My Parents Faked Their Deaths to Punish Me Chapter 09

My Parents Faked Their Deaths to Punish Me Chapter 09

I went home.

After my simple retaliation against Charlene, I didn’t feel the satisfaction I had imagined. Instead, an emptiness settled in.

It was as if I suddenly realized that everything I had done meant nothing—that it couldn’t make up for the suffering I’d endured.

If anything, it only reminded me how miserable the past five years had been.

So I grew quiet. Withdrawn. I stopped talking.

Sometimes I stared out the window. Sometimes I replayed videos of myself acting as a corpse.

It was… pitiful.

There was one scene filmed in a hailstorm. I wore only a thin dress, lying on the ground as the actors ran over me, trampling without restraint. The pain… it felt worse than the illness in my blood.

I still remembered the stone pressing beneath my back, but I didn’t dare say a word. If the director got upset, not only would my pay be cut that day, I’d be targeted afterward.

I endured it out of habit. After the scene, I even had to flatter the actors and say things like, “Great performance, sir.”

Before I knew it, tears were falling.

Shane handed me tissues, his voice trembling.

“Stop watching, Lily… it’s all in the past. You’ll never have to live like that again. I’ll protect you.”

In the past? Then why did my heart still ache so much?

I wiped away my tears, only for new ones to fall. It felt as though they would never stop—never be wiped clean.

In the days that followed, Shane went abroad to find several doctors for me. My parents tried everything to make me happy. Gifts came one after another, each more expensive than the last. Anything I so much as glanced at, they bought immediately.

But I didn’t want any of it.

My body gradually improved, but my mental state worsened. The longer I stayed in that house, the more restless I felt.

The things I once longed for—gifts, my parents’ attention—now felt like burdens.

On New Year’s Eve, my mother made my favorite dishes.

But after a few bites, I started to vomit.

My mother’s eyes reddened with guilt.

“I… I didn’t put too much oil. Is it still too greasy?”

What should have been a joyful reunion turned into something else entirely. They even called in two doctors to examine me.

The conclusion: my depression was severe, and it had begun to manifest physically. The uncontrollable crying and vomiting were symptoms of it.

The whole family panicked, afraid I might do something irreversible.

From that day on, my brother stopped going to work. Even my father came home whenever he could. They tried to make up for the five years I had lost with their constant presence.

But they didn’t realize—they were the very source of my depression.

No one wants to die. Even in the depths of severe depression, I still clung to hope.

So, on the next holiday, I brought up the idea of going abroad at the dinner table. I wanted to leave Halo City, to go somewhere else and rest for a while.

After a brief silence, my mother broke down in tears.

“Lily… are you still blaming us? How can your father and I feel at ease letting you go abroad alone?”

“I’ll go with her,” Shane said immediately. “I’ll stay far away. I just need to know she’s safe.”

“That won’t be necessary.” I shook my head. “I want to go alone. No one should follow me.”

They tried to persuade me, but my condition was plain for all to see. Perhaps leaving them—and going abroad—was the best treatment.

In the end, my father nodded.

“If you want to go, then go. We won’t follow you. But no matter how long you stay overseas, you must keep your phone on.”

His voice was weary.

“At the very least… let us know you’re still alive.”

I hesitated, then nodded.

After the holiday, I booked a ticket to a country called Alyhern.

They saw me off at the airport.

Shane held onto my suitcase, reluctant to let go.

“Call me when you arrive. And if you ever run out of money, tell me.”

“Okay.”

I agreed, took the suitcase from his hand, and walked into security.

From that moment until I boarded the plane, I never looked back.

I couldn’t forgive them—not yet. But I was trying, in my own way, to make peace with myself. The future, after all, is still full of hope.