MASIHAH POV
The sterile lights of the pack clinic buzzed overhead, casting a harsh, clinical glare over the rows of stainless steel counters and medical trays. My body felt no longer like my own, it was a hollowed-out shell, a dry husk stripped of every ounce of warmth, energy, and life. I lay motionless on the stiff examination table, my arms a map of angry, bruised needle marks where the medical tubing had drained me hour after hour, day after day, until there was nothing left to give.
Across the room, the glowing monitors beeped with a steady, rhythmic cadence. Clara reclined in a plush medical lounge chair, her cheeks flushed with a vibrant, healthy pink, wrapped in warm cashmere blankets while Mother hovered over her like a devoted guardian. Every drop of iron, every ounce of vitality they had stripped from my heavy, abused frame had been funneled directly into her veins, transforming her into the picture of radiant health while leaving me on the precipice of the grave.
"How are you feeling, my precious jewel?" Helen cooed, gently smoothing Clara’s hair back from her forehead. "The physician says her color has never looked better. The treatment is a complete success."
Clara fluttered her long eyelashes, letting out a delicate, performative sigh that sounded less like illness and more like deep, smug satisfaction. "I feel wonderful, Mother. The heaviness in my chest is completely gone. It’s almost as if... as if a heavy weight has finally been lifted off my shoulders."
Ethan, standing near the doorway with his arms crossed, let out a harsh, mocking laugh as he glanced down at my motionless form on the table. "Well, of course you feel better, Clara. You finally had access to a proper, concentrated source of vitality. Though looking at her over there, you'd think she was dying of a broken heart just because she had to share a fraction of her massive bulk with you. Honestly, it's pathetic."
Father stood by the window, checking his gold pocket watch with cold, detached indifference. He didn't walk over to check my pulse. He didn't look down at my face, which had turned nearly transparent against the white pillow, my fingers trembling so badly I couldn't even lift my hand. To him, I was nothing more than an exhausted tool whose utility had finally expired.
"Is the extraction complete?" Father asked the pack physician, his voice devoid of any paternal warmth or lingering hesitation.
The physician, a cold, unblinking man with silver rimmed spectacles tightened the final valve on the collection tubing and nodded firmly. "Yes, Alpha. The final reserve has been fully transferred. Her system is completely depleted. Given her preexisting sluggish constitution and the volume drawn, her body has reached its absolute limit."
"Good," Helen dismissed, waving a hand dismissively in my direction as if swatting away an annoying insect. "Let her sleep off her dramatic spell in the recovery room. We have to get home and prepare for the evening. The younger brother of the Lycan King, ruler of the entire North, is arriving for a state visit tomorrow, and our family must look flawless. We can't have this lazy cow moping around the estate and embarrassing us in front of pack royalty."
They didn't wait. They didn't check if my heart was still beating. One by one, my family turned their backs and walked out of the clinic doors, chattering excitedly about the upcoming royal visit, leaving me abandoned in the cold, humming silence of the medical ward.
As the doors clicked shut, a profound, suffocating darkness closed in around my vision. My breath hitched, a shallow, rattling gasp escaping my cracked lips. My heart fluttered wildly against my ribs like a trapped, dying bird, before stuttering and then, with a final, agonizing jolt, completely stopping.
The monitors flatlined, emitting a continuous, high pitched shriek that echoed off the sterile walls. The nurses rushed forward, but it was too late. My body went completely limp, my eyes staring blankly up at the fluorescent lights as the last trace of mortal life drained away.
They bled me to death, my fading consciousness whispered in the dark, a final, burning cry of absolute agony and hatred. They watched me die without a single tear of remorse.
And then….snap.
The high pitched flatline didn't fade into nothingness, it shattered like brittle glass, replaced instantly by the harsh, grating whine of an alarm clock buzzing on warped wooden floorboards.
My eyes flew open.
Gasping wildly, I bolted upright, my lungs dragging in a massive, burning lungful of cold morning air. My hands flew to my chest, frantically pressing against my ribs. There were no needle marks. There was no cold steel, no flatlining monitor, no sterile medical ward.
Instead, the familiar, suffocating chill of the attic surrounded me. The sloped walls, the dusty air, the cracked hand-me-down mirror propped against the corner, it was all there, exactly as it had been on the very first day of our semester at Alpha Academy College.
My heart hammered against my chest, but this time, it was a drumbeat of pure, unadulterated fury.
“So I was reborn?”
I looked down at my hands, trembling not from weakness, but from the overwhelming, cosmic rush of a second chance. I stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror, the thick thighs, the wide hips, the soft, curvy frame that my family had weaponized against me, mocked, degraded, and ultimately drained of every drop of blood. In my past life, those very features had been the anchor of my imprisonment, used by a mother who called me a draft horse, a brother who laughed at my agony, and a father who stood by in cowardly silence.
But death hadn't been the end. It had been my awakening.
The memories of the future flooded my mind with terrifying, crystal clear precision. I remembered every insult, every cruel pinch of the arm, every drop of blood stolen to feed Clara’s manufactured fragility, and every single second of the agonizing, lonely death they had condemned me to.
A slow, terrifying smile stretched across my pale lips. They thought they could use me as a living blood bag. They thought they could break my spirit, squeeze me dry, and step over my corpse on their way to social glory.
“This time”, I whispered into the empty, freezing attic, my voice dripping with absolute venom as a dark, lethal power surged through my veins, “I would be their doom. And Hell will be a safe place for them when my revenge begins.”