I escaped twice after they brought me to Elysium Isle. The first time I was dragged back, that night, a video arrived: my fiancé, torn to a skeletal wreck by a frenzy of piranhas. The second time my escape failed, my brother—the person I’d shared a life with since childhood—was tied to a ship’s mast and pulled apart. Consumed by utter despair, I accepted the binding of the "System." “Earn enough points, and you can resurrect your loved ones.” From that day on, I shed every last shred of my dignity. I submitted to the electroshock collar biting deep into the flesh of my neck, enduring the agony until I was unconscious, over and over again. Until today, when they forcibly extracted yet another embryo. I looked at the points finally accumulated on the screen and felt a strange flicker of joy. My hand was trembling as I reached to press the confirmation button, when laughter suddenly erupted from the corner. “That idiot really thinks she’s bound to a System. She’s actually trying to save up points to bring back her brother and fiancé, you know? Little does she realize Elysium Isle is a fake. The deaths and the System? All a lie.” “Tell me about it. The rich have a knack for training their dogs. All this, the fake deaths, the fake System—I heard Mr. Miller and Mr. Ashford only put on this whole show because she slapped Miss Belle a few years ago and refused to apologize. This was their way of teaching her to finally submit.” “Shh, quiet. Mr. Miller and Mr. Ashford are coming to check on the latest lesson…” I felt like I’d been plunged into an ice bath, a deafening buzz in my ears. The pills I’d swallowed earlier were already kicking in. Before I could even react, blood began to pour uncontrollably from my mouth. As my consciousness faded, the door was suddenly kicked open. “Dee!” I struggled to lift my head and met a pair of familiar eyes, wide with panic. It was my brother, Tristan. The one who was supposed to be dead. The person I had yearned for and dreamt of seeing again for three long years had appeared before me without warning. His eyes were bloodshot with urgency, his voice a strained, panicked roar: “I told you to just scare her! How could you let it get this bad?” He leaned down, carefully lifting me. He deliberately softened his tone. “Don’t be scared, Dee. It’s over. Your brother’s here now.” I stared blankly at his familiar face, and the words I’d just overheard crashed back into my mind. They had been telling the truth. To avenge Isabelle, my brother and my fiancé had truly gone to extraordinary lengths. Exhaustion and utter despair swallowed me whole. I managed a choked, bitter laugh, and a fresh torrent of blood instantly gushed from my mouth. The room erupted into chaos as everyone present was terrified. Tristan, frantic, slammed his fist on a nearby table. “Get a doctor in here! Why are you all just standing there like idiots?” The others exchanged nervous glances. After a moment, one stammered, “Mr. Miller, you forgot.” “Last time Miss Belle had a cold, you moved all your medical teams to her wing.” “You also specifically instructed… that Miss Dee is prone to faking illness for attention, and you didn’t want her interrupting Miss Belle’s recovery. No one can call a medical resource without your personal command.” Tristan froze, his gaze guiltily shifting away from me. After a long silence, he ground out two words through clenched teeth: “…Useless!” In the moment Tristan turned to make the call, several pairs of hands brutally pinned me to the bed. “Hurry! We can’t let her die before the doctor arrives! If Mr. Miller blames us, we’re all finished!” Before the words were out, various syringes aimed at keeping me conscious were jabbed roughly into my skin. Blinding pain exploded. The crude stitches from my most recent injury completely tore open, and my body spasmed violently. At that exact moment, Tristan's hushed, coaxing phone conversation drifted into my ears: “Belle, sweetheart, don’t be angry. Just let me borrow your doctor for your sister, okay? When she wakes up, I promise I’ll make her apologize to you personally.” “Yes, yes. I’ll make your sister kneel and thank you. Whatever our little princess wants.” I bit down on my fingers, a self-mocking smile twisting my lips. So, even my survival now required a plea for Isabelle’s gracious consent. Another needle plunged in. Amidst the torment of the pain, I struggled to turn my head, gathered every ounce of strength, and seized the razor blade tucked near the bedside table. I brought it down hard, without hesitation, across my wrist. Blood splattered the moment Tristan spun back around. His phone crashed to the floor, his pupils constricting into pinpricks. “Dee!!!” The last thing I remember was my brother screaming as he lunged toward me. In the haze of fading consciousness, I had a dream. In the dream, I was a girl cradled by fate. My brother cherished me as a treasure, and my childhood sweetheart, Carter Ashford, never left my side. That was until Isabelle, my father’s illegitimate daughter, walked through the front door. That was when the battle began. For three years, she staged ten or more suicide attempts. Slitting wrists, overdosing on pills, turning on the gas… each time she was “miraculously” found by either Tristan or Carter. But Tristan would merely glance at the spilled bottles of sleeping pills and sneer, “What else can you do besides these low-level pity stunts?” Carter would simply step around Isabelle, who was sobbing on the floor, take my hand, and