Dying Made Me a Billionaire

The ninth time my fiancé’s childhood darling ran me down with her car, something clicked inside my skull. A voice, crystalline and synthetic, manifested in the dead space behind my temples. It informed me that I was the designated martyr in a relentless domestic tragedy—a heroine whose entire existence had been engineered for suffering. My agony index, it noted, had reached ninety-nine percent. If I could endure just one more percent, I would be granted total liberation: an escape from this world, and an unfathomable fortune in the next. Across the sterile glare of the emergency room, my fiancé didn’t even look at my shattered right leg. His entire body was curved protectively around Kayla. "She only clipped you because she was furious at how you spoke to me," Simon said, his voice clipped, impatient, dripping with the reflexive defense he always reserved for her. "She’s been crying her eyes out in the corridor while you were under anesthesia. She knows she made a mistake. As her future sister-in-law, you should just apologize to her so we can put this behind us." Behind his broad shoulders, Kayla offered me a fleeting, venomous smirk before collapsing into trembling hysterics. "If Willa can't forgive me, I’ll run into traffic right now!" she sobbed, backing toward the hallway doors with practiced theatricality. "I'll give her my own leg to make up for it!" She made a dramatic show of bolting, and right on cue, my father lunged forward to intercept her. "Kayla, stop! Don't be reckless, sweetheart. None of this was your fault." My mother moved in swiftly, stroking Kayla’s hair with a gentle, soothing rhythm she hadn't offered me in a decade. "Willa has always been built tough," she murmured, glancing sideways at my traction splint as if it were a minor inconvenience. "She was only thrown thirty feet. A few weeks of bed rest and she’ll bounce right back." My older brother, Henry, dressed in his tailored boardroom charcoal, looked down at me with thin-lipped contempt. "Show some grace for once in your life, Willa. Don’t make the Conways look petty over an accident." Before my eyes, a translucent cerulean rectangle flickered against the peeling hospital wallpaper. "If I die—if I push that counter to a hundred percent—I leave this place forever and inherit ten billion dollars. That's the deal?" The system answered with cold, mechanical serenity: "Yes." A sudden, sharp lightness pierced the numb void in my chest. For the first time in years, the dead grey of my eyes caught the light pouring through the second-story window. Ignoring the grinding agony of fractured bone, I swung my broken limbs over the edge of the mattress and dragged myself toward the sill. … The silence in the room splintered into frantic chaos. It took them three seconds to realize I wasn't reaching for the blinds—I had already levered my torso out into the open air, the humid wind rushing against my face. Their faces drained of color. Hands seized my hospital gown, wrenching me violently backward over the sill. "Let go of me!" I screamed, thrashing against the drywall as they hauled me in. "Let me go!" Simon pinned my wrists to the linoleum, his knuckles white, his eyes bloodshot with sudden, irrational rage. "Willa, stop it! Are you completely insane? Throwing a tantrum over a minor spat?!" I lay on the floor, staring up at him through strands of tangled hair, completely hollowed out. "A minor spat?" My voice was terrifyingly level. "The morning of my college entrance exams, she ran me down in the intersection because I hadn't answered your text fast enough. I missed the exam. I lost my scholarship. When I spent three years rehabilitating in secret, bleeding through my pointes just to earn a single audition at the metropolitan ballet, she drove her sedan straight onto the sidewalk and crushed my knee. She ended my life's work. And to you, that's a minor spat?" Simon choked on his own breath, a flicker of raw, ugly guilt passing behind his irises. "Kayla is young. She acts impulsively. You're older—you have to learn to let things go." A dry, cracked laugh slipped from my throat. "She was born three weeks after me." My father grabbed my collar and hoisted me brutally back onto the mattress. "That’s enough out of you! Even if Kayla made an error in judgment, you were the one wandering around in the street like an idiot. If you stayed home where you belonged instead of running around chasing foolish