What Is Worse Than Death

I felt it when he called my eyes the most beautiful in the world. Kissed them like they were his salvation. But they were never really mine. He loved me, yes… But he loved her first. And I was just holding on to what she left behind... Now she's back and demand what's her. What will be left of me if she takes everything?

The moisture condensed from the atmosphere that falls visibly in separate drops came unexpectedly. People had no idea that raindrops carry an infected agent, which consists of a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat and multiplies only within the living of a host. It's like a piece of code that can copy itself and has a negative effect, such as corrupting the system and destroying the mind's rational data. A virus that was so small and infectious that once infected, a person's body became a reservoir of virus particles, causing the infected person to become carnivorous. Every second is crucial. Who will save humanity from the undead army? Will you save the world even if around you is on the verge of death?

The day my biological family comes to take me home, a car accident occurs. My parents and the fake son who had been living my life all die, but my sister, Kayla Bennett, survives. She despises me completely after that and blames the company's bankruptcy on me too. Desperate to make amends, I work over ten jobs a day, giving her every cent I earn so she can buy back the villa that has all our family memories. The day I finally save enough money, I discover my supposedly dead parents inside that same villa, celebrating Dylan Bennett's birthday. My usually cold sister is laughing warmly with them. As they bring out the cake, Mom mentions me. "Today's Nathan's birthday too. We've been punishing him for eight years now. Maybe we should bring him home?" Kayla cuts her off immediately. "We agreed on ten years to make sure he never suggests sending Dylan away again. Not one year less!" I clutch my medical report and laugh through my tears. But Kayla, I'm dying.

He was a Kung Fu head trainer, who was framed by his two trainees in a rape and murder case of Clushia, a female trainee, who was obsessed with him. He was convicted and brought to the maximum penal institution called the 'Hellhole', for no prisoner got out of it alive. In one of the prisoners’ riots, he was forced to fight to defend himself but ended up killing another prisoner. He was put to an oubliette. Unknown to him, that oubliette is the door to an underground city, with an arena for the so-called “Game of Fangs and Death” by the Alpha Pharoah. The game is for five nights. If he wins, he will be given a free pass leading to a secret passage, away from the 'Hellhole'. Could there be an escape for him from the 'Hellhole'? Could his heart find an escape from the Alpha Pharoah's daughter, who has a lot of similarities to Clushia? It was like, Clushia had been born again through her. Would suddenly his never known powerful blood and lineage eventually help him escape from his death?

The Horror Game invaded the world. Real players entered the game, and their every move would be broadcast live. My adopted son shoved me—an eighty-eight-year-old woman—straight into a deadly dungeon to save his own skin. One of the comments in the live stream predicted: [What? They’re tossing in such an elderly woman? No way she’s gonna survive the first night!] On the first night, a frost-bitten ghost exhaled icy breath in my face. I shrugged off my thick floral coat, feeling sorry for her. “You poor thing! You must be freezing. Listen to me and bundle up quickly!” The second night, a starving ghost lunged at me with blood dripping down his chin. I sniffed the air, then found a jar of pickled cabbage. “Look at how skinny you are! Come on, let me get you something hot to eat.” On the final day, the last surviving players tied me up, desperate to steal the one ticket to escape. However, before they could touch me, every ghost in the dungeon came storming out, cleavers and rolling pins in hand. “Touch her, and you’re dead meat!”

There is a famous fairytale story that every kid in the neighborhood love to hear and watch when she was young. The story is about a kindhearted girl whose father and stepmother got married and became a family of five with her two stepsisters. The poor girl was cast out by her stepmother and stepsisters when her father died. Then they made her work all day long so they could rest​. The very fairytale is Cinderella. The story that Sandy was not fond of listening to and watching because she hated it when the three evil ladies tormented Cinderella and she didn't fight back. Unluckily when she died from the fire, she was reincarnated as Cinderella in the story. She tried to be the Cinderella in the story just to survive in the clutches of her stepmother and stepsister. But it changed when bandits kidnapped her. Her fear and anger escalated to the highest level and something unbelievable happened. A strong gust of wind surge out from her and blew away everything that surrounds her in the forest. Her eyes and mouth went wide open. She was utterly shocked! Does Cinderella have supernatural powers? But not only Cinderella but also most of the people in that kingdom. Is it still the fairytale really 'Cinderella'?

