Chapter 1

When the earthquake hit, my sister and I were buried alive together.

I was dying.

My own mother, a search-and-rescue worker, was about to pry away the single slab of concrete pinning me down, just so she could get to my sister first.

I begged her, pleaded with her not to move it.

But she just scowled, her face a mask of impatience as she yelled, "You're so cold-hearted, always wishing the worst for your sister. You're so selfish, I should never have had you."

As she wished, I died.

But my mother, who had never loved me, went insane.

...

I died, but my soul just floated away and attached itself to my mother.

Right then, she was clutching my sister, Chloe, and rushing towards the triage area, her face etched with worry.

“Chloe, honey, don’t scare Mommy, just hang on, the doctors are right here.”

My dad’s face was a thundercloud of rage. “How could Anna, that damn girl, let this happen? She’s the older sister, she should have been protecting Chloe, not herself. We should have known better than to have her. She’s got no heart.”

I let out a bitter laugh. Mom and Dad never liked me, not from the day I was born.

Well, you got your wish now. I’m dead. Just pretend I was never born at all.

By then, the doctors had already done a full check-up on Chloe.

She was just unconscious from dehydration; there wasn’t a single scratch on her.

Just then, one of the guys from Mom’s rescue team came over. “Anna’s still down there,” he said. “We need to go back for her.”

My mom just waved a hand dismissively, her face a sheet of disgust.

“She’s tough as nails. She’ll be fine.”

“She’s just throwing a tantrum because I didn’t carry her out first.”

“Besides, I already moved the slab that was on her. What could possibly be wrong? She seemed perfectly fine when we were getting Chloe, she was even talking.”

I floated there in the air. I’d heard words like these a million times when I was alive, but they still made my heart ache.

Then she told Dad to watch Chloe, and she went back with the team to help with the rescue efforts.

She came back when it got dark, her eyes scanning the camp, her brow furrowed and her face frozen over.

“That damn kid Anna still isn’t back. Why can’t she be more like Chloe? So inconsiderate.”

“If she doesn’t come back, she can just die out there for all I care. It’d save me the trouble of looking at her.”

My sister and I were trapped under the same rubble, but she never once worried if I’d make it out alive, just the same old nagging and blame.

I was used to it, but my heart still felt like it was being stabbed with a thousand tiny needles.

That’s right. I was always just the backdrop to my sister’s life. They didn’t love me one bit.

She was a professional rescuer; she had to have known that moving that slab would put my life in danger.

But she ignored my desperate pleas anyway, moved the concrete, and then accused me. “You’re so cold-hearted, always wishing the worst for your sister. You're so selfish, I should never have had you.”

Then she took Chloe and left me there to die.

There was never any room for me in her heart; she had never loved me.