dreams, she wouldn't have had anywhere to hit you!" My shattered shin knocked against the metal railing, sending a flare of blinding white heat up my spine. Yet it felt dull compared to the rotting ache behind my ribs. "I wasn't wandering. I had an audition." Henry stood by the foot of the bed, his arms crossed, cold and unyielding. "Dad is right. You insist on running out into the world with your reckless, frantic energy. If it wasn't Kayla's bumper, it would have been a delivery truck. You brought this entirely on yourself." My mother stepped forward, her manicured fingers closing over my uninjured hand, her voice sickeningly sweet. "Be a good girl, Willa. Apologize to Kayla, and we can all go home." I looked at their faces—father, mother, brother, fiancé. A unified front. An unbreachable fortress of shared delusion. They would not leave this room, nor let me rest, until I took the blame for my own broken bones. Fighting them was simply a waste of precious time. I dragged myself upright, leaning heavily on the bedside table, and looked directly at Kayla. "I'm sorry," I said, my voice dead. "It was entirely my fault." The room froze. For years, I had screamed, wept, thrown objects, and demanded justice. I had never once backed down. This quiet, instantaneous surrender knocked the breath out of them. Kayla bit her lower lip, trembling on cue. "Willa... no, don't say that. It's me. I'm the terrible one..." She burst into fresh tears, covered her face, and fled out into the corridor. Without a second thought, all four of them scrambled after her. I sat in the silence of the room. The window was still unlatched. I dragged myself back to the frame and looked down. Down in the courtyard below, they had already formed a tight protective circle around Kayla beneath the weeping willows, Simon rubbing her back while my mother offered tissues. Two floors wasn't high enough. If I jumped now, they would intercept me before I bled out, or worse, I'd end up paralyzed and permanently monitored. I needed water or traffic. Something final. Leaning on an aluminum crutch, I slipped out through the hospital’s rear service exit. Behind the complex stretched a retention pond. It wasn't remarkably deep, but the stagnant water was dark, clouded with thick silt and algae. More than enough to swallow the breath from a crippled girl. As I neared the reeds, the sound of familiar voices drifted over the humid breeze. They were standing by the parking lot path just twenty yards away. "Dad, Mom," Henry’s voice sounded hesitant, laced with a rare trace of friction. "Weren't we a little harsh back there? At the end of the day, Willa is still my sister." "We are doing this for her own good," my father said firmly, without an ounce of doubt. "Kayla explained it to us clearly. Willa’s psychological archetype is the martyr heroine. Suffering is the kiln that tempers her soul. Without pain, she won't grow." Henry sounded troubled. "I just worry she can't bear much more of this. What if she breaks?" "Kayla told us that if we break her down now, she won't be destroyed when she meets the true destructive love of her life later," my father insisted. "It builds resilience. Willa is sensible deep down. She'll understand our sacrifice." My mother gave a soft, relieved chuckle. "Of course she will. Nine collisions, and she didn't even suffer internal organ failure. The girl is resilient. She’s like weeds after a fire." I stood behind the willow trunk, listening. Did they truly not know? In every tragedy, the martyr heroine doesn't emerge triumphant from the fire. She dies in it. Without a moment of hesitation, I threw my crutch aside and plunged headfirst into the murky water. The cerulean prompt flared to life in my mind, flashing a luminous digital countdown. A silent laugh bubbled through my lips as the water flooded my mouth, filling my lungs with mud and cold. "Finally. Freedom." Blackness began to squeeze my vision at the edges. The heaviness in my limbs went weightless. Then, violently, air was slammed back into my throat. I was hauled upward by my soaked collar, coughing up brackish water, my trachea burning as though lined with lye. "Cough! Ah—!" Every breath was a knife wound. I hadn't died. Henry was kneeling over me on the muddy bank, his expensive suit ruined, his eyes wide and wild with terror and fury. "Willa! Are you out of your goddamn mind?! Staging a drowning just to get our attention?!" Before I could clear my lungs, my father’s