In the end, I was "awakened" by the smell of barbecue. I tried to swallow on instinct, but I realized I couldn't control my throat. Suddenly, I began to float.

My vision passed through the ceiling, then slowly drifted back down. There it was, my crooked, unnaturally twisted body, lying face down on the living room floor.

Next to my hand was a crumpled notebook, my book of sins, used to record my weight and calories. In my final moments, I had wanted to write a note, but fear held me back.

Mom always said only weak people did things like that. So, I turned a fresh page and, with trembling hands, wrote down my last wish.

"Target weight: 0lbs. I didn't sneak food. I was good."

After writing that, I died, exactly on New Year's Eve.

The clock on the wall pointed to 1:00 am. The door opened, and cold air rushed in, mixed with laughter and cheerful voices.

"Dinner tonight was amazing!" Dad said.

"Totally worth a five-star hotel. Every bite was incredible," Abigail chirped, looping her arm through Mom's.

Mom was wearing a white cashmere coat, tall and slender as ever. Tapping Abigail's nose, she said fondly, "Alright, don't get too excited. You'll get wrinkles."

As soon as she stepped into the living room, her brow creased. She lifted a hand and waved it in front of her nose. "What's that smell? Why does it smell… rotten?"

Oh, that was just the smell of my decaying body, mixed with the stench of kidney failure.

Abigail gagged dramatically and covered her nose. "Gosh, it stinks! Mom, did Aurora hide food again? Something must've gone bad! I told you, she's basically a trash can!"

Mom's face went cold in an instant. Her fingers tightened around the strap of her designer bag. She shouted at my body, "Aurora, are you dead or what? The smell is so bad, and you didn't notice it? Get up and open a window!"

I floated in midair, looking at her with a bitter calm. Mom, I actually was dead.

From where she stood, I was turned away from her, a thin blanket draped over me. It covered most of my body, leaving only my swollen ankle exposed, along with the black monitor strapped around it.

The monitor rang with a long, low beep, a warning that the battery had run out.

"Playing deaf, too, huh?" Mom barked, slamming her bag onto the couch.

"Look at Abigail! She went out to celebrate her birthday and still knew to bring me my slippers when she got back. And you? All you know to do is lie around and play dead! What did I tell you when I left? 500 crunches—did you do them or not?"

She strode toward me. I floated in front of her, spreading my arms as if I could stop her. "Don't come any closer, Mom. I look terrible right now—really, really terrible. You'll be scared."

I knew how much she hated ugly things. Once, I had gotten a tiny pimple on my face, and she had made me wear a mask for three days. With how I looked now, she would be completely disgusted.

However, my soul resembled a gust of wind. She walked straight through me and scattered it. Furious and indifferent, she stopped beside my body and kicked my calf. "Get up now!"

That kick landed on flesh that felt as hard as stone, and she froze for a moment. "Huh? Did you tie something onto yourself?"

Her anger flared even higher, and she assumed I was trying to cheat my way out of doing crunches. "You've learned a trick or two now, haven't you? Trying to cheat your way out? Let me see what you wrapped yourself up in!"

She bent down and grabbed the thin blanket covering my body. In the air, I screamed, "No!"

The blanket was pulled away.

The horror that had been hidden was now exposed under the lights, with nothing left concealed.

A shrill scream tore through the silence. It was Abigail.

She collapsed onto the floor, scrambling backward in panic. "A monster!"

Mom stood frozen, her voice audibly shaking. "T-That's…"

The shock in her eyes quickly twisted into pure rage and disgust before she let out a hysterical scream. "Aurora!"

She flung the blanket back onto my body with all her strength.

"How much did you sneak and eat? I was only gone for a few hours, and you turned yourself into this? Were you so greedy that you were about to clear out the whole fridge? Look at you now! You look like an overinflated pig! Gosh, you disgust me!"

Mom was shaking with anger, her chest heaving violently.

"How did I give birth to such a useless thing with zero sense of self-control? Where's the body fat scale? Where's the monitor? Didn't you see it was flashing red? Why'd you still eat? Were you trying to stuff yourself to death?"

She was completely trapped inside her own logic. Being fat meant eating too much, and so was swelling. My edema meant that I had eaten more than I should, and not moving meant I had overeaten and played dead to gain sympathy.

"Fine. You're going to keep playing dead, aren't you?"

Mom spun around and rushed into the bedroom. When she returned, she was holding a yellow soft measuring tape. Whenever my waistline went over 24 inches, she used it to lash my palms.

"Since you love eating so much, let's see how much weight you've really put on!" she said. "If your waistline went over half an inch today, I'll hit you ten times! Now, get up and let me measure your waist!"

Mom charged toward my body and raised the tape to strike. That was when Dad finally reacted.

He rushed over and wrapped his arms around her waist, his voice cracked. "Honey, stop! Don't do that! I don't think Aurora's… breathing anymore…"

She shoved him away. "Bullshit! She's pretending for sure—she's been faking illness since she was little! Look, she was just writing in her notebook. How could she be dead?"

She pointed at the notebook clenched tightly in my hand. "See that? That's her book of reflection! She must be admitting she snuck food!"

Mom escaped Dad's grasp and lunged toward my body. She reached out and clasped my wrist, trying to pull me up, only to hear a tear the next second.

Due to the immense force she exerted, she had accidentally torn my skin apart. A chunk of flesh fell off, revealing pale fat and dark muscle underneath it. Pale yellow tissue fluid mingled with crimson blood oozed in an instant.

Mom immediately pulled her hand back. Her eyes widened in terror as she took in the gooey liquid and blood staining her palm. "W-What's… going on…"

She held up her hand in a daze, the pungent, metallic stench clinging to her nose. My arm dropped along with gravity and landed on the tile with a loud thud.

The notebook slipped off and spread open amid the pool of blood. The gory red stained the white pages and black ink, but my last words remained as clear as day.

"Target weight: 0lbs. I didn't sneak food. I was good."

Mom's eyes fixed obsessively on those words. "Impossible… There's no way!"