Gumdrop Mountain Candyland Novels & Stories

The moment we witness the last surviving child in the safehouse getting pinned to the wall by a zombie before having his guts torn out, all the men in the team break down mentally. "Captain, didn't you claim that Selene kept rambling nonsense because she had gone crazy out of fright toward the zombies? Isn't that why you reassured us to keep watch while you and Madeline watched the sunrise on the summit? "Why is it that my newborn has already gotten devoured by a zombie as soon as I return to the safehouse?" Quinton Morwood goes deathly pale at the accusation. My heart feels as though it's gotten torn into pieces as I stare at the tragedy. In my previous life, when the zombies attacked the safehouse, Quinton, who was the captain of the defence team, had taken the entire team with him just so he could watch the sunrise with Madeline Moore at the mountain summit. I did everything I could to summon everyone back to the base. That was how everyone's lives were spared from the zombie attack. But Madeline was pissed that she did't get to watch the sunrise, so she left the safezone angrily on her own. That was how she got grabbed by a zombie and eaten by a horde. By the time Quinton and his squad killed the entire horde, he just hugged Madeline's femur to his chest without saying a single word. On the day I gave birth to my baby, Quinton hacked my limbs off before throwing me into the roaming hordes of zombies. I could only watch as the zombies tore my flesh off my bones before Quinton saved me again by healing me. The cycle kept going on and on until I witnessed the last piece of flesh being torn off my body. "You're the one who killed Madeline, you wretched woman! Since you like competing with her that much, I'll make sure you'll die a worse death than hers!" When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day the zombies are attacking the safezone.

I was an ordinary mortal girl who lived at the foot of Mount Olympus. Caelum, King of the Gods, descended from the heavens for me once, transforming himself into a shower of gold. He took me to the peak of Olympus over every other god’s objection. He built a shrine on the mountain that belonged to me alone, every god on Olympus knew the same truth: I was the only mortal love of Caelum’s endless life. Then I gave birth to our daughter, Nia. The Fates declared her a cursed child whose existence would bring disaster to the gods, and Nia and I were sent back down to the small cottage at the foot of the mountain. Seraphina, Goddess of Flame, said she could help cleanse Nia of the curse, and with Caelum’s quiet consent she came every month and burned my daughter with divine fire. Nia screamed under that fire, sobbing for me . I ran into the temple to beg Caelum to stop it, and I found him in bed with Seraphina. The pure, holy Goddess of Flame was moaning beneath him. They threw me into the depths of Tartarus, where Seraphina handed me over to the Erinyes to be torn apart day after day. When Nia turned five, they finally let me out, but by then my Nia had been burned to ash. The day I was gathering her ashes, the message stone in my room suddenly lit up, and a projection flickered out of it: Caelum, as he had been five years ago. His eyes were full of joy and anticipation, and his voice was so gentle it almost made me believe time had folded back on itself. “Sweetheart, is it a boy or a girl? Did our child inherit my power?” In the projection his expression shifted, and the smile froze on his face. That was when the door of my room was pushed open, and the present-day Caelum, five years older than the man in the stone, strode inside. I turned the message stone around so the Caelum from five years ago could see Nia’s urn with his own eyes. “It’s a girl,” I said. “But she didn’t live long enough to inherit your power. She was burned to ash.”

When I was three years old, during a car accident, I was struck in the head by a car while trying to protect Mom. After that, the doctors said something inside my head had broken, and I'd never be quite right. Everyone back home called me the slow one. Late at night, I'd see her crying alone. On my seventh birthday, Mom took me to Manhattan, and that was when I discovered that she had a second home and another daughter, Charlotte. In front of strangers, she wouldn't claim me. She only let me call her Miss Eleanor. On the third night, She sat down at her vanity. On the table was a small black box. I thought it was a present. She opened the box and took out a black silicone bracelet, with a little light embedded in the clasp—small, dark, switched off. "This is called a TruthBand. It's something a company in California makes. The light turns green when you tell the truth, and red when you lie. If you wear this, Mommy will always know." She fastened it around my wrist. Tight. The little light blinked green. I thought that if I was good enough, she would love me the way she loved my sister. But then she made me do ski practice with Charlotte. Charlotte was a junior champion. "You're both my daughters. I don't play favorites. Whoever falls, gets punished." Charlotte never fell. I couldn't even keep my skis straight. Every single run, I was the one Mama dragged off the mountain and locked in the cellar. On Thanksgiving Day, Mama spent the whole afternoon cooking. I wanted to help. I dropped a bowl. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were red. She grabbed a little pill bottle off the counter, tipped my chin up, and forced something between my teeth. "Dumb as a rat. Are you happy now? Did you finally embarrass me enough? " I lay on the kitchen floor, gasping. While she wasn't looking, I scraped up three little pink pellets that had spilled and tucked them into my fist. Mommy, I told myself, I'll be good now, and then you'll be happy. Right?