hand cracked across my cheek. The blow snapped my head sideways, the metallic taste of copper coating my tongue. "If your brother hadn't spotted your crutch and dived in, you’d be a corpse right now! Do you have any idea what you almost did to this family?!" My mother stood behind him, her hands trembling, eyes wet with tears of profound personal offense. "How could you be so selfish, Willa? How could you be so cruel to your parents?" I stared at the ripples settling on the surface of the pond. A dull, profound regret washed over me. They were right. I was terribly, disgustingly difficult to kill. "I'm sorry," I whispered. The barrage of lectures they had prepared died instantly in their throats. They looked at me, unnerved by the total absence of defiance in my gaze. I closed my eyes in bone-deep exhaustion. Ten years ago, they weren't monsters. Simon used to carry me on his back when I twisted my ankle during dance rehearsals, whispering that loving me was the single greatest stroke of luck in his life. My parents used to storm school board meetings if a teacher dared speak down to me. And Henry—Henry had once beaten a neighborhood boy bloody for pulling my pigtails, warning everyone within three blocks that nobody touched his little sister. Then Kayla was brought into our lives. The daughter of a distant family friend, fragile, delicate, spinning strange notions that my family swallowed whole. Overnight, the people who loved me became my wardens. Simon hovered around her like a moth to a flame. My parents hung on her every whisper. Henry’s protective instinct was reassigned entirely to her. Whenever Kayla sabotaged me, framed me, or drove her car into my flank, they waved it off with an airy, practiced dismissal, warning me not to be so dramatic. For years, I tore my hair out trying to understand how people who adored me could morph into hollow sadists. Now, watching the blue rectangle shimmer behind my eyelids, I finally understood. I was scripted to be ruined. Kayla clearly carried some bizarre narrative tool of her own. What her ultimate game was, I didn't care. My only objective was to finish the script and collect my check. ... After the pond, they placed me under full house arrest. They took shifts guarding me, never leaving me alone for a single second. Even when I used the restroom, the door was wedged open an inch, Henry or Simon standing in the hallway shadows. On the day I was discharged from the hospital, I sat in the backseat of the sedan. As we hit the elevated expressway, soaring fifty feet above the concrete traffic below, I casually reached out, unlatched the door, and let the sheer inertia of seventy miles an hour pull my body toward the asphalt. Henry reacted on pure adrenaline, lunging across the leather to wrap his arms around my torso. My father slammed the brakes, the tires screaming as the car skidded sideways into the breakdown lane. The door swung violently in the wind. Up front, my parents turned around, their faces as white as chalk, trembling with absolute hysteria. "Willa! What are you trying to do?!" "I want to die," I said calmly. My father raised his palm, shaking with rage, preparing to strike. I didn't flinch. I tilted my face upward, offering my cheek to him. "Hit me harder this time," I murmured. "Make sure it finishes the job." His hand hung suspended in the air. His fingers twitched, but the blow never fell. My mother broke down into raw, gasping sobs. "Willa, why must you punish us over these petty grudges? Everything we do... everything is for your future!" I turned my head and stared out at the grey, indifferent sky. Back at the Conway estate, my possibilities were completely stripped away. Every sharp corner of the baseboards, the tables, the marble pillars, had been wrapped in thick foam padding. The kitchen was padlocked. Not a single pair of scissors, a shard of porcelain, or a scrap of wire remained within reach. That afternoon, Kayla came into the foyer, nestling into my mother’s side before turning to me with an angelic, hesitant smile. "Willa, I found this vintage crystal locket while looking through the spare vanity. It's set with such a delicate sapphire... would you mind terribly if I kept it?" I didn't answer. She took a few tentative steps toward me. "If you really don't want to share, I understand. Here, take it back." As she extended her palm, her fingers deliberately relaxed. The locket struck the parquet floor. The beveled crystal