Ten years ago, I leaked corporate secrets that drove my parents to suicide by jumping off our company's headquarters. Then, I framed my two older brothers—the men who had loved and protected me since childhood—and sent them to prison for ten years to take the fall for my crimes. Every year, I mailed a VHS tape to the penitentiary. The first year, I stood in a palatial mansion, mocking their miserable state in prison, and told them I leaked the secrets on purpose. The second year, I stood in front of our parents' graves, laughing that they got what they deserved for being cowards. The third year, I held up two plane tickets, telling them I had exiled their wives to a slum in a third-world country, where they were living a fate worse than death. Until their ten-year sentence was up, and the tapes abruptly stopped. Three days before their release, a correctional officer suddenly said to Arthur. "When you go home, turn your life around. And try to be a little kinder to your sister. That little girl never stopped thinking about you guys every single year." Arthur’s mouth twitched into a bitter smirk, his eyes dark. "She came every year?" "Yeah. Well, no, that's not right. She's..." The officer’s cell phone rang, and he hurried off. "Gotta take this. Remember, stay out of trouble." 1 Ten years ago, I leaked corporate secrets that drove my parents to suicide by jumping off our company's headquarters. Then, I framed my two older brothers—the men who had loved and protected me since childhood—and sent them to prison for ten years to take the fall for my crimes. Every year, I mailed a VHS tape to the penitentiary. The first year, I stood in a palatial mansion, mocking their miserable state in prison, and told them I leaked the secrets on purpose. The second year, I stood in front of our parents' graves, laughing that they got what they deserved for being cowards. The third year, I held up two plane tickets, telling them I had exiled their wives to a slum in a third-world country, where they were living a fate worse than death. Until their ten-year sentence was up, and the tapes abruptly stopped. Three days before their release, a correctional officer suddenly said to Arthur. "When you go home, turn your life around. And try to be a little kinder to your sister. That little girl never stopped thinking about you guys every single year." Arthur’s mouth twitched into a bitter smirk, his eyes dark. "She came every year?" "Yeah. Well, no, that's not right. She's..." The officer’s cell phone rang, and he hurried off. "Gotta take this. Remember, stay out of trouble." ...... Officer Miller pushed open the door, holding a stack of files. "Inmates 1103 and 1104. Release in three days. Come sign your discharge papers." Arthur Vance and his younger brother, Ethan Vance, stepped forward. With their buzz cuts and prison uniforms, there was no trace left of the wealthy, arrogant Vance heirs they once were. All that remained was the numbness and coldness forged by ten years behind bars. Watching them sign the papers, Officer Miller let out a heavy sigh. "You guys kept your heads down in here. Build a good life on the outside. Your family is still waiting for you." Arthur's hand paused, the pen leaving a dark inkblot on the paper. His lips curled into a sarcastic, bitter smile. "Family..." "Heh." Ethan squeezed his eyes shut, forcing down a wave of dark, complex emotions. If you looked closely, the corners of his eyes were rimmed with red. Officer Miller had worked at the penitentiary for a decade. He had watched them go from defiant rich kids to men beaten into submission by other inmates. It was tragic. "By the way, you guys have a sister, right? She..." "Don't mention her." Arthur’s voice was hoarse and cold. "She is not my sister. She is my enemy." Officer Miller looked surprised, but didn't push the subject. Meanwhile. I, the "enemy," was floating right beside them. Watching their absolute disgust for me, my heart ached with profound loneliness. This year marks the tenth year since my death. It is also the tenth year I have spent accompanying my brothers in prison as a ghost. Even though my heart shatters every time. I do not regret the path I chose. As long as they are safe. During rec time, Ethan looked over at his older brother. "When we get out, do we go after the Caldwell Corporation first? Do we try to find the wives, or do we..." He hesitated, his voice dry. "Do we find our sister, and ask her exactly why she betrayed us?" Arthur remained silent. His knuckles were white as his fingers dug into his palms, the only sign of his boiling rage. "We do it all. As for Chloe... remember this, Ethan. She is not a Vance. And she is certainly not