On the seventh day of our kidnapping, the captor made my sister and me draw from a blind box. Draw a red ball, you live. Draw a black ball, you die. My sister pulled a black ball and broke down sobbing. Without a moment's hesitation, I told the kidnapper, "I'll trade with her." Eventually, our parents paid the ransom, and we both made it back alive. From that day on, I became the golden child of the family. My mom would always say, "Chloe was willing to die for her sister. We owe her a debt we can never repay in this lifetime." They gave me the best room, sent me to the best private school, and even let me manage the family's finances. Meanwhile, my sister was expected to defer to me at every turn. I always got the first pick of everything. Over the past three years, the look in my sister's eyes grew colder and colder. Until yesterday, when my parents bought those blind-box style New Year's gifts. My mom casually told me to pick first. Suddenly, my sister smiled. She pulled out her phone and played an audio recording from the kidnapping three years ago. The kidnapper's voice echoed: "So, who's it going to be? Does she die, or do you?" The recording played my voice: "Let her die. If she dies, all the family's money will be mine." "It's her own bad luck that she drew the black ball. It's not my fault." Upon hearing this, my mom slapped me hard across the face. My dad grabbed me by the hair and dragged me down to the basement: "Three years! We've spent three years raising a pathological, evil liar!" The basement door slammed shut behind me. In the darkness, I finally laughed out loud. The recording was real. But I was out of time to explain the truth. Because I could already smell it filling the basement. Gas. ... Through the heavy solid wood door, I could hear my mother's muffled sobs in the living room, and my sister's fragile, comforting voice: "Don't cry, Mom. Chloe probably just had a moment of confusion... I don't blame her, really. As long as she admits she was wrong, I'll still let her have the best of everything." "Should we let her out? It's dark in the basement, she'll be scared." Immediately following was my dad's furious roar: "Scared?! A heartless monster like her knows what it means to be scared?!" "Mia, stop pleading for her. We treated her like a princess for three years, and we ended up raising an animal who wished her own sister dead!" "Let her stay locked in there! When she finally figures out what she did wrong, then we'll let her out!" Their footsteps faded away. In that moment, the blood in my veins turned to ice. Not just because of the basement's damp chill, but because they didn't even give me a chance to explain. I slid down the door panel and sat on the floor. The basement was crammed with junk, the air stale and suffocating. This space used to be for storing old furniture. There were no windows, and the only ventilation vent in the corner was mostly blocked by unknown debris. A while back, we had contractors in to fix the gas lines. To save time, they left a capped-off spare valve down here. I sniffed the air. A faint smell of rotten eggs permeated the room. The smell was coming from behind an old cabinet. It must have been when my dad dragged me in; I accidentally knocked over a shelf back there, damaging the valve or the pipe. Normally, I would scream immediately and tell them to shut off the main valve. But right now, I didn't want to scream. That slap had hit me so hard my left ear was still ringing. That recording was from three years ago. It was also in an enclosed space, also reeking of death. I curled into a tight ball, hugging my knees. The smell of gas was growing stronger. My consciousness was starting to blur. I thought back to those seven days we were kidnapped. That dark, damp, abandoned warehouse. I thought of the kidnapper in the mask, casually spinning that black handgun in his hand. It was just as cold that day. I began hallucinating, seeing little red and black dots floating before my eyes. The colors of the blind box. Red for life, black for death. The truth is, I never told anyone, but I was terrified that day. I was only twelve. I wanted to live, too. But I wanted my sister to live even more. Before my mind slipped completely into darkness, a bitter smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. Dad, Mom, Mia. I'm done fighting this time. The family's money, the best room, the best school. I don't want any of it anymore. You only need one perfect, obedient daughter, and Mia is enough. And finally, I don't have to carry the crushing weight of this three-year 'debt of gratitude' anymore. My breathing stopped. This time, there was no blind box to draw from. I chose black for myself. Chapter 2 My body felt light. I floated in mid-air, looking down at the body curled up behind the door. Her face was cyanotic, white foam crusted at the corners of her mouth, but her eyes were still half-open, staring fixedly