face shattered with a crystalline crunch, its gold filigree hinge twisting and breaking into ruined fragments. Kayla instantly pressed her hands to her mouth, tears welling in her large, innocent eyes. "I'm so sorry! I'm so clumsy... I thought you had taken hold of it, Willa!" It was the same amateurish, heavy-handed performance she had put on for years. Once, I thought my family was simply blind. Now I knew they saw through it perfectly well; they simply chose to participate. Simon stepped between us, shielding Kayla behind his chest. "Willa, you dropped it on purpose. Don't take your bitterness out on her." I looked down at the ruined glass and gold. "It's just jewelry. It's broken. It doesn't matter." I turned to walk away, but Henry seized my wrist, his grip bruising. "Just jewelry?!" His voice trembled with an inexplicable, volatile fury. "That was the eighteenth birthday heirloom I commissioned for you from an antique house in London! You wore it against your throat for four years, and now you stand there and say it doesn't matter?!" I looked into his bloodshot eyes. "What else do you want me to say, Henry? It's ruined. If it upsets you that much, hand me a steak knife. I'll carve my heart out to pay for it." Henry recoiled as if burned, his fingers releasing me instantly. His mouth opened, working silently, but not a single sound came out. "If there’s nothing else," I said evenly, "I’m going to lie down." I didn't look at the shattered glass again. In the past, Kayla had weaponized every single heirloom my family had ever given me. She had torn my hand-sewn ballet tutus, spilled bleach on my childhood scrapbooks, lost the signet ring my mother gave me. Each time, I had screamed until my throat bled, because those objects were the only physical evidence that I had once been deeply, unconditionally loved. Now, I didn't care. None of it mattered anymore. I walked toward the converted storage room beneath the service stairs. That was my bedroom now. When Kayla first moved into our house, she claimed my sunlit, second-floor master suite was the only room that eased her chronic migraines. I had fought like an animal that day, scratching her face and smashing porcelain, swearing she would never displace me in my own home. To punish my "selfish cruelty," my father moved all my belongings into the damp pantry downstairs and gave Kayla my keys. "Knock, knock." Kayla tapped lightly on the thin wood. "Willa? The guests have all arrived for your birthday dinner. You need to come down." I walked down the grand staircase into the ballroom. In the center of the chandelier light, Simon was on one knee before Kayla, holding up a velvet box containing a three-carat diamond. The crowd of high-society guests burst into rapturous applause, raising flutes of champagne to celebrate the magnificent couple. Murmurs rippled through the periphery of the room: "Wait, isn't Simon engaged to Willa Conway?" "Haven't you heard? She's basically the black sheep now. Look at how happy the parents are for Kayla." "Must be an illegitimate ward they brought in. Messy business." "Who cares? The champagne is vintage. Just smile and clap." My family stood near the grand piano, their eyes fixed on me with intense, nervous apprehension, terrified I would throw a fit and ruin their public image. I stood there, expressionless. Henry walked over, searching my face with deep unease. "Willa... you're not angry?" My father cleared his throat, offering a stiff, patronizing pat on my shoulder. "Even if you feel a little slighted, keep your composure. Kayla is simply a better match for the family’s public standing." My mother chimed in, nodding eagerly. "Yes, darling. You’ll find someone far better suited to your... unique temperament." "Someone better? The designated tragic hero they were grooming me for?" They were willing to throw away eight years of my devotion, handing my fiancé to another woman on a silver platter, all to fulfill some twisted script of emotional optimization. And my own blood had orchestrated the entire ceremony. I curved my lips into a faint, empty smile. "You're right. They look wonderful together." Henry’s brow furrowed deeper, a shadow of profound discomfort crossing his face. Kayla blushed, slipping the diamond onto her finger before Simon pulled her into a possessive embrace against his chest. She looked across the room, caught my eye, and took two glasses of merlot from a passing server's silver tray. Gliding