First Contact - Chapter Seventeen (Crashrider)

After being torn from the only life she knew, 16-year-old Margo is forced into a new home with strangers who call themselves her parents. Haunted by memories of her past and consumed by feelings of isolation, she struggles to adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings. School offers little relief—until she meets Lucien, a mysterious boy who appears just when she needs a friend the most.Gabriel is everything Margo needs: kind, attentive, and always ready to whisk her away from her troubles. Each night, he invites her to secret places—an abandoned playground, a fog-choked garden, a crumbling train station at the edge of town—each more unsettling than the last. Yet with every chilling rendezvous, Margo feels more alive... more seen.But something isn’t right. Gabriel never comes to school during the day. Her adoptive parents never see him. And when they catch her talking to thin air, their concern deepens into fear. They say Gabriel isn't real—that he’s a figment of her imagination. Margo wants to believe them, but Gabriel feels real. More real than anything else in her life.As the nights grow colder and more twisted, Gabriel’s true nature begins to surface. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Time warps in his presence. And the places they visit seem to echo with whispers from another world. Margo is forced to ask herself: Who—or what—is Gabriel? Why does he only want her? And what will happen on the final night he asks her to come with him?As the line between reality and delusion begins to crumble, Margo must make an impossible choice: stay in a world where she feels loved, or return to one that barely feels real.But one thing is certain—some friendships never let go.

In his past life, as the countdown in his mind reached zero, people discovered they could enter and exit a virtual game at will. Inside, they could fight monsters and level up. Like most, Ye Qiu didn’t pay much attention to it and became a casual player, only logging in occasionally.But ten days later, the game suddenly shut down. And then, it merged with the real world!Monsters began to rampage, demons started to roam freely! Along with them came levels, equipment, skills, pets…And Ye Qiu, at the moment the server closed, was only level 5!From then on, he could only struggle to survive, hiding and fleeing, even enduring humiliation and ab*se!Until his final breath, he remained unknown, weak, and pitiful!In this life, Ye Qiu has returned to twenty years ago. And the game has just launched…

Welcome to the universe of Spectre. Jace comes of age and joins the army like all others his age. In a militaristic society that is normal. But his high level of intelligence and hard work quickly make him invaluable. So invaluable that he becomes a center of conflicts as the galactic empires rise and fall, revolutions occur, and invaders arrive. Join Jace as he goes from an orphan from the slums to becoming Spectre. As he navigates his military life he also navigates passing relationships and long term... 'contracts'.The novel contains depictions of torture, bloodshed, and overall brutality. Sexual content is heavily suggested and will be depicted as well, but it will not be the focus of the novel.The book cover was generated using Adobe's AI art generation system.

Waking up in the middle of that, she nearly screamed—until she saw him.Her cold, obsessive husband. The man she had spent an entire lifetime running from.In her past life, she trusted the wrong people. She abandoned the man who truly loved her and ended up betrayed, ruined, and dead.This time? Ha! Divorce? Dream on.Since fate gave her another chance, she’d play the game her way. Stay mysterious, act sweet, and turn every schemer against each other.And as for the dangerously obsessed husband?Let’s see who traps who first!