Why is my life like this?
“Isaac, wake up. Please wake up.”
Isaac’s blood soaked into the fabric of his shirt.
He was only nine years old. I can’t imagine how painful it must be for his tiny body to be stabbed.
“This… mo……. Ah…pah…….”
“It’s okay. It’s okay, Isaac. I’ll protect you.”
Ten minutes ago, we were sitting on the bed playing a board game, and now Isaac is stabbed to death and I’m running from a killer.
He was visibly panicked when he realized it was a child he had stabbed. Aiming for my chest or stomach would have been neck to a little boy.
The killer, who was covered in the blood of his employee, thought it was me who opened the door and cut the neck of Isaac who opened the door.
“Isaac, wait a minute. Auntie…… Auntie……. Boom!”
Damn body.
“Huh. Grrrr!”
My heart tightened. It was a late reaction, considering I’d been running around carrying a nine-year-old.
I was surprised I hadn’t gotten out of breath under the stress and pressure.
I could see the medicine room in the distance. Fortunately, the east wing of the mansion is where I live, so the pharmacy was not far away.
But I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt tight.
“Ugh! Ugh!”
The pharmacy was only fifty meters away, but fifty meters was a long way.
I set Isaac down and grabbed the medicine from my arms. Isaac’s neck was still bleeding like crazy.
“Mmm, mmm.”
“i pounded his chest and pushed the pills into his mouth.However, before he could swallow the medicine, a man appeared at the end of the corridor.”
“Even though it felt like his heart would burst, unable to breathe for several seconds now, he embraced Isaac.”
“I’ll protect you.
It was a bad day in the city, so there were no adults in the house, and all the employees had been killed by a nameless man.
I may only be an eighteen-year-old girl, eleven months shy of adulthood, but for this moment, I am Isaac’s protector.
‘I just need to hold on until my brothers get here, just a little longer…….’
I jumped, chewing the pills quickly.
“As I tried to escape from the man, the pottery fragments that bounced back in my direction stabbed into my flesh with each step I took.
My feet were bleeding, and the marble floor was slippery.
“Ugh!”
I slipped because of my bloody feet. I rolled over and shielded Isaac as I fell forward.
“I slammed my head first into the hard floor. It felt like my neck was about to break. I couldn’t gather my thoughts. The half-melted pill that was in my mouth popped out.
“Kack. Kack!”
Meanwhile, a shadow fell in front of me. I wasn’t sure if I’d blacked out or if the man was too fast.
A pair of piercing eyes stared back at me, eyes as deep and blue as the ocean. I felt my legs go numb with genuine fear. Tears rolled down from my eyes at the terrifying aura coming from the man.
“Ugh!”
I couldn’t breathe and felt like I was going to die any second, but I wanted to speak.
Please don’t kill me. Please spare Isaac.
The man grabbed me by neck and pulled me in the air.
I dropped Isaac helplessly, hanging in midair as the man’s strength held me in place.
My forehead was torn open, and blood flowed down on my face. Tears poured down my cheeks.
“Boom!”
I wondered if it was for money or the opposing forces of my brothers.
I couldn’t breathe and my vision began to blur. I clenched my teeth in a last attempt to pray, but my windpipe was pierced with a painful sensation.
“Huh!”
I finally managed to breathe, and it came out reflexively.
“Help me…….”
It was the first begging she’d ever done.
Who would have thought this day would ever come in Scarlett White’s life. She’d spent her entire life as a greenhouse plant, the princess of House White.
“Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill Isaac.”
I never thought I’d be the one begging for someone’s life. It wasn’t until today that I realized my arrogant nature could do this.
My vision blurred, but I begged and begged and begged.
“Please spare Isaac. You can kill me, but he’s innocent.”
No Isaac. My darling nephew, my sweet baby .
We were just playing dice about who rolls the dice first until ten minutes ago……. Isaac, I’ll save you. As long as you don’t…….
“No, not Isaac, not him, just kill me. Please.”
At that moment, a thunderous sound came out. Someone had fired a magic bullet at him. The surprised man dropped me.
He turned around to see who had fired it, and I grabbed Isaac and ran.
As I fell, I realized I had sprained my ankle and lost feeling in my feet. My body was shaking as if I were about to collapse.
I don’t run unless I’m playing with my nephews, Isaac and Abigail, so this was mentally and physically exhausting.
“Finally!
I arrived at the pharmacy. I laid Isaac down on the table, locked the door, and pulled up a chair to block the door.
“Isaac. Wait. The hemostatic……. Where the hell are they!”
I searched through the medicine drawer and poured a bottle labeled Hemostatic down Isaac’s throat, then wrapped his neck tightly with a bandage. Meanwhile, there was a knock on the door.
Tapping. Ding. Ding, ding, ding.
The polite knock sent chills down my spine.
I pulled back the rug on the pharmacy floor and then lifted the marble, knowing that only I, who often came and went as I pleased, was aware of the presence of an empty space on the floor of the pharmacy.
Isaac, pale as a corpse, narrowed his black eyes. I kissed Isaac’s forehead and whispered.
“Isaac. Listen, you can’t make a sound.”
Isaac opened his mouth to say nothing.
“I’m fine.
My poor, poor nephew. I whispered into his mouth, which was still comforting me at this moment.
“Isaac. Promise your aunt you’ll stay quiet until they get here, okay? She’ll go out and get them. I’ll be right back. I love you, my dear .”
I kissed her one last time, then went back to cleaning up the floor.
“I smashed the window with my bare fist. Glass embedded into my arm and hand, tearing my flesh apart. Ignoring the glass cutting through my clothes and digging into my waist, I pulled my body out.”