at the crack under the door. It looked so ugly. If my mom saw it, she'd definitely frown in disgust and say I lacked the poise of a proper young lady. My vision passed through the floorboards, and I saw the scene in the living room above. The room was brightly lit, the heat cranked up high. On the dining table sat the half-eaten, blind-box style New Year's gifts, beautifully wrapped. My sister, Mia, sat on the sofa, holding a mug of warm milk. Her eyes were red, but behind the mug, the corners of her lips were curling slightly upward. My parents sat on either side of her, gingerly comforting her. "Mia, don't be afraid. Dad's here." My dad peeled a mandarin orange and handed it to her: "That ungrateful wretch will never be able to bully you again." My mom gently wiped Mia's face with a warm washcloth, her voice soft as water: "We were blind, mistaking a fish eye for a pearl. We let you suffer so much these past three years." Mia put down the milk, blinking her innocent, wide eyes: "I didn't suffer. As long as Chloe can change for the better, I don't mind taking a little mistreatment." "Actually, I wanted to delete that recording a long time ago. But I was afraid Chloe would make mistakes again, so I kept it to remind her... I didn't expect it to make you both so sad." What an incredibly understanding daughter. Floating near the ceiling, watching this heartwarming family scene, I felt absolutely nothing. That recording was real. But I wasn't the one who said it. Three years ago, in the abandoned warehouse. The kidnapper placed two boxes on the table. "Let's play a game. I have two boxes here. One has a red ball, one has a black ball." "Whoever draws the red ball walks. Whoever draws the black ball stays and eats a bullet." Mia rushed forward eagerly: "I want to draw first! Chloe, you'll let me go first, right?" I nodded. With trembling hands, she opened a box. Inside lay a black ball. Mia broke down crying instantly, screaming as she threw the ball at me: "I don't want to die! I don't want to die! You're the older sister, you're supposed to let me have the good stuff!" "You die instead, okay?! Please, Chloe!" The kidnapper raised his gun, pointing the dark muzzle right between Mia's eyes. Terrified, Mia wet herself. She hid behind me, pushing me forward, and screamed: "She has the black ball! Look at her!" "Let her die! If she dies, all the family's money will be mine!" "It's her own bad luck that she drew the black ball. It's not my fault!" I looked at my sister, who had peed her pants in terror, and only one thought crossed my mind: I am the older sister. I have to protect her. "I'll trade with her." I said. The kidnapper looked at me with amused interest: "Why trade? She literally just said she wants you dead." "Because she's my sister. An older sister is supposed to protect her younger sister, isn't she?" The kidnapper froze for a second, then lowered his gun, giving me a deeply meaningful look. Later, when the kidnapper was caught, he told the police that I was the one who saved my sister. But now, she sat in a warm living room, soaking up my parents' love. While the person who truly saved the entire family lay on the freezing concrete floor of the basement, her body slowly growing stiff. Chapter 3 Early the next morning. Sunlight filtered through the gap in the curtains, illuminating the living room. My mom woke up very early and was busy in the kitchen. A pot of pork and century egg congee was simmering on the stove, the savory aroma filling the house. That used to be my favorite breakfast. Because I had a weak stomach, my mom used to make me a bowl every single morning. She scooped a bowl out and set it on the table, habitually glancing toward the basement. "She's been starving all night. She should know she was wrong by now." She picked up the bowl and walked to the basement door. I stood right beside her, watching her raise her hand to knock. "Chloe, breakfast is ready." No response. My mom frowned, raising her voice: "Stop playing dead. Don't tell me you aren't starving." "Your dad and I are still angry about yesterday. You better be smart, come out here, and apologize to your sister." The basement remained deathly silent. Except for a faint, strange odor leaking out from under the door gap. Just as my mom wrinkled her nose, about to open the door, a sharp cry came from Mia upstairs. "Ah!" My mom's face changed. She slammed the bowl down on the floor, the scalding congee splashing everywhere. "Mia! What's wrong?" She spun around and sprinted upstairs, completely forgetting about her "unrepentant" eldest daughter in the basement. I floated up the stairs behind her. Mia was sitting on the edge of her bed, clutching her ankle, her eyes welling with tears: "Mom, I twisted my ankle getting out of bed." My mom was heartbroken. She immediately crouched down to examine it: "Why weren't you more careful? Does it hurt? Mom will rub it for you." Mia