our sister!" My spectral body stiffened, a wave of sorrow washing over me. Even after all these years, facing their hatred still hurt more than I could bear. Arthur pulled a stack of VHS tapes from under his mattress. His eyes were filled with pure venom. But buried deep beneath the venom was the devastating pain of betrayal. "We've watched these a thousand times. Ethan, never forget what Chloe did to us!" Ethan’s eyes darkened. He remembered when they were first locked up. He spent every day screaming his innocence, begging for someone to listen. But in prison, no one cares. Until I sent the first tape. Back then, they thought it was a message of love or longing. But when they played it, they watched me confess, with my own mouth, to leaking the corporate secrets and driving our parents to their deaths! Ethan pulled up his sleeve, exposing his wrist. The skin was covered in dense, jagged scars—the physical proof of his agony from those early years. "I remember. I remember every single detail..." I crouched beside him, my ghostly fingers trembling. I wanted to trace those scars, but my fingers passed right through his arm, leaving no sensation behind. "I'm sorry..." I whispered, my ghostly eyes welling with tears. "But I don't regret it." Three days later, they were released. They rented a cheap apartment. Coincidentally, their neighbor was Officer Miller, the same guard who had delivered my tapes to them in prison. "You guys look good. Spirits seem high," Officer Miller said, clapping them on the back. "If you need anything, just let me know." Then, he remembered something. "Oh, right. Your sister left one last tape with me." He handed a plastic case over to them. "She asked me to give this to you a month after your release. But since you're already out, it doesn't make sense for me to hold onto it." Arthur stared at the tape. For two agonizing seconds, he didn't reach for it. Ethan pressed his lips together, his expression conflicted. "Throw it in the trash, Miller. Thanks for everything over the years, but we don't want any of Chloe's garbage." Officer Miller sighed. "Alright. Are you sure you don't want to watch it? There's a sticky note on the front." He paused. "It just says, 'The Truth'." 2 Arthur's footsteps faltered. A mocking laugh escaped his lips. "The truth? Every single tape she sent over the years had those exact words written on it." "And what was the result?" He closed his eyes, violently suppressing the ache in his chest. "The result was always her bragging about how successfully she destroyed the Vance family!" Ethan took the tape from the officer and threw it directly into the hallway trash can. "We don't need to watch it. We cut ties with her a long time ago." I clenched my fists so tightly my spectral nails dug into my palms. But I couldn't feel the physical pain. The true agony was the invisible bruise on my heart. I wanted to scream: Arthur, Ethan, everything on this final tape is the absolute truth. I desperately wanted them to watch it, yet simultaneously terrified of them finding out. That's why I wrote those two words on every single tape. Rather than all of us suffering, it was better for me to bear the burden alone. Officer Miller looked taken aback. "Are you sure? When I met that young girl, she didn't strike me as the kind of monster you describe." Arthur scoffed coldly. "Before she drove our parents to suicide, bankrupted the company, and framed us for her crimes... I didn't know she was a monster either!" Hearing that, fresh tears stung my eyes. Seeing Arthur getting worked up, Officer Miller didn't press the issue. "Alright. But I should tell you... she gave me all ten tapes at the exact same time." "So, the last time I saw her was actually ten years ago." Arthur and Ethan exchanged a sharp look. A sudden, inexplicable jolt of panic seized their chests, but it passed too quickly for them to process it. They masked it with cold sarcasm. "She's probably living like a queen somewhere. Why would she ever bother coming back to a dump like this?" "She's sick in the head. Disappearing completely, but making sure to leave enough tapes to torture us every single year!" Arthur turned and walked into the apartment, slamming the door. Ethan followed, but when no one was looking, he quickly fished the tape out of the trash can and shoved it into his jacket. I watched him do it, a tiny spark of hope igniting in my chest. Maybe Ethan didn't hate me as completely as he claimed? That evening. Officer Miller invited Arthur and Ethan over to his apartment for dinner. After a few beers. The three men started talking more freely. "You guys shouldn't be so stubborn. I only met your sister once, but I trust my