The fire that had consumed my body brought everyone in the village together. It did not take long for them to find my body. When they discovered my remains, they had become charred, blackened and shriveled.  

Seeing my pitiful state after death, a few of the aunties from neighboring homes, who had watched me grow up, couldn't bear it. Tears welled up in their eyes.

“What a shame. She is such a good girl and now she's just gone.”  

“I heard she worked as a mortician in the city. Honestly, it's no wonder something bad happened. People who deal with dead people all the time will take the dead people's bad luck.”        

…                   

The crowd buzzed with whispers, many of them filled with disdain for the work I had chosen.           

My parents clearly heard the murmurs. Their faces darkened with anger and shame.     

My father spat on the ground, then turned to my mother and complained to her, “What a cursed girl, even in death she brings shame to us.”

At that moment, Aunt Wanda couldn’t stand it any longer. As she wiped away her tears, she stepped forward and said, “Andrea is gone now. Let's watch our tongues,” she said. Her voice was trembling with sorrow.         

She then turned to my father, her expression turned softened, but firm. “Mr. Adam Lopez, look at her … she didn’t leave in a dignified way. I’ve heard morticians can do wonders. They can repair bodies damaged by accidents so the deceased can leave this world with dignity. Shouldn’t we do the same for Andrea?”       

Warmth filled my heart when I heard Aunt Wanda’s words.

Throughout the cold, lonely years of my twenty-seven years of life, she was the only one who ever made me feel cared for.  She was more like family than my family ever was.

When my parents bought cotton candy for my sister and brother but forgot to buy it for me, Aunt Wanda handed me the one she bought for her daughter.  

When my sister secretly slandered me and made the other children refuse to play with me, Aunt Wanda invited me to her house to play with her daughter.      

When my brother pushed me and made me suffer some injuries, my parents turned a blind eye, it was Aunt Wanda who took me to her house and tended my wounds.           

I never imagined that, even after I died, she would still be the only one who cared about giving me some dignity.     

However, my father, as if he had just heard a joke, scoffed, “It’s enough if I buy her an urn to put her ashes in. Why would we hire a mortician? Wasn’t she one herself? If she thought she didn’t die with dignity, she can get up and fix herself.”    

His harsh words hung in the air. Aunt Wanda, her face clouded with sadness, said nothing more. She cast one last glance at my body before shaking her head and walking away. 

Only I, who was standing silently behind, could hear her whisper, “Poor girl.…” 

Yes, I really was a poor girl.

The morning after my death, my sister and brother left for the city at the break of dawn.

My mother, as if it were a trivial task, found an old, torn mat from the neighbor’s chicken coop, wrapped my body in it and tossed it aside without a second thought.

My father, too worried I would dirty his beloved car, rented a beat-up truck instead. Together, they roughly threw me onto the back of that broken-down vehicle and swiftly drove me to the crematorium.

They did not even bother buying a proper urn. My ashes were carelessly stuffed into an old plastic container they had emptied of sweet potato starch. They didn’t even clean it.

If you looked closely, you could still see traces of white starch mixed in with my ashes.

And yet, my parents still felt I had wasted their time. To them, I had always been someone who did not matter.

I could never understand the reason, despite being their child, I was treated so differently from my sister and brother.

I had even suspected, at times, that I wasn’t their biological daughter. So much so, that I secretly had a DNA test done behind their backs, I was hoping I was not their biological child.

The day I received the results, I actually wished I was not related to them by blood. I thought maybe that would help me find peace.

However, when I saw the words “Confirmed biological relationship,” all my hopes shattered.

Ironically, on a quiet night not long after, I overheard my parents talking and learned the real truth, that it was my sister who was the one who had been adopted.

At that time my parents had not had a child even though they had been married for so many years. Finally, they decided to adopt a girl in hopes of "summoning" a younger brother. That’s how my sister came to our family.

After my sister arrived, my father’s business flourished. We soon became the first family in the village to have a fortune of fifteen hundred dollars

My father believed my sister was his lucky charm. Because of that, he showered her with endless love and attention.

And my sister did not disappoint them. Soon after, my parents were expecting their first biological child. The shady clinic they visited assured them that this time it would definitely be a boy.

They were overjoyed and dreamed day and night of their son's arrival. However, the boy they were promised turned out to be me instead.

To make things worse, on the day I was born, my father suffered a major financial loss.

The double blow led to me being labeled a “misfortune” from the moment I entered the world. From then on, I was the unwanted child, unloved and unnoticed.

Seeing how my family handled my death, I lost any desire to come back to life. What was the point? No one cared when I was alive and no one cared now that I was gone. I might as well disappear completely.

However, the King of Hell had other plans. A restriction was placed on my soul. Until the game was over, for the next seven days, I would be confined to a fifty-meter radius around my closest relatives. I couldn’t leave, no matter how much I wanted to.

This was the second day of my death. I had witnessed my hasty cremation and was still waiting for a single tear to be shed in my honor. So far, I have collected zero tears.

Twenty-eight more days until this game ended.

After they returned from the crematorium, my mother and father spent the rest of the day meticulously searching through the rubble of the old house that had burned down, looking for something to salvage.

Then, after they finished, they acted as if nothing had happened. They left the house and went to the next-door neighbor to play chess.

On the morning of the third day, I followed them back to our home in town.

When they arrived and opened the door, I immediately saw my boyfriend, Peter Warren sitting on the couch with his hand wrapped around my sister’s shoulder. They looked so harmonious sitting there.

I was appalled by their audacity. I wondered when all of these had started. How long had they been together? I had not even noticed the signs.

Judging by the way they were so relax, I supposed my death had lifted the burden of secrecy from them and now they could openly flaunt their affair.

Yet surely, when my parents saw Peter, their daughter’s boyfriend, in a relationship with both sisters, they would be outraged, right?

As I thought this, I was immediately slapped hard in the face by reality.

"Peter, you're here!" My mother beamed. Her face lighted up with a happy smile. "You and Isabella sit tight. You stay here for lunch, okay? I'll have your uncle buy your favorite dishes and Auntie will cook for you."

When my father heard that, he immediately hopped onto his electric scooter, ready to head out to buy the groceries.

“Dad, don’t mess up the order this time!” My sister, Isabella, called out from behind him as he rode the bike.

“Don’t worry, Isabella. Peter has been coming here enough times. How could I forget what he likes to eat?” my father responded confidently.

Just then, my younger brother, Carlos Lopez, walked in from outside. In his hand, he was holding a basketball. When he saw Peter, he eagerly approached him.

"Brother-in-law! You're here! Thanks for the sneakers you had my sister give me. I love them!”

The moment those words "Brother-in-law" came out so easily of his mouth, I finally understood. He was addressing Peter as Isabella’s boyfriend. He had never once called Peter that while we were together. For him, I was the mistress.

In fact, he had never even called me “sister.” Growing up, he only referred to me by my full name, without any hint of sibling affection.

It was now clear to me that my own parents and dear younger brother had known about Peter’s two-timing me all along.

The most laughable part? They had willingly disregarded me, his rightful girlfriend, as if I had never existed.

However, it all made sense I suppose. After all, the moment they discovered Peter came from a wealthy family, they did not hesitate to tell me that I was not the right woman for him. I did not have the profile of a rich man’s woman. According to them, my older sister was worthier than me.