Dying in the Shadows

Warm, metallic liquid clawed up the back of my throat. I forced a stiff smile and swallowed it down. A cramp shredded my stomach. My knees buckled.

I caught myself on the doorframe just before my face smashed into the ceramic tiles. Shoved deep into the pocket of my washedout tshirt was a crumpled medical report.

Terminal stomach cancer. The cheap paper was already soaked through with my cold sweat.

Just one door away in the main living room, a private Michelinstarred chef was serving courses, and a crystal champagne tower gleamed under the chandelier.

Mom raised her flute, her cheeks flushed with triumph. "Our Octavia is going to be the Ivy League's top medical scientist!" She let out a manicured chuckle. "As for my youngest, Daphne… she can't even get into a community college.

As long as she keeps breathing and doesn't bring shame to our family name, that's enough." The room full of guests erupted into roaring laughter.

Dad pulled Octavia close, his hand resting proudly against the gold medal hanging around her neck. "You are the hope of this entire family." Basking in the center of the spotlight, Octavia's gaze shifted.

She caught my eye through the halfopen door. Her upper lip curled. She looked at me the way someone looks at a piece of rotting trash on a pristine white carpet. Fine.

Since I was nothing but an unwanted burden. I would find a quiet place outside to rot. I wouldn't leave a single stain on their pictureperfect lives.

Chapter 1 "Daphne, what are you standing there like an idiot for? Can't you see the lead investor's champagne is empty?

Get your ass over there and pour!" Mom's shrill voice sliced through the chatter, driving a spike straight into my eardrums. I choked back the roiling in my stomach.

I stretched my lips into a stiff, trembling smile, grabbed the crystal decanter, and stumbled toward the table. My fingers spasmed.

A splash of golden liquid spilled, landing right on Gregory's custom Italian suit. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" I grabbed a linen napkin and reached out to blot the stain.

Before Gregory could even open his mouth, Mom lunged. She shoved me hard in the chest. My lower back slammed into the sharp edge of the mahogany dining table.

A massive cramp seized my stomach, and my vision tunneled into blackness. "You useless bitch!

You ruin everything!" She pivoted back to Gregory, her face instantly morphing into a fawning smile. "Gregory, please, I am so sorry. My youngest has always been clumsy.

She's not exactly all there in the head. Please don't hold it against us." Gregory waved a hand, dismissing it.

But every word out of my mother's mouth felt like a steel boot grinding into my chest, suffocating the last bit of air out of my lungs.

I gripped the edge of the table until my knuckles turned white, forcing my legs to hold me up. Across the room, Octavia held court like royalty, surrounded by a crowd of admirers.

She threw a sideways glance at me. Her upper lip curled. She looked at me like I was a cockroach crawling across her pristine white carpet. "Mom, just make her go inside.

Stop letting her embarrass us," she muttered. Her tone was low, but it carried perfectly over the music. Dad chimed in immediately. "Exactly.

Daphne, get your ass back into the kitchen. Stop ruining the night." I dropped my gaze to the floor.

My hand slid into my pocket, my fingers crushing the thin, crisp paper hidden inside. The cold, black ink stamped on that page had already spelled out my death sentence.

I didn't say a word. I turned on my heel and walked straight back into the kitchen.

The heavy oak door clicked shut behind me, instantly cutting off the laughter and the clinking glasses. I slumped against the cold marble island. My lungs seized.

I slammed my hand over my mouth as a violent coughing fit ripped through my chest. A warm, thick streak of crimson seeped through my fingers.

I stared down at the bright red blood smudged across my skin. A hollow laugh cracked past my lips. They were right. I really was a useless idiot.

I had always been the slow one, trailing pathetically behind my sister's flawless footsteps.

Octavia was the high school Homecoming Queen and the varsity cheer captain, effortlessly snagging an acceptance letter to a top Ivy League.

Meanwhile, I busted my ass just to get rejected by the local community college. She was the golden girl standing at the very peak of the pyramid.

I was just the invisible trash rotting in the gutter. Mom and Dad poured every ounce of their love and resources into Octavia.

