Romans Independence Ks

At one in the morning, the neighbor upstairs suddenly knocked on my door. He said there was a leak in his apartment and asked if our place had been affected. I was just about to open the door when my vision was flooded with comments. [Open the door, and you're dead! That man outside is not your neighbor!] [Didn't the old man upstairs who lived alone go to Marcasia last week to find his new love interest? There shouldn't be anyone up there at all!] I immediately pulled away from the doorknob. At that moment, an emergency notice popped up in the residential property chat. [Unit 1307 has a burst pipe with severe leakage. Property management will inspect the building's water system.] [Is anyone home in 1207? We need to check whether your ceiling is leaking. Please open the door.] Unit 1207 was my place. The comments flooded my vision again. [What kind of property management does inspections at one in the morning? They're in on it together!] [Bea, stay hidden! Your destined man will descend from the heavens to save you!] I nodded solemnly, as if I was taking them very seriously. I turned around and grabbed my climbing rope. Amid the hysterical screaming of the comments, I leapt straight off the balcony. I'm someone who got a second life. Last time around, my entire life was ruined by listening to these brain-dead comments. This time, I'd rather die from the fall than end up as a breeding machine again.

In my seven years of being married to my husband, Mark Chapman, he always gives me whatever I ask for and prioritizes me in everything. This goes on until he keeps sending food coupons to a female college student named Hayley Larkson. Not only that, he stands up for her and beats up some thugs on her behalf. One time, he even takes her to the hospital to get treatment. Holding a toy, my daughter asks Mark innocently, "Dad, Ms. Larkson is so gentle and pretty. She's not as strict and mean as Mom, who always makes me do homework. Can you ask her to move in and be my teacher?" Mark smiles and replies, "Sure." I stand frozen in a corner, my lips trembling. Just then, the system's cold voice speaks in my mind. It asks if I want to go home. I close my eyes and reply, "Take me home."

As I stepped out of my older brother's newly opened supermarket, the alarm suddenly rang. The sales assistant grimly reached out and grabbed me, "Miss, you haven't paid yet." I remembered that my buttons were made of metal, which triggered the alarm. After patiently explaining and easing the atmosphere, I said, "The owner of this supermarket is my older brother. He'll pay the bill." The sales assistant scoffed. "Your brother's the boss? Why not say he's your husband instead? You stole and refused to admit it. Pay up or I'll call the police immediately," she said and crumpled the receipt into a ball before throwing it at my face. I endured the humiliation and unfolded it. A baby pacifier for 100,000 dollars. Two packs of baby wet wipes for 200,000 dollars. Security personnel's hush fee, 300,000 dollars. All of the miscellaneous expenses added up to exactly one million dollars. I laughed in anger. "One million dollars? Why don't you just rob a bank? Go and get Chad Surrey. I want to see how I ended up with such a heartless brother." She rolled her eyes. "Don't pretend if you can't afford it, thief. Is Mr. Surrey someone you can see whenever you want?" When my parents came to help me, I said, "Only one of us exists in this family. It's either me or her."

It was midnight, and I was out at my stall when the cops took me to the station. They checked my profile and looked at me weirdly. "You're a Greatpeak graduate. What are you doing setting up shop in a bazaar?" That was odd. I went through the profile and realized that yes, while the student's ID was mine, the photo was not. I knew the guy in the photo. Josiah Ferguson. I had no idea I got accepted into Greatpeak University twenty years ago. Eventually, I was released, but I had no idea how I trudged back home. Then, I heard Hazel Quinley, my wife, talking to someone on the phone. "I won't let Michael get in your way, Josiah. Just go abroad." So that's it! It was her! My wife helped Josiah take what was supposed to be mine! I was sick. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to confront her and Josiah, but then she stabbed me in the back, and I died. "I'm sorry, Michael. I can't let you ruin Josiah's future." And then I woke up. I was taken back in time to my high school days. Our homeroom was giving out college application forms. This time, things would be different. This time, I would take back what was rightfully mine!