sniffled, looking pitiful: "I had a nightmare. I dreamt Chloe was stabbing me with a knife... I was so scared, I tried to run, and I fell." My mom's hands stopped moving. The pity in her eyes instantly morphed into pure disgust for me: "That little monster. She won't even leave you alone in your dreams." My dad had been woken up by the commotion. He walked in, pulling on a robe: "What's going on?" My mom angrily recounted Mia's nightmare. My dad's face turned livid: "I told you we shouldn't let her off easy! We lock her up for one night and she's already terrifying you like this. What will she do next?" "Just leave her in there! Starve her for three days! Let's see if she still has the energy to hurt anyone!" Mia nestled into my dad's chest, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk playing on her lips: "But... what if something happens to Chloe? It's so cold down there." My dad scoffed coldly: "If she freezes to death, she deserves it! She brought it on herself!" I wanted to lunge forward and rip Mia's mouth open. I wanted to scream at my parents that I was already dead. But I couldn't do a single thing. I could only watch helplessly as the three of them happily headed to the hospital to check on an ankle injury that didn't even exist. Before leaving, my dad walked past the basement door. The congee on the floor had gone completely cold, congealing into a disgusting, gelatinous lump. He kicked the bowl in disgust: "Waste of food." He stopped, seemingly catching a whiff of something. "What is that smell?" He sniffed the air, looking confusedly at the basement door. In that split second, my heart leapt into my throat. Find me. Please, find me. Even if it's just to drag my body out and throw it away. My dad reached for the doorknob. Just as his fingertips were about to brush the metal, a car horn honked from outside. My mom was yelling: "Honey, hurry up! Mia's ankle is swelling!" My dad pulled his hand back, shooting a look of pure revulsion at the door: "That damn girl is definitely shitting on the floor just to spite us. I'm going to deal with you when I get back!" He turned and strode away. The front door slammed shut with a heavy thud. Chapter 4 The evening of the third day. The smell in the house was impossible to ignore anymore. At the dinner table, my mom had just set down a plate of braised short ribs when she caught a whiff of the odor and suddenly gagged. "What on earth is that smell?! It's disgusting!" She covered her chest, looking sick. My dad slammed his chopsticks down onto the table with a sharp smack. "What else could it be? It has to be that little bastard, Chloe!" "I smelled it two days ago! She's literally defecating on the basement floor as a form of protest!" Mia was just picking up a rib. Hearing this, the rib dropped back onto her plate. She put on a perfectly horrified expression: "How could Chloe do something like that... It's true there's no bathroom down there, but if she just knocked, we would have let her out." "Does she hate us so much that she's intentionally making the house smell this bad so we can't even eat?" My mom's fury ignited instantly. She abruptly stood up, her chair screeching harshly against the hardwood floor. "That's it! She's pushing her luck!" "We've spent the last three days waiting on Mia hand and foot, and instead of reflecting on what she did, she's finding new ways to torture us from down there?!" "You know what? Mrs. Miller from next door saw me today and asked if a sewer pipe had burst, saying our house smelled like a dead rat!" "I have never been so humiliated in my life!" My dad stood up too, a muscle in his jaw twitching with rage. "Let's go! We're going down there!" "If I don't break her legs today, my name isn't Robert!" They marched aggressively toward the basement. Mia followed closely behind, holding her phone, seemingly ready to record my pathetic, begging form. "Mom, Dad, don't hit her. Just try talking to her..." She was pleading with them verbally, but she didn't slow her pace one bit. As they reached the basement door, the stench was overwhelmingly suffocating. My mom covered her nose and mouth in disgust: "Chloe! Get your ass out here! Clean up this mess right now!" "Look at what you've done! Are you an adult or an animal? Do you have no shame?" Dead silence from behind the door. My dad's patience snapped. "Stop wasting your breath on her!" He raised his foot and violently kicked the door lock. Chapter 5 One kick. Two kicks. CRASH! The heavy, solid wood door burst open, slamming against the wall and bouncing back slightly. A visible cloud of grayish-yellow gas, thick with a putrid stench, washed over them instantly. My mom was hit so hard by the smell she stumbled backward, bracing herself against the wall and gagging violently. Mia covered her nose and shrieked: "It smells so bad! What the hell did Chloe do in here?!" My dad held his breath, blindly feeling for the light switch by