Emotional Novels & Stories

For Mother’s Day, I took my mom on a vacation to one of the hotels I managed. We were just relaxing on the leather couch in the lobby for a moment, when the trainee manager on duty rushed over in a rage and yanked us to our feet. “This couch is reserved for VIP guests with membership cards!” “If you’re on a tight budget, stay at a hundred-dollar budget hotel. Don’t come here just for free air conditioning!” Frowning, I was about to reveal my identity. However, she slapped a bill onto the counter and demanded that I pay for a ten-thousand-dollar meal right then and there. I was shaking with anger. “We just got here, and we haven’t even had a sip of water yet. Why on earth should we pay ten thousand for a meal?” She rolled her eyes and tapped the counter defiantly. “Anyone who stays at our hotel has to pay this fee! “It’s a gourmet meal. Whether you eat it or not is your business, but you have to pay!” I had enough and demanded that she call the manager. But she simply sneered and pointed at her employee badge. “This hotel belongs to my brother in all but blood. I call the shots in the entire front office. “It won’t do you any good even if you were to complain to God himself today!” A chill ran down my spine. I was an only child, and my relatives had never been involved in my hotel business. Who on earth was this “brother” she was claiming to have, and how did he manage to take my place?

A parent in my son's preschool group chat tagged me out of nowhere. "Theo's dad, your son's lunches always look pretty nice. Starting tomorrow, pack one for my daughter too." "I'm not asking for free food. I'll give you ten dollars a day. That adds up. You can make a little extra on the side." I stared at the message, almost laughing from how absurd it was. My son has severe food sensitivities and a fragile stomach. Every ingredient in his meals is specially sourced, and a single lunch costs far more than five hundred dollars to prepare. And this man thought ten dollars could buy it? I replied with two words: "Not happening." The next day, my son came home crying. His lunch had been taken by another child, and the teacher had scolded him for being selfish. Fine. Since they wanted to push this far, I would show them exactly how far I could go.

After I developed transient amnesia, fragments of my memories would come back to me every day. But after a month, I would lose part of my memory again. The doctor said my condition would shorten my life and that there was no cure. Devastated, I went to my parents, ready to tell them I was giving up on treatment. Instead, I overheard my family talking inside the room. "His memories are returning! We have to increase the dosage before he remembers everything!" My older sister, Lena Jackson, hesitated. "This has already happened 99 times. If we do it again, we might really ruin him." "What if he gets his memory back and wants to return to the other world? Won't Zach die because of him?" "Don't forget! The more he suffers here, the better Zach's life will be over there!"

After I was reborn into the World Cup training camp locker room, the first thing I did was not train harder, but quietly watch the head coach running around the room with his phone in hand. "TactiGenie says it pulls from the world's largest database! If we follow the Invincible Spiral tactic it generates, we'll definitely win this World Cup! We'll win every match by a huge margin!" In my previous life, I had objected, saying, "TactiGenie doesn't understand football at all." The captain immediately slapped me across the face. "Don't talk nonsense. Do you think you know more than TactiGenie? Or more than the coaching staff?" In that life, Team Libertas conceded a total of 16 goals across three group-stage matches. The head coach cried in front of the cameras and said, "If it weren't for Christian's words before the match shaking the team's morale, we would never have ended up like this." After a public vote of 30 million people, I was named the person most responsible for the national team's elimination. I received 50 million hateful messages, and in the end, I couldn't take it anymore and jumped from the 23rd floor. This time, when the coach pulled out the TactiGenie tactics board with its AI watermark and win-probability curve, I just smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. "Coach Hudson, this tactic is amazing. I'd really love to play." Then I lowered my head and sent a message to the team doctor. "Theodore, my old Achilles injury is acting up again. Please help me get a medical certificate."

The day before my stomach cancer surgery, I receive news that my brother, Darnell Huff, has been kidnapped. The kidnappers demand a ransom of 500 thousand dollars. They threaten to dismember him and feed him to the dogs if I don't pay. Remembering how he once risked his life to save me from human traffickers, I ignore my doctor's warnings and cancel the surgery. Clutching the money, I rush to the entrance of an abandoned factory. But before I can go inside, I hear a conversation coming from within. "Even if you like Amber as your sister, she's still the fake heiress. Erin is your real sister. She just came back, and you're deceiving her so callously. Isn't this a bit much?" Darnell spins a lighter in his hand. His eyes are dark and full of disdain. He says, "She made Amber feel insecure. Amber is the most important person to our family. Even if she isn't biologically related to us, she'll always be the only sister I acknowledge." The other voice interjects, "Then why did you save Erin in the first place? You gave her hope only to disappoint her. She's been going to the hospital constantly lately. Aren't you worried that—" "Enough!" Darnell cuts him off without hesitation. "She survived more than ten years living a hard life in the countryside. She's tough as nails. What could possibly happen to her? Even if she's not well, she won't die from it. "I only brought her back to fulfill our parents' dying wish. Once Amber calms down, I'll give Erin some money and send her back to the countryside. Whether she lives or dies after that has nothing to do with me." Every word pierces me like a knife. So the kidnapping is nothing but a lie. Darnell only brought me back because of our parents' last wish. But what he doesn't know is that I have given up my only chance of survival to come and save him...

