First Time Artinya

The year was 1934; I was twenty-two years old. I never thought of myself as anything special. I was barely making it through the Great Depression. There were many days I lived off of scraps. I was the king of odd jobs, just enough to get by. I had done it all, from being a field hand to a miner. It all changed one night when I stumbled across a traveling circus, Cirque du Lune. I had never seen such a sight. Instead of the usual menagerie, this circus was overrun with wolves. There was one performer who caught my eye; it was as if an angel had descended from heaven on a silk ribbon.

Lara Dela Cruz was a normal girl—well, normal in the sense that she was an overworked call center agent who hated her boss, loved iced coffee, and had mastered the art of sarcasm to survive the horrors of capitalism. But one night, while rushing home, she slipped on a puddle (thanks to her horrible luck) and hit her head hard on the pavement. When she woke up… she wasn’t in her world anymore. Instead, she found herself in a medieval kingdom, in the middle of a chaotic slave auction. And before she could even scream in protest, she was bought by the most feared man in the entire empire—Duke Alistair Von Nacht, also known as the Tyrant Duke. Now, instead of dealing with rude customers, she had to deal with an emotionally constipated warlord who could kill her with a flick of his fingers. But what’s worse? She might be falling for the grumpy tyrant.

My fiancé's first love was taking photos on a cliff before the landslide. To save her, he actually left me behind on the crumbling edge. I pleaded with him to save me. "Lucy isn't physically strong—she can't handle this alone. You've always been resilient. I'll get Lucy to safety first, then come back for you." Their silhouettes vanished over the ridge. After a brief commotion, everything went silent. Including me, with my freshly sprained ankle. When he saw the news of my death, he completely fell apart.

It was a national holiday and we decided to drive back to my husband's hometown to spend the holidays. One day before we left, my husband's childhood crush came crying to him that she had not managed to buy train tickets home. My husband immediately decided to let her have my seat in the car and insisted that I take the train instead. I looked at him in disbelief. There was shock in my eyes. Even my son insisted I take the train. "Mommy, Aunt Rosie is so pretty. How could you make her take the train?" I did not argue. I booked my train ticket right in front of them. However, it was to my own hometown. I no longer wanted a biased husband and a disloyal son.

Everyone is envious of me for having someone like Dominic Cruz, who's love-brained, as a husband-to-be. He's rich, handsome, and highly educated. I smile without saying anything, but I nod happily. However, on the day I'm misdiagnosed, he goes missing. He's so engrossed in his secret lover that he forgets all about me. So, I jilt him before he can do it to me. I turn him into the city's laughingstock. Later, I hear that he drinks the bar dry every night. He scours Marina City but fails to find his missing bride.

I have been reborn 999 times, all to save my husband from the woman he can never forget. Each time, he hides the truth from me, only to be tricked by her into entering that room destined to go up in flames. He always dies in the fiery explosion. Nearly a thousand lifetimes pass, and I never once complain, even though loving him tears me apart. However, this time, I have made up my mind. I won't save him. This time, I will watch him die with my own eyes.

James Wesley has hated me for a decade after his childhood sweetheart passed away. He requests to be transferred to the frontier the day after we get married. I write him countless letters in those ten years to win back his favor, but his response is always the same. "If you truly regret it, why don't you hurry up and die?" However, after I am abducted, James storms the bandit's hideout by himself and saves me. He suffers multiple bullet wounds, but before he succumbs to his injuries, he uses the last of his strength to slap my hands away. "The thing I regret the most… in this life… is marrying you. If we get a second chance at life… please… don't bother me anymore." His mother, Felicia Axford, sounds regretful during the funeral. "It's all my fault, James. I shouldn't have forced you to marry her…" His father, Jeremiah Wesley, stares at me, his eyes burning with contempt. "You forced Emily to take her own life, and now you also caused my son's death. You're nothing but trouble, so you should just die!" Even Xavier Bowen, our troop commander, who was responsible for facilitating our marriage in the first place, shakes his head and sighs. "I shouldn't have played matchmaker. I let you down, Mr. Wesley." Everyone feels sympathetic toward James, including me. On the night I am discharged from the troop, I swallow some pesticide and die in the middle of an abandoned field. When I open my eyes again, I realize I have returned to the day before my marriage. This time, I am determined to fulfill everyone's wishes.

The emergency center I worked in went haywire as the typhoon closed in on our town. That night, my husband’s first love made seven emergency calls in a row to me. However, she did not say anything when I picked up. By the eighth call, I thought it was a prank caller, so I gave them a piece of my mind. Then, I heard my husband’s angry voice. “Melinda! This is the eighth time Sadie's called you for help! Haven’t you made her suffer enough?!” After that fiasco, he decided to avenge Sadie by taping my mouth, tying my wrists and legs up, and throwing me into our basement for three whole days, despite it being flooded with seawater, I begged for mercy, but it was to no avail. “You knew Sadie couldn’t talk because she hurt her throat, yet you still hung up on her! I'm going to make sure you feel the same hopelessness she felt!" Those three days left me with a collection of severe infections. I ended up having to remove my kidney. Even after all that, that man still had the gall to kneel by my bed and beg me to give him another chance.

"They said that secrets are meant to be kept within our notice but some mysteries are better off unveiled." Valencia Rhyss has lived a life of neglect and indifference ever since her mother left for another man. She continued to live in adversity despite being the only daughter of the world's most well-known billionaire CEO, Charles Rhyss, Valencia tried her best to be acknowledged by her father for her efforts, however, she will always remain a third-place medal because he's blind to her endeavours and only focused on her two brothers. But not Until she discovered a horrific secret kept by her family that made all her misfortunes make sense, and after she attained this appalling knowledge she plans to go against her father with the help of his business rival, Dion Nester.

Sonnet Turner agreed to get married in her foster sister’s place to rescue her foster father. Everyone thought that Sonnet’s future was ruined as she married a fool when she already had two children.Unlike everyone’s expectations, Sonnet soon appeared in the social circle of wealthy young women in Harbor City. Among Harbor City’s Big Four, whom all the wealthy young women of Harbor City fancied, one of them was in charge of driving Sonnet around, one of them was in charge of helping Sonnet lift her skirt when she went down the stairs, and the other two of them worked as her bodyguards. The wealthy young women of Harbor City were all beyond jealous. Sonnet’s foster sister showed up and said, “Sonnet Turner, so what if you’re that capable? You still married a fool!” “Who said I’m a fool?” A man wrapped his arms around Sonnet’s waist. The group of wealthy people behind him treated him extremely courteously. Sonnet was shocked. Since when had her silly husband become a rich, cool, and handsome boss?!