Chapter 5

The next morning.

Helen stretched as she walked downstairs. Out of habit, she yelled, "Chloe! Where's breakfast? Are you slacking off again?"

No one answered.

Only her own echo bounced off the walls of the empty mansion.

Helen’s face darkened.

Impatiently, she marched to my tiny room and kicked the door open.

"Chloe, stop faking sick! Get up right—"

Her voice cut off.

The room was completely empty. The bed was made perfectly, the sheets folded neatly.

But the backpack that usually sat by the bed was gone.

"Arthur! Arthur, come down here!"

"Chloe is gone!"

An icy pit opened in Helen’s stomach. She began to panic.

Arthur walked out of the upstairs bathroom, frowning. "Don't scream. Go check the backyard. She’s probably sweeping the garden."

"No! All of her things are gone!" Helen’s voice pitched higher, trembling.

Arthur's expression shifted. He sprinted down the stairs.

He burst into my room, his eyes instantly locking onto the black notebook sitting on the desk.

"Is this... a ledger?"

He frowned, flipping through the pages.

Suddenly, a thin piece of paper slipped out and fluttered to the floor.

Helen instinctively reached out and caught it. The moment she read the words printed at the top, the color drained from her face.

"A terminal diagnosis?"

Arthur snatched the paper, his eyes scanning the page.

"Late-stage Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia... with multiple organ failure..."

"Patient: Chloe Miller?!"

Arthur’s mind went completely blank.

He clutched the diagnosis paper, reading the name over and over to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

"This diagnosis was from a month ago? Why didn't she ever tell us?" Arthur was shaking violently.

Suddenly, all of his daughter's "weird" behaviors over the past month rushed back into his mind.

He remembered how he had thrown her out into the snow just two days ago, letting her freeze for an hour.

He remembered how he had doubled her chores...

Helen collapsed onto the floor, desperately flipping through the notebook.

"No wonder she kept saying she was in pain... I thought... I thought she was just being dramatic!"

Her heart squeezed in suffocating guilt.

Then, she saw the note written on the cover page:

"Mom, Dad,"

"I have finished every single chore I owed you."

"I left all my remaining money on the desk. Consider it the final interest on my existence."

"The doctor said I’m going to die soon."

"You always complained about how expensive it was to raise me. But don't worry. Once I’m dead, you’ll save so much money."

"You can use that money to buy Lily more beautiful dresses."

"Yesterday, I wanted water. Mom said it cost ten dollars, so I paid for it."

"That was my very last purchase in this house."

"I don't owe you anything anymore."

"In our next life, please... let's never meet again."

Every single word felt like a bloody knife stabbing directly into Arthur and Helen’s chests.

"Yesterday... when she asked for water... was she in pain?" Helen’s face was ghostly white.

Her brain felt completely paralyzed.

Her own daughter had a terminal illness. She had been diagnosed a month ago.

And during this entire month...

Neither of them had noticed a single thing?

"What... what did we do?" Helen wailed, clutching the ledger to her chest as her tears finally spilled over.

Arthur bit his lip so hard it bled.

Looking at his daughter’s final, heartbreaking words, a wave of regret and pure terror completely swallowed him.

She was really gone.

"No... No!"

"We have to find her! Now!"

Arthur let out a guttural, agonizing scream.

He ran out of the front door like a madman, losing one of his shoes in the process, not caring at all.