I was still locked away in the mental hospital, watching my sister’s wedding livestream with unwavering attention.

Then—chaos.

A naked woman, her face smeared with blood, burst into the scene and dropped to her knees before my sister, bowing in desperation.

“Caitlin, you ruined my face… tore my clothes to shreds. I’m no threat to you anymore. Please, don’t send me to the mental hospital. I’ll stay away from Preston…”

My sister’s groom, Preston Flynn, erupted with fury. In front of the guests, he barked an order.

"Slap her—dozens of times!"

His men obeyed without hesitation.

“She’s lived under someone else’s roof since childhood,” he shouted. “She’s always walked on eggshells, always kind and timid. And yet you, Caitlin—you treat her like this? Have I spoiled you too much?”

He cast my sister a final, merciless glance.

“The Flynn family does not harbor a vicious woman like you!”

The wedding ended in disgrace. My sister was dragged away, tossed like refuse into a waiting car, and sent to a remote temple to repent.

When I finally saw her again, she was no longer the radiant girl who used to visit me. Her face was torn with scars, her chest sunken, fingers bent at unnatural angles.

She had been broken.

My eyes blazed as I stared down the head of the hospital. I forced the discharge paperwork into his hand.

“Sign it. Now.”

Because whoever touched my sister—I was going to kill them.

——

When I returned home and pushed open the front door, my mother flinched.

She didn’t say a word. She just pulled me inside.

In the dim glow of the lamp, my father lay unmoving on the bed. Grief had hollowed him out.

My sister was dead.

After her death, my father had gone to confront Preston.

When Preston heard the news, he froze in disbelief. Next to him, Jessie Stout laughed aloud.

She pulled out her phone with eerie calm. “Caitlin is dead? That’s strange,” she said. “I just got a video of her sleeping peacefully.”

She tapped on her screen.

The video played: my sister’s body, still and serene, her pale face framed by long lashes. She looked like she might wake up any moment.

My father slammed his fist on the coffee table, voice hoarse with rage.

“My daughter is lying in the morgue, covered in wounds! You killed her!”

Preston sprang to his feet. His eyes flared with contempt.

“Enough! Even now, you people fake drama to win pity? You want to blame me? Pathetic!”

Jessie leaned back against the leather sofa, her crimson lips curled in a smile. “Uncle Victor, don’t humiliate Caitlin like this.”

Preston adjusted his cuff calmly and spoke to the guards.

“Throw him out.”

The bodyguards obeyed. My father was hurled out of the house—his legs broken on impact.

Later, as my mother recounted everything, I stood silently and lifted the white sheet from my sister’s body.

Her face was marred with scars.

Her chest collapsed. Her limbs were twisted grotesquely—like the remains of a butterfly crushed underfoot.

Behind me, my mother wept.

“When Caitlyn passed... she must’ve been in so much pain.”

My name is Claudia Schultz. I am Caitlin’s twin.

She was always the bright one—lively, brilliant, the sun in every room. I was the quiet one. Cold, serious. People looked at me and saw a monster, a lunatic.

Only Caitlyn ever reached for me. Only she would press her only candy to my lips with that glittering smile and ask, “Sister, is it sweet?”

Now, her eyes would never open again.

When we were twelve, the school director’s son set his eyes on her. One day, walking home, she was ambushed—dragged into an alley by a group of men.

But I had followed them.

She ran out in terror, never seeing me behind her—drenched in blood.

That night, under a full moon, I didn’t come home.

Instead, the school director’s family was slaughtered.

Every last one of them.

When the police arrived, they were stunned by the carnage.

Blood painted the walls and soaked the floor. In the center of it all, I sat silently in a crimson pool, smiling faintly as I counted the candy wrappers my sister had left for me.

They said I was sick.

They locked me away in a mental hospital.

The windows of my ward were welded shut with iron bars. Cold. Rusted. Permanent.

Every time my sister came to visit, she would press her face to those bars, her smile curving her eyes into crescents.

“Sister,” she’d say, her voice light with joy, “the cherry blossoms by the roadside are all blooming today!”

I never replied. But that never stopped her. She’d chatter on, her words pouring through the steel like sunlight through cracks in a prison wall.

The last time I saw her, she said, beaming, “Sister, I’m getting married.”

“On the wedding day, I’ll have Mom livestream it for you. Just wait—I'm going to look so beautiful in my wedding dress!”

But she never made it to the end of that wedding.

She died before the vows.

That night, I strangled the dean with my own restraint belt until he choked and signed my discharge papers.

Anyone who dares lay a hand on my sister—will pay in blood.

After the funeral, I walked into the house clutching her urn.

Then the front door slammed open.

High heels clacked on the floor.

Jessie sauntered in beside Preston, a sneer stretched across her painted face.

“Well, well... isn’t this our dead Miss Caitlyn?”

Preston’s eyes landed on the urn in my arms. For a split second, his expression shifted. But as soon as he saw my face clearly, that sliver of humanity vanished.

His gaze turned cold.

“Caitlin, how low will you stoop? Faking your death now, just for attention?”

Jessie clung to his arm like a snake with a smile as sweet as poison.

“Preston only asked you to spend a few days meditating at the temple,” she said. “But you hurt the master and came back with an urn to play the victim? Really?”

She reached out suddenly, trying to snatch the urn. “Let me see—where’d you dig this trash up from?”

I stepped aside. She missed and nearly stumbled to the floor.

