The Case Of The Bizarre Bouquets

My husband, Gabriel Buckner, and I had been married for three years. I'd gotten pregnant twice, but I'd lost both babies. It was all because of my in-laws' parrot that could talk. The first time I got pregnant and went to their house, the parrot stared at my belly and kept repeating, "Get rid of the baby! Get rid of the baby!" The second time, the same thing happened. It looked right at my stomach and said the same words. I thought it was just nonsense, but to my shock, my in-laws actually took the parrot seriously and forced me to end the pregnancy. I even showed them the prenatal checkup report from my doctor to prove that the baby was perfectly healthy and begged them not to do it. But they dragged me to the hospital anyway and made me have an abortion on the spot. When I got pregnant a third time, I wanted to be extra cautious. I went straight for an amniocentesis. The report confirmed the baby was healthy and even showed a 99.9% DNA match with Gabriel's. I thought everything would be fine this time. But as soon as the parrot saw me again, it repeated the same words—"Get rid of the baby." And just like before, the Buckners immediately tried to drag me to the hospital. I couldn't understand it. The baby was perfectly healthy, and the DNA report proved it was Gabriel's child. So why would they rather believe a parrot and insist that I get rid of the baby?

The buzzing of my phone in the middle of the night jolted me awake. On the other end of the line came a voice I could never forget. It was my daughter! However, she died three years ago!

After three years of marriage, I suddenly began to realize that my wife might have a low libido. One evening, my older neighbor, who was sympathetic, kindly invited me over. That night, I stumbled upon his wife in the middle of a passionate entanglement with another man through a crack in the door. The next day, my neighbor said to me, "Hey, Cyril, you know, Heather has always liked you."

It's nighttime, and I'm on the toilet with my phone. I fire up Battleborn Arena, ready to grind a few ranked matches. But an unknown number flashes on-screen and cuts me off. Annoyed, I decline the call, and a WhatsApp message pops up immediately. "Run! Edgar just snapped. He's going to kill us all!" My hands tremble. Edgar Maguire… Isn't he already dead?

I am a miserable nurse. During the Halloween season, there was a three day break but I was not given any days off. Upset, I decided to join a game featuring a haunted hospital. There was an old man wrapped in IV tubes chasing after a player. I sprinted forward and shoved him into the chair. After effortlessly jabbing the IV line back in him, I told him off, "It’s just an IV drip. Quit moving around! Do you think you’re in some kind of movie pulling a stunt like that? If you keep moving around, I’ll strap you to the chair!" The old man did a double take before blinking in a flustered manner. "Sorry for causing you trouble, ma'am." At night, children ghosts began to run and laugh wildly in the corridor. I seized each child's hand. "If you’re not going to stay put in the ward, I’ll give you an injection!" Why did I still have to work in a game? I was so tired. The other players cried out, "Clem! That's a ghost. Are you not scared?" I sneered, "Oh, sorry. We wage slaves carry more resentment than any ghost."

I'd been home for half a month, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that Mom wasn't quite herself anymore. She looked and sounded like she always had, but something felt different. Then, one day, I got a message from her that sent a chill down my spine. "Lily, hide! There's a ghost in the house!" At first, I thought she was pulling a prank on me—or maybe her account got hacked. Then, there was a knock on my bedroom door. Mom, who had just finished cooking, called out to tell me the meal was ready. I was still hesitating when another message popped up. It was a voice message. "Trust me, Lily. I'm your real mom! The one out there is a ghost! Run!" It sounded just like Mom's voice from outside. My mind was racing in panic. Not hearing me respond, Mom giggled from the other side of the door and said, "I'm coming in."

My husband's ex-girlfriend left behind a cat that could nurse my daughter like a woman. I turned on my camera and livestreamed this horrifying scene. The stream instantly went viral, and people approached me offering high prices for the cat. When I agreed to sell it, my husband went crazy, clutching the cat and screaming that it could not be sold. Even my sister-in-law, who had always doted on me, furiously yelled at me for being brainless. In my previous life, I accidentally discovered the cat in our house nursing my daughter. I was terrified when I saw my daughter's satisfied expression! What made me feel even more horrified was that the cat's chest area had no fur at all. It was smooth and delicate, like a nursing woman's. Moreover, this cat usually either bared its teeth at me or scratched me with its claws. Every night, it slept in my husband's arms. Thinking of all this made my skin crawl, and I immediately decided to throw the cat out. Unexpectedly, my usually gentle and refined husband became incredibly frenzied. "I raised this cat with my own hands. It's no different from my child! If you dare throw away my cat, then we're getting divorced!" My sister-in-law also urged me to keep the cat. She even gave me sleeping pills, claiming I had been under too much stress lately. That night, my daughter died in my arms, and I also died in bed from excessive grief. Only after my death did I learn that the cat was my husband's ex, and my daughter was the medium for her life exchange. Their true purpose was to steal my body. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day I was just discharged from the hospital.

Unnatural murders have accumulated in the suburban area of Leonska State. The bizarre details of each murders confined the state police inside a hopeless predicament and as they widen their investigation it, the possibility of catching the perpretrator slowly died down. The police force knew that it would not take long before the case goes cold and unsolved. Paige Morsen, the sagacious, resilient, and the only female detective under the Homicide Unit received the approval of taking the case under her control. Despite the chauvinism she receives and invalidation from the police men in their force, she continued following the sketchy tracks of the killer, hoping she would mark the case as closed before the frantic race of the time would end. As she dives in towards the deep and twisted mind of the killer, she finds herself trapped inside a horrific cat-and-mouse chase with no other possible way out other than executing the killer himself. Would she be able to serve the justice? Or would it take another victim to again disappear before she could call it a case-closed?

I opened my eyes to a sharp sting in my arm. Pushing up my sleeve, I froze. A dense line of jagged letters had been carved into the skin of my right forearm: [This house has monsters! Every time I'm killed, I'm thrown into a loop and lose all my memories. With each death, I mark my hand.] Beneath the warning, three crooked tally marks were etched deep into my arm.

I had just gotten home when a parent in my son’s class group chat erupted: [Ms. Zinn, what kind of place are you running? Do you let just any random stray off the street become a teacher?] [My daughter came home, grabbed two forks, and tried to jump off the balcony. She said it was Miss Never who told her to!] The homeroom teacher panicked and denied it at once, insisting there was no such person as Miss Never at the kindergarten. She even posted the official teaching schedule in the chat to prove it. On the security footage, there was not a single trace of this so-called Miss Never. However, later, my son whispered to me in secret, “Mom, Miss Never is an old lady with a cat’s face.” “She says only kids can see her.”