Imagination Movers Brainstorming

After entering a horror game, I, Anastasia Moreau, begin dating the big boss. At our first meeting, I wrap my arms around his sleek, serpentine body and squeeze him into a corner of the coffin. "Move over, move over." In the next instant, a strikingly handsome young man with white hair and golden eyes appears beneath me. The tips of his ears flush red as he glares at me. "You… You're lying on my hair!" he grits out.

My husband, Ryan Costa, is one of the most renowned scientists in the apocalypse. To retrieve a reagent, he goes deep into the high-risk zone with his secretary, Clara Gibson. I, Alice Ashford, lead an elite squad to protect him all the way. But when a zombie horde besieges us, he refuses to retreat. "With the reagent Clara brings back, I can develop a serum that saves all of humanity! Just ten more minutes! Ten minutes, please!" Ryan insists. I feel torn as I see the zombies closing in. I can't gamble with the lives of my squad on a vague, uncertain sliver of hope. In that split second, I knock Ryan out and drag him onto the helicopter. As a result, Clara dies being torn apart by the zombies. When Ryan wakes up, the first thing he does is slap me hard across the face. He rages, "How can you be so selfish? You've doomed all of humanity!" I am sentenced to be burned at the stake. I die in unbearable pain as the crowd curses me relentlessly. When I open my eyes again, I am back at the moment when Ryan stands in front of the helicopter, blocking our retreat. I am just about to speak when I suddenly hear his inner voice, "Clara should have grabbed her makeup bag by now. Hopefully, she brings something back with her. Otherwise, I'll have a hard time explaining myself to Alice." My mind goes blank, and I stare at him in shock. He smiles at me just like he did in my previous life and asks, "Darling, don't you think we should wait?"

During a zombie-extermination mission, I end up getting infected with the zombie virus for the sake of protecting my squad. But Emilia Campbell, the team captain as well as my girlfriend, decides to give the only antidote to another team member, who has secretly run away from the squad, only to get infected. Her excuse is that she should avoid being partial. With red-rimmed eyes, she promises me, "Trust me, Zack. I'll definitely find another antidote for you during the three-day incubation period of the virus." I can only nod in response while enduring the scorching pain flaring from my body. On the second day, Emilia actually returns with an antidote. But the second she's about to inject it into my bloodstream, Dustin Nott, a member who has never left the campsite, suddenly frowns. "My head hurts so much, Em… What if I'm already infected with the virus?" Emilia doesn't hesitate to pass the antidote to Dustin in front of everyone else. "Dustin is a part of the team as well. It's my fault as the captain for not taking care of the squad if anything happens to him. "Zack, you're the vice leader as well as my boyfriend. I must be impartial." That's when I notice the smugness crossing Dustin's eyes as well as Emilia's righteous expression. Fury bubbles within me at that moment. She must be impartial, huh? Fine. Emilia will soon understand that the squad would never have survived to this point without me. After all, I'm a perfect evolved specimen—a human being that only has a 0.1% chance of overcoming the zombie virus and evolving into a powerhouse in this apocalypse.

After I started working at the zoo, I was added to a group chat called “A Hundred Ways to Kill a Human.” Every member had an animal as their profile picture. At first, I thought it was some quirky staff group. I even found it kind of cute. That was, until I realized they were discussing how to eat me. Pedro the Parrot: [The new human has beautiful eyes. I can’t wait till Christmas. I want to peck them out right now!] George the Gorilla: [Relax. There’ll be many visitors during Christmas. We’ll have more eyeballs than we can eat! Also, I’m calling dibs on her thigh.] Thor the Tiger: [Nobody’s taking her head, right? That’s mine.] Tucker the Elephant: [I’m a vegetarian, but I can crush her bones to dust.]

A new intern at the hospital claimed that she had excellent medical skills. Even without anesthesia, her treatments never caused any pain. The truth was that she had transferred her patients’ pain to me. After she went viral, many patients rushed to the hospital to see her. Some of them even had to bid for a slot to receive surgery from her. However, I was in excruciating pain due to all the surgeries she had carried out. I could no longer work and received complaints from the patients. In the end, the hospital fired me. I gradually discovered that I even experienced some of the side effects of the surgeries she had carried out on her patients. My hair started to fall, and I became as thin as a skeleton. Even walking caused me excruciating pain. I went to the hospital to question her. Everyone thought that I was jealous of her and that I had gone crazy. She calmly put on her surgical gloves as she faced my wrath. “Please don’t make a scene. I’m about to conduct brain surgery on the daughter of the wealthiest man in the city. I don’t have time for your nonsense.” After she entered the operating theater for five minutes, I suddenly suffered from an aneurysm and died on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I had been transported back to the day when she had gone viral. I took out all my savings and bid for one of her treatment slots. “I’d like to try your painless gastroscopy.”

