And I could finally repay that debt—the one that had crushed me for eighteen years.
But I was about to die.
Some debts can never be fully repaid.
Having decided to die, I returned to the hospital.
The doctor said without surgery, I had one month left. As my condition worsened, my body would swell, my kidneys would fail, until my heart simply gave out.
After a brief internal struggle, I decided to donate my organs.
Better to help others than rot in a hospital bed with no dignity.
And more importantly—I could leave my parents some money for nutrition supplements.
The doctor couldn't talk me out of it. Eventually, he agreed.
I signed the papers: my corneas, part of my liver.
While waiting for blood work and matching results, the doctor handed me a meal voucher. Starving, I traded it for a palm-sized cake.
Tomorrow was my eighteenth birthday.
The cake bristled with eighteen candles, like little flames ready to consume me whole.
I closed my eyes for a long time, but couldn't think of a wish. Maybe the dying shouldn't have hopes at all.
I ate the sweet cream in tiny sips, scraped the plate clean, and still wanted more.
My first cake ever. It was delicious.
When I returned to my room, the doctor said the match was successful. Surgery would begin tonight.
I hesitated, embarrassed. "How much... will they pay?"
"I told both recipients about your situation," he said. "They're willing to give twenty-four thousand total, including follow-up costs."
The number loosened something in my chest.
Soon, the recipients' families delivered a heavy bag of cash.
There wasn't much time. I tore a page from the visitor log and scrawled my last words in ballpoint, then stuffed it into the bag.
As they wheeled me toward the operating room, I pressed the bag into the doctor's hands.
I choked back tears. "Please—give this to the Chens."
He nodded solemnly. "I'll hold onto it. When your parents visit, I'll hand it to them personally."
The anesthesia hit. My thoughts dissolved.
When I woke, I was lying in a sterile white room, tubes snaking from every part of my body.
Painfully, I lifted my arm, grabbed the breathing mask strapped to my face, and ripped it off.
Finally. It's ending.
The heart monitor screamed. Medical staff flooded in, hands pressing, machines whirring.
Their movements were frantic, but I felt nothing.
My body grew impossibly light. I drifted up, away from the hospital room, pulled toward somewhere unfamiliar.
Old folks always said the dead return home.
But my soul didn't go home. It drifted to a mansion in the city center.
A luxury van idled at the entrance. The driver opened the passenger door.
A familiar figure stepped out.
Dad.
Dad—who had always worn threadbare work clothes—was dressed in an expensive suit.
The front door swung open. A girl in her twenties emerged, looking eerily like me.
She hooked her arm through his, beaming. "Daddy! Everyone's ready, just waiting for you!"
Daddy?
Did Dad... have another daughter?
My soul followed them inside.
Pristine white carpet. Blinding luxury. Crystal, gold, silk.
And there—
Mom.
