My younger brother told me he was overwhelmed by school stress and had developed depression. I tried to help by encouraging him to seek treatment, drawing from my own experience with the illness.

However, my mother blamed me, accusing me of passing the depression onto him.

She took me to a witch, who locked me in the house. Every day, the witch used willow branches to drive away evil spirits, beating me until my skin was raw, forcing me to drink filthy water, and making me bleed.

"This is the only way to banish the evil and bless your little brother."

After enduring days of torment, my depression worsened, and I chose to end my life.

However, when I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day my brother first confessed his depression.

I looked at my body—whole and unharmed.

This time, I will make them pay for everything I endured.

"Mom, nothing excites me anymore. Every time I'm at school, I just want to jump off the roof."

Hearing those words sent a chill through me. I watched my crying little brother grab our mom's pants as he sat on the floor. That was when it hit me—I was living my life over again.

In my previous life, this was the day when everything started to fall apart.

In my previous life, I had just finished cooking dinner when I heard my brother sobbing as he confessed to the crushing pressure of high school and his thoughts of ending it all.

I had battled depression myself, so without thinking, I shared my own struggle with him.

I told him about my journey to healing, hoping to inspire him to get the help he needed to get better.

However, my mother got it all wrong. She accused me of giving my brother the illness on purpose.

"The Jones family has never had this cursed disease. It must be you, you little troublemaker, envious of your brother, infecting him on purpose!" she screamed, hurling the cruelest words imaginable at me. She even went as far as to torture me with the help of someone as cruel as a witch, until it killed me.

After I died, my spirit stuck around long enough to hear my brother bragging on the phone to a friend. That was when I found out he was faking depression, inspired by a classmate who took a break from school because of it, just to get out of going.

Well, if he had wanted to know what depression was like so badly, he was going to get a real taste of the nightmare I went through in this lifetime.

"Brianna, you're a college student. What do you think should be done about this?"

Mom gently pulled my brother up from the floor, wrapping her arms around his bulky body to soothe him.

He was just a high school freshman, 15 years old, not even 1.68 meters tall, but already tipping the scales at 77 kilograms. Huddled there, he looked like a mound of squished meatloaf.

I bit back the bitterness rising in my throat and put on a show of concern.

"Mom, do you think this could be a case of depression? That's serious stuff. Remember, last year a kid at our school with depression... Well, it didn't end well. We should get him to a doctor, pronto. School's not as important as staying alive, right?"

My brother, realizing I had caught on to his act, dropped the waterworks and nodded like his life depended on it. "Yeah, Mom, I'm really freaked out. I can't seem to get a grip on myself. Can we go see a doctor, please?"

Little did they know, they both thought a couple of quizzes could nail down depression.

However, I had been down that road for real and knew the drill with all the tests he could not just bluff his way through.

If we hit up a legit hospital, my brother's gig would be up in a heartbeat.

He wanted to play sick, did he? Fine, I would play along.

"Mom, I don't think we should drag him to some fancy hospital. They'll charge an arm and a leg for a sniffle, running all sorts of tests. Remember my cough? They did blood work and a CT scan, and it cost a fortune."

I had that annoying allergic asthma, and dusting around the house did not help. The last time I had an allergy attack so bad that I could barely breathe, and I had to beg Mom to take me to the hospital.

They ruled out flu and pneumonia, but then they wanted to test for asthma.

Mom, however, thought the doctors were just after our cash, running tests but coming up empty. She lost it at the hospital, accused them of being thieves, and even said I was faking it.

Ever since, I have had to tough it out whenever I got sick, only getting dragged to some tiny clinic for a shot when I was at my worst.

"Exactly, your sister has a point. Let's check out that clinic, Anthony's. She always goes there, and a single shot sorts her out."

I could not help but snicker to myself. That clinic's shots worked fast because they did not skimp on the meds.

I was curious to see how Mom would handle it when her precious baby boy was the one under the weather.

My younger brother must have been plotting his little act for a while because he barely touched his bread at dinner, claiming he was not hungry. Mom was so freaked out she did not even finish her food before dragging him off to the clinic.

If he had not kept eyeing the meatloaf like it was the last one on earth, maybe I would have bought his act.

Just as I figured, the doctor at the clinic handed him a quiz to check how he was feeling. Of course, my brother started checking off all the worst answers.

[Lost my appetite lately.]

[Don't care about anything anymore.]

If it had not been for my soul having been able to see in my previous life—seeing him munching on chips and gaming under his blanket at night until his phone practically caught fire—I might have fallen for it.

"This looks bad," said the doctor, scribbling out a prescription. "Take these meds daily and come back in a month for a check-up."

Brother left the clinic grinning like he had won the lottery, while Mom looked like she was about to cry, clutching a diagnosis for major depression and a bunch of mystery meds.

"Zane, go chill in your room. I'll grab your favorite chicken wings later. Try to eat a bit, okay?" Mom told him.

His room soon echoed with snores that could wake the dead.

"Brianna, your brother is sick, so you're on dinner duty from now on. I'm getting him a school break tomorrow. You'll take care of him when you're not in class, got it?" declared Mom.

I kept my face blank, but inside, I was completely detached.