Scrapping My Stolen Destiny
By @john1208
Parisa couldn't even wait for our grandfather's corpse to cool before she struck. Standing right over his deathbed, my reborn cousin suddenly dumped Bahram Vahdat - a depressed, crippled war hero - and claimed my fiancé Kaveh, the secret heir to the oasis's greatest fortune. Fine by me. I’m too exhausted for high-society drama, and Bahram just wants to be left alone with his misery and his terrifying scaled hound, Jiveh. But Parisa forgot to mention one tiny detail from the future: our entire city will be swallowed by a lethal sand-tsunami in exactly thirty days. Kaveh’s hidden fortune was supposed to buy her a seat on the only escaping dreadnought. While Parisa forces Kaveh into disastrous real-estate investments to multiply his wealth - unknowingly bankrupting him on land about to turn to dust - I discover my useless, gloomy husband is actually a savant at aero-mechanics. With the clock ticking, we’re dodging scavengers and turning battlefield scrap into a fleet of hover-skiffs. As we bleed for survival and a bittersweet, unspoken affection grows between us in the grease and grime, will we launch our fleet before Parisa realizes she bought a one-way ticket to oblivion?
6
Midnight Chimes and Madness
By @john1208
Yvelis is exhausted. Between raising her fragile younger brother Levin and navigating the venomous high society of Obregia, she has no time for prophetic nightmares. But when a terrifyingly vivid dream shows the dreaded Inquisitor Zilar executing them both, she decides the best survival strategy is absolute social ruin. After being publicly dumped and humiliated at the Chime Festival, Yvelis seizes the moment - smearing cake on her face, howling, and acting like an unwashed lunatic to ensure Zilar is thoroughly repulsed. Instead, her erratic outburst resonates with the city's ancient Soul-Carillon, magically tethering her life-force directly to Zilar's. Now, they share every bruise and heartbeat. Trapped in a melancholic alliance with her prophesied murderer, Yvelis tries to survive the deadly trials meant to 'purify' soulbound couples. But when she gets blackout drunk on gloom-wine and sarcastically blurts out the prophecy to him, their dynamic shifts from hostile to dangerously magnetic. As they grow closer, Yvelis uncovers a horrifying truth: the ultimate reward for surviving the trials isn't freedom, but a deadly trap. Can she rewrite fate before the chimes toll their end?
2