After reaching home, Ami feels almost weightless, as if every day with her friends is slowly stitching her broken pieces back together. The laughter still lingers on her lips, and she throws her head back with a soft chuckle.
Ami (murmuring to herself, smiling): "Silver Dust… what a combination. We really are something else."
The house greets her with silence. No footsteps. No clinking of dishes. No faint sound of Celeste's voice echoing through the hallway. Just stillness.
Ami sets her bag aside.
Ami: "Oh… everyone must have gone to the hospital."
Her expression sharpens, a spark of determination cutting through the warmth she carried from earlier.
Ami (whispering under her breath): "Wait… that's my golden opportunity. The drawing-Father's room… I can't let this slip."
Her heartbeat quickens as she pads quietly toward her father's room. Every creak of the floor feels louder than it should, but the silence of the house reassures her.
With careful fingers, she twists the doorknob and steps inside.
She moves straight to the heavy desk at the far end. The first drawer slides open with a dull scrape, revealing nothing but stacks of neatly organized business documents-contracts, reports, ledgers. Pages of numbers that mean nothing to her.
Ami (muttering, frustrated): "Ugh… not this. Where are you hiding it?"
She searches again, rifling through each compartment, her brows knitting tighter with each empty space. Her patience wears thin until finally, her hand brushes against a smaller, less polished drawer tucked beneath the others-almost too simple, as if intentionally overlooked.
She pulls it open.
Her fingers tremble as she lifts the first file. The paper feels fragile, like it might crumble if she grips too tightly.
Her eyes skim the words.
Patient Name: Selene Marigold Vale.
Her mother's name.
Ami's throat tightens. She flips through the notes-handwritten prescriptions, typed reports, dosage charts. Each page feels heavier than the last.
At first, it looks ordinary-medications for fatigue, for mild respiratory issues, for headaches. But then, her gaze catches on a highlighted line.
Long-term prescription: Metacline-RX
(Warning: not recommended for extended use-risk of systemic organ damage).
Her stomach sinks. She whispers the words out loud, as if saying them will force them to make sense.
Ami (whispering): "Organ damage…? how lowly thinking ability they have…"
She flips to another page, a doctor's note scribbled in a rush:
"Patient shows worsening symptoms despite regular dosage. Suggest increasing frequency."
Ami gasps softly, stepping back as if the file itself burns her hands.
Ami (thinking, horrified): They… they kept giving it to her. Even when she was getting worse. What did I expect?
Memories slam into her. Her mother lying in bed, paler each day, her voice growing weaker. The faint smile she tried to keep on her face, even as her hands shook pouring tea. Her father brushing off Ami's worries, telling her "it's the medicine, she'll get better."
But she didn't.
She never got better.
Ami flips faster now, desperation taking over. More files. More prescriptions. Each stamped, signed, approved. Each a nail in the coffin.
And then, she freezes on a document clipped to the back.
Financial Transaction: Purchase Order - Celeste Arwyn Vale.
Her stepmother's name.
Right next to the bulk order of Metacline-RX.
Ami's breath catches in her throat. Her hands shake uncontrollably.
Ami (hoarse whisper): "Celeste… how could you be that bold, leaving evidence that carelessly, huh…"
This wasn't neglect. This wasn't just bad luck or a misdiagnosis.
It was deliberate.
Day by day, dose by dose, they had poisoned her mother-wiping her out slowly, silently.
Ami staggers back from the desk, one hand clutching the medical file, the other covering her mouth to stifle the scream clawing its way out.
Ami (thinking): I don't think this is hard evidence… I gotta bring down the whole hospital… how could they kill a person and everyone thinks it was just her luck???
She gently closes the drawer and holds the file tight against her chest.
For the first time in years, Ami doesn't feel powerless.
She feels dangerous.
Her breath hitches as her eyes lock onto the word Thallium. The same name she saw scribbled in the chemical charts tucked behind those medical records.
The dots connect so cruelly, so clearly, that Ami feels her chest ache.
Her jaw clenches.
Ami (thinking): Celeste wasn't just cruel… she's a murderer. And Father… he covered it, or turned a blind eye-or should I just say helped her. Either way… I can't forgive them.
She hears the faint click of the front door unlocking. The sound jolts her back into the present. Heart racing, she quickly snaps photos of every document, careful not to disturb the neat stack. Slipping her phone into her pocket, she places the papers back exactly as they were, shuts the drawer, and tiptoes out of the room. Her pulse pounds in her ears, her mind still reeling with the truth she uncovered.
By the time she reaches her own room, Celeste's soft, airy laugh floats up from the hallway-sweet and polished, like honey covering poison.
"Go ahead, Celeste," she says, her voice soft yet heavy, like velvet hiding a blade. "Laugh all you want. Every sound, every breath of your mockery-I'll carve it into a memory you'll choke on. One day, that laughter will twist into screams, and I will be there to turn every ripple of your joy into an ocean of pain."