All I ever got was a rolled eye and a heavy sigh. "Why can't you be more like your sister and make us proud for once?" "Feeding you is a complete waste of money." "If you had even half her brain, I'd thank God on my bare knees." Those words had been branded into my brain every single day for twentytwo years.

I tried. I swear to God, I tried. I pulled allnighters grinding through prep books until the pages were torn, but my grades never moved an inch.

Eventually, I just gave up and accepted my fate. If I couldn't be the smart kid, I figured I could at least be the useful one. I took over every single chore in the house.

I learned how to cook all their favorite meals, scrubbing and cleaning and making sure their lives ran flawlessly.

I thought maybe, just maybe, they would finally look at me with a little bit of approval. I was dead wrong. To them, my sweat and bleeding fingers weren't signs of love.

It was just the bare minimum—the grunt work meant for the dumb kid. Chapter 2 The moment I walked out of the hospital with the diagnosis in my hand, the blood froze in my veins.

The doctor had looked me dead in the eye and said years of severe malnutrition and extreme stress had pushed it to the worst stage. Surgery was off the table.

My remaining time wasn't measured in years anymore—it was measured in months.

I sat on the concrete steps outside the hospital for the entire afternoon, my fingers gripping that piece of paper until they cramped.

It wasn't until the streetlights flickered on that it hit me—today was Octavia's big day. I had to get back to the house to cook.

I folded my death sentence, shoved it deep into my pocket, and pretended everything was perfectly fine.

I went to the highend organic grocery store, bought the most expensive ribeye steaks and black truffles I could find, and cooked a massive French feast with all their favorite dishes.

I just wanted to do one last thing for them before my clock ran out. But I forgot the golden rule. Trash doesn't get a seat at the table.

The celebration dragged on well past midnight. Once the final guest walked out the door, the house looked like a bomb had gone off.

Mom collapsed onto the custom leather sofa, waving a dismissive hand at me. "Daphne, hurry up and clean this mess.

It's giving me a migraine." Dad, slurring from too much scotch, leaned back in his armchair. "Make sure someone puts the vintage wine away tomorrow.

Don't let your clumsy sister shatter the bottles." Octavia had already headed upstairs.

The sharp click of her designer heels echoed across the hardwood floors above—crisp, arrogant, untouched. I stood in silence, scraping cold leftovers into the trash.

My stomach cramped, like a jagged fist was twisting my organs into tight knots.

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, hauled the towering stacks of dirty plates into the kitchen, and started scrubbing the counters and mopping the sticky floors.

By the time the kitchen was spotless, the microwave clock glared 3:00 AM. I dragged my aching body back to my cramped, suffocating bedroom.

It faced the north side of the house, permanently cast in cold shadows. Just like me.

I flicked on the cheap desk lamp, pulled the medical report out of my pocket, and read it one more time.

Every single black letter felt like it was mocking my pathetic, miserable existence. I pulled open the bottom drawer and dragged out a locked metal cash box.

Inside was every single dollar I had to my name. Every dime I had scraped together from minimumwage shifts and surviving on nothing. Exactly $4,682.50.

I had planned to use this money to get my medical assistant certificate, so I could finally find a stable job at a private clinic and drag myself out of this hellhole.

Looks like I wouldn't be needing that anymore. I counted out exactly $3,000 in crisp bills and locked the loose change back in the metal box.

Tomorrow, I was going to use this cash to buy them one final gift. The things they had casually mentioned wanting but never got around to buying. It would be my parting gift.

The final, pathetic offering from their "useless daughter." The next morning, I woke up before the sun even cracked the horizon.

I stuffed the three thousand dollars into my beatup bag and headed straight to the highestend luxury mall downtown.

The blinding marble floors and glittering chandeliers made me stick out like a sore thumb.

The polished sales associate in her designer uniform looked me up and down, her eyes practically sneering at my cheap clothes.

I ignored her and walked straight through the heavy glass doors of the luxury boutique.

Chapter 3 I remembered a time Mom went shopping with the wealthy housewives from her country club. She had her eye on a pure cashmere scarf, priced over eight hundred dollars.