After the human race loses the war, the beastfolk rule over the human lands. As crown princess, my sister Amber Whitaker is born beautiful and is handed over to the Beast King, Theron Olson, as his concubine. Compared to her, I'm plain, so they send me to the breeding quarters, where beastmen fight over me and use me like a breeding machine. However, Amber doesn't fare well either. She's too gentle for palace schemes. Before long, the other women frame her, and she dies. As for me, pregnancy after pregnancy wears my body down until it's too weak to go on, and I die filled with hatred. Then, everything blurs. When Amber and I open our eyes, we stare at each other in shock and realize we're back on the very day the human race falls. This time, I hold her hand tightly and say firmly, "Let me serve the Beast King instead!" On the night, Theron takes me to his bed. "You look so slim, yet you're surprisingly full. Are you afraid?" With that, he strips away my clothes and casts off his own. One glance makes my breath hitch. I've seen beastmen's packages before, but I never expected Theron to have two!

For a decade, my world had been measured in laundry cycles, grocery lists, and the ever-growing pile of dishes in the sink. I was elbow-deep in soapy water, scrubbing the remnants of another family meal, when it happened. A sudden, silent cascade of text flickered at the edge of my vision, like subtitles for a movie only I could see: [Gosh, the heroine is so tragic. Her husband's entire family has been feeding on her luck like parasites!] [Her husband stole her graduate school admission and her career!] [The in-laws are literally siphoning her health away. No wonder she's always sick.] [And the sister-in-law took her "romance" stat! No wonder her love life is a desert.] [Heads up! Her husband's about to give her another "gift." Let's see how much more he takes from her this time.] My hands, clutching a greasy plate, froze. Right on cue, my husband, Tristan, sauntered into the kitchen. A smug, self-satisfied smile was plastered on his face as he took my wet hand. He slid a flimsy, garishly colored plastic bracelet onto my wrist. "Look what I got for you, sweetheart," he announced, his voice dripping with pride. "I made a special trip after work. Found it at the dollar store. It's romantic and economical, just like you always say you want. You love it, don't you?"

While exploring the wilderness, my younger sister—Charlotte Forrester—and I accidentally stumble onto the territory of supernatural beings. She grabs the hand of the noble, elegant male elf, her posture coy and intimate. Before I can react, a wolfman with a scar on his face wraps his arm around my waist and leads me away. Charlotte, who judges others by appearance, is unaware that the male elf—Elwin Duskwood—belongs to a tribe of half-elves. Half-elves are beautiful but possess no real capabilities. They are considered a marginalized group among elves and struggle to make ends meet every day. On the other hand, the wolfman—Morgan Nightshade—is a mid-tier wolf tribe's Highlord. After giving birth to an extremely rare silver wolf for him, I have become the Highlady of the tribe. I'm respected by everyone in the tribe and feast on delicacies every day. Meanwhile, Charlotte becomes emaciated after suffering from starvation for several months. When she sees how plump I am, she goes insane from jealousy. While the wolf tribe is entertaining guests at a banquet, she uses poison to kill me. The next time I open my eyes, Charlotte and I are back at the moment we first entered the supernatural beings' territory by mistake. Charlotte immediately hugs Morgan by the waist and kisses him. She showers him with flattery about his strength, calling him the man of her dreams. I can't help but laugh out loud. Silly Charlotte. As a wolfman, Morgan is ill-tempered, and he easily loses control of his emotions. He also becomes even more bloodthirsty after transforming. It's not all sunshine and rainbows being his mate. But I never imagined the elves could be so… in that regard.

My elder sister, the crown princess, died on the road while searching for medicinal herbs to save me. The obsessive merman, cunning fox spirit, and unhinged lion shifter she had entangled herself with all came looking for her. Each one believed he was her true love, and they immediately began fighting among themselves until all three were gravely wounded. When they learned that my sister had died because of me, they turned their fury to me, seeing me as the root of all their suffering. The merman brutally ripped out my spiritual core. "You killed her, so you don't deserve to live either." The fox spirit forced deadly poison down my throat. "Simply dying would be far too merciful for you." The lion shifter imprisoned me and tortured me daily. "That face of yours that looks like hers is the only reason you're still breathing." I carried the guilt of my sister's death, and I suffered in silence to keep my parents safe from their wrath. Three years passed, and I had become nothing more than a broken shell. I fought desperately to escape and return to the royal palace, only to hear familiar laughter echoing from the inner chambers. It was my sister's voice. "Thank heavens you came up with this brilliant plan, Mother. I certainly wasn't about to keep dealing with those disgusting beastmen forever." Rage consumed me. I burst through the doors, determined to kill us both, but her personal guard cut me down with a single strike. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day my sister staged her own death.

"Hubby, kiss me. I miss you so much. When are you coming home?" Out of nowhere, I received a text. The sender was the cold, untouchable CEO who was currently scolding us in a meeting, Veronica Starling. What shocked me even more was the timestamp on the message. It was sent five years in the future.