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To Cure My Illness, Parents Abandoned Me in Python Park
NovelShort
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Ever since I was little, I've barely felt anything. I couldn't cry, couldn't laugh, couldn't feel fear. All the therapists in the world couldn't fix it. Then my sister tricked me into a game of hide-and-seek and locked me in the dog kennel for a whole night. For the first time, fear showed on my face. She clapped her hands, proud of herself. "Those therapists really were useless. It had to be me." And Mom and Dad didn't blame her. They praised her for it.
Chapters (4)
第1章
Ever since I was little, my feelings barely registered.
I couldn't cry, couldn't laugh, couldn't even feel afraid. My family took me to every therapist they could find, and none of it worked.
Then one day my sister tricked me with a game of hide-and-seek, luring me into the dog kennel and locking me in for a whole night.
For the first time, fear showed on my face.
She clapped her hands, proud of herself. "Those therapists were useless. It had to be me."
Mom and Dad didn't scold her. They praised her instead.
"Nadia Abbott's amazing! To think of such a clever way to cure your sister!"
After that, they started using extreme methods to force feelings out of me.
On a family trip, they abandoned me alone at a highway rest stop for a whole day.
On a camping trip, they left me overnight in a stretch of wilderness with no one around for miles.
I finally learned to cry, to beg them not to do this to me.
They only called me ungrateful.
"What do you think we're doing all this for?"
"It's to cure your emotional condition, that's what!"
To ramp up the shock, on a trip to the zoo they bribed a staffer to shut me inside the python enclosure.
They only meant for me to stay a night. What they didn't count on was one of the pythons not being caged properly.
It fixed on me like prey.
I tried to run, but the door was locked. There was nowhere to go.
When its body coiled around me, I suddenly remembered my parents' furious scolding.
I'm sorry, Mom, Dad. Looks like you won't get the chance to cure me after all.
1.
I floated in the air, watching the python go on crushing my body.
Only after it seemed certain there was no breath left in me did it begin to feed, starting from my head.
Soon my body was nothing but a meal in the python's belly.
I thought I'd leave this world for good. Instead, when I opened my eyes again, I was back home.
Mom, Dad, and Nadia were in the living room, laughing and talking, warm as anything.
I instinctively moved toward them, then remembered they couldn't see me anymore.
Just then their conversation shifted from household chatter to me.
"My phone's been buzzing over and over. It's got to be Rosalind Acevedo calling again."
Mom pulled out her phone as she spoke, and once she'd confirmed the calls were all from me, she rolled her eyes and tossed the phone carelessly onto the table in front of everyone.
My sister smiled when she heard.
"That's a good sign. It means Rosalind felt afraid again."
"As long as there's enough shock, her emotional condition will be completely cured."
Mom nodded, satisfied, and made a point of instructing Dad. "If she calls you later, don't pick up either, understand?"
"Relax. When have we ever answered her calls?"
That was true. Every time they left me alone somewhere with no one for miles, they made sure to silence their phones.
They'd block me and blacklist my messages too. No matter how many times I called, it would never go through.
I once questioned whether that plan was even safe, and Mom slapped me across the face in a rage.
"Are you doubting your sister's expertise?"
"Who do you think she chose to study psychology for? It's to cure you!"
"Haven't your feelings been getting clearer little by little? How dare you question your sister's treatment plan?"
I held my cheek and cried without a sound.
"Aren't you afraid something might happen to me?"
My sister spoke up then, wounded. "Rosalind, do you think we're trying to hurt you?"
"We only use this treatment after making sure it's safe beforehand."
"We just want to cure you, not harm you. How can you have so little trust in us?"
Mom chimed in. "Exactly. You don't understand how much thought we put into this at all!"
So after that, whenever they abandoned me, I stopped calling.
Because I knew that call would never go through.
But this time was different. While the python was chasing me, I called them again and again, sent message after message.
Every single one came back the same way: rejected, or a red exclamation mark.
Each one pushed me deeper into despair.
If they had picked up even once, maybe I wouldn't have died.
Just then I heard Mom ask my sister gently, "Nadia, how's your thesis coming along?"
"It's already been accepted. With all the ready-made material my sister provided, my advisor even praised how well I wrote it."
"Then once your sister comes back tomorrow, we won't use this treatment anymore."
