samuel blames me for ruining my relationship with my colleagues, so he secretly returns the money to my boss. When I get scammed by others on my way to work, I travel to all departments with the footage recorded by my dash cam so that I can take the scammers to court. But Samuel, on the other hand, decides to settle the whole thing privately with the offenders. Not only that, but he also refuses compensation from them. In fact, Samuel is also the first one among his siblings to move his mother, who's afflicted with dementia, into our home. Thanks to her dementia acting up, his mom ends up killing my newborn. I completely lose my mind on the spot. In a muddled state, I wander to the road, where I end up getting hit by a car. Now that I'm reborn, I vow not only to file for a divorce from that crazy husband of mine, but I also want him to get a taste of his own medicine.

Stanley Porter, my wife Jessica Evans’ close male friend, and I are both competing to be the next fire captain. In my first lifetime, I was chosen by a unanimous vote. On my very first night on duty as captain, Jessica came over to the fire station to celebrate with me. Sticking to my duties as captain, I didn't touch a single drop of alcohol. Yet, after drinking the chicken soup Jessica gave me, I fell into a deep sleep. That night, a massive fire broke out in the old district, resulting in the deaths of 58 people. Because I missed the station's alarm, I was accused of dereliction of duty and labeled as the main person responsible for the tragedy. The enraged families of the victims ended up beating me to death. In my second lifetime, I withdrew my name from the selection for captain. I handed the badge over to Stanley instead, saying, "You're better suited to be captain than I am." I'd assumed that this was enough to ensure that the fire couldn't be pinned on me. Yet, when the authorities looked into the fire, they ended up seeing me appear in the security footage from where the fire began. Everyone assumed I'd deliberately started the fire to get back at Stanley out of jealousy for losing out on the captain position. I now open my eyes again to live my third life. I watch as Stanley excitedly gives his speech on the podium after being made the captain. This time around, I submit a request for annual leave and take a cab straight to the airport.

The classified project I was working on wrapped up ahead of schedule, so I made sure to get back on my daughter's birthday. When I walked in, a girl I had never seen before was wearing my daughter's princess dress, a crown perched on her head. She sat in front of a cake as tall as she was, eyes closed, making a wish. I frowned and stepped closer. "Who are you? Why are you wearing my daughter's dress? Where's Heidi?" Before she could answer, two housemaids rushed out and started yelling at me. "Where the hell did you come from? How dare you talk to our boss's daughter like that? If you know what's good for you, get out! When the boss gets back, you won't like what happens." I stood there, confused. Boss? The boss's daughter? In this house, wasn't it just me and my daughter, Heidi Foster? I barely had time to speak before they shoved me toward the front door. In the middle of the pushing, something caught my eye. Off to the side, chained to a pillar, was Heidi. The girl I used to hold like she was the most precious thing in the world was now sprawled on the ground, digging through a dog bowl for food. A thick iron chain was locked around her neck, and her body was covered in bruises. My vision tightened. "Heidi, what happened to you?" The moment our eyes met, her hollow gaze filled with tears. She shrank back, then let out a soft bark at me, like a frightened dog. The maids looked at her with open disgust. One of them sneered, "Our boss said that that little thing was born to live like a dog. You have to keep her chained up if you want her to behave."

As I was watching a movie in the cinema, a rude child kept kicking the back of my seat. He even took off his shoe and extended his foot next to my face. I turned around and chastised him to take his seat, but he stabbed me in my neck with a sharp needle. Feeling the pain, I reached out and wiped the blood from my neck. His mother chuckled. “It’s fine, he’s just fooling around with my sewing needle. It’s just a harmless jab. It’s not like it has poison on it. Be a good sport about it.” I threw the popcorn bucket onto the floor and aimed my phone’s flashlight at the rude child. I roared, “The child’s holding a discarded needle that was used on an AIDS patient in the hospital! There’s an AIDs patient’s blood on it!”