Chapter 1

It was late at night. My mother, Brenda Fuller, gripped a scalpel and sliced through my skin and flesh skillfully in the basement.

Perhaps it was because she had not used a scalpel for a long time, but her hands shook a little.

Each layer of skin or flesh was cleanly separated before being discarded into a garbage bag at the side.

My older sister, Layla Larson, sat hunched over in a corner of the room. Her eyes rounded with horror. "Mom, let's just call the police. I'm scared."

As I levitated in the air, I cast her a sideways glance.

A few days ago, I received a message from Brenda telling me to meet her in the basement.

As soon as I entered the basement, I felt something hard hit me at the back of my head. The pain overwhelmed me, and I lost consciousness.

When I opened my eyes again, what I saw was my bloodied and mutilated body. My face and body were doused with strong acid and disfigured to the point of being unrecognizable.

Layla shuddered involuntarily. She dared not even open her eyes.

Brenda did not even look in her way. "Why should we call the police? This person trespassed into our house. We never intended to kill her. Instead of reporting it to the police, this person can still serve one last purpose.

"Aren't you going to participate in a sculpture competition soon?"

Before she could finish, my father, Philip Larson, cut her off. He slapped his forehead. "That's right. Why haven't I thought about that?

"Layla, your sculpting skills are average. However, it'll make a lot of difference if you use a real human skeleton as the framework for your next piece."

My jaw dropped when I heard those words. These people planned on using my skeleton as the framework for Layla's sculpture.

I crouched down and flapped my arms around furiously, trying to yell at them and stop them.

Sadly, the scalpel went through my palm and carved away at my body over and over again.

I could only watch as Brenda eventually removed everything, leaving only my skeleton intact. Traces of blood and flesh were stuck to her body.

I had no idea she was so skilled at using the scalpel.

I once slipped and fell from a tree when I was still a young, mischievous child. Brenda instinctively reached out to catch me. However, she happened to have injured her right arm during the process and had been unable to perform surgeries since then.

Even though she had honed her surgical skills to perfection, Brenda could only spend her days working in a pharmacy after the incident.

It was no surprise that she resented me all these years.

At dawn, she drove Layla and dumped the cut-up pieces of my body into the sea. The crashing waves engulfed the blood-red liquid even before it could spread across the surface of the water.

On the way back, Brenda seemed quite distracted. She ran through several red lights.

She received several messages on her phone, which was left in the storage compartment of the car's center console, just then. Brenda took a glance at the screen and tossed her phone aside.

Sitting in the front passenger's seat, I could see on the screen the chat window with my name on it. There were two messages displayed on the screen.

"Mom, I already went back to school since I had something to do.

"I probably won't be able to drop by home since I'll be busy for quite some time."

I wondered who it was that had used my phone to send these messages after I died.

I tried my best to recall what happened after I entered the basement. However, I could not remember anything else other than the sound of something heavy dropping onto the floor.

The lights in the basement were kept on for the next few days.

Layla was focused on carving a plaster head using a carving knife. She traced the eye on the head carefully with the sharp tip of the knife.

The facial features on the plaster head felt so familiar that it made Layla pause. Her hands trembled slightly.

Philip walked over to her and gave her a nod of approval.

He pointed to the sculpture of a human figure standing in a corner of the room and waved at Layla. "I've spent a whole week working on this. Doesn't it look quite amazing?"

Philip was a fairly well-known sculptor, and his skills were pretty solid.

The sculpture before them was as tall as a person. It looked aesthetically pleasing with its fine, delicate lines. However, the sculpture was missing a head.

Layla stood on her toes and gently placed the plaster head over the sculpture's neck. Then, she dusted off her hands and took a few steps back.

Philip patted her shoulder. "Layla, you'll definitely impress everyone when you have this sculpture submitted for the competition."

There was a flash of uneasiness in Layla's eyes as she stood beside Philip.

Meanwhile, I leaned against the sculpture. Something cold dripped onto the sculpture's neck, yet it did not leave a mark on it.