The rain poured down that night. Lightning lit up the sky in a chilling glow, and thunder roared so loud that it forced my buried memories to the surface.

After I failed my SAT exams and fell into depression, Jade said she wanted to cheer me up and invited me to go hiking.

Maybe because they were afraid I would do something crazy to Jade, my dad and Yara tagged along like bodyguards.

My mom was working a night shift at the hospital, so she did not come.

The screen showing the memories shifted to a scene where I fell halfway up the mountain. My shinbone snapped, and rocks cut a deep gash into my leg.

Jade was the first to notice. She told my dad and Yara to pitch a tent on the spot so I could rest inside.

Then, she pulled out a bottle of antiseptic and poured it over my wound.

“Clara, let me disinfect this first. Otherwise, it might get infected.”

As soon as she was done disinfecting my wound, I kicked her to the ground, pinned her down, and slapped her without hesitation.

“You snake! Don’t pretend to be so kind in front of me! Is it that face of yours that’s bewitched them? Is that why they won’t kick you out of the family? Is that why they’re forcing me to give you a kidney?

“Let’s see how they look at you when I ruin your pretty face!”

With that, I grabbed a small knife from the tent and plunged it down toward Jade’s cheek.

At the last second, my dad and Yara yanked me off her.

My dad slapped me hard across the face and shouted, “Clara! My patience has limits! You keep abusing Jade over and over again. Don’t make me slap you!”

“Dad, let me handle her!” Yara said and slapped me so hard I fell to the ground and could not get up.

“Dad, Yara, don’t be mad at Clara. I must have done something wrong to upset her,” Jade said.

Seeing her pitiful face ignited a furious rage in me. “You disgust me so much I want to puke! Die!”

I shoved Jade hard, and we both tumbled off the cliff beside the tent.

Before my dad and Yara could react, Jade and I had disappeared from their sight.

The screen went dark. My dad and Yara’s heart-wrenching screams filled the air. “Jade! Jade!”

The voices faded until the memory extraction paused, and there was nothing but silence.

Everything had happened so quickly and perilously that the viewers watching the memory screamed in shock. The livestream comments were filled with rows upon rows of shocked comments.

I looked over at my dad and Yara at the plaintiffs’ table.

Having relived that day, they clung to Jade as if they had survived a great disaster.

Tears streamed down my dad’s face as he sobbed and said, “Jade, thank god you’re okay. If anything had happened to you that day, I would’ve cut Clara open on the spot and buried her with you.”

“Jade, you don’t even know how scared I was back then.”

Meanwhile, the comments section was going wild.

[Oh my God, this is attempted murder! Why isn’t Clara in jail already?]

[Clara is so vicious. Jade is too kind to turn her in.]

[Jade really is too good. It’s like they say. Good people get mistreated.]

[Clara should just die! I’m voting for the Spencer family to win!]

[Same here! I’m voting for the Spencer family! There’s nothing to argue about. Just declare Clara guilty already!]

More and more people began requesting the judge to announce my defeat right away.

The judge, who always adjusted his verdicts based on public opinion, held the microphone up to my lips.

“Clara Spencer, do you wish to make an appeal?”

But instead of Clara’s response, the judge was met with Mdm. Langley’s tearful plea. “This poor girl can’t even speak anymore. Please, I beg you all, let her rest in peace. She died such a horrible death. I’m sure there was a reason behind what she did.”

The Spencer family, however, did not listen at all. My parents even spat on my coffin.

“Dead or not, she’s guilty. She knows she’s going to lose, so she’s too scared to speak.”

“Clara, if you get up right now and agree to donate your kidney to Jade, I’ll forget about the past and forgive you.”

Yara got upset when she heard that. Her voice rose sharply as she snapped, “Why should we forgive her? If we do, how is she ever going to make up for all the pain Jade has suffered?”

“Listen, Clara. I will never forgive you, not in this lifetime! Even if you’re really dead, I won’t forgive you!”

Sometimes, I really could not understand them.

What unforgivable crime had I committed to make the Spencer family hate me this much?

Later, I learned that my only crime was that I did not know how to act pitiful.

All the memories shown by the extractor were staged by Jade herself.

The Spencer family saw only one side of the story. They never bothered to find out the truth and pinned all the blame on me without question.

“Clara Spencer, do you wish to make an appeal?”

“Clara Spencer, do you wish to make an appeal?” asked the judge a second time when I did not answer.

When the judge asked me for the third time and received only silence, he announced in a cold, solemn voice, “Based on the evidence extracted from the memories, the Spencer family has won the case. Clara Spencer, you are hereby found guilty of cruelty and inhumanity. You will be punished by having your kidney removed.”

His verdict echoed clearly through the courtroom.

The Spencer family’s faces all lit up with joy.

Above my corpse, a person with a blade appeared.

Just as the blade was about to pierce my abdomen open, my mom’s voice rang out.

“Wait! Judge, this person doesn’t have proper medical knowledge. I’m worried it’ll damage the kidney. May I perform the procedure myself?”

My heart skipped a beat.

Mdm. Langley, sitting beside me at the defendant’s table, slid to the floor in shock. She rushed to my coffin and cried so hard that her vision blurred with tears.

“Please, please don’t do this! This girl is already dead. You’re her mom. At least let her rest in peace with her body untouched!”

But my mom ignored her completely. Instead, she kicked Mdm. Langley away.

“Get out of here, you old hag! Don’t get in the way. This kidney is for Jade.”

Then, suppressing the excitement gleaming in her eyes, my mom took the blade and carefully sliced my abdomen open.

Instantly, foul, darkened blood that had been rotting in my body overnight gushed out.

With a loud clang, the blade slipped from her trembling hands and fell to the floor. Her body began to shake uncontrollably.