My sister nodded lightly. "Sure. Rosalind's emotional condition is pretty much cured anyway."
I stared at the two of them, unable to believe it. Only now did I understand. All those so-called treatment plans before.
They were really just the source material my sister needed for her thesis.
My condition was the topic she'd chosen for it.
No wonder that, even though I'd long since learned to feel fear and to cry, they never once stopped.
I'd thought it was because I wasn't cured enough yet.
It turned out my sister just didn't have enough material yet.
第2章
The next morning, Mom went to unusual lengths and laid out a big spread for breakfast.
She'd even bought a large cake.
Nadia looked surprised. "What's the occasion? All this good food."
Mom lifted her brows lightly. "Your thesis got accepted. That deserves a proper celebration."
"And a little celebration for your sister's emotional disorder being cured, too."
Nadia hugged her happily and gushed, "Wow, when Rosalind gets home and sees a breakfast like this, she's going to tear up for sure."
I stood off to the side, looking at all the food.
They called it a celebration for my recovery, and yet not one dish was anything I liked.
Even the cake was chocolate, the kind Nadia liked.
All because my condition meant I never expressed my own preferences.
So my parents simply decided that whatever Nadia liked, I liked too.
After all, I'd never refused anything, never said I didn't like something.
But if they had ever really watched what I did, they would have noticed I never touched anything bitter.
Not even something faintly bitter like chocolate mocha.
In their eyes, though, there was only my condition.
All they cared about was whether my emotional shifts could give Nadia more to study.
"Aren't you sweet. All right, the zoo's opened by now."
"Your sister should be home in about half an hour."
Nadia tilted her head toward Mom. "Then should we wait for her before we eat?"
"No need to wait. Your stomach's bad as it is, and there's plenty of food, no worry about running out."
"Your sister won't go hungry."
I watched them settle in and start on breakfast, and I gave a bitter smile.
Sorry. This time, you won't get to wait for me to come home.
More than half an hour passed, and when I still hadn't come home, Mom finally remembered to call me.
But the call rang for the longest time with no answer.
Several tries, all the same, until she threw the phone down on the couch in anger.
"That rotten girl actually has the nerve not to pick up?"
Nadia spoke up, sounding worried. "Could it be Rosalind's upset, so she doesn't want to come home or answer?"
At those words, Mom got angrier still.
"She has the nerve to be upset? Everything we did was for her own good, wasn't it?"
"So ungrateful!"
"If she's so full of herself, then fine, she can just never come back!"
Dad spoke up then. "Enough. Maybe the kid's still in the python enclosure. Have that staffer go take a look."
He pulled out his phone and contacted the staffer, asking him to check the python enclosure for any sign of me.
A few minutes later the reply came: no sign of me, probably left long ago.
With a definite answer, Mom threw up her hands in exasperation. "What did I tell you?"
Mom was about to keep going, when Dad got another message from the staffer.
【Boss, I just found a cage inside that wasn't shut properly. The python inside is gone!】
第3章
The moment he saw the message, Dad's face changed.
Mom caught it and frowned. "What's wrong? You look terrible."
"The staff say one of the pythons wasn't shut in properly. It got out."
Mom's eyes went wide. "What did you say? Rosalind, she couldn't have…"
Dad didn't answer her. He dialed the staffer instead and told him to pull up the security footage inside the enclosure.
After all, if something had really gone wrong, the staffer wouldn't get off easy either.
So he moved right away to check the cameras, only it turned out the cameras in the python enclosure had broken two days ago, and the repair had only been scheduled for today.
Which meant no one knew what had actually happened inside last night.
The only way to be sure now was to find the missing python and check its belly.
Seeing the panic on our parents' faces, my sister thought of something and spoke up.
"Mom, to keep track of Rosalind before, didn't you link her phone location to yours?"
"Check whether she's still inside the enclosure."
The reminder jogged Mom's memory.
She opened the app and looked at my location right away, and found I wasn't in the park at all. I was at a café near it.
The instant she saw where it was, Mom let out a breath of relief.
Then something else occurred to her, and she flared up again.
"So this kid climbed out of the python enclosure and ran off in the night!"
"How is that staffer so useless? Didn't check the cage, didn't lock the door."
My sister sounded a little upset. "Then didn't this round of treatment fail?"
Mom looked up, vicious.