gut when it comes to reading people," Officer Miller said, reminiscing about the day we met. Arthur and Ethan had just been processed into the facility. That was the day he met me—pale, stumbling, crying so hard my eyes were swollen shut. He took a sip of his beer. "You have no idea. That girl cried so loud the entire cell block could hear her. It broke my heart, and I'm a hardened guard." Arthur and Ethan sat in silence, gripping their beer bottles so tightly their knuckles were white. "What right did she have to be sad? Everything that happened was her own doing!" Arthur violently smashed his beer bottle against the floor. It shattered right by my spectral feet. "I'm sorry." I whispered, but my ghostly apologies could not cross the barrier into the world of the living. Officer Miller shook his head, slurring slightly from the alcohol. "No, listen to me. When that girl came in and handed me those ten tapes... I saw that she was missing a finger!" "And her wrists were completely covered in brutal, dark bruises." I raised my right hand, looking down at my missing finger, and offered a bitter, tragic smile. In my mind, a memory flashed: my parents and my brothers gathered around me, watching me play the piano in our old living room. All of it had been ground to dust by the horrors that followed. Ethan froze completely. "What did you just say?" He shot up from his chair, the alcohol instantly burning off. Then, a harsh, cynical sneer twisted his face. "You must have confused her with someone else. Chloe is incredibly selfish. She would never let herself suffer like that!" "She's probably sipping champagne in a mansion right now!" He spoke aggressively, but his arms were shaking. He was desperately trying to suppress the boiling hatred, and the tiny, undeniable trace of grief he refused to acknowledge. Arthur's eyes were red. "Miller, you can't judge a book by its cover. No one knows what kind of psycho she is better than I do!" Officer Miller was already half-asleep on the sofa, thoroughly drunk. But he kept mumbling to himself. "No... that's not right. I heard that girl say something... She said she put you guys in prison to..." "To what... I can't remember." Surrounded by a suffocating darkness, Arthur and Ethan threw a blanket over the sleeping officer and left the apartment. As the front door clicked shut, the man on the sofa suddenly mumbled in his sleep. "That's right... she said she did it to protect you..." 3 Early the next morning. Arthur and Ethan drove to the cemetery to visit our parents' graves. "Mom, Dad. Ethan and I are finally here." Arthur placed a bouquet of flowers on the grass and gently wiped the dirt off their faded photographs. His voice was hoarse and thick with tears. "I'm sorry it took ten years. You must have been waiting a long time. I know what you want to ask. You want to ask where Chloe is, right?" Ethan took over. "Chloe is doing great. Don't worry about her. She got married and started her own family." Arthur remained silent, offering no correction. I looked up, stunned, my nose burning with unshed tears. Even after everything, they still preserved my dignity in front of our parents. Ethan crouched down, buried his face in his arms like a little boy, and sobbed uncontrollably. After returning from the cemetery, they ran into Officer Miller in the hallway. "Hey, Miller," Ethan said. "We're flying out of the country the day after tomorrow. We're going to pick some people up." "Pick who up?" They hesitated for a second. "Our wives." Officer Miller nodded, then remembered something. "Oh, by the way. I was just outside, and I noticed someone acting super shady, following you guys. Do you know him?" The brothers' eyes went wide. They looked toward the end of the hall. Just in time to see the edge of a black jacket disappearing around the corner. "Stop right there!" Arthur roared. The grueling physical labor of ten years in prison kicked in. He sprinted down the hall, tackled the man in black, and pinned him to the floor in seconds. Ethan and Officer Miller ran over. When I saw the man pinned to the ground, my spectral pupils contracted violently. It was him! "Let me go!" the man thrashed, his face turning red. Officer Miller stared at him for two seconds. He looked incredibly familiar. Before he could place the face, a police cruiser pulled up to the curb outside. Two officers ran in. "Thank you so much! This guy is a fugitive. He's got multiple homicides on his record. We've been hunting him for a while. We owe you one!" As the police cruiser drove away, a memory suddenly clicked in Officer Miller's brain. "I remember now. I know where I've seen him." Under the confused stares of the brothers, Miller's