She ran her fingers over it again and again, but ultimately couldn't bring herself to buy it. I tracked down that exact scarf.

It was the classic plaid, the fabric impossibly soft and warm. "I'll take this one, please wrap it up." A flash of surprise crossed the sales associate's face, but she professionally boxed it up anyway.

My hands trembled slightly as I handed over the cash. Over eight hundred bucks. It took me half a year of grinding shifts at the drivethru just to save that much.

But picturing the surprised look on Mom's face when she tried it on made it worth every penny. Next, I headed to a highend golf pro shop.

Dad obsessed over networking at the country club.

He had been rambling endlessly about wanting a limitededition custom golf club, calling it his ultimate stepping stone into the ultrarich inner circle.

The exact custom club I spotted cost twelve hundred dollars. I paid the cash, and the clerk carefully secured it in a sleek case. Finally, I only had about a thousand dollars left.

I walked into Octavia's favorite premium tech boutique.

She was flying out of the country next month for a medical academic exchange, and I remembered her complaining about needing the latest noisecanceling headphones for the flight.

The pair she wanted was nine hundred and ninetynine dollars.

As I slid my last hundreddollar bill across the counter, my wallet was empty, yet a strange sense of satisfaction settled in my chest.

The moment I finished, the familiar agony ripped through my stomach again.

I ducked into a quiet corner, dryswallowed two heavy painkillers, and washed them down with a sip of freezing water.

Before the drugs could kick in, the pain practically swallowed me whole. I slumped against the cold marble wall, staring blankly at the crowds flowing through the mall.

Every single one of them had a life. A future. A direction. But I was just a shattered boat with no harbor in sight, waiting to sink into the black water.

By the time I dragged the heavy shopping bags through the front door, the three of them were lounging in the living room, watching TV.

The second Mom saw me, her perfectly drawn brows snapped together. "Where the hell have you been, fooling around all day?

Don't you know you're supposed to be home cooking?" "Exactly, you're getting completely out of line," Dad chimed in.

Octavia sat with her long legs crossed, not even bothering to look up from her phone. "A useless piece of trash who can't even get into community college, wasting time wandering around all day, no wonder you're stuck waiting tables at a greasy fastfood joint." I was numb to their toxic remarks.

I walked over and set the heavy bags onto the glass coffee table, one by one. "Mom, this is for you." I handed her the heavy, premium shopping bag holding the scarf.

She snatched it from me with a look of pure suspicion, but the moment she pulled it open, she froze. "Is this… is this that scarf I was looking at?" She pulled the cashmere out, running her fingers over the incredibly soft fabric, unable to hide the thrill lighting up her face. "How did you afford this, it must have cost a fortune." "Dad, this is for you." I handed over the sleek, elongated case.

Dad blinked.

He popped the latches, and his eyes practically bulged out of his head. "This… this is that limitededition custom club, the exact one I've been dreaming about!" "Octavia, this is yours." I pushed the sleek tech box toward her.

Octavia caught sight of the premium logo and actually raised an eyebrow. She took the box, ripped off the plastic seal, and checked inside. It was exactly the model she wanted.

Chapter 4 For the first time, a heavy, suffocating silence fell over the living room, and it was entirely because of me.

Mom stared at me, her gaze conflicted. "Daphne, where the hell did you get this kind of money?" Dad watched me with sheer suspicion. "Are you out there doing something filthy behind our backs?" Octavia didn't hold back.

Her voice was sharp enough to cut glass. "Spill it. Did you go become some old creep's sugar baby?

I knew a dumbass like you had zero skills other than selling your body for a sugar daddy's cash." All the blood drained from my face. So this was it.

In their eyes, I was so utterly worthless that I couldn't even buy them a gift with my own two hands. I laughed.

A dry, scraping sound clawed its way out of my throat until my eyes burned. "I saved this from my shifts," I said, my voice eerily calm. "I just wanted to… I just wanted to thank you guys." "Shifts?" Mom scoffed.

She hurled the cashmere directly into my face. "How much can you possibly make waiting tables at that greasy, oilsoaked fastfood joint? This money makes me sick.

