I laughed.“You believe that nonsense?That illness was never mine.Lie there and wait to die.Your disease is untreatable.”
The system showed me a recording.
The Despair System approached James.

“We need you to transfer your illness to your wife,make her suffer,and harvest her despair.Agree?”
James didn’t agree immediately,asking cautiously,“The more despair she experiences,the greater my reward will be?”
The system nodded.
James’s eyes lit up.“Then hurry!Isn’t it her job to die for me?Just a woman.If she’s gone,with money,I’ll have plenty more!”
If I’d died,he’d have gotten$50 million.
Now,he lay in bed,dying.

His lower body was paralyzed,just like mine had been.
Unlike me,he suffered excruciating pain nightly.
When he screamed,I stuffed his socks in his mouth.
Then I pressed on his painful spots.

His muffled screams were thick with terror.
I became a demon,thrilled by his suffering.
The Counterattack System gave me a tool.
I used it on James.
His paralyzed lower body caused incontinence.
The tool ensured he couldn’t relieve himself,forced to hold it in.
When I was paralyzed,soiling the sheets,he’d mocked me.
“Look at you,Ellen.So pathetic.If I were you,I’d kill myself!”
Now,unable to relieve himself,Beads of sweat streamed down his face, turning it a sickly purple with the sheer strain. Hands flailing to grab me.
He pleaded, his voice trembling with desperation, “For the love of God, let me go! I can’t bear this any longer!”
Tears streamed down his face.
I looked down at him.This was nothing compared to what he had done to me.
Hearing noise outside,I smirked.
James,knowing me well,pleaded,“No,don’t!I know I was wrong.Punish me any way,just not this!”
I ignored him.As doctors entered,I released the tool.
In front of them,James lost control of his bladder.
Held in too long,it sprayed toward the doctors.
They screamed,dodging.
James was broken.A man so prideful couldn’t bear this.
He yanked the pillow over his face, his cheeks burning with shame.
A cold, mocking laugh escaped my lips.“James,so pathetic.Why not die now?”
I reached out to Ethan.
James could no longer speak,like a vegetable.
Ethan’s confused gaze swept over me and his dad.
“What did you do to him?”
He knelt by James,calling out,but got no response.
Tears streaming,he snarled,“Why are you fine while Dad’s like this?”
“I don’t know.I got better,and he collapsed.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Believe what you want.”
I sat by James,peeling another apple.
Ethan snatched it,hurling it against the floor with a vengeful force.