"I was even thinking we'd stop after this one. Next time we'd go straight to diving and shut her in a shark cage for a few hours."
"Let's see if she can run off halfway when she's out in the ocean!"
I hovered in the air, watching Mom and my sister start discussing the next treatment plan.
Not once did they consider how much I could take.
I was already dead. I shouldn't have been able to feel pain.
But my whole body still ached and burned, my whole soul as if it were being torn apart.
"And right now this brat is sitting cozy in a café, sipping tea?"
"Come on, we'll go drag her back and lock her in the dark room for a while as punishment."
With that they got in the car and set off for the café at the location.
At the same time, the staffer they had bribed was still inside the park looking for the missing python.
He soon spotted it in a very hidden corner of the ceiling.
Full and heavy, the python was deep in sleep.
The staffer crept up to it carefully and used a flashlight to search along its belly.
The moment he saw the huge shape bulging clearly there, his heart dropped.
He knew at once that he'd caused a disaster. A serious accident.
He didn't notify my parents, and he didn't tell any of his coworkers.
Instead he chose to bury the truth, went straight to the manager to quit on the spot, and fled.
Not long after he ran, my parents made it to the café, and the shop was open to full view, but there was no sign of me.
Yet the location showed I was right here.
Mom tried calling again, and soon my phone was ringing somewhere in the shop.
They followed the sound, only to see a strange man.
第4章
Mom froze.
She'd been all set to grab me by the ear and scream in my face.
The last thing she expected was for the tracker to lead her to some stranger.
She rushed forward, demanding, "Who are you? Why do you have my daughter's phone?"
The man clearly hadn't expected the phone's owner to actually show up, and in his fright he handed it straight back to Mom.
"I found this phone in the python enclosure this morning. I swear I didn't steal it."
The moment he said it, the possibility everyone had shoved aside surfaced again.
Mom pushed Dad to call the staffer once more, wanting to know whether the python had actually been recovered.
He dialed several times with no answer.
Just as they started to fear something really had gone wrong, the call finally connected.
Mom snatched the phone. "What's going on? It took you forever to pick up!"
"Did you find that python or not?"
There were a few seconds of silence on the other end. "We found it. The snake's completely normal, nothing wrong with it."
Which meant the python hadn't eaten me.
That settled my parents' nerves for good. It never occurred to them that the staffer they'd bribed would lie to dodge the blame.
That was when my sister spoke up again.
"Honestly, Rosalind. No matter how angry she was, she shouldn't have just thrown her phone away."
"Making us worry for nothing like this."
At Nadia's words, Mom started shaking with fury.
"That little brat. The older she gets, the more capable she thinks she is."
"Not only does she sneak off in the middle of the night, she ditches her phone and pulls this running-away-from-home stunt!"
"If she's so tough, she can stay gone forever. No money on her, let's see how long she survives out there alone!"
Nadia quickly rubbed her back, soothing her in a soft voice.
"All right, Mom. Rosalind just acted on impulse. Give her some time and she'll understand all the trouble we've gone to for her."
"And look at the bright side. Rosalind throwing this tantrum actually proves the treatment we've been doing all along is working."
"She's turning into a normal person. We should be happy about that."
Mom tapped Nadia's nose lightly. "You're always finding nice things to say about your sister."
"Too bad she doesn't have the sense to appreciate everything you do for her."
I drifted off to the side, and listening to them talk left me cold all over.
Ever since Nadia, for the sake of this so-called treatment, gave up a finance major with a far better future to study psychology in college.
To my parents she had become the good child who sacrificed her own future for her sister.
Even when she went against every legitimate psychological treatment plan.
In their eyes, as long as it worked on my condition, it was for my own good.
Any resistance or complaint from me was written off as being difficult.
More than once I'd wondered whether I was really their child.
How could any parents be cruel enough to accept treatment methods this monstrous?
Just as they were about to head home, they noticed a commotion breaking out at the zoo entrance not far off.
An ambulance, a fire truck, and a patrol car had all shown up at once.
Curiosity pulled the three of them over to the zoo to watch.
Nadia grabbed a passerby right away and asked what had happened inside.
"Somebody found a python that got loose. Scared everyone who was there."
"Lucky thing the python had eaten its fill and was too lazy to move. They're probably in there catching it right now."