The Begging After The End Novels & Stories

◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆ 【ＴＨＥ ＥＮＤ】 Should I post a bonus chapter?

"We’ll get married at the end of the month." In the end, he never believed me. I let out a bitter laugh and shook my head. Closing my eyes, I waited to disappear completely. Suddenly, an all-too-familiar force tugged at me once more. At William's bachelor party, everyone raised their glasses in celebration. "William is finally moving on! From now on, it’ll be nothing but happiness and smooth sailing for him!" "Exactly!" William lifted his own glass, but his expression was gloomy and unreadable.

He simply smiled with a look of relief. The apple rolled to the ground, picking up dirt. From the start, Zach had been provoking Jessica on purpose. I looked at the blood spreading on the ground and at Zach's collapsed body, then at the frail and blind Jessica. I understood it all. This was Zach seeking redemption using Jessica. At the very end, Zach seemed to see me. His eyes were pleading. "Annie, now that I did this, will this make you feel any better?" As my own body faded, I realized this might be the last thing I would ever say. I looked right at him and gave a cold, cruel smile.

"Then we will have made an informed decision. Which is better than the alternative." Rayan leaned closer and kissed me. “That's why the goddess gave me a mate like you; you're so smart.” He kissed me on the forehead. Later that night, I dreamt too, though I would not know until morning that Dahlia had been dreaming. In mine, the settlement was empty. Not destroyed — just empty. The fires were out. The stores were full. Every bed was made and untouched, and the silence had the specific quality of a place that had been abandoned in order rather than fled from in panic.

"Freya, this is all fake, isn’t it? He isn’t your mate. You just found someone to provoke me. Right?" I frowned faintly and replied evenly, "Raelor, know your place. Whoever I choose as my future mate has nothing to do with you. Half a year ago, we ended everything." Lyndra let out a cold laugh from her seat. "You’re the one who drove her away. What are you clinging to now?" Raelor seemed not to hear. He stepped closer, his eyes locked on me. "I’ve ended things with Seraphine. I’ve dealt with her. Freya… Give me another chance."

And now, I was done believing him. The silence stretched on, and the man on the phone asked again. I steadied myself and answered calmly. "Yes. I accept." We exchanged a few more words, settled on a start date, and I hung up. Then I hailed a cab and went home. I pushed open the front door and went straight upstairs to pack. I was moving out. If I was going to end things, there was no point dragging it out. Packing did not take long. Looking down at the worn-out clothes and pants so faded they had turned white, it hit me just how lean these years had really been.

"Yes, Luke. I'm throwing you away now. From now on, you can stay exactly where you belong and spend the rest of your life regretting how you betrayed me and destroyed everything." "No, Bianca! You can't do this to me! Come back!" He cried out desperately and slammed his hands against the glass. The guards immediately restrained him. I stood, smoothed the wrinkles from my shirt, then turned and walked away without looking back. Outside, the sunlight was almost blinding. I looked up. Clouds drifted slowly across the blue sky. Ramond was dead, and Luke's life was destroyed. Their so-called happy family of three had been nothing more than an illusion built on lies and betrayal.

And it's in this moment that I finally get it. The hardest paths give us the most wondrous outcomes. And even as the years go by and my past becomes distant memories as I fill them with happiness of a brighter future. I’ll always think back to that night, on a frigid cold winter, in a dark alley was a girl. And her name was Beggar. THE END OF BEGGAR AND ZERO STORY FOR NOW. I WILL BE POSTING KILLERS STORY NEXT.

We ate berries that tasted of sunlight and memory. This was not an afterlife. It was an after. The chapter that comes after the story's climax, the quiet denouement that is often skipped but is, in its way, the most important part of all. It was the living embodiment of the rest we had given the Astropheles.

And sometimes, maybe, niceness is the end of that path. --- I am writing this now not as an end—but as a continuation. Because the story does not end at the kiss. Or the wedding. Or the vow. The story is the morning after. And the next. And the hundred after that. It's Luke humming in the kitchen cooking scrambled eggs. It's James laughing in the bath, splashing water like the sea. It's me, sitting here, my heart finally not clenched. Finally home. Not in a place. In a feeling.