How Does 'The Lottery' Short Story End?

When my mother won a million dollars from a lottery ticket, she prepared an envelope for each of her three children. After we opened them, my younger brother and younger sister each found a bank card inside. But from my envelope, two 1-dollar coins clinked onto the floor. Seeing me freeze, a trace of unease flickered across Mother's face. "Cassian," she said hesitantly, "Logan and Sienna suffered a lot growing up because your father passed away so early. So I gave each of them 500 thousand dollars as compensation. "You're the eldest son—like a father to them. Don't fight with them over this, okay?" I glanced down at the faded down jacket I had worn for years, the fabric so worn that it had lost its color. Then, my eyes drifted to my younger brother's limited-edition sneakers and to the designer bag slung over my sister's shoulder. Mother seemed to have forgotten that when Father died, I had only been eight. I smiled faintly. "Alright. I won't fight them for it." Hearing this, Mother let out a long breath of relief. The next second, my voice turned cold. "Then I won't fight for the responsibility of supporting you in your old age either."

Every Christmas Eve, the heir of the Marco mafia family—Adrian Marco, must follow the family tradition: Draw a name to decide whether he’s allowed to marry me. Because I, Irene Cast, am not mafia-born. Unless he draws the slip with my name on it, he can’t take me as his wife. For four years, Adrian has drawn four times. And not once did he draw my name. I always thought he fought with his family because of me— that he was willing to risk losing his position as the Don, just to choose me. Every time he failed, he held me so tightly and whispered, “It’s okay. There’s always next year.” And I loved him so much it hurt. Hurt enough that I was willing to wait, year after year. This year, I told myself: If he still doesn’t draw my name… I’ll secretly switch the result. I sneaked to the door of Adrian’s study, and heard his younger brother ask: “Don… every year you do draw Irene's name. Why do you pretend you didn’t? Is it because you still can’t let Sera go?” But he simply said, in a flat voice, “Sera needs me for something urgent. Do what you always do: swap Irene’s name for a blank one.” He walked out without looking back. Instead of swapping, he tossed the blank slip into the trash, left the one with my name on the table, and hurried after Adrian. I went inside, picked up the blank slip from the trash, and replaced the one with my name. Watching my own name fall into the garbage. Adrian…I don’t want to wait and marry you anymore. I’ll grant you your choice.

After I won a total of one million dollars from the lottery, I planned to spend four hundred thousand dollars paying off my wife Jocelyn's debts, then buy our son, Sean, the sports models and Lego set he had always wanted. But after waiting and waiting, the only thing I got was a call from my son. "Dad, there's an event at the kindergarten today, so go eat by yourself. Mommy and I will miss you!" I said nothing. Because just half a minute earlier, a screen of bullet comments had suddenly appeared in front of my eyes. "The supporting male lead is just so sad. He's working three jobs to pay off the female lead's debts, and even his stomach is bleeding due to pure exhaustion. Meanwhile, the female lead is out buying the male lead a gold watch!" "But if the supporting male lead doesn't work himself to death, how are the male lead and female lead supposed to end up together?" At first, I did not believe those comments. But just then, my phone buzzed, and a credit card charge alert came in. My stomach dropped. I never would have thought the wife who always seemed to love me so deeply and the son I had worked so hard to raise would lie to me like this. In that case, my ten million lottery winnings had nothing to do with them anymore.

At my eighteenth birthday celebration, my cousin gave me a half-scratched lottery ticket as a coming-of-age gift. When he realized I'd won twenty dollars, he suddenly demanded to buy the ticket from me for two hundred thousand. Something about it felt wrong, and I refused. Then he snapped. Like a man gone mad, he cursed me, wishing me dead, and in front of all the guests, shoved me off the balcony. Dozens of people watched, including my own parents, silently condoning him—joining in, shouting that I deserved to die. And then I opened my eyes… and I was back half an hour earlier. My cousin sneered, tossing the lottery ticket toward me, speaking the same familiar words.

After winning 800 thousand dollars, the first thing I did was rush to the hospital to pay for my daughter's surgery and treatment. Then, out of nowhere, a colleague called. "There's an extremely urgent situation at the company. You need to come back and handle it right now!" My husband took the bank card from my hand and, with thoughtful understanding, said, "Tell me the PIN. I'll go pay for Alicia's surgery. You head back to the company and focus on work." In my past life, I trusted him without hesitation and hurried back to the office. Before my daughter could even make it into surgery, I received a police summons instead. It turned out my husband had conspired with my colleague to file a report against me, pinning the crime of embezzling company funds—money my colleague had actually stolen—on me. With no money for treatment, my daughter died in the hospital. My parents, shattered by grief, suffered heart attacks and passed away. I ended my own life in prison, consumed by bitterness and regret. After death, my soul drifted to where my husband was vacationing abroad. I heard him say to my colleague with my own ears, "That stupid woman wins such a huge jackpot and only knows how to waste it on that worthless daughter's medical bills, dragging me into a life of hardship! "Now their whole family's deaths have bought us endless wealth and luxury. Consider it that idiot woman's compensation to me. Hahaha!" When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the very moment my husband took the bank card from my hand. This time, I still told him the transfer PIN.

The Sutton heir was using a wheel of fortune to pick a wife. In my last life, the wheel landed on me. On my wedding day, the woman he had loved his whole life threw herself off a cliff into the sea. That was when I learned. Fifteen years of him chasing me had been about getting her to look back at him. There were thirty-six other names on that wheel. All of them were there to push her into a corner. After she went, he came apart. "I only wanted to make you jealous. Why would you leave me like this?" He blamed all of it on me. He took apart what was left of my body with his own hands. In my last minutes I saw her come back, untouched, and tell him it had only been a test. They held each other and kissed. I went into a jar nobody noticed. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the day of the wheel.