The floorboard creaked again, sharper and closer this time, as if someone was tiptoeing only feet away from my motionless body. I tried to twist, to reach, to scream—anything to break free from the invisible chains holding my spirit in place. But I couldn't move an inch. I was frozen, a silent ghost hovering just above the staircase, forced to witness the one scene I never imagined I'd see.
My own death.
For three weeks, I had been trapped in my bedroom, my legs weak and unresponsive, my head throbbing with constant pain, my body too fragile to carry me even a single step. The doctors called it a rare neurological condition, one that left me completely dependent on my family for every basic need. Clara fed me. My son carried me. My daughter read to me for hours on end when sleep refused to come.
I hadn't walked.
I hadn't stood.
I hadn't even rolled onto my side without help.
So how had I ended up dead at the bottom of the stairs?
The answer hung in the air, thick and terrifying.
I hadn't fallen.
I had been moved.
I watched as the shadow in the hallway shifted, and then Clara stepped into the dim, cold light. Her face was ashen, her eyes red and puffy from silent crying, her hands trembling violently at her sides. She didn't gasp. She didn't collapse to the floor. She didn't make a single sound.
She just stared at my body on the carpet, and in her eyes, I saw something that made my ghostly chest ache—raw, unmistakeable guilt.
I wanted to roar at her. I wanted to demand why she looked at me like I was a mess she had to clean up, a burden she'd grown tired of carrying. I wanted to scream and ask where she had been when I needed help, why I had been left alone long enough to be dragged from my bed and left to die.
But no sound escaped me. I was nothing but air. Invisible. Unheard. Ignored.
A second later, my son Ethan appeared behind her, his tall frame hunched over, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle flex beneath his skin. He refused to look at me. His eyes stayed locked on Clara, his expression urgent, panicked, almost terrified. He reached out and grabbed her elbow, gently pulling her away from the staircase, as if he couldn't stand to let her stare at my corpse any longer.
They began to whisper.
Their voices were low, hurried, and so quiet I had to strain every fiber of my spirit just to catch broken pieces of their conversation. I drifted closer, as close as the invisible barrier around me would allow, my focus fixed on their lips, their tense gestures, the way they glanced over their shoulders every few seconds—like they were afraid someone might hear them.
Like they were afraid I might hear them.
"We can't let anyone see this," Ethan muttered, his eyes darting toward the front door. "Not yet. Not until we figure out what to do next."
Clara's voice cracked when she spoke. "I never meant for this to happen. I told you we shouldn't leave him alone. I told you we should have stayed through the night."
"You think I don't know that?" Ethan snapped, his voice dropping to a dangerous hush, his face twisting with pain and frustration. "But we had no choice. You know exactly what the doctors said. We couldn't just watch him suffer forever."
Suffer forever.
The words slammed into me like a physical blow.
Suffer.
Left alone.
No choice.
In that single, horrifying moment, every terrible thought I'd had since waking up as a ghost crashed into me at once. They had grown tired of me. Tired of my illness, my weakness, my endless pain. Tired of caring for a man who could no longer walk, no longer live a normal life, no longer be the husband and father they once knew.
They had decided to end it.
They had moved me.
They had hurt me.
They had left me here to die.
I wanted to lash out. I wanted to shatter the walls, to scream until my voice tore apart, to make them feel even a fraction of the burning betrayal and fear raging inside me. But I was completely powerless. All I could do was watch as they continued their quiet, terrible conversation.
Clara wiped a tear from her cheek, her gaze falling again to the dark, deadly bruise on my temple. "What if someone finds out? What if the police get involved? They'll never believe this was an accident."
"It was an accident," Ethan said sharply, though his voice wavered with obvious fear. "We didn't mean for him to hit his head like that. We were only… trying to help."
Help.
The word was a lie. I could hear it in his tone, see it in his eyes, feel it in the cold weight crushing my soul. They were lying to each other. Lying to themselves. Lying to anyone who might ask questions.
They were covering up a murder.
My murder.
Then Clara spoke four words that turned my ghostly blood to ice.
"Where's the bottle?"
Her voice was barely a breath, so quiet I almost missed it. "The one from the doctor's office. We have to get rid of it before anyone else finds it."
Ethan froze. His face drained of all color. His eyes widened in pure, unfiltered panic.
"I… I left it in his bedroom," he stammered. "I didn't have time to grab it before we… before we brought him down here."
Clara's breath caught in her throat. "Are you insane? If anyone finds that bottle—"
She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.
I knew exactly what she meant.
That bottle was proof. Proof of what they had done. Proof of why I was dead. Proof that the family I loved more than anything in the world had betrayed me in the worst way imaginable.
And then, as I hovered there, consumed by rage and grief and unbridled horror, I heard a third sound.
A soft, faint noise from the second floor.
A floorboard creaked.
A door creaked open.
And then, a small, trembling voice cut through the silent house—soft, scared, and choked with tears.
"Mom? Dad? Ethan? What's going on?"
It was my daughter.
Lila.
Fourteen years old, gentle, quiet, the light of my entire life.
She was awake.
And she was coming down the stairs.
Straight toward my body.
Straight toward the secret her family was desperate to bury.
Straight toward the truth that would destroy us all.