After the Heiress Died

1 I was the last person the fake heiress saw before she died a brutal death. To find her killer, my parents subjected me to electroshock therapy and hypnosis, desperate to unlock my memories. I was tormented to the brink of insanity, but I couldn’t recall a single detail. The therapist suggested a more radical approach: an experimental “stimulation therapy” at a notorious, off-the-grid facility abroad. My brother, Daniel, agreed on the spot. Then he turned to me and said, “Be a good girl. If you can just remember, we’ll still consider you our daughter.” I held onto those words. I became the most obedient dog in that gilded cage. A bite of food was all it took for me to spread my legs. Then, news broke of a new technology: the Memory Tribunal, a machine that promised a 100% success rate in memory retrieval. The day I heard about it, I called my brother. The line was silent for a long time before he finally spoke. “That tribunal… it’s dangerous. If you don’t want to…” I cut him off with a laugh. “It’s fine.” Just as he hadn’t told me that stepping onto the tribunal was a death sentence, I didn’t tell him that I already knew. For me, death was a release. … When I was led onto the tribunal platform, blindfolded, I was wearing nothing but a piece of revealing lingerie. My body was a roadmap of festering whip marks, with cigarette burns in places no one could see. The stares from the audience below were like knives, but I felt nothing. Finally, my brother arrived with our parents. I lifted my head, wanting to see them one last time. Since the day they had callously sent me away, I had finally accepted my place. As their biological daughter, I wasn’t worth a single hair on the head of the fake heiress, Bianca. After her gruesome death, they had become obsessed with avenging her. As expected, the moment my mother saw me, she flew into a rage. “How dare you dress like that? You’re a disgrace to this family! Bianca was always so vibrant and full of life! How could a cheap little tramp like you ever compare to her?” she shrieked. “You were the last person to see her alive! Why can’t you remember? Remember, damn you!” She tore at my hair, tears streaming down her face. I felt the heat of them on my skin and wondered, if I died, would she grieve for me like this? Probably not. My father made a token effort to restrain her, his own eyes full of disapproval. “Lauren, that’s enough. You’ve made your point.” Then to me, “You’re taking this too far, pretending to have all these injuries just to make us feel sorry for you. Don’t think I don’t know about the decadent life you’ve been living.” I said nothing, my numb gaze drifting to my brother, who quickly looked away. He knew. When he had stormed into that hellhole to bring me home, he had found me on all fours like a dog, waiting to be fed. He had pushed past a line of other girls, searching for me, and when he finally found me, he knew the wounds were real. But he wouldn’t say a word in my defense. It didn’t matter. I had lost all hope in him long ago. I closed my eyes, then opened them again, my expression devoid of any emotion. “Let’s just get this over with. I want to know what happened the day Bianca died even more than you do.” I wanted to be free of this filthy world. I couldn’t bear to live like this anymore. As the technicians began to strap me to the tribunal chair, my brother called out to me. “Lauren, are you sure about this?” I understood his hidden meaning. He was telling me I still had a chance to back out, to live. But I pretended not to understand. Daniel, I thought, this world is too dirty. I don’t want to live in it anymore. I lay down on the platform, allowing them to bind my arms and legs. A technician leaned over me. “Are you doing this of your own free will?” she asked, her voice low. “The Memory Tribunal is still experimental. You will die.” I nodded, forcing a smile. It had been a long time since anyone had shown me such concern. I tried to make the smile as genuine as possible. The technician, her face filled with pity, took the consent form to my parents. “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this to your own daughter? Don’t you know that once the process is complete, she will…” My parents cut her off. “We don’t care. We just want to find the person who killed our darling girl and make them pay!” “How much did Lauren pay you to plead her case?” I let out a bitter, silent laugh. Mom, all I did was smile at her. Is that all it takes to buy a person’s heart? Defeated, the technician stepped back and reached for the activation button. I closed my eyes, waiting for my fate. Suddenly, my brother strode forward, stopping the technician’s hand. He pressed something small and hard into my palm. “Hold on,” he whispered. It was a piece of candy. Candy. In that gilded cage, it was a luxury. The things I had to do for a single taste of sweetness… I managed to turn my head and give him a grateful smile. I was about to die anyway. All the humiliation would finally be erased. The tribunal began. A searing pain shot through my mind. I clenched my jaw, enduring it, my hand instinctively tightening around the candy. This was nothing. In that other place, if you survived one torment, there was always another waiting. I was used to it. The large screen above flickered to life, displaying my first memory. A scene of debauchery, filled with screams and cheers. I was there, raising a glass, downing it in one go. The audience below began to whisper. “She’s no good, that one. Living like that… imagine how many men she’s been with.” “Exactly. I bet those scars are from her own sick fetishes. And