She had to make it look like she’d helped Isaac out. I needed to distract the man so he wouldn’t go to the pharmacy and find Isaac.
My heart sank with each passing second, especially when the blood made the handle slippery and I couldn’t get the door to open.
BANG!
The door open. My gaze locked with the man’s purple eyes. Purple was such a cruel color. It was a color I rarely saw in humans, which made it even colder.
His gaze was fixed on me. He walked over to me before I could fall out the window, grabbed me by the hair, and pulled me inside.
“Ew!”
I had to swallow the scream. Isaac would scream in terror if he knew.
“The man, whether he killed the person who fired the magic bullet or not, was now covered in blood even more hideous than before.
“Did I…… do something wrong…….”
Why are you doing this to me?
“Only I…… kill.”
The last words were strangled out of his throat.
He hung her in the midair, punching the man in the arm. But the man didn’t move.
Even in my dying moments, I held out hope. That I had protected Isaac, that he would survive and be rescued.
“No!”
I wonder if this is what it’s like to be eaten alive.
The real hell was about to begin. I will die so cruelly, so unimaginably horrible, at the hands of a man.
The man beat me until my breath was gone. He stabs me five times, and my body is thrown against the wall .
I held back my screams, dying for Isaac. I died just like that.
* * *
“Huck, huck, huck!”
As soon as I woke up, I found a painkiller and chewed and swallowed it without water. The bitter, astringent taste made my head feel numb.
I rang the bell to call Marie. This is how my day started.
“What the hell have you done? Do I have to be the one to guard this house? Why do I have to wake up at the crack of dawn every day with anxiety?”
“Miss. Nothing happened last night, calm down. If you get upset again-”
Marie rang the bell urgently, her chest heaving from the breathing attack that had already begun.
“Gulp! Gulp!”
Not being able to breathe is a sensation I’ll never get used to.
Through my gritted teeth, I remembered to glare at my servants ; I couldn’t stand their negligence. After struggling with my breathing for a while, my body returned to normal.
“You want me dead, don’t you? You want the crazy Scarlet White to die so you can be free? Is that why you’re tormenting me like this? Is that why you called the doctor so late?”
Her feelings, which had wavered several times a day, had intensified since she’d traveled back in time.
I died a month before my nineteenth birthday, and when I opened my eyes, I was back in the past.
Traveling back in time didn’t make my memories any younger, and the aftermath of the murder left me unable to function.
It’s been a hundred days since I’ve had to take neuroleptics and sleeping pills out of fear and wake up screaming in my sleep. My nerves were drained and I felt like I was climbing a cliff with a worn-out rope.
Scott came by just in time, and as soon as I saw him, the age-old request came out.
“Scott. Please find me.”
I rubbed my dry face and tried to keep my nerves on edge. They look like they’re about to burst at the slightest touch.
“Are you taking your medication?”
“I’m up to my limit. They won’t let me take more.”
Scott was my third brother, the twin brother of Susan, Isaac’s mother.
His intelligence was more accurate than Congress. Because my mother was an only child, he inherited the munitions business from his mother’s family, the Kravitzes. The Kravitzes had been known for their intelligence for generations.
“We need to find that man.”
“You’re not going to tell me who he is, are you?”
“Later. I’ll tell you later.”
“He’s blond, a little over six feet tall, and……. Do you know anything else?”
“I don’t remember. Scott. I owe that guy a big favor.”
A big enough debt to tear him limb from limb. The man had stabbed me five times.
At the mention of debt, Scott’s face turned pale.
If the Whites were in debt, it couldn’t be financial. It had to be something personal.
But I had no friends, let alone acquaintances, so it was natural for him to question my word.
Still, he smiled vaguely, as if he thought it would liven up my otherwise dull life.
“Oh. By the way, there was a ruckus in the house the other day.”
Scott pulled a faded piece of paper out of the envelope he’d brought.
“Isaac, whose aunt was sick and had no one to play with, found himself in the portrait room playing with his ancestors in a painting.”
“What?”
“I thought long and hard about whether or not I should tell you this, but I think you need to know, so I’m telling you, and before you turn it over, listen.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a portrait of Mr. Esford.”
Scott’s face crumpled at the words.
“Essex?
The last name of my father’s mistress. The woman who had an affair with my father while my mother was pregnant with me.
My hand trembled as I tried to tear the paper into pieces, and I dropped it. I sucked in a breath as the front of the paper was revealed.
“This is….”
I was stunned, not because Julia Eshford was a stunning beauty, but because her face bore a close resemblance to the killer.
The same purple-eyed killer who had stabbed me five times.
Freaking out, I grabbed my chest and searched for the pills. Scott quickly found it and held it out to me.
“Grunt. Gulp.”
“Breathe. It’s okay. Calm down, Carly.”
Who the hell was this guy and why did he look so much like Julia Esperance?
My hands were shaking. Her body shrank from the chills.
My stomach and chest ached like they’d been stabbed, and I wanted to rip off my clothes and make sure I was okay.
Where did Isaac find a painting like that, and where did he get it…….
“Someone hid that painting of her behind the portrait of my father. Listen, Carly, she’s the reason you’re sick. She claimed her son, who looked just like her, was your father’s son. The shock caused your mother to give birth prematurely, and you were born so weak. Now, according to the latest information, she’s dying.”
“……, son?”
“Yes. she had a son, a year older than you.”
I jumped up and down. It was the son of mistress, the one who had killed me.
“I’ll do what you want. What do you want me to do with her?”
Scott’s eyes glowed black. I sucked in a breath.
“I’ve been…….”
Two hundred days. The amount of time left before I’m killed. I hope for revenge.
