Chapter 3

My mother scoffed. "She's probably done throwing her little tantrum. Realized no one was paying attention and went to sleep. With her selfish nature, there's no way she'd actually let herself suffer."

"No, we have to endure the hospital early tomorrow morning. I need to go up there and give her a stern warning. I'm not having her wearing a miserable, half-dead expression outside the operating room tomorrow, ruining Freya's mood."

Eleanor sighed worriedly and followed him. "I'll come with you."

Hearing the commotion, Freya immediately hurried after them. "Mom, Dad, please don't put any more pressure on her. If someone has to say something, let me go talk to her..."

"You don't always have to make excuses for her, Freya," my father said, stopping in his tracks.

His gaze softened slightly when he looked at his eldest daughter, but his tone remained suffocatingly stubborn. "It's good that you're coming along. Let her get a good look at how frail you are right now. Maybe it will finally get through her head that as a family, she cannot constantly be this selfish."

Finally, they stood before the attic door.

"Maeve!" my father barked, pounding a heavy fist against the wood.

Inside, there was a deathly silence.

"Stop playing dead! I know you're awake!" My father's anger began to escalate. "Are you done making a scene for tonight? Do you have any idea how much this family has sacrificed for your sister's illness? You were just locked in for half a day—what do you possibly have to feel wronged about?"

Still, there was no response.

Impatient, my mother stepped forward. "Maeve, you disappoint me so much. We feed you, we clothe you, we provide you with the best education. Now, we just need a little cooperation, and you dare throw a protest? Do you even realize your sister is going into the operating room tomorrow? Haven't you got a single shred of conscience?"

"Fine. If you're refusing to speak, then don't blame me for doing this the hard way!" Having entirely lost his patience, my father dug the spare key out of his pocket.

He shoved the door hard.

But it only opened a crack before snagging against something heavy.

That something was my corpse.

"That defiant little brat... she actually dares to barricade the door!" My father's face turned livid. He thought I was putting up one last, stubborn stand.

He took a step back, raised his leg, and viciously kicked the door panel.

The immense force slammed through the wood, directly impacting my stiffened body.

I watched as my corpse was violently shoved backward. It tumbled halfway over, finally flopping onto its back, laying stiff and flat against the floorboards.

The door was finally completely shoved open.

The light from the hallway instantly flooded into the pitch-black attic.

"Maeve, when are you going to stop this nonsen—"

My father's roar abruptly vanished the second he registered the sight on the floor.

It was as if someone had suddenly wrapped their hands around his throat, violently choking off every sound.

The stomach full of vicious reprimands my mother had prepared froze instantly on her lips.

In that moment, time itself seemed to hit the pause button.

The thing lying on the floor didn't look like the daughter who used to drop her head and endure their verbal abuses.

It was a grotesque, jarringly horrific corpse.

My face was so swollen it was practically unrecognizable, my pale skin having turned a terrifying, livid purple. My eyes were wide open, bulging outward from suffocation, staring dead and unblinking at the ceiling.

My entirely distorted hands lay curled in a bizarre, twisted posture. The nails on all ten fingers were ripped backward and broken, trailing long, shocking streaks of dark red blood across the floorboards.

Those were the marks left behind from my desperate, dying attempts to claw the door open.

My father remained frozen in his door-pushing stance. His pupils violently contracted, and his lips began to tremble uncontrollably.

Eleanor stared fixedly at my bruised, purple face, her own eyes widening until they looked like they might pop right out of their sockets.

"Mae... Maeve?"

My mother's voice was as faint as a breeze, hesitant and probing.

She almost seemed to believe that this was just some incredibly realistic special-effects makeup I had put on to escape tomorrow's surgery.

But then, the thick, undeniable stench of death crept into their noses.