she has the nerve to play the victim.” My parents looked on, their faces filled with righteous anger, as if I had committed some unforgivable sin. The next second, the scene shifted, and they all froze. I was kicked to the ground, the bottle I had just emptied shoved into my mouth. Someone grabbed my head and slammed it against the floor again and again. The glass shattered, filling my mouth with blood. I begged them to stop, my forehead a bloody mess from kowtowing, before I was dragged away like a dead dog. It happened over and over. Every time my wounds started to heal, someone would come to torture me again. I went from a spirited young woman to a broken, lifeless doll. One of my tormentors spat. “Easy now. We can’t kill her. The boss wants her alive. Wants her to go home a raving lunatic, a public disgrace.” A murmur went through the crowd. Everyone wanted to know who “the boss” was. My parents stood there, stunned. The technician looked at them, her voice filled with pity. “Do you want to continue? Her mental state is… fragile. Perhaps you should find this ‘boss’ and get her justice.” A flicker of hope ignited within me. Mom, Dad, now that you’ve seen what they did to me, do you feel even a little bit of pity? Just enough to let me know that you care? They were silent for a long time. Then my father’s voice rang out, firm and clear. “We will find out who killed Bianca today. As for Lauren, we will compensate her after we have our revenge. She’ll get what’s hers.” The flicker of hope died. My will to live vanished completely. A look of pain crossed my brother’s face. He opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again. In their eyes, I would never be worth as much as Bianca. Lauren, I thought, what more can you possibly hope for? The tribunal continued. The machine pulsed, and my body began to convulse. It felt like a lightning bolt shot from my brain through my entire body. I could smell my own skin burning. The dark screen lit up again. A snarling face filled the screen, causing the audience to gasp. “Remember! You have to remember!” “Why can’t you remember? Why won’t you say it? What happened that day? How did my Bianca die?” It was my mother. She was like a lioness who had lost her cub, vowing to make the killer pay. In the memory, I was on the floor, shaking, trying desperately to remember, but my mind was a fog. “I… I really can’t remember! Please, stop asking me!” I screamed, clutching my head, tears streaming down my face. Why? Why did no one believe me? Why did everyone think I had something to do with Bianca’s death? Why were they blaming me for something I didn’t do? My father stood to the side, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses. “If she won’t cooperate, increase the voltage. We need to know the truth.” The truth? The truth was that my parents and my brother had never trusted me. From the day I returned to them, I had walked on eggshells. I never dared to hope for their love, never wanted to usurp Bianca’s place in their hearts. I had tried to stay out of their way. But it wasn’t enough. They wouldn’t leave me alone. On the tribunal platform, tears of blood trickled from the corners of my eyes. My body shook uncontrollably. An audience member pointed me out to my parents. “This is your fault. How can you sacrifice a living child for one who is already gone?” “Look at her! It’s obvious she’s been horribly abused. Even I feel for her. How can her own family be so heartless?” The voltage surged through me again and again. It was so brutal that even the technician couldn’t bear to watch. Just as she was about to shut it down, my parents snapped out of their trance. “Don’t you dare stop! Keep going!” “We haven’t gotten to the day Bianca died yet! No one stops until we do!” My mother ran forward and began to struggle with the technician. “Don’t you understand? Any more of this, and she will die!” Even my brother stepped in, trying to pull our mother back. For the first time, he seemed to feel a pang of remorse for his quiet, suffering sister. “Daniel, have you forgotten Bianca?” my mother cried. “She’s dead! We don’t even have a body! Do you want me to go to my grave without getting justice for her?” My brother’s hands fell to his sides. In the struggle, my mother’s hand accidentally hit a dial on the control panel. The voltage spiked to its maximum level. I coughed up a mouthful of blood. The screen flashed erratically, a chaotic montage of my life. Being switched at birth, my miserable childhood. Cowering in fear, afraid to speak. Standing on a stool to cook for my adoptive family before I was five. At ten, my adoptive father trying to trade me to the local drunk for a lifetime supply of cheap wine. At fifteen, my adoptive mother trying to give me to her brother as an unpaid servant. At twenty, my adoptive parents arguing over how much they could sell me for, right before my real family found me. At twenty-two, being sent to that gilded cage by my own parents, where I spent a year wishing for death. And now, at twenty-three, dying on this tribunal platform, a spectacle for all to see. My family had taken me in, but they had never given me their love. My life had been a quiet, desperate walk on thin ice. Every step I took seemed to be the wrong one. The images flashed faster and faster, then suddenly froze on the day of Bianca’s death. “Look!” someone shouted, pointing at the screen. “What’s happening?” Everyone fell silent and turned to look. A glint of steel in my father’s eyes as he adjusted his glasses. My mother stopped struggling, craning her neck to see. One look, and their eyes widened in horror. “How… How can this be?”