over, she offered me a glass. "Willa, I feel so terrible for stealing your thunder tonight. I had no idea Simon was going to propose during your birthday party... You aren't holding a grudge, are you? I know he was technically yours first..." "He was just an engagement," I said, my tone as flat as unruffled water. "We never signed a marriage certificate. Keep him." Simon, having followed her over, bristled at my total indifference. His jaw clenched, irritated that his grand betrayal hadn't provoked a tear. "What is that supposed to mean, Willa? I was your fiancé for four years! I propose to another woman in front of your circle, and you don't even flinch?!" I let out a soft, breathy laugh. "Why should I? You love each other. I'm not in the business of standing in the way of true romance." Simon sneered, though his eyes looked unsettled. "It’s your birthday dinner. Stop standing there looking like a ghost at a funeral!" So they still remembered it was my birthday. Kayla pushed the wine glass closer to my chest. "Drink with us, Willa. Just one sip to seal your blessing?" I am severely, anaphylactically allergic to alcohol. One sip causes my throat to close in minutes. It was her favorite game: offer me poison, wait for me to slap it away, and then cry when the glass shattered. This time, I didn't slap it away. I reached out, took the stemware from her hand, and brought it toward my lips, fully intending to swallow the lethal dose. Kayla saw the resolve in my eyes and panicked. She lunged, wrenching my arm upward so the deep red liquid splashed across her silk ivory gown. She shrieked, stumbling backward into Simon’s chest. "Willa! Why... why would you throw wine on me?!" I stood looking at the empty glass in my hand, genuine disappointment settling over my chest. I had missed my chance. "You jealous, spiteful bitch!" Simon roared, thrusting Kayla behind him. My father shoved his finger into my face. "Shameless! You dare attack her on your own birthday?!" Henry stepped forward, his eyes blazing with fury, and struck me across the jaw with an open hand. "Get on your knees and apologize to Kayla right now!" The guests stared, their eyes like needles pricking my skin. I wiped the trickle of blood from the corner of my lip and began to laugh. "You're right. I need to make amends." I turned, smashed the crystal wine glass against the mahogany dining table, and drove the jagged stem directly into the hollow of my own throat! My mother screamed—a raw, guttural sound of pure terror. She lunged forward, her bare hands clamping down over the broken glass just millimeters before it severed my carotid artery. The razor-sharp crystal sliced deep into her palms. Blood gushed through her fingers, hot and crimson, splashing across my collarbone. My father bellowed, "Willa! Look at what you’ve done to your mother!" Looking at the red pooling across her manicured hands, I kicked out, shoving her away with cold, mechanical force. "I have sinned," I whispered, my voice rattling in my throat. "I’ll pay the debt with my life!" I gripped the remaining shard and plunged it toward my throat a second time. Henry caught my wrist with both hands, twisting with enough force to nearly dislocate my joint. The bloody glass clattered to the parquet floor and slid across the room. "Have you lost your goddamn mind?!" Henry shouted, his voice cracking, entirely unhinged. "What do you want from us?! What are you doing?!" I looked at him, completely still. "I'm paying the debt, Henry. I spilled wine on Kayla. I ruined Mom’s hands. My existence is a crime. Let me pay for it." "You know damn well she baited you!" Henry screamed, tears finally leaking from his red-rimmed eyes. "Can't you just explain yourself for once?!" I turned my head slowly, meeting his frantic gaze. "If I explained it... would you have believed me?" The silence that followed was suffocating. My father’s teeth were gritted so hard his jaw muscles trembled. "Even now, you show no remorse! Get this wretched girl out of my house! You want to die so badly? Go die on the street!" Henry caught my father’s sleeve, panic lacing his tone. "Dad, wait! It's pitch black outside, and she's unstable—what if something happens to her?!" My father scoffed, though his voice sounded thin. "Look at her! Does she look like someone who actually wants to end her life? She’s pulled this martyr routine a dozen times just to keep us on a leash. She always survives." Hearing those words, Henry’s