Don't you dare dirty my hands with it." "Exactly." Dad shoved the custom golf club case across the table. "Our family might not be billionaires, but we have a reputation in this town.

We are not letting you whore around and humiliate us." Octavia slammed the tech box onto the glass coffee table. The sharp crack echoed through the room. "Daphne, I'm warning you.

If you dare ruin our family's reputation, I will personally tear you apart." The three of them sat perfectly aligned on the sofa, staring down at me like judges at an execution.

That pathetic, lingering shred of hope I had while paying at the register shattered into a million jagged pieces. I stared at the rejected gifts scattered across the glass.

It was actually hilarious. I had emptied my entire life savings and swallowed agonizing pain, just to buy a single smile from them.

Instead, I bought my own public humiliation. "Okay." I nodded.

My throat felt like it was coated in ash. "If you don't want them, forget it." I bent down and slowly gathered the boxes, one by one. My movements were painfully slow.

With every inch I leaned forward, the jagged blades twisted inside my stomach. But the physical agony was nothing compared to the dead, hollow cavity in my chest.

Nothing was beating in there anymore. From that day on, I stopped cooking. I stopped scrubbing the floors. I locked myself inside my dark room and collapsed onto the mattress.

My body deteriorated rapidly. I doubled, then tripled my dosage of heavy painkillers, but the pills were essentially useless now.

The agonizing cramps kept me awake through the nights, my cold sweat soaking through the cheap bedsheets. I withered away into skin and bones.

The girl staring back at me in the bathroom mirror had a sickly, yellowed complexion, looking like a rotting corpse. The flawless ecosystem of the house instantly collapsed.

With no one to cook, they had to rely on takeout. With no one to clean, a thick layer of dust quickly settled over the hardwood floors. Mom finally reached her breaking point.

She kicked my door open and shoved her finger right into my face. "Daphne, who exactly are you putting on this deadbody act for? Are you throwing a tantrum?

You think you can just stop doing your chores?" I forced my heavy eyelids open.

I stared up at her distorted, raging face, not having a single ounce of energy left to fight back. "I… I don't feel well." "Don't feel well?

You're just a lazy bitch!" She grabbed my blanket and violently ripped it off the bed. "Get your ass up right now!

The house is turning into a total pigsty!" Chapter 5 She yanked my blanket with so much force I stumbled forward, nearly tumbling completely off the mattress.

Another jagged cramp ripped through my stomach. I gagged, my body convulsing in a dry heave out of my control. "Fake it!

Keep faking it!" Mom glared down at my twisted body with zero pity, only pure disgust. "You're always whining about some phantom pain.

You just want an excuse to slack off!" Octavia strolled in, drawn by the yelling.

She leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms with a cold smirk. "Mom, why are you even wasting your breath on her?

She's just throwing a massive tantrum because we rejected her little presents the other day.

Some people are just so fragile, always playing the victim over the tiniest things." Dad stood right behind her, his brows pulled together in annoyance. "Daphne, that's enough.

Your sister is flying out of the country next week, and we have a million things to prep.

Stop causing trouble." Every word out of their mouths felt like a physical blade slicing into my skin. The agony locked my throat, suffocating me.

I curled into a tight ball on the bed, trembling. To them, my excruciating pain was nothing more than a pathetic, cheap performance to beg for sympathy. I squeezed my eyes shut.

I couldn't even force out a single tear. Whatever. Let it be. I would just lie here quietly. Waiting for the final clock to run out. I started secretly tying up my loose ends.

I took the remaining cash out of my locked metal box and paid my share of the rent for the next quarter.

Even though I wouldn't be around to see it, I didn't want the landlord bothering them after I was dead.

I packed all my cheap clothes and wornout books into cardboard boxes, shoving them deep into the dusty storage closet. I formally quit my shift at the drivethru diner.

My manager was a sweet older woman. She took one look at my pale, sickly face and kept asking what was wrong, even trying to slide me an extra month's pay under the table.

