Her home, once warm and simple, sank into a silence so thick it felt like a living thing.
No laughter.
No chatter.
No music in the evenings.
Every corner carried her memory
her stray books,
her unfinished hair clips,
her handwriting on a forgotten slip of paper.
Her mother cried until her eyes swelled.
Her father stared at walls for hours.
They blamed fate.
Illness.
Stress.
Everything
except themselves.
Only Zius knew.
Only he had seen.
Only he remembered the bruises, the choked cries, the humiliation, the fear.
And Mira…
She stayed.
She cooked.
She cleaned.
She comforted Ela's mother with syrupy words:
"Mom, please eat something."
"You've suffered so much."
"God tests good people the hardest."
She wiped her fake tears with delicate fingers.
She took the seat Ela once sat in.
She walked through the house like she had finally claimed something she had been waiting for all along.
And every night, when the lights turned off,
when the house slept in grief,
Mira's smile thin, victorious, wicked
returned for only herself to see.
Because deep inside,
beneath
every lie she had spun,
she knew one truth:
Ela was gone.
And Mira had won.