It was my honeymoon trip, but my husband's best friend insisted on going into the sea for shark watching despite being on her period. I reasoned against it, as sharks would go amok from the scent of blood, only for Heidi to snap at me, "You're just jealous I have a nice body! That's why you don't want me to have fun with your husband!" My own husband and his other buddies joined in too, brushing me off impatiently. "It's rare for us to hang out! Don't be a buzzkill!" "That's right! Hannah is young and beautiful. She should take pictures with the sharks." With that, they all went down the water despite my earnest protests, and her menstrual bleeding drew schools of sharks toward her right away. When I tried to help, she kicked me in the head, knocking me out and leaving me in the water as the sharks tore me to pieces. While I died under the sea in agonizing despair, Heidi, my husband, and their friends managed to get to safety. Once they returned to civilization, they reported my death as a drowning and pilfered all my wealth. While they rose to the peak of their existence, my parents, devastated by my death, both took their own lives. That was when I opened my eyes again and found myself back on the desert island where they were going for shark watching.

My mother constantly berated me for being lazy and fragile, claiming I couldn't handle a single shred of hardship. Her resentment stemmed from a terrifying symptom I couldn't control. Without warning, my body would begin to convulse, and my mind would go entirely blank. I would collapse into pitch darkness. Yet, every time she took me to the hospital, the medical tests came back frustratingly normal. My teachers eventually noticed my frequent episodes of zoning out and fainting, and they desperately urged my mother to take me for a more thorough evaluation. But my mother, a respected doctor herself, brushed their concerns aside. To her, it was an open-and-shut case: I was a lazy child faking an illness to skip class. From then on, she strictly rationed my diet. Whenever I felt dizzy, grew drowsy, or began to convulse, her response was swift and cruel. I was subjected to sharp slaps across the face and hours of forced standing, while she towered over me, screaming that I was a disappointment who was intentionally trying to ruin her life. Everything came to a dead end on the day of our school-wide physical exams. My mother happened to be the doctor manning the blood-drawing station. When my turn arrived and I sat across from her, that familiar, agonizing tremor seized my limbs. The entire room began to spin, and my torso pitched forward, nearly crashing onto the examination table. Instead of checking my pulse, my mother violently yanked me upward by the arm and shoved me away. "Stop acting!" she hissed, her voice dripping with disgust. "Faking a faint over a routine blood draw? Can you be any more pathetic? Get out into the hallway and stand there. Stop humiliating me in front of my colleagues!" She shoved me out the door before turning back to her work. The moment my back hit the cold hallway wall, an icy chill enveloped my body. My consciousness began to splinter. For the first time in my life, I couldn't fight the weight. Half out of it, I thought to myself that this was good. If I passed out completely this time, she would finally believe that I wasn't lying.

For the fifth time this month, a delivery driver knocked on my door looking for an order that wasn't mine. Fed up, I taped a note outside: "I never order takeout. Whoever keeps using my address for pranks deserves a lifetime of bad luck." A few minutes later, someone knocked again. I yanked open the door and snapped, "I didn't order anything! Can you please check the address before bothering me?" The driver scratched his head, looking confused. "That's strange... I always deliver to this address." Not wanting to argue, I slammed the door shut. Moments later, violent pounding erupted from outside. Furious, I flung the door open, ready to curse out whoever was causing trouble. The words died in my throat the instant I saw who was standing there.

My son, Caleb Yates, is publicly known as the most caring son ever. But I've written a letter just to cut off all ties with him on New Year's Eve. The community workers take turns in trying to mediate the situation. "Your son cares a great deal about you. Since young, he has never caused trouble for you, and he often visits you at home. Whenever he comes back, he makes sure to bring gifts, too. "Are you going senile, Bruce? You already have one foot in the grave, so why are you still cutting off ties with Caleb?" I never waver in my decision. Instead, I snatch up a pole and drive Caleb out of my home. Even though I keep berating and hitting Caleb, he refuses to leave. He then jumps off the fourth floor without hesitation. When I walk past him, Caleb does his best to grasp my pant leg despite still lying in a pool of his own blood. I merely take a step backward. "If you want to die, do it somewhere else." My neighbors can't take it anymore. They claim that I'm a bad father before dragging me to the hospital by force. Once Caleb regains consciousness after undergoing surgery, he keeps apologizing to me even though he has tubes connected to him. I refuse to even spare him another glance. The next day, I sue him at the relationship severance court immediately.

My cousin forgot to log out of her messaging app on my laptop. I was helping her sign out when a notification from a group chat popped up on the screen. “We’re having family dinner tonight to celebrate Lucas improving his exam scores.” Out of curiosity, I clicked into the chat. There were only four people in the group. My dad, my mom, my brother, and my cousin. Then my brother replied, “Just the four of us. Don’t invite Freya. She’s always so petty. She even fights with Emma over an apple.” I froze. That was when I realized I was the outsider in my own family.