I pushed the envelope back. I told her I was going on a really long road trip. She bought it, giving me a warm smile and wishing me a safe journey.

I walked out of the diner and looked back at the place where I had busted my ass for two years.

Under the bright afternoon sun, it smelled like grease and fries, ringing with the loud laughter of teenagers. And I was walking away from it forever.

I found a cheap paralegal to draft a simple will. I had absolutely zero assets to my name.

The only thing of any real value was a prize I won from a high school community art show—exactly a thousand bucks that I had never been able to bring myself to spend.

I left that money, along with all those luxury gifts my family had rejected, to my one and only friend, Kendall. Kendall was a coworker I met at the drivethru diner.

She was the only person in the world who actually remembered my birthday, the only one who would pull me into a tight hug when I was completely falling apart.

I couldn't bring myself to tell her about the cancer. I didn't want to break her heart.

So I lied, telling her I was moving out of the country and probably wouldn't be back for a very long time. We said our goodbyes over the phone.

She bawled her eyes out, constantly cursing me out for abandoning her.

I sat there listening to her rant with a smile plastered on my face, while silent tears finally broke free, sliding down my cheeks. I'm sorry, Kendall.

Forgive me for checking out like this. Chapter 6 My body deteriorated at a terrifying speed. I couldn't keep a single piece of solid food down.

Even a sip of cold water triggered violent dry heaves. The agonizing cramps mutated into a twentyfourhour endless torture session.

I withered away until I was nothing but a fragile skeleton trapped under bruised skin. I didn't even have the strength to push myself off the mattress.

Mom finally lost her patience after I hadn't stepped out of my room for days.

She shoved the door open, ready to yell, but froze the second her eyes landed on my twisted form on the bed. "Daphne, what the hell happened to you?" I didn't have the energy to part my lips.

I just stared up at her through halfopen, blurry eyes. She reached out.

Her palm pressed against my forehead, and she instantly snatched it back like she had touched a lit stove. "Why are you burning up?" she muttered, a rare sliver of actual panic slipping into her voice.

She grabbed a digital thermometer. A hundred and four degrees. It finally clicked in her head that something was seriously wrong.

She dug out some heavy fever reducers and forced them down my throat. "Just sleep it off. You'll sweat it out." She dropped that single sentence and hurried out the door.

It sounded like she was telling the wealthy housewives from her country club that there was a family emergency and she had to miss today's charity gala prep committee.

I lay paralyzed on the mattress, my brain melting under the severe fever. I thought, deep down, maybe she actually did care about me just a little bit.

Even if that care arrived incredibly late, and was pathetically small. The fever spiked and crashed in waves, boiling the remaining fluids out of my body.

Mom came in every day to force pills and water down my throat, but the expression permanently etched on her face was pure, unfiltered annoyance. "You are such a massive burden.

You're a grown adult, and you still need someone to baby you when you get the sniffles." "Your sister is leaving for her exchange program, and you purposely choose right now to get sick.

Are you doing this on purpose?" I swallowed every word, letting them settle in my chest like a mouthful of cold ash.

The night before Octavia was scheduled to fly out, the house threw another lavish farewell dinner. This time, I couldn't drag my rotting body out of bed to cook for them.

I lay paralyzed in the dark. The muffled sounds of clinking glasses and laughter drifted up through the floorboards.

I felt like I was stranded on an isolated rock, watching the freezing black water slowly rise to swallow me whole.

Dead in the middle of the night, a monstrous cramp ripped my eyes open. The agony was a hundred times worse than anything I had felt before.

Jagged steel blades twisted, shredding my organs into raw meat. I thrashed across the soaked bedsheets. My vision blurred into static. I was dying.

I scraped together the last ounce of adrenaline in my veins. I rolled off the edge of the mattress and hit the hardwood floor with a heavy thud.

I dragged my heavy, numb limbs toward the door. I just needed to knock. I needed to scream for help.

I refused to bleed out in this freezing, suffocating room without making a single sound.

But before my bloody fingernails could even scrape the doorframe, a suffocating blackness crashed down on my vision. Nothingness. I had no idea how long I was blacked out