walk away. “Ignore her. I’ll take you to school.” The genuine disgust in their eyes was so real that I never once doubted the solidity of their devotion to me. So, on the day Carter and I went to sign our marriage license, when Isabelle once again climbed onto the rooftop threatening to jump, Tristan merely watched with cold detachment. Carter frowned dismissively, ready to hang up the phone. No one took her dramatics seriously. This time, however, Isabelle gave a desolate smile and threw herself over the edge. In the video, Tristan’s face twisted in horror. He lunged toward the ledge like a maniac. Carter froze where he stood, the phone still in his hand, his earlier indifference shattering into a million pieces. His face was stark white. That day, I walked out of the City Clerk’s office, clutching the two folders—one red, one green—in a daze. The words of Carter’s friends still echoed in my ears: “Ashford, married for three minutes and already divorced? Taking the Miller princess on a quick field trip to the registrar’s office?” “Didn’t you just say you couldn’t stand Isabelle? Why did your face go ghost-white when she actually jumped?” “You guys don’t get it. Carter’s just playing hard to get. He says he hates her, but deep down, she’s the one he can’t live without!” For once, Carter didn't coldly object. He simply tightened his brow in frustration and muttered, “Shut up.” Then, he walked past me and dialed the number that, I now realized, he had prioritized and saved: “I signed the divorce papers. Now will you be a good girl and let the doctors treat your injuries?” She must have said something, because he sighed, his voice laced with an indulgent helplessness. “Fine. Everything you say… My little princess. I’m coming right back to you.” It wasn't until his car sped past, barely missing me, that I belatedly registered what had just happened. When I arrived at the Miller mansion, Carter was carefully draping his jacket over Isabelle. The room was a mess. My gaze fixed on the claw marks scored across the frame of the wedding photo beside the bed. It wasn't hard to imagine how intense their activities had been just moments before. My stomach churned violently. Isabelle peeked out from Carter’s arms, her voice frail. “Sister Dee, Carter and I—it’s not what you think…” Before she finished, the loud crack of a slap echoed through the room. Isabelle clutched her cheek, staring at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. In that same instant, a tremendous force slammed into my face. I was knocked to the floor, my ears ringing violently. “Delaney Miller! Apologize to Belle!” My cheek was burning. I looked up. Tristan stood over me, towering and ice-cold. “Belle’s depression is only alleviated when Carter is with her. Can’t you show a little understanding and just let her have this?!” “Go! Apologize to Belle right now!” Carter’s eyes were equally filled with rage. “Delaney, no matter what happens between Belle and me, I was going to marry you in the end. Why do you insist on pushing her to the brink?!” “Belle did nothing wrong! You’ve gone too far this time. Say you’re sorry!” Carter’s face was suddenly blurry and foreign to me. In a daze, I felt as though the boy who had grown up beside me, the one who once charged into a kidnapper’s den alone to save me, the one who’d willingly sacrificed his own future for my sake, was now miles away. I scanned the room, and my eyes met Isabelle’s. Her lips curled into a silent, triumphant smirk. I jolted awake from the nightmare. Before I was fully conscious, the name I had relied on for twenty years instinctively slipped out: “Tris…” No one answered. I awoke in an empty, pitch-black bedroom. Next door, the lights were bright, and everyone was revolving around Isabelle, who was loudly sobbing about running away from home. “Tris, look at Sister Dee! She comes back and immediately tries to kill herself with pills and a razor. She just wants to intimidate me, right? I don’t understand why, after all these years, she still can’t stand me!” “Carter, maybe I should just stay away from you. You need to go be with Sister Dee. Just let me leave this house!” Tristan quickly intercepted her, his voice tight with barely suppressed fury. “Belle, you’re the one who’s been wronged. Don’t worry, I promise I will teach her a lesson for what she did today!” “I never thought that three years of trying to teach her how to yield and apologize would make her worse. Now she’s using death to blackmail and seek attention!” “I saw how pathetic she looked today, and I almost… I almost fell for it!” I slowly lifted my hand and touched my wrist. The searing pain in my stomach had lessened, and the cut on my wrist was carefully bandaged. But the aching beneath my skin was still sharp and clear. My near-death struggle, it turned out, was merely a “pity stunt” in my brother’s eyes. Carter, meanwhile, pulled Isabelle into his arms and gently soothed her. “Belle, Delaney’s been spoiled for too long; don’t let her get to you.” “Our wedding is still on for tomorrow, don’t let her ruin your mood.” Tristan immediately jumped in. “Exactly, focus on the wedding. As for her… I’ve got her covered! Whether she likes it or not, she will be your maid of honor! We can’t let her give anyone a reason to gossip!” The wedding? The maid of honor? Three years ago, I was meant to be the bride in that ceremony. Now, without my knowledge, I had been demoted from fiancée to bridesmaid. My heart went utterly cold with every word they