I Bet My Soul on My Mother’s Love Chapter 08

I Bet My Soul on My Mother’s Love Chapter 08

Mom dialed 911, her voice screeching into the receiver.

But my body was already stiff with rigor mortis. How could the paramedics possibly resuscitate a corpse?

By the time I was wheeled into the hospital morgue, Mom’s mind was completely unhinged.

Dad stood beside her, forcing back his tears.

Though knowing him, he was probably just mourning the fact that I died before my heart could be transplanted into Lily.

I really was a useless daughter.

Mom clung to my body, screaming hysterically and refusing to let the hospital staff contact a funeral home.

Ultimately, the nurses had to inject her with a heavy sedative. She finally went limp and fell into a deep, drug-induced sleep.

When Lily received the news of my death, she actually started to cry.

I drifted over, instinctively reaching out to wipe the tears from her face.

My translucent, spectral fingers passed right through her cheek.

Silly girl, why are you crying?

Now that your big sister is dead, Mom will love you the most forever.

But Lily just clutched the crumpled, torn birthday drawing she had made for me, her chest heaving as she

sobbed.

“Chloe… how could you die? Mom always said you were the healthy one, that you were going to live for a long, long time.”

“Chloe, I never wanted you to die.”

“I accidentally overheard the doctors telling Mom and Dad a long time ago that I wouldn’t make it past eighteen. I’m underage, chronically ill, and I’ll never get to see the outside world. My entire universe consists of nothing but Mom and Dad’s love.”

“So why did you have to fight me for the only thing I had left?”

“But I never wanted you to die! You’re my big sister! I knew my own body was failing and that I didn’t have much time, which was why I clung to their affection so desperately.”

This was the first time I had ever seen our household’s pampered little princess weep like this.

Lily had always been fiercely shielded by Mom.

She had spent her entire life wrapped in cotton wool, knowing nothing of the real world, only showing

everyone her sweet, dimpled smile.

Whenever she looked at me with those smug, triumphant eyes to flaunt her favoritism, she looked like a

proud little lioness.

I had spent years genuinely believing that my little sister despised me.

When Mom finally woke up from the sedatives, her mental state had deteriorated even further.

She paced the floors of the hospital room, her eyes vacant as she rambled incoherently.

“Lily and I… our lives belong to her! She saved us! She’s a foolish child, so incredibly foolish.”

“She told me so many times that she would die without my love, so why didn’t I listen to her? Why did I think

she was lying?”

“If I had just said the words that day… if I had just said ‘Mom loves Chloe the most,’ she would still be alive

right now.”

The attending physicians diagnosed her with acute schizophrenia brought on by extreme psychological trauma. But I knew the truth-the Grim Reaper had entered her dreams.

He had shown her the exact night Lily was born, forcing her to see the wager I had made to save them.

“I spent years believing Chloe was a malicious child. I thought she didn’t care about me at all because the second I survived that delivery table, her first instinct was to compete with her newborn sister for attention.”

“But my life was given to me by Chloe! Lily’s life was too! My daughter traded her very soul for us, and I treated her like a piece of garbage. I am an absolute monster.”

Dad walked into the room, his eyes narrowing as he took in Mom’s frantic, delusional state.

He tried to grab her shoulders to calm her down, but his clinical, detached words only pushed her deeper into a violent hysteria.

“You need to pull yourself together. Lily still needs you.”

“Chloe’s death was a tragic, freak accident, but we have to look toward the future now.”

“Once Lily passes away, we can always just have another baby.”

Dad’s absolute pragmatism and lack of empathy finally broke the last remaining threads of Mom’s sanity.

She swung her arm back and violently slapped him across the face, her features contorted in pure, unadulterated agony.

“Do you even have a soul?! That was your daughter!”

“In your eyes, what do our children’s lives even mean?!”

“Do you have any idea what kind of place you sent her to? That military school you used your connections to

get her into was a literal, systematic hell!”

“I hand-delivered the child who loved me more than life itself straight into the jaws of hell. I tortured her to

death with my own two hands, and now her soul is going to shatter into absolute nothingness!”

“My poor, sweet baby girl… she won’t even have the chance to be reincarnated.”

“Grim Reaper! Can I trade my soul to buy hers back?!”