Chapter 4

The horror that had been hidden was now exposed under the lights, with nothing left concealed.

A shrill scream tore through the silence. It was Abigail.

She collapsed onto the floor, scrambling backward in panic. "A monster!"

Mom stood frozen, her voice audibly shaking. "T-That's…"

The shock in her eyes quickly twisted into pure rage and disgust before she let out a hysterical scream. "Aurora!"

She flung the blanket back onto my body with all her strength.

"How much did you sneak and eat? I was only gone for a few hours, and you turned yourself into this? Were you so greedy that you were about to clear out the whole fridge? Look at you now! You look like an overinflated pig! Gosh, you disgust me!"

Mom was shaking with anger, her chest heaving violently.

"How did I give birth to such a useless thing with zero sense of self-control? Where's the body fat scale? Where's the monitor? Didn't you see it was flashing red? Why'd you still eat? Were you trying to stuff yourself to death?"

She was completely trapped inside her own logic. Being fat meant eating too much, and so was swelling. My edema meant that I had eaten more than I should, and not moving meant I had overeaten and played dead to gain sympathy.

"Fine. You're going to keep playing dead, aren't you?"

Mom spun around and rushed into the bedroom. When she returned, she was holding a yellow soft measuring tape. Whenever my waistline went over 24 inches, she used it to lash my palms.

"Since you love eating so much, let's see how much weight you've really put on!" she said. "If your waistline went over half an inch today, I'll hit you ten times! Now, get up and let me measure your waist!"

Mom charged toward my body and raised the tape to strike. That was when Dad finally reacted.

He rushed over and wrapped his arms around her waist, his voice cracked. "Honey, stop! Don't do that! I don't think Aurora's… breathing anymore…"

She shoved him away. "Bullshit! She's pretending for sure—she's been faking illness since she was little! Look, she was just writing in her notebook. How could she be dead?"

She pointed at the notebook clenched tightly in my hand. "See that? That's her book of reflection! She must be admitting she snuck food!"

Mom escaped Dad's grasp and lunged toward my body. She reached out and clasped my wrist, trying to pull me up, only to hear a tear the next second.

Due to the immense force she exerted, she had accidentally torn my skin apart. A chunk of flesh fell off, revealing pale fat and dark muscle underneath it. Pale yellow tissue fluid mingled with crimson blood oozed in an instant.

Mom immediately pulled her hand back. Her eyes widened in terror as she took in the gooey liquid and blood staining her palm. "W-What's… going on…"

She held up her hand in a daze, the pungent, metallic stench clinging to her nose. My arm dropped along with gravity and landed on the tile with a loud thud.

The notebook slipped off and spread open amid the pool of blood. The gory red stained the white pages and black ink, but my last words remained as clear as day.

"Target weight: 0lbs. I didn't sneak food. I was good."

Mom's eyes fixed obsessively on those words. "Impossible… There's no way!"