“Caitlin!” Preston barked. “Still causing trouble? First you fake your death, now you’re attacking Jessie?!”

Clutching her ankle pitifully, Jessie’s eyes shimmered with tears—and malice.

“I know... my sister must still hate me for ruining her wedding. Preston, don’t blame her—it’s all my fault…”

Preston’s face darkened. “Apologize to Jessie!”

I said nothing. My grip on my sister’s urn remained steady, my expression unreadable.

Then my mother stepped forward, standing between us like a fragile shield.

“Get out!” she shouted. “You’re not welcome in this house!”

Preston’s fury boiled over. He grabbed my wrist.

“This is how the Schultz family raises its daughters?” he spat. “No remorse, no shame. Fine. If you won’t repent—then you’ll come with me!”

“Take her!”

I jerked my hand free and looked up, a grim smile forming on my lips.

“Okay.”

He froze.

I turned and gently placed my sister’s urn on the altar, brushing my fingers over her framed photo.

She was smiling—just like she did as a child, the same way she smiled when she slipped her last piece of candy into my mouth.

Sweet. Innocent. Gone.

As I stood, my mother reached out and grabbed my arm.

“Claudia…”

Her voice trembled. Her eyes were filled with something between grief and helplessness.

I patted the back of her hand.

She sighed—a long, broken exhale—and let me go.

“Go.”

I nodded and left with Preston, never once looking back.

In the car, Jessie curled up in the passenger seat. As soon as I closed the door behind me, her voice rang out—delicate, childish.

“Preston… something got into my eye~”

Immediately, he leaned over to her, blowing gently into her lashes. Their noses nearly touched, their breaths mingled like lovers.

They had completely forgotten I was in the back seat.

After blowing into her eye with exaggerated tenderness, Jessie glanced back at me, a smug gleam flickering in her eyes.

I kept my gaze lowered, sitting quietly, motionless—like I hadn't noticed.

The car sped along the winding mountain road, climbing higher, closer to the temple nestled deep in the mountains.

With every turn, something primal stirred inside me.

They were the ones who killed my sister.

On the radio, a burst of static crackled, followed by a sharp voice:

“Emergency alert—an extremely dangerous patient has escaped from St. Elora's Mental Health Facility. Citizens are urged to remain vigilant…”

Neither of them seemed to hear it.

But I smiled faintly in the shadows, my lips curling at the edges.

After dropping me off at the temple, Preston left without a glance back.

He didn’t notice the flicker of panic in the host’s eyes.

Didn’t care.

The iron doors slammed shut behind me with a heavy clang.

A haze of smoke filled the courtyard. Several men with cigarettes hanging from their lips surrounded me, their smiles full of rot.

“Well, well,” one of them sneered. “Look who’s back. Missed us, sweetheart?”

Another one licked his teeth, pulling at his belt. “Didn’t get enough last time, huh? We’ll make it real good for you now.”

A third stepped forward, hands already tugging at my collar. “Don’t play shy. Take it off yourself, or we’ll help.”

I stood still, head bowed, listening to the weight of their breath draw closer. My muscles coiled tight beneath my skin.

When I didn’t move, the leader grinned and uncoiled a long leather whip from his waist.

“Stubborn little whore. Looks like you need another beating before you learn.”

He cracked the whip toward me—

—but I caught it midair.

His eyes went wide. “You bitch—!”

Before he could finish, I yanked him forward.

He stumbled, and I struck—one blow, two, a dozen.

Smack. Smack. Smack.

The air filled with the sound of flesh meeting flesh.

The others jeered at first. “Third guy, can’t handle one woman?”

Then third guy turned, face swollen grotesquely, blood and shattered teeth pouring from his mouth.

The laughter died.

Silence swallowed the courtyard whole.

Then the warden shrieked, his voice breaking:

“Caitlin? She—she’s supposed to be dead! I saw the death certificate!”

Everyone froze and turned to stare at the ground near my feet.

In the sunlight, my shadow stretched out behind me—solid. Real.

“Shit,” someone whispered. “She’s alive.”

The leader spat. His expression hardened. “So what? She’s still just one woman.”

They closed in again, fists clenched, ready to strike.

I lowered my head slightly, but my lips pulled into a smile I couldn’t hide.

Of course they didn’t know.

I was born with strength that wasn’t human.

How else could I have wiped out the school director’s entire family all those years ago?

Violence runs in my blood like wildfire.

I endured it all only for my sister.

But now, I don’t have to endure anything.

The screams rang out for three days straight.

That’s the best thing about this old, crumbling temple buried in the mountains—no matter how loud you scream, your voice vanishes like a stone sinking into a bottomless pool.

When Preston returned, the temple was little more than smoldering ruins.

I sat by a broken wall, naked, soot-streaked, blood caked beneath my fingernails.

He looked at me with disgust and tossed a coat in my direction.

“Bad luck,” he muttered.

Jessie passed close and hissed in my ear, “Why didn’t they just burn you alive?”

I said nothing.

In the back seat, I trembled quietly, staring at the dried blood on my cuffs—the blood of the men who would never hurt anyone again.

It was almost funny, watching them kneel and beg.

Especially when I raised the mallet and crushed the soft rot beneath them inch by inch.

We’re all pure creatures at the end of the day.

So let’s stay pure.

Now, every one of their bones is shattered—just as beautifully broken as my sister’s.