Be Careful What You Wish For: A Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 473: Never Been Born

Snapping my fingers, the space around us changed. We were now standing in a different house, covered in wallpaper from the 1980s with a dull red carpet and the smell of mold and mildew all around it.

Sitting at a desk in front of a window sat a girl, roughly around the same age as the wishing girl.

"Who’s that?" I asked, not really caring about the answer.

"Sheila," came the response. "She’s one year younger than me."

The girl looked like the perfect student. In fact, she looked so perfect that it made me throw up a little in my mouth. No one was like that at home unless they were forced to be. The ponytail in her hair was slicked back so hard that it had to be giving her a headache, but still, she sat upright at her desk, reading from a textbook.

Suddenly, a man looking a lot less than perfect stormed into the room. He looked familiar, like the man who was beating the ghost beside me in the warehouse. "Father," smiled the girl at the desk stiffly. Leaning down, she pulled a piece of paper out of her backpack. "I scored 110%. I was able to get the bonus question at the end of the test right."

However, the man didn’t even glance at the paper. Instead, he stalked over to where she was sitting and abruptly pulled her to her feet using her upper arm.

"You think you’re so smart, huh?" he sneered, his voice like nails on a chalkboard. "Then why did your brother fail that same test? You two are in the same class. Why didn’t you put his name on your test? Girls are only good for fucking and taking care of the kids. No man will want to marry you if you are too smart."

The girl’s smile faltered, and even the ghost beside me stepped back. "She used to be the perfect one," she muttered, watching her sister and father interact. "I don’t understand. She used to do no wrong. And her marks were never that good."

"Isn’t it obvious?" I asked, rolling my eyes. Seriously, how could the girl be so smart and so dumb all at the same time?

The scene in front of us shifted until we were in the middle of a kitchen. It was nice and homey, I guessed, but it looked nothing like my place back in O City. I guess everyone has their own idea of what home is.

And this was not mine, even if the people inside of it reminded me of my own past.

The woman who had been beating the girl in the warehouse was now standing in the middle of the kitchen. She looked just as pleasant as she had during the apocalypse, so I guess the end of the world hadn’t changed her personality all that much.

Throwing a plate at Sheila, it grazed past her cheek to shatter against the backsplash before falling into the sink. Whatever food had been on it... something that looked like a weird mixture of red Jello and Cool Whip... looked like blood and brain on the floor and counter.

"You’re such a waste," the mother hissed, her eyes narrowing on the girl. "How could I have given birth to such a stupid bitch like you? It would have been so much better if you had never been born."

"But I got perfect," the girl whispered, tears starting to pool in her eyes as her trembling hands raised to touch the blood on her cheek.

"Congratulations," hissed the mother, slapping the daughter across the cheek. "What do you want? A parade? You are nothing."

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The girl—the first one—continued to watch the scene in front of me, flinching at every word and motion as if she was the one experiencing it.

Right, her name is Noelle. I probably should remember that, but I knew I wouldn’t.

She watched in stunned silence as her sister, the one who replaced her, was fed the same poison, the same blame as she had been.

"I don’t understand," muttered Noelle as she reached out to touch her sister. "She was always considered to be the perfect daughter."

"Clearly not," I said, cocking my head to the side.

Noelle continued to watch as her sister cleaned the floor after dinner, took care of the baby while the parents fought, took the beatings in silence because she was "the oldest now" and "should’ve known better."

Tears ran down Noelle’s face as she started to understand. "She doesn’t deserve this," she muttered.

"And you did?"

Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

I stepped forward, my voice low, flat, unkind.

"You thought that erasing yourself would fix everything. That your family would be that much better without you doing everything. That maybe, just maybe, you were the problem."

Noelle looked at me but stayed silent.

"But you weren’t the problem. You were never the issue. It was them. And they didn’t change just because you were gone."

She wrapped her arms around herself, watching her sister get screamed at for forgetting to defrost the meat. Watching her take the same blame, same bruises, same tired lies.

"Being perfect didn’t save her," I said. "Being quiet didn’t matter. Being good wasn’t enough. They didn’t care about you," I continued. "Not really. Not the way a child deserves. And replacing you didn’t change that. You were never going to win."

Falling to her knees, she started to sob. I suppose that I should have had sympathy for her. After all, anyone who spent their entire life as a victim should earn sympathy. However, I felt nothing.

"You wished to never be born. Thought it would fix something. But wishing that?" I whispered. "That only hurts you. It’s stupid. It’s wasteful. And it doesn’t change a damn thing."

Noelle stared at her sister, tears streaming down her cheeks as her heart broke for the siblings she had always resented. "She’s going to break," she muttered at last.

"Probably," I agreed. "If not now, when the zombies come. Just like you did."

"Can I take her place? Can I make everything go back to how it was before?" Turning to me, I saw life in her eyes for the first time since meeting her.

"No," I said flatly.

She looked at me, wide-eyed. "Why not?"

"Because you already wished that you’d never been born. And that wish came true. You can’t ask for another just because you regret it now."

Tears welled up. "I didn’t know it would be like this."

"No one does," I shrugged, more than done with this whole thing. "Maybe next time, think before you make a wish."

Her breath hitched as she looked up at me, wide-eyed.

She wanted me to comfort her, to offer her my shoulder to cry on, but I didn’t reach for her, I didn’t offer her any comfort.

I wasn’t here to lie; I was here to show her the truth.

"So now you’ve seen it. You didn’t matter to them. Not really. Anyone could’ve taken your place. They just needed someone to blame." Had I said too much? Probably. But a part of me wished that someone had said this to me when I was a kid. Back when I, too, tried hard.

I turned to go but ended up pausing at the door.

"I hope you learn from this," I continued softly. "And in your next life? Don’t care so much about what other people think. Don’t bend over backwards hoping someone else will make you feel whole."

I looked over my shoulder, met her shattered gaze.

"Live your life the way you want to live. Because no one’s coming to save you. And no one else is going out of their way to make you happy."

I snapped my fingers, and she was gone.

Like she had never been born in the first place.