exchanged. I tried to force a smile, but nothing came out. I realized my legs were moving, uncontrolled, sliding off the bed. I tried to stand. But the moment my feet hit the floor, the surgical wounds on my abdomen instantly tore open. A wave of crushing pain hit me. My legs buckled, and I crashed heavily to the ground. The moonlight illuminated the brutal, crisscrossing scars on my body, and the memories of the last three years suddenly came flooding back. To earn points, I knelt beneath strangers, stripped and forced into humiliating positions. To earn points, I was strapped to a lab table, and as soon as I conceived, the embryo was brutally cut from my body—an ordeal repeated over countless days and nights. The searing pain of the electrical current, the numbness of my dignity being ground to dust… In my most desperate moments, I had wanted to smash my head against a wall and die. But every time I remembered that Tristan and Carter were waiting for me in the “other world,” I endured it again. And now I knew. The “points” I’d risked my life to earn were nothing but a sick, elaborate hoax designed to break me. I felt pathetic and ridiculous. I wiped the wetness from my face, struggled to grab the edge of the bedside table, and slowly, painfully, tried to pull myself up. I fell again a second later. The tablecloth went with me, sending glass shattering across the floor, shards embedding in my skin. I barely noticed. My eyes were fixed on the open window directly ahead. The noise quickly alerted the next room. Tristan’s footsteps approached. He knocked, his voice heavy with impatience: “Delaney Miller!” “I haven’t dealt with you for trying to kill yourself and scaring Belle today.” “Everyone’s busy right now. Can you please be a little mature?” I leaned against the wall, sliding slowly to the floor, gasping for breath. The pain was relentless, but the three years of suppressed trauma exploded within me. I couldn’t hold back anymore. I screamed toward the door: “Busy with what?! Busy planning Isabelle and Carter’s wedding?!” “Or busy forcing me to be a maid of honor for the woman who stole my life?!” The outside went silent for a moment. Then Tristan’s voice rose sharply: “What are you even talking about?! Belle and Carter have been a public pair for years! You’re the one who always tried to interfere—” His voice caught, as if he suddenly remembered his cue. When he spoke again, his tone shifted to a strained persuasion: “Dee, love doesn’t follow a timeline. Carter loves Belle now. And you know she has severe depression; she’s only gotten better because of Carter’s constant support. Letting them marry is just a temporary solution that’s best for everyone.” “Are you going to fight Belle for this one thing, too?” I didn't answer him. I finally dragged myself to the window. The wind hit my face. My heart felt like cold ash. After an unknown time, there was a loud crash. The door was kicked wide open. I heard it, but I didn't turn around. In the next second, I swung a leg over the sill and leaped out the window. As my body began to fall, a powerful hand shot out and grabbed me. Carter’s sweat dripped from his brow. Veins bulged on his neck, his face stark white. “Hold on to me, Dee!” His hand had been severely injured years ago while saving me, and he couldn't exert much force. In a matter of seconds, his arm was violently shaking. He pulled with all his might, yanking me back into the room. The moment I landed, a stinging slap crashed across my face. “Delaney Miller! Even if you didn't want to attend Belle’s and my wedding, you didn’t have to resort to this!” Carter’s emotions were rarely so volatile. “Do you even know what floor this is?! If I hadn’t reacted fast enough, you’d be dead right now!” Tristan was equally shaky. A maid supported him, barely keeping him upright. He took several deep, shuddering breaths, his voice still trembling. “Dee… What have you become?!” “Anyone would think you’d suffered some unspeakable hardship these past three years! We only tricked you! We fed you well, kept you safe, and even snuck in to check on you every few days! You never suffered a single bit of harm!” “You knew Belle is sensitive, and you deliberately chose her wedding day to repeatedly stage suicide attempts just to create a scene and make her feel guilty, didn’t you?” “Now I can’t even scold you? How could I have raised such a spoiled, ungrateful child?!” “I’m telling you now, whether you want to or not, you will be the maid of honor today!” He finished his scream, dragged me up, shoved me hard onto the bed, and waved the maids forward. “Dress her!” The maid of honor gown was presented. I stared blankly. The moment the maids' hands reached for me, the memories of being touched by countless other hands violently overlapped. “No!!!” I struggled with every fiber of my being, but it was useless. Riiip! The dark clothing covering my body was brutally torn away by the maids. My wounded body, covered in scars, was completely exposed before everyone. The grotesque network of blue and purple bruises, the overlapping fresh and old burns, the two-inch-long surgical scar on my abdomen that was slowly oozing blood… The air solidified. Everyone froze. The maids with the weakest nerves shrieked in horror. Looking at the injuries on my body, Carter’s face went instantly, sickeningly pale. Tristan staggered backward two steps, his eyes wide in absolute disbelief, and he collapsed onto the floor.
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