During the outdoor orientation boot camp, Wanda Lawson, the daughter of the richest tycoon, suddenly suffered from a heart attack. She collapsed to the ground and went through a seizure, her complexion bluish-gray. My boyfriend, Joseph Jensen, the drill instructor of the boot camp, overheard my pretentious roommate, Ella Ziegler, murmur, "She's usually fine, so why is she suddenly suffering from some sort of attack when it's time for the drills to start? She must be faking it in order to laze around!" Because of those assumptions, Joseph kicked the medication that Wanda managed to pull out of her pocket into the nearby river. "Get lost if you want to play dead! Don't drag us down with you!" I quickly dived into the river and scooped the medication out. Thanks to my efforts, Wanda's life was saved. Her father was enraged when he found out about the news and wanted to hold someone responsible. With tears streaking down my face, I begged Wanda to not expose Joseph. She nodded quietly to me. Joseph narrowly escaped the judgment. But Ella was expelled by the university right away for her malicious and provocative words. She even had a permanent stain of poor conduct marking her record. On the third day after Ella returned to her village, her family forced her to marry an older man who had remained single for far too long because of his violent temperament. Wanda's father was grateful to me for saving Wanda's life, so he listed me into the list of beneficiaries of his family's trust fund. The amount of money I received was second only to Wanda's portion. On the night news of Ella getting beaten to death by her husband got out, Joseph lovingly invited me to the place we first met so that we could go hiking. When I stood on the steep slope of the mountain, Joseph suddenly snatched the backpack filled with supplies, which included a life-saving whistle, from me. Then, he shoved me off the slope. "Why must you be such a busybody? If you never saved Wanda, she wouldn't have been able to testify against Ella because she'd have died! A murderer like you should just die!" Having broken my spine from the fall, I ended up dying at the foot of the mountain. After my death, not only Joseph got to receive the trust fund thanks to his relationship to me as my fiance, but he also began sponsoring low-income students by using Ella's namesake. That was how he reaped both wealth and reputation in one go. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Wanda suffers from the heart attack.

When I get reborn, I quietly change the name of the man I want to marry the most to the hedonistic playboy in the neighborhood. My dad, who's a political officer, is quite surprised to see the change, but he still accepts my choice. In my previous life, when Dad asked me who I liked the most among the young men of the military housing office, I uttered Judd Garrison's name with scarlet cheeks. Dad nodded. "Judd is your childhood friend, not to mention our families are compatible in terms of social standing and wealth. You two have grown up together since you were kids, so I believe he will treat you well." Later on, Judd and I got engaged and married. Our wedding was a fancy and high-profile one to the point that even the political leader gave us his blessings. But Judd was quick to submit an application to help defend the border half a year into our marriage. He claimed that he wanted to contribute to the country with his efforts. Not only did he abandon me, leaving me to take care of my in-laws on my own, but he also cut off contact with me when Dad was falsely accused of being corrupted. Just as I thought I couldn't function anymore after suffering from the pain wrought upon me by Dad's death, I received the tragic news that Judd had died in a mountain flood as well. Thanks to the devastation caused by both pieces of bad news, I ended up taking my own life by hanging myself. What I didn't expect was that a gray-haired, elderly couple would visit my grave to pay respects to me 40 years after my death. Judd, who should've been dead, had an arm wrapped around my cousin, Megan Whitlock, as they stood before my grave. "It's my fault for faking my death and lying to you, Julie. Back then, I had to marry you in order to fulfill my parents' request. Megan has always been the woman that I truly love. "This is all my fault, Julie. I just hope that you can stop pestering Megan from now on. If you really are resentful, you're free to direct your resentment at me." To think that they loved each other to this extent… Judd was willing to give up on his identity and fake his death in order to get out of his life with me so that he could stay with Megan forever. He even clung to the superstition that my postmortem resentment was the reason behind Megan's cancer. Having found out about the truth, I let go of my obsession and faded into nothing. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Dad asks me who I like the most.