After I angered my stepbrother, my own sister locked me in the sterilization cabinet. My stepbrother, Denis, was torturing a kitten, holding a lighter to its tail. When I screamed at him to stop, my sister, Joelle, decided I was the one who needed to be punished. She shoved me into the industrial-sized sterilization cabinet in our utility room and chained it shut. “Go in there and wash out that filthy mouth of yours!” she’d snarled. “Is this what they teach you at that fancy school? To be so cruel to your own brother?” The heat inside the cabinet was unbearable. I was being boiled alive. My skin blistered and broke as I screamed and begged for mercy, but all I got was her cold, dismissive voice through the thick metal door. “If you can’t even handle a little discomfort, what makes you think you’re worthy of being my brother?” Then she left. She turned her back on me and went to coddle Denis. I could feel my own flesh cooking, the chemical, fishy smell of the sterilizing agent choking me, filling my lungs. A week later, they returned from their vacation. And they finally remembered me. “Now that he’s had time to cool off, I suppose I can let Finn out.” She didn’t know that my body had already rotted away, fused to the metal walls. I was never getting out. 1 “That little brat hasn’t bothered me for days. Looks like he’s finally learned his lesson,” Joelle mused, her fingers tracing the delicate bracelet Denis had given her. A faint smile played on her lips. “He tried that hunger strike nonsense on me before, threatening to disown me. I just locked him in his room for three days, and he came out crying and begging on his knees.” “For him to be quiet for a whole week…” The bodyguard standing beside her shifted, his voice trembling slightly as he spoke. “Miss Vance… sir… he’s… I think he’s still locked inside.” Joelle’s hand froze. A flicker of unease crossed her features, but it was quickly replaced by her usual mask of indifference. “It’s good for a boy to face a little hardship.” The bodyguard’s face went rigid. After a moment of hesitation, he tried again. “There’s… there’s been no sound from in there for a long time. Maybe you should… open it and check?” Joelle shot him a look as cold as ice. “I said it’s fine!” “He’s just playing games. Trying to manipulate me. The moment I go to check on him, he’ll start his act all over again.” The bodyguard’s words died in his throat. Just then, Denis walked in from the garden. Hearing Joelle, he wrapped his arms around her and leaned his head on her shoulder. “You’re the best sister in the world,” he said, his voice sweet and innocent. Joelle’s expression softened instantly. She smiled and ruffled his curly hair. “You little fool. You’re the only brother I’ll ever need.” Denis looked up at her, his eyes wide and guileless. “I won’t let you protect me forever. I’m going to grow up fast and be the one to protect you.” “Good boy,” she cooed. “I knew you were worth it.” He let out a dramatic sigh. “It’s all my fault. Finn must think I stole your love away from him. That’s why he hates me so much.” Joelle patted his shoulder comfortingly. “He’s just petty and small-minded. It has nothing to do with you.” “It’s been a week, though,” Denis said, his voice laced with false concern. “You should let him out. I’m sure he’s learned his lesson by now.” If I had been alive to hear those words, I would have lunged at Denis, ready to tear his mask away. And then Joelle would have punished me for it. But now, I felt nothing. Because I was already dead. In the final, agonizing moment, as the heat melted the last of my flesh, my soul finally broke free from that steel coffin. I watched as my own body, charred and unrecognizable, remained fused to the interior. The heavy iron chain was still wrapped around the door, secured with a massive padlock. There had been no escape. At first, I had thrown myself against the door, screaming, begging. When that failed, I had curled into a corner, trying to shield myself from the searing UV lamps. But it was a 360-degree sterilizer. There was nowhere to hide. My skin peeled away in sheets. The pain… it was unimaginable. I made one last, desperate attempt, hurling my body against the door with all my remaining strength. That’s when I heard Joelle’s voice, muffled but clear. “Can’t take it anymore?” “Denis was so traumatized by your vicious words that he threw himself into the freezing fountain pool. He has a raging fever, it almost turned into pneumonia.” “Today, I’m going to teach you the lesson our dead parents never could.” I cried. I apologized for things I had never done. I would have said anything to make her let me out. But the heat was relentless. It cooked my flesh until it slid from my bones and sizzled on the hot floor below, turning to a bloody slurry. My arm was already stripped bare, a skeleton’s limb. Just before I lost consciousness, I heard her command to the bodyguard. “Get the chains. Lock it tight.” “No one opens this without my permission. This time, he needs to learn his lesson. For good.” Despair, absolute and final, consumed me. I heard the rattle of the chains as they were wound around my tomb. And I felt the cold grip of death tighten around my throat. 2 “Go unlock the cabinet for Finn,” Joelle ordered coolly. “Tell him if he doesn’t want this to happen again, he’ll come and apologize to Denis properly.” The bodyguard opened his mouth, then closed it again. He simply bowed and left the room. Denis tugged at Joelle’s arm. “Sister, once Finn apologizes, let’s just forget about it. You should be nice to him, so he doesn’t feel left out.” He added, his voice a soft whisper, “If he leaves, you won’t have any family left.” A look of contempt flashed in Joelle’s eyes, but she smoothed it over with a fond pat on Denis’s head. “It would be better if he left. A person with such a vile mouth doesn’t deserve to be my brother.” “If it weren’t for the horrible things he said to you, you wouldn’t have gotten so sick. Denis, you’re just too kind, too soft-hearted. That’s why he’s always bullying you.” A fire of rage burned in her eyes, but it vanished the moment Denis looked at her, as if she were afraid the very heat of her anger might harm him. I thought being dead meant I couldn’t feel pain anymore. But watching this, an old, familiar ache returned, and ghostly tears fell from my eyes. A week ago, for Joelle’s birthday, I had bought her a little orange kitten, a surprise. But I found Denis in the garden, holding a lighter to its tail. He’d looked up at me with a smirk. “Don’t think that just because you found a cat that looks like her old one, you can win her back from me.” I had flown into a rage, shielding the terrified animal and screaming at him. Joelle had walked in at that exact moment. Denis immediately burst into tears and threw himself into the icy fountain in the courtyard. It was the middle of winter. He was wearing a thick, absorbent cotton jacket, and he sank like a stone. When they pulled him out, he was pale and barely breathing. “Sister,” he’d gasped, his voice a faint whisper. “If Finn can’t accept me… if he wants me to die… then I will.” “My only regret is that I won’t get to protect you. You have to take care of yourself, sister. In the next life, I want to be your brother again.” That day, Joelle canceled everything. She carried Denis to the hospital in her arms, not even bothering with an umbrella as the cold rain soaked her to the bone. In the end, Denis was diagnosed with an acute case of the flu. I stood outside the hospital room, watching her clutch his hand, her voice a desperate plea. “Denis, please. Please get better. Don’t leave me all alone…” It was laughable. My own sister, my flesh and blood. A powerful, commanding woman who ran a corporate empire, now acting out a deathbed drama over a common cold with a complete stranger. It was only when she was dragging me by the hair, shoving me into that sterilization cabinet, that I finally understood. In her heart, Denis was her only brother. And I… I was nothing. “How could I have a brother with such a filthy, disgusting mouth?” she’d screamed at me. “Denis almost died! Even when he recovers, he’ll be weak for a long time!” “I’m telling you, Finn, don’t think for a second that just because we share the same blood, you can do whatever you want!” “You’ll stay in there until Denis is better. You’ll stay in there until you learn to be sorry!” And to make sure I learned my “lesson,” she had the bodyguard chain the door shut. And now, only because Denis was in a good mood, she was deigning to let me out. She didn’t know. I was never getting out.
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