Chapter 003

Even as darkness overwhelmed me, the cold still crawled into my bones, wrapped around my lungs, and pressed against my skin like hands that wanted me gone. I curled into myself on the freezer floor, my arms wrapped tightly around my chest, my breath coming out in weak, broken gasps.

I was scared of loosing consciousness... I was scared of letting the cold pulled me in. What was the point of dying this pathetic?

I tried to scream again...

No sound came out.

As I tried to opened my eyes, darkness blurred at the edges, and my thoughts began to scatter. My fingers felt numb. My legs refused to move from the spot it laid.

I wondered, distantly, if this was what my mother had felt in her final moments....this quiet realization that no one was coming

The cold finally won.

My body trembled until it could no longer fight, and the dark room seemed to fold in on itself. My teeth stopped chattering. My thoughts slowed. I thought this was how dying felt right now...quiet, lonely, unnoticed.

But the darkness did not stay empty... But something was strange, the cold had stopped.

I heard my mother’s voice in the back of my mind.

Not soft. Not gentle.

Sharp. Clear. Alive.

"They can take the house," she continued, her tone fierce, almost angry. "They can sit in it, sleep in it, pretend it belongs to them."

She stepped closer, her gaze locking onto mine.

This must be me imagining how furious my late mom is. Because I imagined seeing her face...her eyes bright, back straight, hands steady as she held mine. She wasn’t comforting me. She was warning me.

"Don’t bow," she said. "Don’t beg. If you ever fall, stand up somewhere they can’t reach.

"But they can never touch what’s in your name." And just like that, her figure began to blur.

"Remember who you are," she said as her voice faded. "And remember who they are not."

There and then... I made a promise. "If I survive, I quit being the girl they know."

The world went white.

I woke up choking on air.

My chest burned as I gasped, my body jerking upright before a wave of dizziness forced me back down. Bright lights stabbed my eyes. The smell of antiseptic filled my nose.

I thought I was dead.

Then I heard the beeping.

I was in a hospital.

A hand touched my arm.

"Evian," a voice said urgently.

Francis.

I turned my head slowly. He was sitting beside the bed, his face drawn tight with worry. His hair was messy. His suit jacket was gone.

For a moment, I simply stared at him.

"You’re awake," he said, relief washing over his features. "Thank God. I'm... I'm so sorry. They went too far"

He reached for my hand. His skin was warm. It made my own feel like a corpse.

I pulled it away.

"I’m tired," I said quietly. "Please leave."

He blinked, clearly not expecting that.

"What?" he asked. "Evian, I..."

"I said I’m tired," I repeated. "I need to rest."

He frowned. "You’re being cold."

Something inside me stirred, but it wasn’t pain.

It was distance.

"Anyway, I’m sorry," he said after a pause. "About everything. I shouldn’t have let it go that far alright? I'll talk it out with your family. If that's why you're angry, I'll make it up to you."

"Can you leave? Or I should call the security on you?"

He leaned forward, frustration creeping into his voice. "Don't over do it. After all, you caused it. If only you were understandable and not pick a fight with Kate. Not only did that happen... you made sure she was wounded and needed blood. We didn’t have a choice. You started it."

I turned my head to face him.

"What?" I asked softly.

"You scared her," he continued. "She almost died. As a decent person, you should have apologize. But all the same... I believed you've learned from your mistakes."

I stared at him.

God, he makes me sick.

My mind went In that cold room, when I thought I was dying, the silent promise I’d made in the ice echoed inside my skull. If I survive, I quit being the girl they know. The girl who cried. The girl who begged. The girl who hoped.

"I already apologized," I said calmly. "With the blood they took forcefully as always."

His jaw tightened. "You’re being unreasonable."

"Francis," I said quietly, "please leave."

He sighed, a heavy, put-upon sound, and reached for me again. His touch was a brand I no longer wanted to bear. Just then, his phone buzzed.

He glanced at the screen, and his entire posture changed. A soft, worried light entered his eyes.

Kate.

He answered, his voice dropping to a low, tender murmur. "Alright. Alright.. I’m coming."

After a moment of listening, he hung up and looked back at me. I had already turned my head away, gazing at the blank wall.

"I have to go," he said, his tone implying a great sacrifice. "I’ll come back to take you home, alright? So wait for me."

He waited for a response I did not give. With another sigh, he left. The door clicked shut, sealing me into a quieter, cleaner kind of cold.

I was discharged alone.

No one came.

The silence was a gift. A taxi took me back to the house. I didn’t go inside. I stood in the shadows of the garden, watching through the grand dining room window.

It was a portrait of perfect happiness.

Kate, glowing, laughed as Francis lifted a fork to her lips. My half-brother gestured excitedly. My father smiled, sipping his wine, the benevolent patriarch. My stepmother looked on, satisfied.

They were a complete circle. A perfect, glittering unit.

But as I watched, a strange calm settled over me. The ache in my heart didn’t vanish; it crystallized. It turned into something hard and clear.

I saw them now, not as powerful tormentors, but as what they truly were.

"Kate, a hollow girl who needed constant stolen devotion to feel alive.

Francis, a coward hiding behind a mask of duty, obsessed with being the hero in his own shallow story.

My father, a hollow man propped up by a dead woman’s money, playing house with a new family.

They were not giants. They were insects. Scrambling over a gilded treasure map, clueless that the real treasure had never been theirs to hold.

A cold, quiet certainty filled the void they had created in me. It was a vow, made not with tears, but with ice.

You wanted a ghost? I thought, my eyes fixed on their laughing faces. I will be the ghost that haunts you out of your own lives.

You can have the marriage. The empty parties. The hollow victories.

I am going to take the foundation out from under your feet.

One brick at a time.

Until you all fall into the very hole you dug for me."

I inhaled.

This was my grandpa house.

This was my family legacy... A legacy my mom wrote under my name before passing away.

Everyone here right now are nothing but strangers.

Strangers I won't let them do as they pleases.

I walked into the house...not as a broken girl, but as a silent promise. The game they knew was over. A new one had just begun. And they would pay for it. slowly.