The Girl Who Was Supposed To Die

The doctors said it was over—stage four, nothing left to fight. I had three days, max. I signed the organ donor papers myself. If I was gonna die, at least someone else could get a second shot. Told my family I was sick. But my so-called sister—the doctor—shrugged it off like I was making it up. She convinced them I was losing it, not dying. My parents and fiancé fell for it. Handed me over like she was some hero. She wasn't. She pushed me closer to the end. And when I finally died, the same people who wouldn't listen cried like they hadn't let it happen.

After fifteen years away, I was finally brought back to the DeLuca family. I thought I was returning to my real home. Instead, I walked into a house where the adopted daughter wanted me dead, my father treated me like a burden, and my brothers would rather watch me bleed than make her cry. On my first day back, she set dogs on me. That night, I was dragged to the top of the observatory and forced to apologize to her. When I fell from the tower covered in blood, they still called me a liar. Because in the DeLuca family, I may have been the real daughter by blood— but she was the daughter they loved. She thought she could bully me, poison me, and freeze me to death without consequence. She was wrong. Because the night I nearly died, my mother finally chose me—and turned a gun on the whole DeLuca family.

Everyone thought my sister, Nyssa, was the cursed one, except me. I knew that on my eighteenth birthday, Death would come to claim me for the Underworld. I was the Dark Elf Death had chosen. But to protect my sister, my family chose to sacrifice me. My parents abandoned me, my kin reviled me, and Caelum, the elven prince I had loved for centuries, chose to stand by Nyssa's side. They said I was a harbinger of disaster. They told me to offer Nyssa my blessing. Little did they know, they were pushing Death's true acolyte toward her awakening. When the Night of the Shattered Moon arrived, I finally met my fate. I died in the mortal realm and was reborn as the Underworld's new emissary. And those who once hurt me would come to pray for my forgiveness, trapped in the eternal punishment I had wrought. I was no longer a girl who waited for love.

When my parents came to take me home, I accidentally switched souls with Ava, a girl from the mountains. The moment my mother saw the certificate proving that Ava had ranked first in the entire county, her eyes filled with tears. "Looks like sending you to the mountains to suffer for half a year was the right decision. "Back then, getting you to study was like pulling teeth. Now you finally understand that everything we did was for your own good." I burst into tears and rushed forward, throwing my arms around my mother's legs. "Mom, I'm the real Sophie!" She kicked me hard, sending me sprawling into the mud. "Where did this wild child come from? You're just as disobedient as the old Sophie!" My parents took away the "me" carrying Ava's soul, leaving the real me behind in the mountains. For the next five years, I endured endless hard labor, slept in a pigsty, and suffered relentless abuse before I finally found a chance to escape. But when I returned home, my mother looked at me with disgust and drove me away. "My daughter just made it through the national competition. How could she possibly be someone like you? If you dare spout that nonsense again, I'll have you locked up in a mental hospital!" I cried until my entire body shook, but I refused to give up. That night, I climbed over the wall and slipped back into the house. That's when I heard my father ask my mother, "We didn't know about the soul swap back then. But now that she's found her way back... are we really not going to acknowledge her?" My mother let out a cold laugh. "What would be the point of taking her back? Should we let her ruin the Sophie we have now? She's hopeless. Even being thrown into the mountains couldn't change her. Someone like her deserves to die." A sharp pain ripped through my stomach. I coughed up a mouthful of blood. "Mom... This body has stomach cancer. Just as you wished... I'm going to die."

The witch told us my older sister would die at sixteen, and her prophecies had never been wrong. From that moment on, my sister became the most important one in the family. The best venison was saved for her. The rare white fox fur was given to her. Every night, our parents told her bedtime stories. I knew she was pitiful, but I still felt hurt and resentful. Then, on the day she turned sixteen, a sharp pain spread through my chest. Afraid I would cause trouble, my parents locked me in the basement. “Mom, please…” I cried, pounding on the door. “I can feel my wolf spirit getting weaker. Let me out…” However, Mom said without hesitation, “No! Today is an important day for your sister. “She only has one day left. Just bear with it…” When I finally closed my eyes and my soul drifted out of my body, I saw the living room filled with warm candlelight. My parents were holding my sister who was alive and well as they cried. Only then did I realize that the witch’s prophecy had never been wrong. The one meant to die was never my sister.

Promise was born into silence — a silence woven from an oath made before she could speak. Her village called it tradition. Her mother called it survival. But to Promise, it was a prison. She dreamed of Lagos, of lights and cameras, of a life that stretched beyond clay walls and whispered fears. Yet when the truth of her birth is revealed, everything she longs for seems impossibly far. The elders insist she must never leave. Her mother pleads with her to stay. And the weight of generations threatens to bury her voice. Between love and loyalty, fear and freedom, Promise must choose whether to surrender to a curse or defy it — even if it means breaking her world apart. The Girl Who Broke the Silence is a sweeping tale of tradition and defiance, of love and survival. It is the story of one girl’s fight to claim her name in a world that tried to silence her.