Chapter 1

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.

Chapter 1

"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.

Chapter 2

"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.

Chapter 3

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.

Chapter 4

When it was time to pick colleges, I had my sights set on some outstanding out-of-state schools. However, Mom had other plans and kept me local.

She used to teach at the elementary school back home but quit to move near my college, all so my brother could go to a fancy high school.

They made me come home every weekend to clean and cook because he was boarding there.

Then, with him on a break, she had me coming back every day to cook.

On the weekends, my roommate was always buzzing with excitement, either hitting the town for some fun or catching extra sleep in our dorm. Whenever they were itching for a shopping spree, a little charm went a long way with their parents.

Me? I was juggling part-time gigs to scrape together cash for tuition and living expenses, and then I was back home playing nanny to my kid brother.

People who did not know any better thought I was the child my parents had been hoping for.

In reality, I know better—I was born Brian.

Mom, even the teacher, worried about the stigma of playing favorites with her kids, did not want to be caught giving boys the edge. So, she dubbed me Brianna.

Even before my younger brother was born, she always called me Brian. After Zane was born, she switched back to calling me by my full name.

Zane, with a name like Gene, a nod to our family's legacy.

The memory of today's prescription bill and the wince on Mom's face was still fresh in my mind.

Maybe, just maybe, my so-called 'adorable little brother' actually did me a solid at that time and helped me cut ties with that bloodsucking household for good.

Chapter 5

Since my brother Zane bailed on school, he had been holed up at home, glued to video games.

Every day when I walked through the door, his gaming would blast through the house, peppered with shouts and curses that I would not believe could come from a 15-year-old.

I crank up the language lessons in my earbuds to block out the noise, pretending to be nothing more than a clock-punching worker bee.

Once the cooking and cleaning were done, it was a mad dash back to campus.

My roommates got the picture. They felt for me, but there was not much they could do. Still, my desk mysteriously collected little snacks and essentials, courtesy of their quiet support.

I made a mental note of every act of kindness, promising myself that when I finally broke free, I would pay it back double.

Mom, however, totally bought into the idea that her son was battling some heavy-duty depression.

She could not fathom that he might have been blinding her with lies. After all, why would her precious baby boy lash out with such toxic words if he were not truly ill?

"I'm at my wit's end, Mom! Do you even care if I'm alive, or are you actually my mom? What's the big deal with me playing games? It's the only thing I'm into right now. Do you want me to just stop caring about everything and give up on life?"

Every time Mom told Zane to take a break and get some fresh air, he lashed out with curse words and trashed the house like a tornado.

Mom blamed all of that on the medication not being good enough.

Chapter 6

"Brianna, the doctor says it's bad, like really bad. Your brother needs this fancy imported medicine that's gonna set us back a hundred bucks a month. You have to pick up more shifts. From now on, his medicine is on you."

I had heard this spiel more times than I could count, in this life and the previous life.

Months of summer gigs and the college fund I hustled for got hijacked by Zane for his shiny new computer.

I had been busting my hump day and night, living on free white bread, just to scrape by with tuition. Meanwhile, Zane was relaxing with the air conditioner, gaming and guzzling Cola, while I was out there roasting in a mascot suit, handing out flyers, dreaming of a meal with more than two vegetables.

The sting of it all faded in seconds, and I steadied myself. That was the break I had been waiting for.

"Look, Mom, I've got classes all day and dinner's on me at night. I can't be working all the time. I'll clean on the weekends, but I'm going to snag a night job, try to rake in some extra cash for better meds for the kid. We have to get him back on his feet, right?"

"You're just trying to weasel out of chores, you lazy bum!" Mom snapped back, but she was stuck. Ever since she left her teaching gig back home, she's been scraping by as a supermarket cashier in the city, barely making 200 to 300 a month.

Zane's spending was like a black hole for my paycheck, and the only thing keeping us afloat was the settlement money from Dad's accident at work.

However, even though I was busting my tail at a part-time job to pay for Zane's meds, Mom played it super safe—she kept my ID card under lock and key.

Since I started college, she would only hand it over when necessary, then snatch it back like it was made of gold. She was terrified I would bolt, leave them to drown in their sea of troubles.

However, I was not going anywhere. I was just waiting for my shot, and it looked like it had finally arrived.