fingers slowly slipped from our father's arm. They threw me out into the cold night. Standing on the asphalt outside the wrought-iron gates, looking up at the heavy, starless sky, my chest felt remarkably light. I began to walk toward the highway interchange, determined to step in front of an eighteen-wheeler. I hadn't made it past the second block when a cloth soaked in ether clamped over my mouth and nose. My vision went black. ... When my eyes opened, I was sitting on a cold concrete floor, my wrists bound behind an iron support beam in an abandoned manufacturing plant. Kayla was tied up beside me. Footsteps echoed through the cavernous space. My father, mother, Henry, and Simon came rushing through the rusted corrugated doors, panting, wild-eyed. A man in a heavy ski mask stepped out from the shadows, a rusted hunting knife spinning lazily in his grip. "Only one gets to walk out of here," the kidnapper sneered, leaning against the pillar. "You pick the girl you want to take home. The one left behind... we slit her throat and dump her in the river." My family didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. "Take Kayla!" they yelled in unison. Not a shred of surprise registered in my mind. My father pointed at me, his chest heaving with disgust. "Willa, do you honestly think we’re stupid enough to fall for this? You hired these thugs to stage this ridiculous kidnapping, didn't you?!" My mother pressed her bandaged hands together, weeping with indignation. "How could I have given birth to a monster like you?!" Henry looked at Kayla’s tear-stained face with deep remorse. "It's my fault. I didn't watch Kayla closely enough. When she slipped out to look for Willa, they grabbed her." Simon spat on the floor near my feet. "Willa, is this your grand plan to force me to reconcile with you? Let me make this clear: I would rather rot in hell than spend another day by your side. You are destined for a magnificent life with a better man—why do you insist on clawing at what belongs to Kayla?!" The kidnappers untied Kayla and shoved her forward into Simon’s waiting arms. Before turning to leave, Simon cast one last dismissive glance at me. "Wrap up your little theatrical production and walk yourself home. Don’t make your parents lose any more sleep over your nonsense." Henry paused at the doorway, shouting back over his shoulder: "It’s a three-hour trek back to the estate from these docks. Consider the walk your punishment for throwing this tantrum." The heavy metal doors slammed shut. In the cavernous silence of the warehouse, the three men in ski masks turned toward me, their posture relaxing into crude, ugly smirks. "Miss Kayla told us," the leader said, cracking his knuckles as he unbuckled his heavy leather belt, "that once the family took her away, whatever happened to this Willa girl was fair game." "Boss goes first..." another laughed, picking up a heavy wooden pallet board from the corner. I didn't move. I didn't scream. I allowed them to tear at me, to kick, to beat, to purge whatever animal violence they held inside their bodies. When they whipped the leather against my skin, I stayed silent. When the wood shattered across my ribs, I didn't shed a single tear. After twenty minutes, they grew bored. The total absence of fear or begging made the cruelty feel hollow, unrewarding. They spat on the floor and gathered their gear, cursing under their breath. One of the younger men glanced back at the pool of blood spreading beneath my limp frame, sounding distinctly uneasy. "Hey, Boss... she looks completely wrecked. What if she doesn't make it?" The leader snorted, lighting a cigarette. "Who gives a shit? Her own family told us to slit her throat anyway." They vanished into the night. Above me, the rotting corrugated roof was pocked with hundreds of rust holes. Through the gaps, I watched the ink-black clouds roll across the sky, completely blotting out the stars. Then, the storm broke. Torrents of freezing rain cascaded through the holes, slamming into my battered body. Oddly enough, the freezing water felt almost warm against my burning, fevered skin. My vision grew hazy, the world dissolving into static grey. In the center of that fading dark, the blue interface illuminated with a brilliant, blinding light. "Host objective complete. Suffering quota: 100%. Initiating extraction protocol in thirty seconds." "29... 28... 27..." I smiled, blood bubbling over my lips into the rain. I was free.