Ruined Salvation: When Hope Becomes a Curse

Sean's voice rang out from the side. "Fine, fine. Spit out whatever you have to say. I'll listen since you're donating your body to develop a cure for me."

I gasped for breath and forced out, "I regret my choice, Sean. I'm not going to wait for you anymore. We can die together."

People always said that a person's hearing was the last sense they lost when they died. I now knew that it was true—that was why I could still hear Sean insulting me and his assistant mocking me.

"What's the point of sounding so tough when you're already dying? Will anyone besides Mr. Quinton bury you after your death? You have to thank him for that!" Sean's assistant snapped.

"Is even a divorce not enough to make you drop your attitude? Looks like I should make you see what it's like without chemotherapy, then. I'll tell the hospital to stop treating you effective tomorrow. Let's see how long you hold out. You'll come begging me soon enough!" Sean growled.

It was weird. Before my death, it had been a daily activity for him to urge me to die. Now that I was dead, he wouldn't believe me.

…

When I next regained consciousness, I found that I was back at the hospital. If not for the fact that I could see myself floating in the air, I would've thought I'd been saved.

Then again, who would've saved me? I had no friends or family—Sean was the only person who had a relationship with me, even if he was now my ex-husband. Yet all he wanted was for me to die.

Anyway, it looked like I had no choice but to follow Sean around as a ghost.

He called his assistant "Sunny". To this day, I had no idea what her actual name was, nor was I interested in finding out.

All I knew was that "Sunny" was a nickname Sean had given her. It was because he loved seeing her sunny smile. I had to admit that she looked and sounded good when she smiled and laughed.

The sound was crisp and lilting, as if she had boundless energy. It was the opposite of my voice, which had gone hoarse and croaky after the lung infection.

I watched as Sunny swatted Sean's hand away from her abdomen and bent over with laughter. "Stop teasing me, Mr. Quinton! I'm going to dig myself a hole in the ground if you keep doing this!"

He laughed. "It's not like I was saying you were fat. It's nice that you're a little chubby—it proves that I've done a good job caring for you."

I'd heard that sentence in the past. When I'd first met Sean, I hadn't liked to eat, so I'd been as skinny as a rod. Everyone had called me a twig.

Sean had spent a few months learning how to cook. Then, he'd supervised me and made sure I had my meals regularly.

He would puff out his cheeks and say, "It's proof that I've done a good job caring for you if you gain weight! I want the world to know how well my precious Ellie is doing now that I'm here to take care of her!"

At the time, he had indeed done an excellent job caring for me. He'd been so good at it that I'd stubbornly waited for him for ages after he'd fallen out of love with me.

Sean grew tired from laughing and started coughing violently. It made tears stream down Sunny's face. "It's all my fault for making you laugh, Mr. Quinton. I won't do it again! You have to get better!"

His eyes became bloodshot from the coughing. He seemed to remember me at that moment and asked someone to bring me to his ward.

"Ms. Court was discharged yesterday."

"What? Discharged?" Sean shot up in bed, gripping his plastic spoon so tightly that it snapped.

I crossed my arms and cocked my head, watching him curiously. Why was he nervous? Was it because he thought I was going to die or because he didn't want to lose his only experiment sample?

He calmed down after a while, and his gaze became disdainful. "I bet she was kicked out because she didn't have the money to pay her medical bills. Well, I can be generous and pay the bill so she can be treated for a month. I doubt she'll last any longer."

After some thought, he added, "I'm waiting for her to donate her body so that I can live, after all."

The nurse who'd cared for me called me urgently but couldn't reach me. As she walked past Sean's ward, she couldn't help but burst in there and snap, "Elisa doesn't need your pity! She paid for a month's worth of treatments. She was the one who asked to be discharged!"

Sean frowned at that and fell silent. He clenched his jaw and looked at his phone. Then, he scoffed. "She's just playing hard to get."

Sunny chimed in. "Why is Elisa still pulling something like this after so long? I bet she's even arranged for someone to tell us something has happened to her. That way, she'll have an excuse to get you to see her!"