The Madness

Eric Luke lost his mind again today. Simply because Vivian Scott said she wished to see 'a different kind of fireworks,' he set ablaze the camellia embroidery left by my mother. As the flame licked the silk thread, Vivian stood beside me, her soft laughter coated in sweetness, yet it pierced my eardrums like needles. Eric pinched my chin, forcing me to look at the fire. "Shirley Shawn, is this fireworks display more beautiful than the ones Vivian wanted to see?" I nodded. After all, I have been reborn; I must first feign obedience to carry out my grand plan for revenge. In my past life, I loved him so deeply that I lost myself. I quit my job at the Design Institute, learned to cook his favorite sweet and sour fish, and locked my mother's mementos in the deepest corner of the cabinet. But he only ever saw me as a shadow of Vivian Scott: when Vivian wore white dresses, he forced me to wear white all year long; when Vivian loathed cilantro, he crushed the cilantro in my bowl beneath his feet. In the end, I died in the hospital basement. He said I had 'tainted the places Vivian loved,' locking me there as I burned with fever, without so much as a sip of water. What truly shattered me was the night before his engagement banquet with Vivian. I hid outside the study door and heard Vivian's giggle as she asked, “Eric, are you really going to send Shirley Shawn to a mental institution after we marry? Isn't that too cruel?” His voice held a coldness I had never heard before: "When we marry, she should disappear." That night, I pulled out the fruit knife hidden beneath my pillow—it was the one I had secretly stashed away a few days earlier after he had abused me. On the day of the engagement banquet, Vivian Scott wore the diamond ring he had given her and deliberately strode in front of me, flaunting it. "Shirley, look at this ring. Eric said it suits me best. You should stop clinging to foolish illusions." I fixed my gaze on that diamond ring, then suddenly lunged forward and plunged the knife into her abdomen. Amidst the screams in the Banquet Hall, I heard only my own voice: "What you owe me, you shall repay." Later, when the security guards rushed over, fearing they would drag me back to torture me, I swallowed the sleeping pills in my pocket.