the door. Click. The light flickered on. The harsh, pale fluorescent bulb buzzed twice before illuminating the dim basement. The tirade my dad was about to unleash died instantly in his throat. His eyes widened drastically, as if he had just witnessed the most horrifying scene imaginable. My mom, catching her breath, looked up and started scolding: "Stop playing games..." But as her gaze moved past my dad's shoulder and landed on the center of the basement, every sound abruptly ceased. Mia's hand, holding up her phone, froze in mid-air. The screen's glow illuminated her deathly pale face. My dad's legs gave out entirely, and he collapsed onto the floor, pointing a trembling finger forward. In the direction he was pointing. Amidst the chaotic pile of old furniture. I lay there, completely still. My body curled into a tiny, tight ball. My exposed skin was a horrifying shade of cyan-purple, mottled with dark red livor mortis. The white foam that had once bubbled at my mouth was now dried and crusted on my cheek, looking grotesque and absurd. I hovered in mid-air, watching them with absolute detachment. Watching my dad completely paralyzed on the floor. He tried to crawl forward, but his limbs refused to obey. He could only drag himself across the dusty concrete. My mom finally snapped out of her stupor. She rushed toward me like a madwoman, completely ignoring the filth on the floor and the nauseating stench. "Chloe... Chloe, what's wrong with you?" She reached out to shake my shoulder. The moment she touched me, she yanked her hand back as if she'd been electrocuted. Hard. Cold. It was the unmistakable feel of a corpse, like a slab of frozen pork straight out of a freezer. My mom froze. She looked at her hand, then down at my lifeless body. Suddenly, she let out a forced laugh. "You're a good actor, kid." "Stop pretending, okay? Mom isn't angry anymore. Get up, the floor is cold." She reached out again, this time to touch my cheek. That same icy, rigid sensation greeted her fingers. She slapped my cheek firmly, her voice beginning to tremble: "Chloe, stop trying to scare me." "It's not funny, it's not funny at all! Open your eyes and look at me!" No response. Those half-open eyes continued to stare blankly ahead. My pupils had dilated and were now clouded with a hazy, gray film. Mia, cowering by the doorframe, stumbled backward in terror. Her phone slipped from her hand, the screen cracking against the concrete. "Is... is she dead?" My mom whipped her head around, glaring at Mia with feral intensity: "Shut up! Your sister isn't dead! She's just sleeping!" "You know she's always been a heavy sleeper!" My mom turned back, frantically trying to scoop me up into her arms. "Come on, let's go sleep in your bed. It smells awful down here. The sewer pipe must have broken and the fumes knocked you out, right?" She grabbed my arm, trying to force it straight. But rigor mortis had set in. My joints were locked tight, rigid as welded iron. Snap. A sickening crack echoed as bone and stiffened muscle were forcibly bent. My mom froze completely. She stared at my arm, bent at a grotesque, unnatural angle, and finally broke. "AHHHHHH!" A blood-curdling scream tore out of her throat, echoing off the basement walls and making the lightbulb overhead tremble. She buried her face against my chest, mottled with livor mortis, and wailed hysterically. "Help! Somebody help! Somebody save my daughter!" My dad finally managed to drag himself over to us. With trembling fingers, he checked for breath under my nose, then felt for a pulse at my neck. Dead silence. He slumped onto his backside and viciously slapped himself across the face. The sharp crack echoed in the cramped space. "Three days..." He muttered to himself, snot and tears smearing across his face. "We were upstairs eating braised short ribs... and she was down here rotting for three days..." "I called her a monster. I said she made the house smell..." He suddenly grabbed my mom by the shoulders and shook her violently, like a man possessed: "Susan, what did we do? What the hell did we do?!" My mom just clung to my corpse and sobbed until she could barely breathe. The stench of death clung to her expensive cashmere sweater and seeped into her hair. But the woman who was notoriously obsessed with cleanliness, who would throw a fit over the slightest unpleasant odor, now held me in a death grip, refusing to let go. "Chloe, Mom was wrong. Mom will buy you a strawberry cake, the biggest one they have..." "Just get up and take one bite, please? I'm begging you. Just get up and yell at me..." I watched them weep and wail, but my heart was surprisingly calm. No thrill of revenge, not even a sliver of emotion. Because I knew that when you're dead, you're dead. No amount of tears can warm up a corpse. No depth of regret can buy back a life. This belated embrace was simply too cold.
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