My brother Gideon Edwards was killed in a car accident on his way to the mall to buy me, Natalia Edwards, the birthday gift I’d been longing for. His car plunged into the river, and his body was never found. Ever since then, every Christmas on my birthday, my parents would force me to kneel at Gideon’s grave and beg for forgiveness. Until my eighteenth birthday, when I was being stalked by a creep on my way home from work. In panic, I called my parents for help. My mother Maeve Edwards was furious on the other end of the line: “Stop making excuses to avoid it! You just don’t want to repent to Gideon! After all these years, how wonderful it would be if Gideon were still alive. Why wasn’t it you who died instead, you burden!” With that, she hung up without hesitation. In the end, I was brutally murdered, my body carelessly dumped in the city’s landfill. The police officer assigned to the case was my father Ezra Edwards, but even when faced with my mutilated remains, he couldn’t recognize me. Later, Gideon returned with his wife Phoebe Michell, whom he’d eloped with eight years ago. When they learned of my death, they all went insane. ***** On Wednesday, the city’s garbage was transported by trucks to the suburban landfill for disposal. This was how old lady Camille Watkins made her living. On lucky days, she could find plenty of cardboard boxes and bottles to exchange for money. But today, she hadn’t found many bottles. Instead, she discovered a black garbage bag filled with meat. Camille looked at the meat in the bag with delight, leaning in to smell it. No foul odor. The pork was clean and tender, with perfect marbling of fat and lean. Without thinking twice, she grabbed the bag and hurried home. Her family was so poor that she hadn’t eaten meat in nearly half a year. Camille lit the stove and boiled water, putting all the meat in the pot to blanch. She said excitedly, “I’m so lucky today.” Soon, an enticing aroma of meat filled the entire room. But just as she was ladling the meat from the pot, she noticed something oddly shaped in the basin. Camille’s eyesight wasn’t good. Squinting, she picked it up with a fork to examine it. The moment she saw what it was, she collapsed to the floor in shock. “Ahhhh!” A piercing scream tore through the sky. She scrambled and crawled out of her house. What lay steaming on the ground was a cooked human hand. That’s when I saw Ezra. On the third day after my death, I finally saw him again. I just never expected we’d reunite this way. He bent down to pick up the cooked remains, his expression grave. Ezra was a veteran police officer who had solved countless cases and upheld justice. But even so, faced with such a scene, he couldn’t help but change color. He gritted his teeth and cursed angrily: “What a monster! We’ll give this case everything we’ve got. We must get justice for the victim!” Hearing those resolute words, I felt momentarily dazed. I wondered: “If Dad knew this corpse belonged to the daughter he’d hated for ten years, would he still be so determined?” Soon, the coroner took my remains back to the police station. Unfortunately, the body parts had been cooked, making it impossible to extract viable DNA. The only things they could determine were that the corpse belonged to a teenage girl, and there was a scar on the palm of one of the hands. The forensics team identified that the scar had existed for many years, approximately ten years. Hearing this, Ezra’s colleague instinctively looked at him, frowning: “Ezra, I remember Natalia has a similar scar on her palm, and she just turned eighteen this year…” Ezra’s face instantly changed. “Impossible!” he blurted out. “How could that jinx be dead?” Hearing those words, my chest suddenly ached, and even my soul trembled. Memories kept alternating between ten years ago and yesterday. I seemed to hear that demon’s whisper in my ears again: “Your father killed my brother, so I wanted him to taste what it’s like to lose a daughter. Too bad, after I caught you, I realized your father doesn’t love you at all.” I shook my head desperately. No, my father does love me. It’s because I did something wrong that they hate me. It’s my fault. Before I turned ten, I had a happy family with a loving brother and devoted parents. They cherished me like a princess, holding me in the palm of their hands. But everything changed on my tenth birthday. Gideon was killed in a car accident on his way to buy me that birthday gift I’d been longing for. His car plunged into the river, and his body was never found. From that day on, my parents’ attitude toward me completely changed.
