Sackboy Emotions

When my body is engulfed in flames, my firefighter father is watching a new movie with my sister. My mother is baking them a cake. I hear laughter in the living room, and I can smell the caramel popcorn in the kitchen. Today is my family's weekly family day—it's a day for my sister and parents to be with each other. The doorbell rings, and the perpetrator gives me a chance to ask for help. My limbs are bound, and stones fill my mouth. I stand at the door and desperately wait for my parents to open it. They don't get up. Instead, they sit on either side of my sister and hug her. "We promised you we'll only be with you on our family days. No one can disturb us." "What if it's Danica?" Ravenna Sutton, my sister, asks. "Her? She hasn't answered her phone in days—who knows where she's off being wild? I'll think of her as dead if she still doesn't return tomorrow!" Ravenna giggles. Mom feeds her some popcorn, and Dad discusses the movie's plot with her. The perpetrator drags me back upstairs and laughs mockingly in my ear. "Looks like I did something unnecessary. They genuinely don't care about you." Smoke permeates every corner upstairs, and the flames start to lick at my body. Mom and Dad protect Ravenna as they run downstairs. They have no idea their birth daughter is screaming in pain amid the blazing fire.

I was once the beloved daughter of the powerful Alpha and Luna of The Midnight Ridge Pack. I thought I had everything—a loving family, a protective brother, and a perfect fated mate—Steve Dolton, the strongest Beta of The Midnight Ridge Pack and the man I had loved for eighteen years. But when I turned eighteen, my world shattered. I discovered that I had been switched at birth and that Penny was the true heir of the pack. In an instant, I became the most awkward existence within The Midnight Ridge Pack. Though my parents promised I would always be their daughter, when Penny offended The Rogue King, they didn’t hesitate to make me take the blame and threw me into the infamous rogue den. I endured torture from silver chains and wolfsbane, my body covered in scars, becoming the lowest slave in the rogue den. It wasn’t until the fifth year that my brother-Alpha Joe and my former fiancé- Steve, came to the rogue den to take me back to The Midnight Ridge Pack. I overheard the casual chatter of the servants. "Does she seriously think she can come back?" "She made Miss Penny suffer outside for over a decade, stole ten years of happiness from her, and now she has the audacity to return and keep taking what belongs to Miss Penny. Shameless." "I heard that bringing her back this time is to help Miss Penny..." My throat tightened, and my palms grew cold. "Julia, come back home with us. We were wrong about you!" "Steve and I will treat you twice as well. You're still our precious little princess!" Amid their urging and apologies, I loosened my hand grip on the tattered hem of my dress. I had already promised to marry the son of The Rogue King. Our wedding was just around the corner.

My son is dead. He dies in a cramped toilet cubicle after having his skull smashed in. My husband, the school principal, arrives on the scene. The first thing he does is carry his true love's son, the one who killed my son, into an ambulance. They hurriedly leave. Before his death, my son tells me, "Don't cry, Mom. I'm not sad that Dad doesn't believe me. It's enough that you do…" I call Joshua Tucker during my son's funeral. He roars angrily, "Kenny had to get two stitches on his arm because of your son! If you keep pestering me like this, I'll beat him up when I get home!" My son? I look at the gaping hole in my son's head, the one that won't ever bleed anymore. I shut my eyes. Yes, he's my son. My son is dead, Joshua. From now on, there's nothing between us.

My husband has asthenospermia, so we decide to try IVF. Before the embryos are combined, I catch my husband switching my ovum out for his true love's. I don't say anything and switch them back. At the same time, I switch my husband's sample out for my ex-boyfriend's. 25 years later, my husband's true love comes knocking. She holds my daughter's hands and weeps while saying, "I'm your mother, my darling!"

My mother-in-law spreads lies about me having contracted an STD during my sister-in-law's wedding. When I hear this, I want to demand an explanation. However, my sister-in-law stops me and begs me to prioritize her happiness since it's her wedding. I hold myself back and wait until the reception is over. Later, my mother-in-law merely sweeps the matter under the rug and say she doesn't remember anything because she was drunk. However, the lies spread like wildfire. My neighbors scorn me, and my colleagues isolate me, treating me like a walking bacteria. I become dispirited from the constant mental distress and end up getting knocked by a car when I leave the house one day. I die from the accident. When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to the day my mother-in-law lies about me having contracted an STD.

On the third day of my business trip out of state, someone new joined the group chat formed for my son's class. It had been quiet for weeks when she suddenly sent a voice message. I tapped it, and an unfamiliar woman's voice played through my phone. "Hello, everyone. I'm the new language teacher at the school, and I'm also Tony Gardner's mother. Looking forward to getting to know you all!" My whole body went cold. I opened the group member list and checked it over and over. My son's name was Tony Gardner, and she said she was Tony Gardner's mother. Then, who the hell was I? I immediately called my husband. "Did someone get added to the parent group by mistake?" He paused on the other end before he laughed it off like it was nothing. "Oh, probably just a mix-up. The school has so many kids. It's not unusual for kids to have the same names. What's the matter? Did something happen?" I kept my voice light and told him everything was fine. The second I hung up, I booked the next flight home and headed straight to my son's school.

My husband and mother-in-law fell off the cliff in my past life. I was pregnant and fell into a coma. I could not take the blow and had a miscarriage. A few days later, the neighbors informed me that my child could not be saved and urged me to see him for the last time. The corpses of my husband and mother-in-law were nowhere to be found. A year later, our house was demolished. However, I accidentally consumed paraquat. I saw my husband and my mother-in-law when I was dying. "Finally, we got rid of you. My grandson and my daughter-in-law can finally marry." Next to my mother-in-law was Jessie Charles, the girl next door, and a little boy.

The fifth year of my marriage to Silas marked a turning point I would never forget. Our son, Yael, was kidnapped. The ransom was set at ten million dollars, an insignificant amount for Silas, yet his response chilled me to the core. “No rush. A Gardner needs to experience some hardships to grow.” Ten million meant nothing to him, but Yael’s life meant everything to me. I dropped to my knees, tears streaming down my face, and begged him relentlessly, pleading for Yael to be brought home as soon as possible. Silas, however, remained unmoved. Three days later, Yael was returned to us, but the cheerful boy I knew was gone. He had been so traumatized that he could not speak. Far from showing concern, Silas coldly remarked, “Yuna said Yael keeps telling everyone at school she’s a fatherless child. Let’s see how he spreads lies now.” His words cut through me like a knife. I picked Yael up in my arms and whispered softly in his ear, “Don’t be afraid, Yael. Mommy will take you away from here.”

On my 22nd birthday, my uncle Scott discovered my diary. After he found out about my secret love for him, he sent me overseas. He then spent hundreds of thousands, marrying the love of his life.

On Valentine’s Day, I discovered that my brother’s fiancee, Erika Gibson, was cheating on him. So, I tried to tell my brother, Nathan Clinton, about it. However, he yelled at me. He said that I was trying to ruin his relationship and told me to leave. Erika then asked her lover to deal with me, so he kidnapped me. He mocked me for being unable to speak and forced me to sell 200 roses at the night market. I asked Nathan for help, but he replied impatiently. [Moon, I can’t believe you’d lie about something like this… I don’t have time for your games.] I was accidentally hit by a truck while Nathan was having a wonderful time with Erika. Haha. I was finally free, but I wished I had a different brother.