Vietnamese Folklore

I sell handmade fortune cookies in the park. Each one costs $10,000, yet every day, people fight to buy them. That’s because what I sell are fertility fortune cookies. Eat one, and you can get pregnant instantly. You can even choose what kind of child you want. Slip in a double-yolk charm, and you’ll have twins. Seal in a perfect test paper, and your child will be a genius. A spayed female dog ate one and ended up pregnant with six puppies. Someone buried a fortune cookie beneath a withered tree, and by the next day, it had burst into full bloom. I sell fortune cookies to both women and men—anyone who wants to get pregnant. I turn no one away. Even animals, if they so much as make a sound, I’ll feed them. Until one day, a young woman, Mara Kessler, who had been standing in line from dawn until dusk, finally stepped forward and timidly said she wanted to buy a fortune cookie. I only took one look at her, then staggered back in terror. "I can’t sell to you. Leave. Now."

A curse is cast upon everyone in this village, reducing us to mutes. But once a villager's lover takes three laps around the back mountain and marries said villager successfully, the curse on that villager will be broken. My childhood friend, who's the same age as me, has already gotten married and embraced his life as a regular person. Even my cousin, who's just turned 18 years old, has her curse broken as well. I, on the other hand, am about to turn 30 years old soon, and yet I'm still a mute. Whenever I'm about to get married, all of my ex-fiances, who kept telling me that they'd love me with all their hearts, would do anything just to terminate our engagements right after they came out of the back mountain. In order to proclaim his deep love for me, my tenth fiance, Isaac Jameson, tells me confidently that he'd definitely marry me once he's done with his laps around the mountain. But as soon as his words fall, his expression changes the moment he sets foot into the mountain. To my horror, Isaac picks up an axe from the ground and begins hacking at me with it. "Why are you still alive in this world? Why can't you just die already?" I can only lie on the ground while suffering from intense pain. I have no idea what's in the back mountain and why the same outcome will happen every time. Why is it that the entire village can break their curse so easily, and yet I can never get married despite having gone through it ten times in a row?

Ladies, never hike up a mountain on your own! During a holiday, I've received a request for help from an Internet user. Apparently, a young woman has gone missing after she's gone on a mountain hike. A quick session of divination tells me that the woman is already dead. To make things worse, her corpse is stuck at the moment. Having taken on the request made by the woman's parents, I enter the mountain and start looking for her. In the end, I'm able to locate her body in a cave. Not only is her belly swollen with pregnancy, but… but her belly is also moving due to fetal activity. What's scarier is that there's something even more terrifying being hidden beneath her corpse…

Every year, the village had to choose a girl of age to become the Blossom Bride. The girl who was chosen would be sent into the cave as the village god’s wife. She would spend the entire night with him. If she came out alive, she would be honored for the rest of her life as a village elder. Any child she bore was said to be blessed, destined for a life of effortless fortune. If she died, the village would simply wait for the next year, when another Blossom Bride would be chosen. The blessing of the Blossom Bride was believed to pass on to her parents and elders as well. However, no one wanted to be chosen. To escape the ritual, families quietly left the village, one after another. I was the only one who volunteered. I had a lust problem, and I had always wondered what it would feel like to be with a god.

There's a little shop downstairs that sells organ soup. It's always packed with customers. People line up as if bewitched, eager for a bowl. I've often wondered what secret ingredient made their soup so irresistible. This afternoon, I finally found my answer. Floating in my bowl was a piece of human skin—inked with a tattoo I knew all too well. It was the one etched on my boyfriend's arm.

A divine tree that is worshiped by many generations of people in my village grows on the tall mountain located on the village's west. Apparently, the divine tree loves being watered by women's lustful juices. In order to garner the blessings and protection from the divine tree, the village will pick out a woman to serve it every month. Since young maidens are shy and reserved by nature, the juices they secrete aren't enough to satisfy the divine tree. In that case, the village will be plagued by misfortune and disasters. Because of that, there are rumors saying that the divine tree prefers married women instead. All the married women in the village refuse to serve the divine tree. I, on the other hand, yearn to get picked out by the village every day. After all, I'm born to feel pleasure at its height. Unfortunately, my weak husband can never satisfy my urges.

In the vampire—enslaved present world, Myra longed for a better life. After a horrid tragedy that ended her life, she was reborn as a lowlife Omega from a folklore in the year 1721. Now she must save the Lycans from their impending doom, and rewrite history.

It was prophesied in Shifter folklore that when a Solar Lycan was born, great change would come to the Shifter population. Only trouble was that it was all it was, an unfulfilled prophecy; no Solar Lycan had been seen for more than a thousand years. Had she ever even existed? Well, here's the thing: sometimes, occasionally, prophecies do get fulfilled.

Elena Thompson thought folklore belonged in her lectures - until it came alive. At the Moonlight Festival in one moment she was laughing with her best friend in next she turned at the sound of her name and collided with someone - hard. Strong hands steadied her, and when she looked up, everything else disappeared. Amber eyes. A smile that stole her breath. A stranger who looked at her as though she were the only soul in the world. Ren is an Alpha, but Elena is human. She doesn’t belong in his world. It's a taboo. That love would break every law of his kind.

Horror stories originate from somewhere. Whether from eyewitness accounts or from survivors' tales, they come from somewhere. And while all of us grow up with the folklore, how many of us genuinely believe that werewolves and vampires prowl through the night, taking what they want. I will admit I didn't believe the tales. I thought werewolves and vampires were nothing more than make-believe. Scary stories meant to keep kids in line. That is until a monster ripped me from my warm and sold me to the highest bidder. Where nightmares and horror stories become true is where my story begins. Can I ever be free again, or will the beasts rule my body and soul forever. TRIGGER WARNING!!!!!