Every Christmas birthday, Mom and Dad would take me to Gideon’s grave. “Kneel down! Confess to your brother!” I knelt on the hard ground, kowtowing over and over until my forehead bled. Maeve stood beside me crying, cursing nonstop: “You’re the jinx who killed my son. Why don’t you just die!” This scene continued for ten whole years. My knees became disabled from excessive kneeling, and I could never dance again. On ordinary days, the atmosphere at home was suffocatingly oppressive. During meals, Mom and Dad would place Gideon’s portrait next to me, then put all the food in front of it. If I so much as glanced at that food, Ezra would slam his fork on the table and glare at me: “How dare you even think about eating? This is all for your brother. You don’t deserve it!” Maeve would chime in: “Exactly. You living is just a waste of food. You might as well die.” Maeve had actually tried to make that happen. She firmly believed I had killed Gideon, even fantasizing that if I died, Gideon would come back to life. So she deliberately locked me in my room without giving me even a drop of water. I starved for three whole days, dizzy and weak, pleading with them, only to receive cold stares and merciless mockery. “I think you’re just pretending. Some people can go five days without food. You’ve only been three days – how can you not endure it?” Finally, I was so hungry I couldn’t stand it anymore and actually bit my own hand. Ezra was startled when he saw my bloody, mangled arm and finally let me out. That day, the way Mom and Dad looked at me changed. “You really are a jinx. Not only did you kill your brother, you won’t even spare yourself!” I wanted to explain that I was just too hungry. But they wouldn’t listen at all. They called my teacher directly, saying I had always had self-harm tendencies and was mentally unhealthy, asking the teacher to keep an eye on me. Just as they wished, news that I was “mentally ill” spread quickly. My classmates began bullying me relentlessly. When I walked by, they would deliberately stick out their feet to trip me, watching me fall pathetically to the ground as they burst into laughter. At the time, I didn’t know all of this was deliberately spread by Mom and Dad. I foolishly ran to them crying about being bullied. Their reaction was unusually cold. “Look at you, embarrassing us outside, and you still have the nerve to come back?” Ezra’s scolding never stopped. “How did I give birth to such a useless thing? You killed your brother – you should go to hell!” Maeve wasn’t to be outdone. I lived through such painful days for ten whole years. The scar on my palm was left from that time. The first year after Gideon died, Maeve suffered from hysteria because she missed him so much. She even chased me with a knife, saying she wanted my life for his. I was lucky – my palm was sliced through, but I didn’t die after all. Just then, Ezra’s phone rang. It was Maeve calling. Maeve asked: “Are you coming home for dinner today?” Ezra said: “No, there’s a case here. A teenage girl was murdered. Sigh, what a shame – a perfectly good girl chopped into pieces.” Hearing this, Maeve sighed and comforted him: “It’s okay, don’t worry too much. You’ll definitely catch the killer.” Thinking of something, she suddenly spoke with an angry tone: “By the way, Natalia ran out to play and still hasn’t come back.” Hearing this, my soul seemed to tremble. I thought: “So Mom still remembers me?”
Three days ago, while dusting Gideon’s portrait, I accidentally knocked over the frame. Maeve rushed over and slapped me across the face, then began punching and kicking me. I couldn’t take it anymore and broke down crying. “Mom! Why are you treating me like this? I’m heartbroken about Gideon’s death too, but I’m also your daughter. Can’t you be a little kinder to me?” But I’ll never forget the expression on Maeve’s face that day. She looked at me as if I were something utterly repulsive to her. She said, “Do you deserve it? “What murderer has the right to ask for forgiveness? “You think you’re having a hard time? Have you ever thought about Gideon, who you killed with your own hands? “If I could, I wish I’d only ever had Gideon as my son!” I staggered backward and fled through the door. I knew my parents hated me. I just never expected that in their hearts, I truly had no place at all. I felt utterly devastated. But now, Maeve had actually brought me up. Had she sensed something? Did she still care about me after all? However, when Maeve asked her question, Ezra just sneered coldly: “If she’s got any backbone, she’ll never come back. Better if she dies out there.” I smiled bitterly, thinking to myself: “There I go again, reading too much into things. Of course—I killed Gideon. How could I expect them to love me like before? But Dad, Mom, I really am already dead out there.” Due to the brutal and shocking nature of the case, police launched a massive search, hoping to find my other missing body parts. Soon, they discovered bags filled with body parts scattered throughout various corners of the city. Unfortunately, the remaining pieces had already decomposed into rotting flesh, providing no useful clues. Ezra rubbed his head and said, “For a body to be chopped up this badly, could the killer have had a grudge against the victim? Could this be a revenge killing?” Typically, killers dismember bodies to make disposal easier. But to this extent was completely unnecessary. I stared at those chunks of rotting flesh, and my soul suddenly felt excruciating pain. When he cut my body apart piece by piece, I was still alive. In the end, I bled out completely—I died from the sheer agony. But my father had answered my call for help. That night, when I noticed someone following me, I dialed his number. He picked up, but all that came out was scolding: “Natalia, haven’t you lied enough? How many more lies are you going to make up to get our attention?” His voice was frighteningly cold: “If you want to die, just hurry up and do it. Stop bothering me!” So later, I really did die. That evening, when Ezra came home, Maeve had already prepared