The Dream That Killed Me Chapter 08

The Dream That Killed Me Chapter 08

Dad shook his head desperately.

“No. It wasn’t like that.”

But soon he just covered his face with both hands. Tears slid between his fingers.

Mom lunged and grabbed my father’s throat, choking him.

“I tried, so many times, to come back and check on Lily-and you stopped me, every time!”

“You kept saying she wasn’t obedient enough, wasn’t good enough!”

“Why? Why did it have to be Lily? It should have been you!”

My father’s face turned red as she strangled him, his eyes bulging. His survival instinct made him

claw at her hands.

I stood beside them, not sure what I felt.

But my father’s eyes, straining sideways, suddenly locked onto the space where I stood.

His voice came out hoarse, forcing the words through.

He shoved my mother away, harder now, trying to crawl toward me.

“Lily. Dad didn’t mean it.”

“The dream never said you’d die. I thought you’d always be safe.”

“I never wanted you to die, Lily.”

But I only stepped back half a step, covering my ears with both hands.

Then I turned my head away.

Dad, I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to see it either.

The next second, he stopped struggling.

His fingers dug into the floorboards. His finger bones snapped.

By the time the police arrived and pulled Mom off him, he still hadn’t moved.

He seemed to age twenty years in an instant. Half his hair turned white.

“Lily.”

“Lily hates me. She hates me!”

My mother, seeing she couldn’t kill him, broke free of the officer holding her and grabbed a kitchen knife, turning it on herself.

“Lily. Mommy’s coming to be with you!”

Blood ran from the corner of her mouth even as she smiled, crawling slowly toward my body.

I crouched down and looked at her.

[Mom. When I was alive, you never once chose me.]

[Now that I’m dead, I don’t want your company either.

Mom seemed to hear me. The smile faded from her lips.

“Lily…”

Claire watched everything, lips turning blue, clutching her chest.

But no one was looking at her anymore.

The paramedics took my parents and Claire to the hospital, along with my body.

The police took the academy staff in for questioning.

By the time Grandma reached the hospital, Mom was already being resuscitated, and Dad sat there

hollow-eyed.

She beat him with her cane, again and again.

“You animal! I told you not to rely so much on that dream. You wouldn’t listen!”

“I told you to treat Lily right. And this is what you did to her?”

Dad looked at Grandma, eyes unfocused.

“Mom. Did you know–the doctor said Lily was tortured to death, slowly, over time.”

“When I was being choked to death, I saw Lily.”

“She wouldn’t look at me.”

“She doesn’t accept me as her father anymore.”

Grandma collapsed to the floor, sobbing.

But I was thinking, calmly:

[It’s not that I don’t accept you.]

[It’s that the bones, the flesh, the blood you gave me-I’ve already given all of it back.]

[My soul is clean now. Whole. It belongs to me.]

Mom was resuscitated.

The first thing she said when she opened her eyes was:

“If Lily doesn’t want me to follow her, then I won’t.”

Then, without hesitation, she reported my father, Claire, and herself.

Murder.

She also reported Claire and my father for aggravated assault.

The evidence: my body, the wounds covering it, the tools in the basement, and the household staff’s

testimony.

The case was airtight.

Dad confessed to everything, without contest.

In court, a grown man wept until his face was soaked.

My mother didn’t cry anymore.

She simply spoke, flat and hollow, and waited for whatever judgment came.

Claire lost her mind. She screamed, her lips pale.

“Why should I pay for what you two did?”

“That little brat-she’s dead! Does that mean I stop being your daughter?”

Mom finally showed some flicker of feeling, looking at her.

Dad’s

eyes were a tangle of everything at once. He closed them and looked away.