expression turned grave. "Ten years ago, when Chloe came to drop off the tapes... she arrived in his car!" Arthur stopped dead in his tracks. A violent storm raged in his eyes. "I knew it! Chloe was involved with violent criminals even back then!" "I wonder what they promised her to make her betray us and drive our parents to suicide. What an absolute monster!" Ethan took a deep breath, forcing down the rage burning in his chest. "So why was he following us? Did Chloe find out we were released and send him? Is she still not satisfied?!" "Does she want to kill us the same way she killed Mom and Dad?!" Furious, he kicked a metal trash can against the wall. I didn't know if he was angry about being stalked, or angry about being betrayed over and over again by the sister he loved. "Chloe! Are you ever going to stop?!" No! I stood next to them, completely panicked, waving my hands frantically. I don't know why he's here either! But my explanations were utterly useless. Then, Officer Miller, who had been quiet, muttered thoughtfully. "No, I don't think so. Back then, Chloe didn't look like she was 'involved' with him." "It looked more like..." He paused, looking at the two brothers' bloodshot eyes before finishing his sentence. "...like she was being held hostage." I shivered violently, looking up at him in shock. How did he know? "Hostage?" Arthur and Ethan locked eyes. Both saw the shock and doubt reflecting back at them. A fleeting sense of dread brushed against their hearts, but it moved too fast for them to grasp. "You must have misread the situation!" Arthur instinctively denied it, for reasons he didn't fully understand. "In those tapes, Chloe was living the high life! A hostage? Don't make me laugh!" Officer Miller didn't push it. He wasn't entirely sure his gut feeling was right anyway. Ethan frowned. "Miller, do you have Chloe's contact info?" Miller shook his head. "No. I only met her that one time ten years ago. After she handed me the tapes, I never saw her again." He thought for a moment, then suggested hesitantly: "That tenth tape... maybe you guys should watch it. I have this feeling there's something we don't know hidden in there." Arthur rejected the idea without a second thought. "Ethan, why are you even looking for that monster? Are you going to ask her why she betrayed the family?" "Don't be an idiot. Someone with a heart that poisonous doesn't even know what the word 'guilt' means!" "As for that tape, I threw it in the trash. It's gone, and we don't need to see it." Ethan lowered his eyes and pressed his lips together. He didn't mention that he had secretly fished the tape out of the trash. Just then, Miller's wife came running down the stairs, panting heavily. She pointed frantically at Arthur and Ethan. "You guys need to get back to your apartment right now! The landlord's little grandson snuck in and started messing with the metal lockbox you guys have! He put a tape in the VCR and hit play!" Ethan's heart stopped. The lockbox! He had hidden the tape inside his personal lockbox! The two brothers sprinted back to their apartment. Just in time to see the mischievous kid pressing the 'Play' button. A familiar figure appeared on the old CRT television screen. "Arthur, Ethan... by the time you see this..." 4 Before the girl in the video could finish her sentence, Arthur charged forward with a thunderous expression and violently ripped the VHS tape out of the VCR. My voice was abruptly cut off. The only sound left in the room was the harsh, static hiss of the television. Everyone's eyes dropped to the tape in Arthur’s hand. This was the tenth tape. The only tape out of the ten that they had never watched. If Arthur had been just a few seconds slower, they would have heard what I was about to say. I instinctively threw myself in front of Arthur. "Arthur, please, I'm begging you. Just listen to me this one time." But my ghostly fingers passed right through his wrist. No matter how hard I begged, I couldn't stop him from pulling the tape entirely out of the machine. "Get out!" Arthur roared at the kid. The little boy, terrified by his explosive anger, burst into tears and ran out of the apartment. The door slammed shut behind him. Ethan looked at the tape in Arthur's hand, looking incredibly guilty. "Arthur, I..." Arthur spun around and hurled the tape directly at Ethan's chest. "Ethan, why the hell did you dig her garbage out of the trash?!" "Are you a glutton for punishment?! She murdered Mom and Dad, she ruined our lives, and you still can't let her go, can you?!" The tape bounced off Ethan's chest and hit the floor. The side with the sticky note that read "The Truth" landed face-up, glaringly obvious