dinner—a table full of seafood, with crabs and shrimp. She peeled two shrimp for Ezra, then placed two more on Gideon’s plate. While wiping the sauce from her hands, she complained: “Natalia’s really gotten bold—she won’t even answer when I call her. She used to complain that we didn’t love her, and now that I’ve bought such expensive seafood, she’s off somewhere and won’t come home!” Watching Maeve’s disgusted expression, I felt somewhat sad. How long would it take her to remember that it was Gideon who loved seafood, not me? Once, Maeve had peeled shrimp for me, and I said I didn’t want to eat it. She pointed at my nose and cursed me out. I ended up eating it anyway, and had such a severe allergic reaction I could barely breathe. She said dismissively: “You’re just having an allergic reaction. You won’t die. Gideon came to me in a dream last night saying he wanted the latest gaming console. Let’s hurry to the mall before it closes.” I thought at the time: “No! Dad, Mom, don’t leave me behind! I don’t want to die—save me!” The living room door slammed shut with a bang, and I was completely abandoned. I thought desperately: “Fine, maybe if I die, it won’t hurt so much anymore.” I curled up in the corner. I didn’t die that day. At the critical moment, I jumped out the window and was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment. The doctor said it was fortunate I was brought in time—a few minutes later, and I probably wouldn’t have made it. A woman sitting beside her daughter’s bed was peeling an orange while saying to me, “Thank goodness you’re okay. Otherwise, your parents would be so worried.” I watched enviously as she fed the orange segments to her daughter, piece by piece. Reflected in the glass window was my lonely figure. I comforted myself, mimicking Christian’s way of announcing to everyone, laughing loudly as I said, “Yes, my mom and dad love me very, very much.” Just then, the hospital room door was suddenly pushed open. Ezra and Maeve rushed toward me. My heart filled with grievance. Fighting through the pain, I struggled to sit up, tears falling to the floor one by one. “Dad, Mom…” I thought to myself: “I was so scared, really scared of dying like that. Could you hold me? Just once, just once would be enough.” But Maeve suddenly grabbed my collar, yanked me from the hospital bed, and threw me to the floor. The IV needle was torn out, blood spraying everywhere. She cursed, “You little bitch! Stop playing the victim! You deliberately ate something you’re allergic to, then jumped off a building to make a scene for everyone to see. Are you trying to make the whole world think your dad and I mistreat you, to ruin our reputation? Why didn’t you just jump to your death!” I curled up, covering my head as my body was kicked and beaten repeatedly. I never meant to harm them. I just didn’t want to die. I had gambled on the height of the third floor and won, but I lost the bet on their hatred for me. I saw Ezra’s reflection in the glass, leaning against the wall, coldly watching as Maeve clawed at me with her nails. I also saw the woman in the next bed holding her frightened daughter, gently comforting her. The onlookers at the door looked at me with contempt and disdain, as if Christian were saying what a vicious child I was. The fantasy of “Mom and Dad love me” that I had barely mustered the courage to build was completely shattered in front of everyone. I had lied to them. My parents didn’t love me—they loved me least of all. After that, they cut off my living expenses, and I could only apply to live at school. Every day I ate free vegetable soup and slept in a sixteen-person dormitory on a thin mattress. My room and board depended entirely on the scholarships I desperately fought for each semester. As I progressed through middle school and high school, the boarding fees kept increasing. I could only study day and night, just to score a few more points and keep my scholarship to survive. I always believed that if I became excellent enough, someday Ezra and Maeve would love me again. But when I came home with nearly perfect test scores and relatives praised me, Maeve coldly retorted with a sneer, “She’s dumb as rocks. How could she possibly score that well?” Then a sharp slap landed on my face. “Tell me, did you cheat on the test?” My face burned with pain, but my heart hurt even more. I wanted to disappear immediately. Later, when the teacher called to confirm my grades, Maeve just glanced at the torn test paper in the trash and said with disgust, “You only scored that much—what’s there to brag about? Your brother always got perfect scores at Christmas, unlike you with no promise. How embarrassing!” Along with the test paper, my heart was also torn to pieces. Ezra and Maeve liked children like Gideon, so I tried desperately to erase myself and become like Gideon. I studied even harder. Through the changing seasons, the harsh study environment continued to torment me. After graduating high school, I finally had a chance to prove I was an excellent child like Gideon. I thought: “Dad, Mom, you’ll start loving me now, won’t you?” But I died the night before the results were announced. Even in death, I never became the child loved by my parents, like Gideon. I watched as Ezra and Maeve filled Gideon’s bowl with food. This scene had repeated day after day for eight years. Wasn’t it Gideon, who died because of me, who had turned Ezra and Maeve into what they are now? I thought perhaps I deserved to die too. A knock came at the door, and a familiar voice called out: “Dad, Mom, open up! I brought my wife home!” I saw the usually cautious Ezra jump up in panic, knocking over a plate. The usually quick-moving Maeve collapsed in her chair, tears streaming uncontrollably as she asked Ezra over and over: “Is it him? Is it him?” Ezra walked to the door almost helplessly, gripping the handle for a long time before finally turning it. The door slowly opened, revealing the tall man outside. I saw him—my older brother Gideon, whom I had killed eight years ago.
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