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The Grief That Haunts
An unreleased short story from the book:
The Price of Emotions: How Artificial Feelings Can Destroy Us
Rachel had never known love like that. Lily, her daughter, had been her world. From the moment she held her in the hospital, her heart had expanded beyond any boundaries, bursting with a tenderness that only a mother could understand. Lily’s laugh, her tiny hand wrapped around Rachel’s finger, the way she would curl into her mother’s arms after a long day—all of it was pure. It was the love Rachel had lived for, the only love that had ever felt truly real. It was unconditional, unwavering.
And then one day, it was gone.
Lily’s heart had stopped. Just like that. A momentary glitch in the fragile system of life, and the little girl who had filled Rachel’s days with joy was gone. One minute, they were playing in the park, her laugh ringing out in the breeze. The next, she was lifeless in Rachel’s arms, her eyes wide open, staring at nothing, as Rachel’s screams echoed into the empty air.
The funeral had been an unbearable blur of white lilies and muffled sobs. The days that followed were a haze of numbness. Rachel couldn’t remember how she had gotten through them. The grief was a weight, a crushing pressure on her chest that never left. She could barely breathe. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep. Her body had turned into an empty vessel, drained of all life. The world was dark, silent, and hollow. Her daughter was gone, and she had nothing left.
The void inside her was unbearable. The loneliness of it. The silence where Lily’s voice used to be.
Rachel didn’t know how to survive it.
That’s when she found it.
Scrolling through her phone one night, searching for something, anything that could help her escape the overwhelming grief, Rachel stumbled upon an app. The description was simple, almost too good to be true: “Buy Sorrow: One drop, and you will fully experience your grief. Feel every moment, every emotion. Mourn as you should. Relive the loss until you’ve truly understood it.”
Rachel wasn’t sure what she expected. Maybe it was desperation. Maybe it was the loneliness, the suffocating ache of her heart that begged for release. But she clicked the link.
The package arrived a week later. A small vial, dark and opaque, sat in her hands, its contents swirling as though alive. The label was plain, nothing more than a few words: “One drop. Feel the sorrow.”
Rachel stared at it for a long time, her breath shallow. Could it really help her? Could it bring Lily back, even for a moment?
With trembling hands, Rachel unscrewed the cap and swallowed a single drop.
At first, nothing. For a moment, she wondered if it had been a mistake, if it was all some cruel trick. But then, a wave of sensation flooded her. It wasn’t just sadness—it was the fullness of it, the weight of her loss, every excruciating second replaying in vivid detail. It wasn’t just the memory of Lily’s laugh; it was the absence of it. It wasn’t just the warmth of her tiny hands—it was the emptiness where they used to be. The sorrow flooded her veins, drowned her in the soundless ache of never seeing her daughter again.
And in that moment, Rachel understood. She understood the depth of her grief, the aching, endless sorrow that would never truly go away.
But it didn’t stop.
Rachel felt it all. Every heartbeat of pain, every loss, every moment that Lily had been a part of her life. It swelled, consuming her, turning every thought into a memory of her daughter. She wept uncontrollably, overwhelmed by the torrent of grief. It felt like she was drowning in it, suffocating, gasping for air, but there was no relief. There was no escape.
The next day, Rachel took another drop.
This time, the sorrow was more intense. It tore through her, an unbearable tidal wave. The grief wasn’t just an emotion—it was a living thing, a creature that clawed at her insides, demanding more. She relived every moment, each memory more painful than the last. Her daughter’s voice echoed in her ears, and Rachel couldn’t escape it. She couldn’t stop it. She needed more. More of the sorrow, more of the pain. The only way to feel close to Lily again was through the grief that threatened to swallow her whole.
As the days turned into weeks, Rachel stopped leaving the house. She couldn’t face the world outside, couldn’t breathe without the constant weight of her mourning. She stopped calling her friends, stopped talking to anyone. The sorrow consumed her every waking moment. She couldn’t tell where the grief ended and she began. It was all she had left.
Her body began to waste away. She ate nothing. She didn’t sleep. She could feel the darkness eating away at her skin, at her soul. She was no longer human—she was just grief, just sorrow made flesh.
One night, as she sat alone in the dim light of her living room, the walls closing in around her, Rachel looked at the bottle. It was empty now. The last drop had been consumed, and she felt an eerie emptiness inside her. But it wasn’t the emptiness she had once felt. It was something worse—a hollowness so deep, so complete, that it felt like the very core of her had been ripped out.
She closed her eyes, but all she could see was Lily. All she could hear was her daughter’s voice. And then, with a strange sense of finality, Rachel realized that she would never be able to stop. The grief would never end. It would never leave her. She had invited it in, and now it had taken over.
Her sobs were no longer just tears—they were a part of her, a constant rhythm of despair. Her soul was broken, shattered beyond recognition, and there was no return.
The last thought she had before she succumbed to the darkness was this: I wanted to mourn, but now, I’ve become the mourning itself.
And the grief that had once begun as a fleeting moment of sorrow became her entire existence, drowning her in an ocean that no one could reach her from, forevermore.
If you enjoyed this short story you will probably like our latest release available now:
The Price of Emotions: How Artificial Feelings Can Destroy Us
$3.99
In a world where emotions are bought and sold, the price of feeling has never been higher.
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