to everyone in the room. Ethan kept his head down and didn't answer. It wasn't that he didn't hate me. On the contrary, for the last ten years, he had hated me with every fiber of his being. But because he had hated me for so long, he desperately needed to know what my final message to them was. Was it just another victory lap? Was it a final, parting shot of salt in their wounds right as they were released? His lips moved, but in the end, he didn't suggest playing the tape again. Arthur seemed to read his mind, his face growing even darker. "What, you still want to hear what she has to say?" Ethan pressed his lips into a tight line. "I don't." "Good." Arthur picked up the tape from the floor and glared coldly at the sticky note. In the next second, he ripped the note off, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it in the trash. "What 'truth'? It's just more of her sick mind games." "Hasn't she lied to us enough over the years?" The crumpled ball of paper sat at the bottom of the trash can. But Arthur still gripped the tape tightly in his hand. Watching the tense standoff between the brothers, Officer Miller couldn't help but intervene. "If you're so sure there's no truth in it, why not just watch it and get it over with?" Arthur's eyes turned lethal. "And let her humiliate us one last time?" "I wouldn't exactly call what she was saying 'humiliating'," Miller reasoned quietly. "Miller!" Arthur's voice cracked like a whip. Ten years in prison had left his nerves frayed and hyper-sensitive. Especially when it came to me, his fragile self-control would shatter instantly. "Every single year, she sends a tape just to remind us that she destroyed the Vance empire! That she drove our parents to jump off that roof! And that she is the reason we lost everything!" By the end of his rant, Arthur's voice was hoarse and broken. He glared at the tape in his hand, his eyes burning with undisguised loathing. Officer Miller stayed quiet for a moment, staring at the plastic casing. "But you watched the first nine." "This is the only one you haven't seen." "How can you be so sure the content is the same as the others?" Arthur’s grip on the tape tightened convulsively. Ethan's head instinctively snapped up. I stood between them, barely daring to breathe. See? If you just watch it, you'll know. But the next second, Arthur let out a cold laugh, brutally crushing the tiny sliver of doubt that had just formed. "Because she filmed it." "As long as it's something left behind by Chloe Vance, nothing good will ever come of it." He tossed the tape carelessly onto the kitchen counter. Officer Miller looked at the two brothers' rigid expressions and let out a heavy sigh. It's always impossible to judge another family's trauma. He walked over and patted Arthur on the shoulder. "Arthur, I'm going to trust my gut on this one." "If that girl, Chloe, is truly as monstrous as you say, and if her absolute devastation that day in the prison lobby was an act... then she deserves an Oscar." "You don't understand... that day, that little girl literally coughed up blood from crying so hard." Both brothers completely froze. A flash of shock and sheer panic crossed their eyes. My spectral eyes fluttered. That day, I had traded my life for one last chance to look at them. I had no regrets. 5 Arthur's jaw clenched tight as he violently forced down the panic welling up in his chest. For a moment, the room was consumed by a suffocating silence. After a long pause, Arthur looked up at Officer Miller. "You still think Chloe is a good person, don't you?" He let out a dry, humorless chuckle, ignoring the dull ache in his heart. "I don't blame you for being fooled by her. We were fooled by her for twenty years." As he spoke, he walked into his bedroom and brought out the other nine VHS tapes. "Watch them. Once you're done, you'll see exactly what kind of sociopath Chloe really is." "Arthur..." Ethan murmured softly. "It doesn't matter. We're flying out tomorrow. We're never coming back here, so none of this means anything anymore." Officer Miller sat up straight, his eyes locked unblinking on the television screen. Click. The first tape began playing. "Arthur, Ethan. Are you guys suffering in prison right now? Let me tell you a secret: I was the one who leaked the corporate data to the Caldwells. Don't bother asking me why, because I despise you both! I hate you! Living in the Vance family made me feel like an idiot!" Officer Miller's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. Arthur smirked, a smile that looked agonizingly painful. "You know what state Ethan and I were in when we first got locked up. Mom and Dad were dead. We didn't want to live." "It