Imagination Flashback

My best friend, James Swift, went back to the day he was supposed to reconcile with his extremely wealthy birth parents. He was unwilling to be a puppet controlled by the rich, so he was unwilling to return to his birth parents. Hence, he asked me to be his replacement without any hesitation. I looked at his mother, who was wearing a lot of diamond rings, and his father, who was dressed in old-money clothes. I immediately replaced James’s position. It was as if any hesitation would be a huge disrespect to this unexpected wealth. Five years later, James showed up with a DNA report and asked me to leave the Swift family. However, he was too late. After five years, I was no longer just a replacement for him. I was already the right-hand man of Swift Corporation. No one would threaten my status in this family.

After the Great War between humans and the Shifter races, an accord was struck, decreeing that the world would be ruled by a hybrid of the two races. The most powerful human family, a corporate dynasty, was granted the right to the first union with a Shifter leader. Whoever bore the first hybrid child would become the next ruler of the Alliance. In my past life, I married the werewolf Alpha, Jacob, and quickly bore him a wolf-human hybrid. When our son became the ruler of the Alliance, the werewolf clan’s power and influence soared. But my sister, Isabella, had always favored the beautiful elves. Her husband's philandering left her barren and riddled with disease after several miscarriages. She envied everything I had. In her rage, she orchestrated the car crash that killed my son and me. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the Alliance’s choosing ceremony. Isabella had already mated with Jacob, brazenly showing off the mark on her neck. I knew. She was back, too. What she didn't know was that Jacob was a madman, obsessed with his bloodline above all else. Without a second thought, I let her have him. I walked toward the one they all feared—the notoriously brutal and bloodthirsty Dragon Lord, the Dragon King, Damien Wyatt.

Our entire class gets dragged into The Tyrant's Atonement game. The only way to escape alive is to reach a 100% atonement score. The system lets us choose our roles. The class belle, Isolde Adler, picks the tyrant's first love. Her atonement score shoots straight to 99% on the first day. The class president, Asher Brooks, chooses to be a loyal chancellor. His atonement score jumps to 80%. Spectators watching the game flood the screen with comments. "This new batch is smart and way better at picking roles than the last. They might just clear the game in three days." "Even if just one person hits 100%, the whole class goes free. I'm looking forward to seeing who finishes first." "My money's on the first love. She's already at 99%." Just as everyone starts celebrating, the next morning hits us with bad news. All 20 classmates who picked their roles are dead, and Isolde suffers the cruelest fate of all.

After I turn five years of age and have my very own phone, I start receiving strange messages every single day. For some reason, the sender keeps referring to me as their mom. At 3:00 am, they send me another message. "Mom, I saw you in my dreams again. The rain is seeping into the attic. My stepmom told me to use a rag to soak up all the water, but the rag is too small. Even though I tried to wipe it up all night, it still wouldn't dry. Mom, I'm so cold and hungry. I miss you so much…" I tilt my head, looking at the rain pouring outside the window. I then earnestly reply, "Don't be scared, sweetheart. Where are you right now? I will bring you something yummy!"

On New Year's Eve, my older brother, Casper Shaw, attempted to expose me as a fraud and announced that Jenny Ford was the real heiress to the family. He pulled out a paternity test result and threw it in my face. "Open your eyes and take a look! Jenny is the Shaw family's real daughter. You're just a fake who has taken Jenny's place for so many years, yet you still have the nerve to sit here and eat New Year's Eve dinner with us!" Then, he pushed Jenny in front of us, revealing a face that looked exactly like my mom, Theresa. Everyone froze. I lunged for the report, but suddenly, a stream of floating comments rolled past above Jenny's head. [Is the female lead finally going back to her rich family and starting a sweet romance with her fake older brother?] [Not yet. Right now, they still think they're siblings. They only get together later, once the misunderstandings are cleared up.] [Am I the only one who feels bad for the female supporting character? She's the biggest victim in the whole book. She takes all the female lead's hatred that should have gone to her fake brother, and she gets treated as the fake heiress and sent to the Ford family to suffer on top of that.] I looked at Jenny's face and compared it to my own—we almost looked like twins. I checked our ID cards again, confirming that our dates of birth were exactly the same. "Seriously? Ever think that you might be the real impostor here who was switched at birth?"

