There was a very famous author named David, who had written quite a few best-selling horror novels. All of the literary critics praised his talent for plot twists and surprise endings. He received a large amount of fan mail every day and some budding authors even sent him manuscripts in the hopes that he would help them get their work published.
While David took pleasure in responding to letters from his fans, he took even more pleasure in stealing the ideas of amateur writers. If he came across a manuscript with a great idea for a scary story, he would use it in one of his own books and deny the author any credit. Then, to hide his theft, he pulled some strings with his friends in the publishing industry to make sure that the original author never got anything published in the future.
One day, David received a new manuscript in the mail. It was bound in a beautiful hardcover book. He read the first chapter and felt that he knew how the story would end. As he continued reading, he became more and more certain that he could guess the twist ending. It was growing late, but he wanted to finish reading the manuscript to see whether or not he was right.
When David came to the final chapter, he realized that the last few pages of the book were stuck together. Anxious to read further, he pulled the pages apart. He felt increasingly tired but he still kept reading. Finally, he came to the end of the book. It was exactly the twist ending he had anticipated. The husband had hanged himself just as his wife was committing suicide in the next room. David made a mental note to steal the idea and use it in his next story. Just then, he noticed that after the words “THE END”, there was a little hand-written comment from the author. It read:
“I already know that you are planning to steal the ideas in this story. I know, because you did the same thing to me the last time I sent you a manuscript. You published it under your own name and didn’t give me any credit. You ripped me off and blacklisted me in the industry. Nobody will accept my novels anymore and I will never again be able to publish anything I write. You have ruined my life and now I am going to have my revenge. You had to pull apart the back pages to read this, didn’t you? Well, those pages contained a poison. Arsenic, to be precise. Are you feeling tired? That is normal. It’s one of the symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Soon, your heartbeat will get slower and slower until it eventually stops permanently. Don’t bother trying to call an ambulance. You will be dead before they arrive. You have already been exposed for too long. Goodbye, David. Some twist endings can be very hard to predict.”
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