Chapter 3

I immediately dug out my high school yearbook and found Sophie’s number. With trembling hands, I called her.

The phone rang for a long time before someone picked up. A hoarse, weary voice came from the other end. “Hello? Who’s this?”

“Hello, is this Sophie Clark? It’s Raine Sherry. We went to the same high school.” I tried my best to keep my voice steady.

“Raine Sherry?” Sophie seemed taken aback for a moment. “Oh… I think I vaguely remember you. Is there something you need?”

I took a deep breath and got straight to the point. “I want to ask you something. Did you experience any health issues this summer? Did you feel inexplicably exhausted, and… have you noticed any significant changes in your appearance?”

There was an instant, deathly silence on the other end of the line.

It took almost a minute before Sophie’s response sounded on the other end. It carried a barely perceptible tremor. “You… how do you know?”

My heart sank. It was just as I feared!

“I’m going through the same thing right now.” I laid out my entire story, including Eira’s startling transformation and the strange deterioration of my own body.

As I talked, the breathing on the other end of the line grew rapid.

By the time I finished, Sophie was sobbing uncontrollably.

“It’s her! It has to be her!” she cried and completely broke down. “After the SATs, she didn’t come to our class reunion. She said she was going on a trip.

“Ever since, something’s been wrong with me! I feel so exhausted every day, and no matter how long I sleep, I can’t wake up rested. I eat very little, yet I gain weight like crazy!

“My mom took me to see so many doctors, but they all said I wasn’t sick. They said I was just lazy! My life… my whole life’s been ruined!”

It turned out I was not her first victim.

Eira had already begun using her evil ability since the summer she graduated from high school.

She stole Sophie’s beauty and vitality. Then, she transferred her own obesity and listlessness onto her. Just like that, she completed her first transformation.

She was using the same method to drain my life force to maintain her glamorous facade as a “goddess.”

As I hung up, I felt the blood in my veins run cold.

This was a sinister scheme through and through. A vicious curse that fed on the lives of others to sustain itself!

Over the next two days, my health took a sharp turn for the worse.

The exhaustion grew more serious. I began experiencing intermittent shortness of breath, and I kept coughing up blood.

My parents were panicky and rushed me to the best hospital in the city that very night.

However, the test results showed that my body was perfectly normal.

The doctor looked at me with a gaze filled with helplessness and suspicion. “Does this young girl have some kind of psychological issue?”

My parents were frantic. They sweated profusely as they begged the doctor to find another solution.

I lay in the hospital bed. I was too weak to even lift a finger.

I could clearly feel the life force rapidly draining from my body.

My phone was flooded with news about orientation training. Eira had become the undisputed “goddess of orientation training” across the entire school.

In just one week, the orientation training’s grand closing ceremony would take place. There would be a school-wide cross-country race with weighted gear.

Eira, as the student representative, would once again run for the entire school.

I remembered that it was at that race that everything would end for me.

Time was running out. If I could not find the source soon, I would die all over again.

Seeing how frail I had become, my parents wiped away their tears behind my back as they discussed taking me home from the hospital to recuperate.

Just as the nurse was pushing my wheelchair out of the ward, I passed by an operating room next door.

Outside the door, a middle-aged woman stood with her hands pressed together. Her eyes were closed as she murmured prayers with an expression of profound and helpless devotion.

She was praying for a loved one inside the operating room.

A bolt of lightning suddenly split through my chaotic thoughts! I suddenly understood!

I knew how she had managed to transfer her exhaustion to me!