Dario Morello came from old money in Santria City—but his family was cursed. Every guy in that bloodline dropped dead before twenty-five, like something sucked the life out of them. The only way out? Marry someone with a rare fertility gene. In my last life, my adopted sister Serena jacked my wedding dress and took my place at the altar. I exposed her right there in front of everyone. She became Santria's biggest joke. Then she killed herself. My parents said I was heartless. Cut me off without blinking. Dario? He hated me too. On the anniversary of Serena's death, he locked me in a basement, strapped me with explosives, and snapped, "That fertility gene lie? You made it up for clout and cash. Serena was pregnant with my kid. You killed them both. So now—you're going with her." Next thing I knew, I was waking up on the morning of the wedding. This time? I helped Serena with the veil and wished them a perfect life.

Disaster struck during my sophomore year.  Not only did my family fall into poverty, I ended up getting diagnosed with cancer as well. I was so broke that I only had a hundred dollars left to my name. Desperate for cash, I tried to pawn off the family amulet I had been wearing since I was a child. Unexpectedly, the storekeeper of the pawn shop took a glance before refusing it with a curt shake of his head. “This amulet is cursed. Whoever wears it is doomed to lead a short life. I can’t possibly take it.”

I suffer from extreme mental illness. My sister, Ava Monroe, became a facial model to earn money for my expensive medical treatment. She was 5’3” tall but was noticed because of her beauty by a wealthy young man by the name of Dominic Pierce with a leg obsession. He imprisoned her. “This is the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen. If only your legs were a bit longer, I’d die with a smile.” Ava was forced to have leg-lengthening surgery. After the operation, her legs began to rot. Dominic found her disgusting and locked her in the basement. He tortured her until she died. I got kicked out of the mental health institute because I could not pay the medical fees. I found Dominic surrounded by beautiful women with long legs. “Those are the prettiest legs I’ve ever seen. If only your face were a little cuter, I’d die with a smile!” I pointed to the painting of Ava and scoffed, “What if I become her?”

The first thing I do after being reborn is dump my devoted boyfriend and immediately say yes to the obsessive man's pursuit. In my past life, my so-called best friend, Sarah Cole, bound herself to an app that could transfer all of my boyfriend's love for me to her. My boyfriend was Luke Spencer. The golden roses he prepared for me ended up with her. The hotel he bought for me suddenly had her name on the deed. The way he looked at me shifted from fierce desire to cold disdain, but when he turned to her, his eyes overflowed with the tenderness I once knew so well. When I cried and demanded to know why Luke had changed, he just looked at me with disgust as he spat, "We broke up a long time ago. Leave my girlfriend alone!" On my birthday, Sarah went live online, flaunting how Luke had rented out the entire amusement park for her. Fireworks lit up the sky behind her in a blaze of color. And me? They worked together to have me thrown into a mental hospital. They called me a crazy woman obsessed with someone who never loved me back, and in endless rounds of electroshock therapy and forced medication, I died in despair. When I open my eyes again, I'm reborn. This time, I no longer feel anything real for my ex-boyfriend. Instead, I play along with Ethan Grant. I find it funny when Sarah opens the app again, siphoning away every drop of Ethan's overwhelming love. I really want to know if she can handle it.

My parents and my younger sister, Mable Munroe, are diagnosed with severe illnesses one after another. As I stare at the astronomical sum of medical bills, I can only grit my teeth and deal with them by taking on ten part-time jobs in one go. After stirring awake from collapse caused by exhaustion, I realize that I can hear the thoughts of everyone around me. My mom, who's too busy coughing up blood, has something else going on in her mind. "This low-quality fake blood really is disgusting! Why isn't that stupid brat giving us her salary of the day? I need the money to buy new bags!" My dad, who's already crippled from his disease, thinks, "I'm about to get cramps from all the cripple-faking I have to do! Once Talia clears my debt, I'm going to get myself a nice proper massage for a few days straight!" Meanwhile, the weakened Mable has already cooked up a plot in her mind. "Hurry up and tell that broke boyfriend of mine to stay awake from me! I want Talia to break up with him on my behalf! That way, I'll be able to reel in my next boyfriend without any guilt!" As I stare at my family, I choose to not expose their lies. Instead, I retrieve all the money that I've planned on paying their "medical bills" with. Later on, I track down Mable's boyfriend, Kyle Hargrove. There, I can hear his thoughts echoing loudly in my mind. "Did Mable get her sister to send the message that she wants to dump me? I'll have her know that I'm the only son of the richest man in town! Mable and that family of hers shall live in regret for the rest of their lives!" A bold thought pops into my mind all of a sudden. I twist my ankle on the spot and use the opportunity to collapse right into Kyle's arms.