She was definitely bound to receive a huge blow, like cold water being poured on her, immediately freezing her soul. In her future, it was exactly a week after her car accident and she still lay in a comatose State.
Her family of four stood close to her ward room, all gloomy and quiet. A certain sense of joy and relief had filled Shirley's heart to tears.
Yet, she felt her world tear appart from the reality,different from the image that displayed in front of her.
"That little wench had been in the coma for so long, the hospital bill will probably continue increasing."
Her words of disdain were not loud and could only be heard by her father, Neil James who stood close to her and as for Jenny and Jane who stood quite some distance. It wouldn't be surprising if they hadn't heard it. But Shirley heard everything loud and clear, precisely the reason why she felt a suffocation.
Her mother had never loved her, so she calmed down, hoping her words were due to a prideful worry of a mother.
At least she had thought.
"What are you ranting on about, the hospital bill had already been settled by those who knocked Shirley with their car. It's a luck that they were kind enough to pay for her treatment and stay in the hospital. They even went ahead as compensating us with 10000 dollars,what else are you complaining about."
Neil James said with a sigh of desperateness, as his almost old eyes closed and reopened painfully.
"She should count herself lucky that she had been knocked by a good Samaritan, if not..."
"..You wouldn't have forked out a penny to save your biological daughter's life,what type of mother does that?"
Bang
Shirley felt like a huge blow at the painful words of her father. It took her sometime to recover from the sad reality that stood in front of her.
It turned out her mother wasn't even willing to fork out a single penny to save her life, but she had been hoping that such a tragedy would make her give up her pride to embrace and love her. But her biological mother would rather she had died.
What an irony!
"Nonsense, who's the mother of the little wench, let me remind you, if it hadn't been for your insistence, I would have long flushed out a parasite like her."
Anna Perez said angrily, giving Shirley another huge blow that caused her body to go limp at the instant.
It turned out she wasn't even supposed to be born and for an unknown reason she came to life, but had been despised and labeled as a parasite by her biological mother and pitied by her father.
Life was indeed unfair
"I don't regret making that decision, letting Shirley to live, I really don't regret it..."
"But I do!"
Anna Perez immediately cut in furiously, not letting Neil James the time to express his thoughts and reminisce about the past. As if thinking about the birth of her youngest daughter had become a thorn in her heart.
She had never hidden her dislike and disdain towards her,but that was obviously what Shirley had never wanted to agree. She didn't dare agree that her biological mother would see her as a thorn in her heart wishing she had been death the moment she was conceived.
But why?
"I hate that little bitch, why did you have to insist that I give birth to her. Her birth was supposed to bring us good luck and wealth and look. At the end she only brought us misfortune."
"You can't say that."
"Why wouldn't I, it's best if that little bitch ended up never waking up!"
This time her words didn't end up like a huge blow, but a feeling of being stroke by lightning at the at the fastest speed.
Her mother had not only wished that she was death from birth, but she equally wanted her to die at the moment she had been knocked by the car.
What could be worst than a mother wishing her daughter's death?
Shirley had barely been able to regain control of her conflicting emotions when the scene had changed, it came to halt and she watched the scene of her beloved sister protecting from every attack, defending her from friends and relatives abuse.
Jenny had always been good to her and that was something that she had never doubted, her sister's love and affection towards her.
However,her life was bound to end up with disappointment.
"Your sister is indeed a beauty, it seems I had won a jackpot."
The scene changed again and Shirley James saw an average man standing by the bed side where Shirley's body lay motionless. Without anyone telling her, Shirley could tell this was her future eighteen years old self. After reluctantly following Jenny to a club, she passed out and was brought to a dim room.
But what shocked her was the fact that her beloved sister had exchanged her virginity for a certain service and probably a meager sum.
Not once feeling guilty, she let hooligans ravish her body and bringing witnesses to tarnish her reputation. Yet her naive self didn't know about the schemes behind her back, she only knew that her sister had suffered as well.
Indeed an irony.
As if her life wasn't hard enough, she suffered neighbor's and relatives abuse. Working each day like a slave to meet her mother's needs and expectations.
Her difficult life didn't end there, and she had to watch her sisters succeed alongside her cousins.
She grew up to be forced in marriage at the age of twenty eight, marrying an old man. But because of her reluctance her mother didn't succeed, later on she married a rich husband who was four years older than her. He was neither good nor bad with her and their relationship was just neutral. He wanted a wife and she needed to be liberated from her mother's claws. After few months of marriage she got pregnant and gave birth to a daughter and end up being abused and schemed against by her family in-law and at the end through Jenny she was framed by her cousin and at the end thrown and divorced.
Needless to talk about being given an asset, even her daughter had been snatched from her and her tragic life continued as she was forced to toil for herself and have her mother behind her back.
At the end she reduced to a beggar, with no home and no one to render her help. Even her father who had loved her did nothing but look at her with pity.
Meanwhile she could only fend for herself till the day she met a savior, the only friend she had who had ignored the hideous rumors about her, giving her work in her little bakery.
Her life became simple and ordinary, at least until the day men in black crossed her path, knocked her out and took her away.
She only opened her eyes to find herself on a hospital bed, dressed in a surgery wear. The pungent smell of disinfectant caused her to frown.
"Where did I end up?"
Her life was already getting better after she submerged from the the deep abyss and now she was know kidnapped and brought into an unfamiliar place. The room was cold and the white walls gave her a bone chilling fear, causing her to have feeling haven been thrown in to hell. So what if hell was considered hot, the cold that penetrated her bones was even more terrifying than having one's body burn constantly.
' Did she really...end up in hell?'
Before those thoughts could completely dive into her mind, Shirley shivered as a familiar voice reverberated close to her ears.
"You still came back after all...did you think you could escape our clutch. This is your fate, little sister..."