Resetting My Life From His Zero‑love Game Novels & Stories

I inhaled deeply, but the air felt heavy. The pang of sadness felt deeper now. Liam was my first love, the man I had trusted for half my adulthood. Now, at twenty-five, I felt like I had enough of love. I wiped my damp palms on my skirt, then straightened my shoulders. My fingers moved swiftly across the screen as I typed out a message and sent an email to the board members. Since the game of destruction had started, I would see it through to the very end. I would claim back everything that had been mine from the beginning.

I held it like a grenade. "You wanted the perfect successor?" I asked, my voice a whisper that filled the void. "Well, here’s your 'Year Zero'!" I slammed the spark into the "Void-Gold" heart. The explosion didn't make a sound. It made a Story. A billion memories—the smell of fried plantains in the Rust-District, the sound of the Lagos rain on a tin roof, the weight of a ten-billion-dollar price tag, the feel of Dante’s hand in mine—erupted from the "Zero-Point." We didn't just stop the reset; we Overwrote it.

No one but me could save Noah. Damn it, why was my hand shaking? Even after I had given everything I had, why was Noah's breathing still growing weaker? Noah died. After I avenged him, I jumped from a high-rise building. "I had said it before, Noah. I only wanted you. Without you, my life meant nothing." As death closed in, a voice suddenly echoed in my mind, identifying itself as a system. Hope flared within me. "System, can you take me to Noah?"

I hate him, a small spark of the real me whispered. That spark was the only thing left. It wasn't love. It wasn't hope. It was revenge. I didn't want to kill the boy. I didn't even want to kill Silas Thorne anymore. I wanted to kill the finger that kept clicking. I wanted to kill the boy who thought my life was just a game for his views. "Hazel, look at the screen!" the boy with the pen shouted. He pointed up at the teenager’s giant eyes. "He’s not a god! He’s just a player! If you can reach the glass, you can break the game!"

Golden light spilled across the surface of the sea, so beautiful that it stole my breath. I was still here. I was still alive. The system spoke again, but this time, its voice was no longer cold and robotic. "Detected that player has completed self-awakening and reclaimed personal agency in the last ten days. Strategy target recalibrated from 'being loved by others' to 'loving oneself.' Mission successful. Reward is a new life." I went still. Then, I started to laugh. So that was it. The real goal of this whole strategy game had never been Blake. It had been me.

"I would never toy with you." "Then why did you leave?" The words came out before she could stop them. "You left and you never came back and you never explained and you never..." She pressed her fingers to her mouth for a second then pulled them away. "You broke me. And then you walked back into my life ten years later like it was nothing and now I'm supposed to live in your house and carry your child and watch you kiss your ex outside a fertility clinic and just..."

I felt like a part of me had simply given up. "What's your name?" I whispered as he started loading gear into a heavy-duty black truck. He stopped, his hand gripping the tailgate so hard his knuckles turned white. He looked at me, and for a second, I saw it—the sheer, agonizing pain of being forgotten by the person you love most. I fell to my knees. The tears finally came, hot and messy, as he scooped me up and held me against his chest. "Zia," he whispered into my hair. "They have to put you back to sleep. They have to stabilize the reset."

Willa thought the worst thing that could happen to her was discovering her boyfriend in bed with her younger sister. She was wrong. Minutes after fleeing their betrayal, Willa is struck by a delivery truck and dies. But death isn't the end. She awakens on a mysterious bus filled with corpses and learns that the dead are being thrown into terrifying worlds for the entertainment of an unseen audience. Her first destination is the Frostbite Tundra, a frozen wasteland filled with monsters, deadly conditions, and other desperate survivors. Willa has no weapons, no shelter, and no intention of depending on anyone—especially men.

After a car accident wipes my memory, my mind is stuck ten years in the past—right after I get down on one knee to propose to Angeline Stone. I tear through every app on my phone, desperate to find any proof that Angeline is actually my wife. But all I see in my contacts are numbers I don't recognize, and my WhatsApp chat list is empty. I have no choice but to call my buddy, Rick Tate, to ask him whether Angeline accepted my proposal. To my surprise, he explodes on me like a lit firecracker. "Did a donkey kick you in the head, Caleb? Did she accept your proposal? You're about to divorce her!" My first reaction after hanging up is—damn, I'm a legend. I actually managed to land an ice quee

Zero. I stood still, staring at the empty steel chair in the center of the dim basement. The last time we spoke, I had drawn a gun on him at the canal bank, furious that he had hidden his initial contract with Victoria. But over the last few days, as the pieces of the Vance conspiracy fully aligned, I realized the truth. Zero had been handed a death sentence contract to extract me—and instead, he had risked his own life to train me, protect me, and turn me into someone who could fight back. He had lied about how we met, but he hadn't lied about wanting me free. "Can you bypass the secondary server at the venue, Zero?" I asked, my voice softer than it had been in months.