was her pure, unadulterated malice that gave me the will to survive, just so I could get out and kill her." The second tape played. "I shipped your wives off to a slum in South America. I wonder if they'll even survive the year. When you guys finally get out, you'll have absolutely no one left. Don't even try to look for me, because I guarantee I'll be living a much happier life than you ever will." Arthur closed his eyes, his grip on the remote control tight enough to crack the plastic. "Do you see it now? The 'kind-hearted' Chloe you remember couldn't even spare two innocent women." "I can't even stomach imagining what kind of hell they've been living in all these years!" Ethan kept his head bowed, his hands balled into tight fists. He was desperately trying to suppress the hatred, and the tiny, unwanted sliver of grief that still clung to him. "Miller, stop trying to defend her. She's not worth it." "But..." Miller hesitated. "I just... I still believe what I saw." I crouched in the corner, sobbing uncontrollably. It's not true... I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry... But I didn't know what else to do. All I could do was let the bitter sorrow tear through my chest. Right then, the landlord's mischievous grandson ran back into the apartment. Before anyone could react, he slammed his hand down on the VCR's 'Play' button for the tenth tape, flashing a rebellious grin. "Stop it!" Arthur roared, lunging forward to turn the machine off. But then, a weak, trembling sigh echoed from the television speakers. "Arthur, Ethan... if you're watching this, go to Arlington Cemetery. Plot 19." All three men froze instantly, their eyes snapping to the screen. The girl in the video offered a small, bitterly sad smile. "That is where... you'll find my headstone." 6 The shouting in the apartment died instantly, replaced by a hollow, terrifying silence. The men stared at the screen, shocked and unsettled. The girl in the video was deathly pale. She was sitting in a hospital bed. Behind her wasn't a sprawling luxury mansion. It was a wall of clinical life-support monitors. Arthur stumbled backward, nearly falling over. A wave of inexplicable, suffocating dread threatened to swallow him whole. Ethan's eyes lost their focus, staring blankly at the TV. "What does she mean?" "What does she mean... her headstone?" His voice was shaking violently. He looked at Officer Miller with desperate, pleading eyes. "Miller, do you understand what she's saying?" The officer remained silent for a moment. "Keep watching. You need to find the truth for yourselves." Suddenly, Arthur stood up, his face dark with fury, and forcefully ejected the tape from the VCR. The television screen went black to static. "Arthur?" Ethan looked at him, eyes rimmed with red, completely confused. Arthur turned to face them. His eyes were filled with hatred, mockery, and a deep-seated panic he refused to acknowledge. "What are you looking at?!" His tone was aggressive, as if he were using anger to mask the tremor in his voice. "Don't be so naive! You really think she's dropping some massive truth bomb? Heh! I'll tell you the truth: she betrayed us!" "And now she's living it up somewhere on a beach!" "Chloe is the most selfish person on the planet. Do you honestly think she's dead?!" Following his outburst, the room fell silent once again. It was so quiet that the faint creak of Arthur's knuckles as he gripped the tape behind his back was clearly audible. Officer Miller and his wife exchanged a look, deciding not to push the issue further. The world isn't just black and white. The bonds of family and love are the most complicated mazes of all. You can't escape them, and you can't fight them. Especially blood ties. I stood off to the side, quietly watching it all unfold. A cold draft blew past the window. Even as a ghost, I felt freezing. So cold I wanted to cry. After a long time, Ethan finally stood up. He reached out and took the tape from Arthur. "Forget it. It's been ten years. What's done is done." He glanced over his shoulder. "Miller, thanks for taking care of us these last few days. Arthur and I are leaving tomorrow, and we're not coming back." Miller nodded, sighing helplessly. "Alright. Safe travels, guys." After Miller left. The two brothers sat on the sofa in complete silence for hours. Unlit cigarettes dangled from their lips. They just let the cigarettes burn down, the ash falling onto their fingers. "Arthur, let's pack our bags," Ethan said, his voice raspy. "Don't bring the tapes. They're just going to make us miserable." Arthur thought about it for a long time, then nodded slowly. "Yeah."
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