Alice

In the quiet town of Crestwood, a place where dreams wilted and hopes faded, Alice's life was a tapestry woven with threads of suffering. From the very beginning, her existence was marked by hardships that seemed to cling to her like shadows, casting a dark cloud over her days. Alice's family, once brimming with promise, had become a shattered mosaic of brokenness. Her mother, a beacon of strength and resilience, worked tirelessly to provide for Alice and her younger siblings. But tragedy struck when her mother, in a cruel twist of fate, was shot and killed for no reason at all.

The loss was a devastating blow that left Alice and her siblings reeling, their lives forever altered. As a teenager, Alice found herself thrust into the role of caregiver, shouldering the weight of responsibility that should never have been hers to bear.

As the eldest of three siblings, Alice bore the weight of responsibility on her slender shoulders. She became the pillar of strength for her family, shouldering the burden of their survival.

The rain poured down in a relentless torrent, each droplet a somber reminder of the tears that Alice had shed in the wake of her mother's tragic death. The dark clouds hung low in the sky, casting a pall of gloom over the rundown neighborhood where Alice trudged through the muddy streets. Her worn-out sneakers splashed through puddles, the cold seeping into her bones and chilling her to the core.

Clutching a tattered umbrella in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other, Alice's red and swollen eyes betrayed the countless sleepless nights spent mourning her loss. Her heart felt heavy with grief and despair, the weight of the world pressing down on her young shoulders.

Alice was only seventeen when tragedy struck her family like a bolt of lightning on a clear day. Her mother, a resilient and hardworking woman who had struggled to provide for her four children on her own, had been taken from them in a senseless act of violence. The news had shattered Alice's world into a million irreparable pieces, leaving her and her siblings orphaned and adrift in a sea of uncertainty.

With no one else to turn to, Alice had taken on the mantle of caregiver and provider for her younger siblings, working multiple jobs to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. The burden of responsibility weighed heavily on her fragile frame, but she refused to crumble under its weight, determined to keep her family together no matter the cost.

As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, Alice's grief morphed into a simmering anger—a burning rage that fueled her every waking moment. She vowed to seek justice for her mother, to find the ones responsible for her untimely death and make them pay for their heinous crimes. But in a world where justice was a luxury afforded only to the powerful, Alice knew that she needed more than just determination to achieve her goal.

It was during a chance encounter at a local cafe that Alice stumbled upon a glimmer of hope in the form of a mysterious contract marriage offer. A wealthy CEO was seeking a temporary companion for social events and functions, someone who could seamlessly blend into high society and act as his confidante in public. The promise of financial stability and influential connections beckoned to Alice like a guiding light in the darkness, offering her a chance to gain the resources she needed to uncover the truth behind her mother's tragic demise.

But when she arrived at the CEO's opulent mansion to meet him for the first time, it was not him who greeted her at the door, but his imposing manager. The manager's steely gaze bore into her, cold and calculating, as he outlined the terms and conditions of the contract marriage with unwavering precision. Alice's heart raced with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation, unsure of what lay ahead but resolute in her determination to see it through to the end.

Sitting in the lavish office of the manager, surrounded by opulence that felt foreign and out of reach, Alice knew that this was just the beginning of a perilous journey that would test her strength, resilience, and resolve like never before. The path to vengeance was fraught with danger and uncertainty, but she was willing to tread it no matter the cost. For deep within her soul burned a fire that could not be extinguished—a fire fueled by loss and love, a fire that would guide her on her quest for justice and redemption.