4: 4
I dragged in a breath and forced the shaking down.
"Open the door. I won't cause any trouble."
"Angela, you lost your mind in front of a room full of people yesterday. What wouldn't you do at this point?"
Simon's voice was thick with impatience.
"Look, we're taking Vera out to buy a new dress now."
Dad said it like an afterthought.
"We'll pack you some food when we get back tonight."
The door slammed, and the hallway outside went dead quiet.
I lay curled on the bed, and my stomach, emptied out from throwing up, cramped again with hunger.
The pain spread like cold water, from my stomach out through the rest of me.
There was nothing to eat in the room.
I would just have to hold on until they came home that night.
In the end I don't know if it was the low blood sugar or the pain.
My mind went hazy, and I blacked out.
I don't know how long it was before the smell of smoke choked me awake.
I opened my eyes to find black smoke, from somewhere, filling the whole room.
I scrambled off the bed, my hand landing on the door handle before I remembered Mom had locked it from the outside.
I threw the window open.
Below me, the ground floor was on fire.
Covering my mouth and nose, I called my parents and Simon.
I called; they hung up.
On the twenty-ninth call, Simon finally picked up.
"Hello?"
"There's a fire downstairs. The whole apartment is full of smoke. Come home and open the door, hurry."
"Don't be scared, I'm coming right now!"
His voice was frantic.
"Angela! You're lying again to wreck Vera's birthday party. How convenient, the minute you're locked in you've got an emergency?"
Mom's furious shout came through the phone.
The smoke had me coughing without stop.
"That cough sounds so real. Angela, you almost had me."
Simon sounded let down.
I pushed the words out through the suffocation.
"I'm not lying. If you don't believe me I'll show you on video."
The second I hung up I switched to a video call.
I aimed the phone out the window at the black smoke pouring up from the flames below.
"Look."
On screen, Mom and Simon went white in an instant.
Then Vera's face squeezed in between them, pointing at the screen, laughing out loud.
"Sis, your AI really is convincing. Even Mom and Simon fell for it."
"Your company makes good products."
Simon remembered my work was in AI research.
His face went cold at once.
"If there's really a fire, call the fire department. What good is calling us? You just want to ruin Vera's birthday, don't you!"
The call ended.
The fire trucks had reached the complex gate long ago, but a few illegally parked cars were blocking the entrance and they couldn't get in.
The firefighters were still moving those cars now.
The smoke stung so badly I could barely keep my eyes open, and the suffocation closed in around me.
I pushed half my body out the window.
I clenched my teeth, shut my eyes, and jumped.
……
In the private room at the restaurant.
Dad was peeling shrimp for Vera, Mom was ladling soup into her bowl.
Beside them, Simon was taking her picture.
When he finished, Vera trotted over and rested her chin on Simon's shoulder to look at the photos.
"Simon, you made me look so pretty."
Her warm breath brushed against his ear.
Simon's shoulder stiffened, but he didn't push her away.
Just then the cousin from the aunt's side shot up out of his seat, his voice sharp.
"Uncle, Aunt, your complex is on fire! It's your building, the one where it happened."
The smile froze on Mom's face.
She quickly opened her phone.
The muted property group chat had over a hundred unread messages.
She tapped into one of the videos.
Through the smoke, a figure fell from the high floor and hit the ground with a huge sound.
Simon caught a glimpse of the video, and his face went white in an instant.
He dialed Angela's number right away.
"Sorry, the number you have dialed is powered off……"
