The fluorescent lights hummed above, casting a sterile glow across the hospital room that had become her prison. At twenty-eight, Evelyn Monroe should have been planning her future, not counting down her final breaths. Her once-luminous chestnut hair lay limp against the pillow, her skin translucent as parchment, blue veins mapping the slow failure of her body like rivers leading to an inevitable sea.
She had been dying for months, the doctors said. A mysterious illness, they called it. Organ failure with no discernible cause. They ran tests, prescribed treatments, but nothing stopped the relentless deterioration eating her from the inside out.
Now, as the machines beeped their monotonous rhythm beside her bed, two figures stood at the foot of it, and their faces wore expressions she had never seen before—not concern, not grief, but something far more sinister.
"Should we tell her?" Her sister, Claire, asked with a voice that dripped honey laced with arsenic. The same sister who had held her hand through every hospital visit, who had brought her homemade soup and herbal teas, who had cried alongside her when the prognosis grew darker.
Marcus, her husband of five years, smirked. His handsome face twisted into something ugly, something Evelyn didn't recognize. "Why not? It's not like she can do anything about it now."
Evelyn's heart monitor spiked, confusion clouding her morphine-hazed mind. "What... what are you talking about?"
Claire stepped closer, her perfectly manicured hand resting on the bed rail. "Oh, Evelyn. Sweet, stupid Evelyn. Did you really think we loved you? That any of this was real?"
The room tilted. Evelyn tried to sit up, but her body refused to obey. "Claire, you're not making sense. You're my sister—"
"I'm not your sister," Claire interrupted, her voice sharp as broken glass. "We're not related by blood at all. You were stolen, Evelyn. Taken from the hospital twenty-eight years ago when your real parents—the Monroe family, one of the wealthiest dynasties in the state—lost you in a car accident. They thought you died. But my mother, a nurse at that hospital, saw an opportunity."
The words struck like physical blows. Evelyn's vision blurred with tears. "No... that's not..."
Marcus moved to Claire's side, his arm sliding possessively around her waist. The gesture was intimate, familiar. How had Evelyn never noticed? "Your real family left everything to you, Evelyn. A trust worth hundreds of millions, locked until you turned twenty-eight. But there was a contingency—if you died, it would pass to your next of kin." He smiled, and it was the smile of a predator. "We've been working on this for years."
Claire leaned forward, her breath hot against Evelyn's face. "The soup. The tea. The special vitamins I insisted you take. All of it, poisoned. Slowly, carefully. Just enough to accumulate in your system without raising suspicion."
Horror crashed over Evelyn in waves. Every kindness, every tender moment had been a calculated lie. "But... why would they believe you're me?"
"Because I look enough like you to pass for you in photos, and we have a forger who's already created all the necessary documents," Claire said, examining her nails with casual indifference. "Once you're dead, I become Evelyn Monroe. I claim the inheritance. And Marcus and I finally get what we deserve."
"You... you were together the whole time?" Evelyn's voice cracked.
"Since before we even met you," Marcus confirmed. "Claire introduced us, remember? It was all part of the plan. I married you, played the devoted husband, and waited. It took longer than we expected, honestly. You're surprisingly resilient."
Claire laughed, the sound sharp and cruel. "Remember last year when you thought you were getting better? I had to increase the dosage. You're so trusting, so pathetically grateful for every scrap of affection. It almost made this too easy."
Tears streamed down Evelyn's face, hot and bitter. Seven years. Seven years since her wedding, seven years of this elaborate deception. She had been nothing but a means to an end, a name on a bank account, an obstacle to be eliminated.
"The woman who raised me... my mother..." Evelyn whispered.
"Dead two years ago, but not before she told us everything," Claire said. "She wanted to claim the money herself, but she died before you turned twenty-eight. So the torch passed to us. Don't worry, she didn't suffer. Unlike you."
The machines began to beep faster, erratically. Pain lanced through Evelyn's chest, radiating outward. The poison had reached critical mass, the doctors had said this morning. It was only a matter of hours now.
"You're monsters," Evelyn gasped, each word an agony.
"We're survivors," Marcus corrected. "And soon, we'll be very, very rich."
They stood there, watching her die, wearing expressions of triumph and greed. Not a shred of remorse, not a flicker of humanity. The people she had loved most in the world, revealed as her executioners.
The pain intensified, a fire consuming her from within. Evelyn's vision darkened at the edges, sounds becoming muffled and distant. Her last thoughts were of regret—for not seeing the signs, for not questioning, for wasting seven years loving people who had never loved her back.
If only I had known. If only I could go back...
The machines flatlined. Claire and Marcus exchanged satisfied glances.
And Evelyn Monroe died at twenty-eight, betrayed and broken, with tears still wet on her cheeks.
Then she opened her eyes.
Bright lights. But not hospital lights—these were warm, golden, gleaming off mirrors and crystal chandeliers. Music played softly in the background, something classical and elegant. The scent of champagne and roses filled the air.
Evelyn gasped, her hands flying to her chest, expecting to find the hospital gown, the IV lines, the pain. Instead, her fingers met smooth satin and delicate lace.
"Evelyn? Are you okay?" A voice asked. Concerned, gentle.
She spun toward the sound, her reflection catching in the three-way mirror before her. And froze.
The woman staring back was her, but not the dying shell she had been moments ago. This woman had color in her cheeks, brightness in her eyes, fullness to her face. This woman was healthy. Alive.
This woman was twenty-one.
"The dress looks absolutely stunning on you!" the boutique assistant gushed, adjusting the train of the wedding gown. "Your fiancé is going to cry when he sees you."
Marcus.
The name hit her like ice water. Evelyn's gaze snapped to the date displayed on the tablet the assistant was holding: seven years ago. Seven years before her death.
She was at the bridal boutique. This was the day she had chosen her wedding dress.
And then, from behind the curtain of the dressing area, a familiar voice called out, sweet and insistent: "Evelyn, let me try on a dress too! Come on, just for fun. I want to see what I'll look like on my wedding day someday."
Claire.
Evelyn turned slowly, her heart thundering in her chest, as her "sister" emerged from behind the curtain, already eyeing the gowns on the rack with covetous eyes.
Their eyes met.
And Evelyn smiled.