The Only Victim

When my body is engulfed in flames, my firefighter father is watching a new movie with my sister. My mother is baking them a cake. I hear laughter in the living room, and I can smell the caramel popcorn in the kitchen.

Today is my family's weekly family day—it's a day for my sister and parents to be with each other.

The doorbell rings, and the perpetrator gives me a chance to ask for help. My limbs are bound, and stones fill my mouth. I stand at the door and desperately wait for my parents to open it.

They don't get up. Instead, they sit on either side of my sister and hug her. "We promised you we'll only be with you on our family days. No one can disturb us."

"What if it's Danica?" Ravenna Sutton, my sister, asks.

"Her? She hasn't answered her phone in days—who knows where she's off being wild? I'll think of her as dead if she still doesn't return tomorrow!"

Ravenna giggles. Mom feeds her some popcorn, and Dad discusses the movie's plot with her.

The perpetrator drags me back upstairs and laughs mockingly in my ear. "Looks like I did something unnecessary. They genuinely don't care about you."

Smoke permeates every corner upstairs, and the flames start to lick at my body. Mom and Dad protect Ravenna as they run downstairs.

They have no idea their birth daughter is screaming in pain amid the blazing fire.

When Mom and Dad ran downstairs with my younger sister, Ravenna Sutton, a crowd of neighbors and onlookers had already gathered outside.

Everyone was discussing how the empty apartment upstairs had suddenly caught fire.

Dad seemed to hear a scream. His instincts as a veteran firefighter made him want to rush upstairs immediately, but Ravenna grabbed his arm.

"I didn't hear anyone scream. Don't go, Dad. It's too dangerous."

Mom nodded in agreement. "She's right. The flames are already spilling out from the window—it's too dangerous."

Finally, the fire truck arrived. Dad geared up and ran upstairs to put out the fire.

In the middle of the charred room sat a burned corpse. That was me.

My eyes were shut, my head hung low, and my entire body was totally burned and curled up from the fire.

But because my hands and feet had been bound to the chair with iron chains, I remained in a sitting position.

Soon, Mom came upstairs as well. She was the best doctor in the city. With just one look, she could tell—I had no signs of life. I had been burned alive.

Her eyes instantly turned red as she murmured, "That inhumane criminal… Being burned alive must be unimaginably painful."

It was.

The murderer had pierced my body with a blade. It had been excruciating. The fire spreading across my skin had been agonizing.

Hearing my parents protect Ravenna and flee had hurt even more.

I gazed at Mom longingly. There was a rare trace of pity in her expression.

This was the first time she had ever looked at me so gently. Even though I knew she was only pitying this corpse, not me.

The police soon took my body away for an autopsy, and the apartment was sealed off.

Although the fire didn't spread downward, it had blackened the exterior walls, and the fact that a murder had occurred affected the property value of the building.

Mom and Dad immediately called my older brother, Leo Sutton, back home so he could act as their legal representative and sue the landlord upstairs.

Leo was a partner in a law firm. He was also the only one in this family who never treated me like an outsider.

The forensic team examined my body overnight. By the next day, the police arrived with photographs, asking questions to determine my identity.

Inside my tightly shut mouth, they found a silver pendant with an engraved date. It was a pure silver necklace given to me by an old priest I met on a trip to a farm, something I had always worn close to my heart.

The date engraved on it was the most important date to me—October 3, 2015.

When the murderer dragged me away from my own doorstep, I knew I wouldn't make it out alive.

So, while they weren't looking, I hid the necklace in my mouth. That way, Mom and Dad wouldn't lose me completely.

They'd be anxious if they couldn't find me, right?

That date wasn't actually my birthday. I shared the same birthday with Ravenna.

But she once cried and said, "I shouldn't have shared a birthday with Danica. I stole her birthday. I should go back to the orphanage."

Seeing her cry, my parents immediately hugged her tightly and scolded me. "You're the older sister—don't fight over these things with Ravenna.

"Even though you're our biological child, Raven is the one we've raised for over ten years. From now on, just treat the day you came home as your birthday."

I never understood why I was being blamed when I hadn't done anything—why I couldn't even keep something that was originally mine.

But I was happy. At least, I had a birthday of my own.

So, that date on the pendant—they had to recognize it. They had to know it was me!

I watched them anxiously.

They stared at the photo, murmuring the date to themselves, as if trying to remember.

After a long while, they shook their heads.

"I have no memory of this date."

Then the police expressionlessly slid the photo back into their file and stood up to leave.

I should have never expected anything. Mom and Dad would never remember anything about me; even though I was their own flesh and blood.