On my birthday, Connor Simpson's first love jumped off a building due to depression. She died on the spot. Connor blamed everything on me. I never celebrated my birthday again after she died. After the murderer electrocuted me for more than ten hours, they forced me to call Connor. "Connor, it's my 25th birthday today. Can you come over and spend time with me?" However, Connor did not notice anything unusual. His voice was laced with venomous iciness. "Clarisse Winter, Audrey wouldn't have died if it weren't for you. How dare you ask me to celebrate your birthday? If only you were the one who died." I heard him coaxing a woman on the other end just before he hung up on me. That low and gentle tone was what I loved to hear the most in the past. That night, the murderer cut my body into countless pieces, packed them in bags, and threw them in front of the police station. Connor was summoned back overnight. He spent two days and two nights piecing together the body parts, but he did not realize that the dead person was the wife that he hated the most.

That night, Liam served me my usual evening tea. I trusted him completely—he was my mate, after all, and a respected healer of Thornpack. I shouldn't have. When I woke up the next morning, my head was spinning. The special safe where I kept the morphing inhibitor—the one I'd spent my entire savings to import from Europe for our daughter Isla—was empty. Racing to the healing center, I found Liam celebrating. He was handing out moon-blessed wine, beaming with pride as Natalie's daughter Anna showed off her perfect transformation. My inhibitor had been used on his first love's pup instead of our own daughter. The shock triggered something in my brain. When I collapsed, they diagnosed me with the rare tumor that plagued our kind. Without inhibitors, I couldn't stop Isla's transformation that came early, her six year old body couldn't handle the massive wolf form and the force ripped through her young body. And I, for one, don't even have enough money to keep her in a treatment center. She died in my arms three days later, her little claws drawing blood as the pain overwhelmed her. Until her last breath, she kept asking why Papa hadn't come. Now, in my cold, empty home, with the white porcelain urn containing her ashes on the table, I touch her and decide to sever our partnership.

She looked at her with contempt, her red heels clicking on the ground. A sinister smile is plastered on her face full of malice. "Whatever you do, he's mine. Even if you go back in time, he's always be mine." Then the man beside the woman with red heels, snaked his hands on her waist. "You'll never be my partner. You're a trash!" The pair walked out of that dark alley and left her coughing blood. At the last seconds of her life, her lifeless eyes closed. *** Jade angrily looked at the last page of the book. She believed that everyone deserves to be happy. She heard her mother calling for her to eat but reading is her first priority. And so, until she felt dizzy reading, she fell asleep. *** Words she can't comprehend rang in her ears. She's now the 'Heather' in the book. [No, I won't change the story. I'll just watch on the sidelines.] This is what she believed not until... "Stop slandering Heather unless you want to lose your necks." That was the beginning of her new life as a character. Cover Illustration: JEIJANDEE (follow her on IG with the same username) Release Schedule: Every Saturday NOTE: This work is undergoing major editing (grammar and stuffs) and hopefully will be finished this month, so expect changes. Thank you~!

It all started when Mozart's sonata played, no one could control themselves. The curse has just begun, can Thalia Grace, the girl who inherited the yin and yang eyes, be able to break the curse? Thalia Grace started from an ordinary girl who was entangled in a malicious curse that caused her to rush into danger many times, but from here she gradually realized her own love, understood the reason for living in the world. and discovered a terrifying secret that has existed since ancient times, which should have been hidden for a long time. Who is greedy, who is pitiful and who can escape this cruel curse? The race has begun and has not ended, who is the bad guy, who is the pitiful person in this race.