Chapter 4

Three days after I was discharged from the hospital, Mom and Dad took the whole family to the villa in Navarro Hills. At their insistence, I reluctantly allowed myself to sit in the back seat of the car this time.

It had been raining heavily for days, leaving the roads a muddy mess. Upon arrival at the villa, everyone immediately swarmed around Kevin.

"Kevin, we decorated this room to your taste. Go take a look and see if you like it!"

"Just let us know if anything is missing. We'll have it brought over right away."

Kevin linked his arm through Dad's, offering a sweet, well-behaved smile as he said, "I know I'll love it as long as it's something that you picked out for me."

Only after everyone else had chosen their rooms did Mom turn to ask which one I wanted. But since the only room left was the one tucked away against the mountainside, I didn't know why she bothered with asking me at all.

Once inside, I instinctively scanned the room. It wasn't too bad. The space under the bed was just big enough for me to crawl in and lie flat on my back.

I skillfully wedged myself underneath, folded my hands, and waited for dawn—or perhaps for death.

In the middle of the night, a dull, thunderous roar erupted outside. The earth began to tremble. Then, a mass of mud and rocks came crashing down the mountainside, came rushing down the slope.

My room was situated right against the mountainside, and it took the full brunt of the impact.

I opened my eyes.

Beams and rubble came crashing down. The bed frame collapsed instantly, leaving only a small, precarious gap supported by what remained of the structure.

A jagged, broken piece of wood had pierced straight into my lower leg, and a wave of excruciating pain washed over me. I gritted my teeth, letting out a stifled groan as cold sweat broke out across my forehead.

In my previous ten lives, death had always been quick and relatively painless. But it seemed that this time, I was meant to experience the full process.

"Is there anyone still inside?"

Dad's anxious shout rang out from somewhere outside. He continued, "Thank goodness I was alert enough to bang on your doors and wake you all up. Without the villa shielding us, we wouldn't have found anywhere safe."

Outside, the beam of a flashlight darted erratically, its faint, piercing light filtered through the gaps in the rubble, landing squarely on my face.

I listened in silence.

"What about Kenneth? Did Kenneth make it out?" Mom asked as she leaned against a rockery in the distance, gasping for air, still shaken by the ordeal.

Beyond the gaps, Kevin cowered behind Kathy, his face deathly pale, his voice trembling as he said, "I think I saw him run out through the back door just now. He was moving so fast and didn't even look back…

"I wanted to call out to him, but I was too terrified and couldn't make a sound."

Kathy's hands clenched into fists, her tone dripping with disgust.

"That cold-blooded, ungrateful wretch! He's always the first to bolt when things go wrong. And to think that Mom and Dad even brought him along just to help him clear his head."

Mom let out a sigh, shaking her head in disappointment.

"That boy… How could he just abandon his own younger brother at a time like this… He truly is heartless after all."

Beneath the ruins, the weight pressing down from above grew heavier. I could feel the earth and debris slowly crushing the last remaining pocket of space around me.

My hand lay at my side, my fingertips brushing against the cold emergency alert device in my pocket.

I recalled what Kathy and my parents had said at the hospital, so I decided to try my luck asking for help this time. I pressed the button on the device five times in a row, using nearly every ounce of strength I had left.

Outside, Kathy's phone vibrated. She checked the alert on her phone, a sneer erupting across her face.

Mom glanced at the collapsed villa, her expression shifting instantly.

"Is that Kenneth? Did Kenneth send a distress signal? Could it be that he didn't make it out?"

Kathy looked at the device, a cold, mocking smile spreading across her face. Then she pressed the mute button right in front of Mom and Dad.

"Impossible. Kevin already said he ran out ages ago. He's probably hiding somewhere right now, watching us and laughing his head off. He actually had the nerve to trigger that button for fun!

"I bet he's just doing this to get back at us for locking him in that wooden crate earlier, trying to bait us into risking our lives to 'save' him. Why even bother with someone so malicious?"

Mom hesitated, "But what if he's actually—"

"Mom! Kevin saw him run off with his own eyes!" Kathy interrupted, sounding impatient. "He's just doing this on purpose to see us all worried and terrified. How many times does he have to pull this victim act before you've had enough?"

She disabled the alerts, and the beam of the flashlight moved away.

The whole family gathered around Kevin, fussing over him. No one spared me another glance.

The weight of the mud and debris crushed the bed frame, burying me beneath it. I closed my eyes, feeling a sense of peace.

It seemed that death was inevitable anyway, even if I didn't just sit here waiting to die.

Half an hour later, a rescue helicopter arrived, its searchlights cutting through the dark. The head of the search-and-rescue team jumped out and shouted, "Is there anyone else inside the building?"

"No," Mom, Dad, and Kathy replied in unison.

Just then, the property manager rushed over, his face deathly pale. He yelled, "Wait! There's someone still trapped inside!"

He held up a tablet showing surveillance footage, his voice trembling.

"Mr. Cortez, the independent security feed for the building shows that nobody else apart from the four of you has left through any of the exits ever since the mudslide started! In other words, there's one more person still trapped inside!"

At that same moment, the life-detection device in the rescuer's hand began to emit a long, continuous tone.

"We're not detecting any signs of life beneath the building."