On the day my boyfriend gets engaged, I'm locked in the bedroom even though I'm supposed to be with him. By the time I make it to the venue, I see him passionately kissing his first love. When I confront him, he scoffs. "Kirsty’s a wealthy heiress who can help with my career. Isn't being my girlfriend enough for you?" With my answer loud and clear, I turn and call home. "Mom, Dad—about that arranged marriage you mentioned... I'm in." The day he marries Kirsty Bainbridge is also the day I marry my alliance partner. And the moment he sees me in a wedding dress, he completely loses his composure.

My best friend Seraphine had not one drop of blood left in her body when they found her. Her skin was translucent. There were two dried trails of blood from the corners of her mouth, like she had wept herself empty long before the end. She left one note. One sentence: "Vera saw his face." From that day forward, I became the Covenant's greatest sinner. Because I knew who did it. But I said nothing. For ten years, I said nothing. Then Lucian came back. He was the one who had turned us, raised us, given us the only home we had ever known. He set the Soul Prism in front of me. "Tonight," he said, "you give me the killer." His eyes hadn't changed. That was the worst part. After ten years of exile, of stones and fire and nights that never got warmer, I looked at him and he was still exactly who he had always been to me. "Or you disappear from this world along with him." He didn't know. The reason I had chosen exile and starvation and a Blood Oath that had been eating my soul core alive for a decade — was him. All of it, always, had been for him.

The end of the world was upon us, but there weren't enough spots for evacuation. The roars of the zombies echoed in my ears as my fiancé, Oliver, gritted his teeth and pulled me onto the rescue vehicle—securing the last available seat. I arrived safely at the survivor base. Lina, his first love, did not. The zombies tore her apart. Oliver still went through with our marriage, but I never expected that he had only done so to make me suffer. In his eyes, I was the one who had killed Lina. If she had to endure such agony, then I should, too. For five years, he hated me. My life was worse than that of a stray dog scavenging for food on the street. On the day my divorce was finalized, he kidnapped me, dragged me into the wilderness, and wrapped his fingers around my throat. Then, he threw us both into the swarm of the undead. When I opened my eyes again, I was somehow reborn on the day the apocalypse began. The rescue team was shouting impatiently, "One more! We have room for one more—hurry!" I turned to Oliver, watching his hesitation. Then, with a quiet smile, I took a step back and let someone else have the last seat.

I was reborn. Right back to the day I adopted Peter. The wind cut sharp, baby cries slicing through the cold. That's when it hit me—this was the day Stuart Pete, my oh-so-loving husband, dumped his illegitimate child right in my path after work. He knew me too well. The second I picked the kid up, he'd spin it into an adoption, making the boy ours. Last time, I fell for it. This time? I walked away without a second thought. Later, I heard the kid got pneumonia from being left out in the freezing cold—fever so bad, it wrecked him for life. I laughed until my stomach hurt. What I didn't see coming? Peter was reborn too—about to experience the life he was meant to have.

After being Nelson Jackson’s devoted simp for five years, Sarah Paterson became pregnant. Just as she was excitedly waiting for him to propose, Nelson had a change of heart when his high school sweetheart returned from studying abroad. Sarah didn't fight to keep the relationship. Instead, she went straight to the hospital, had an abortion, and immediately agreed to the arranged marriage her family had set up with a business partner's son. But Nelson came to regret his decision. He begged Sarah to keep his child, but she only gave him two words in response. "Too late."

On our fifth anniversary, Alpha Liam gave me nothing more than a simple pack mark of protection. That same night, he held a bonding ceremony with his first love, the she-wolf Seraphina. I refused to accept it. He accused me of being irrational. “My bonding with Seraphina is for the future of the pack, not because I still have feelings for her.” “You’re only human. Shouldn’t my pack’s mark be enough? This was your final test, Elena, and you’ve failed.” I walked away. And he turned around and proposed to Seraphina. Five years later, we met again at an exclusive hotel designated by the Alpha Council. His pack was on the verge of becoming a major power, and he had Seraphina, draped in a moonlight silk gown, on his arm. When he saw me, covered in sand and standing ankle-deep in the hotel’s ornamental fountain, he frowned. “Elena,” he scoffed. “You looked down on my protection back then. Look at you now. I bet you can’t find a single pack in this city willing to take in a human.” “And don’t think this pathetic display will make me take you back.” I ignored him. My cub’s treasured moonstone, a gift he’d found while combing the beach, had slipped into the fountain. The little guy was beside himself, and I had to find his precious amulet.