The Dream That Killed Me Chapter 09

The Dream That Killed Me Chapter 09

Dad and Mom were sentenced to twenty years for abuse and involuntary manslaughter.

Claire, who hadn’t known I was dead but had deliberately concealed it, was sentenced to five years.

She lost her mind completely.

“I won’t do it! I won’t accept this! I’m not going to prison!”

Grandma looked at Dad, her lips trembling.

Dad looked back at her, numb.

“Mom. Didn’t you tell us to treat Lily well?”

“Now, we’re giving it all back to her.”

Once my parents were in prison, word spread among the other inmates-they’d killed their own daughter with their own hands.

They were tormented constantly.

It didn’t take long before they looked withered, worn down-barely in their thirties, but looking

fifty.

But no matter how badly they were treated, they never cried.

Instead, they would go quiet, staring at the spot where my soul hovered, as if hoping to see me

smile at them, satisfied.

I only ever turned my head away. No sorrow. No joy.

Claire, once in prison, lost every privilege she’d ever had.

No one there felt sorry for her. No one cared whether her chest hurt.

If anything, they thought she was pretentious, cruel-a girl who’d even hurt her own little sister.

The ones who bullied her only got crueler.

At first, out of some lingering awareness of her heart condition, they held back a little, told each

other not to hit too hard.

So they started targeting the places that wouldn’t show.

Before long, Claire lost her mind.

Every day she curled up alone in the corner of her bed, muttering.

“Lily, I don’t owe you anything.”

“It wasn’t me who killed you.”

“Lily… sister, please let me go. I’m begging you.”

She spent her days terrified, like she thought I would come kill her.

But I only sat quietly beside her.

The way, a long time ago, when I was small, she used to hold me and say-

“Don’t be scared. I’m here.”

I opened my mouth.

[Don’t be scared, Claire. I won’t be here anymore.]

Something in her mad eyes cleared, just for a second.

“Lily, I didn’t mean to. I never wanted you to die!”

But it didn’t last.

“You deserved it! Why did you get to be the healthy one?”

Her heart had never been strong, and between the fear and the guilt, it finally gave out.

She died not long after.

I didn’t go to see her.

Dad was cleaning a toilet when he heard the news. A single tear slid down his face.

Mom knelt through it, expressionless, enduring whatever humiliation the other inmates devised.

By the time my parents were released, twenty years had passed.

The Whitmore Group had long since gone bankrupt.

Grandma had left them what little remained.

But Dad donated every cent of it to Hearthstone Children’s Home. Kept nothing for himself.

He and my mother stayed together after that, spending their days doing the hardest, dirtiest work they could find.

One night, I watched Mom raise a knife over his chest.

But Dad just closed his eyes, calm.

“Lily doesn’t want to see us like this. Go to sleep.”

The knife fell to the floor.

My mother, hair fully white now, covered her face and wept.

That was when a soft white light appeared before me.

I knew, then.

I could finally leave.

I didn’t look back.

All of that already belonged to the past.

THE END