Chapter 1: The Vessel
1588 Words
Chapter 1: The Vessel
Isabella's POV
The sterile scent of antiseptic clung to the air as I lay back in the cold, hard chair. My body felt like it was made of lead, heavy with exhaustion, but I couldn’t sleep. I never could after a donation.
It had become routine—too routine, actually. My body had been stripped and tested so many times for her that I no longer recognized myself. I had given her so much of me. My blood. A kidney. Part of my liver. Each time, it had been rejected. Each time, it had been a waste.
My family never cared.
They only kept me around because of my blood. To them, I wasn’t a daughter. I was an asset. A tool for their precious, sickly daughter—my sister, who they pampered and doted on, even as they slowly drained the life out of me. And now, even as I sat here, still recovering, I knew I would be expected to give again. They’d never stop.
I clenched my hands into fists, trying to push the bitter thoughts away, but they clung to me like the needles in my arm. I couldn’t escape them. My family’s cruelty. The fact that they saw me as nothing more than a vessel for their convenience.
A soft click from the door startled me, but I didn’t turn around. I knew who it was before I heard her voice.
“Another donation, little sister?” Elena’s voice was sweet but laced with malice. She had a way of making her words feel like poison, as if she truly believed I was the reason she was sick. The reason she couldn’t have everything she wanted.
“I’m fine,” I said, my voice cold. The words felt wrong in my mouth. I had never felt fine. Not once.
Elena’s footsteps approached, and she stood beside me, her heels clicking against the polished floor. She was always perfectly put together—her dark hair styled, her dress immaculate. I was nothing like her. I had always felt like a shadow beside her. Her life was perfect, mine was a mess of constant pain and sacrifice.
“You know, you should be grateful,” Elena said softly. “I don’t know why Father insists on using you for everything. You’d think I could give you a break.” Her eyes glinted with amusement.
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. What was there to say?
Elena leaned in close, her breath warm against my ear. “But it doesn’t matter now, does it? Your little act of ‘kindness’ is no longer enough. You’ll have to give more. There’s nothing else you’re good for, after all.”
The venom in her voice stung more than the sharp pangs in my chest. I turned my face away, the tears threatening to spill, but I refused to let them fall. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
A voice from the hallway interrupted the silence, and I heard my father’s cold, commanding tone.
“Enough, Elena.”
My father walked in then, his cold, calculating gaze fixed on me. His eyes swept over me like I was nothing but an object for inspection. His voice was clinical, matter-of-fact.
“You should be grateful,” he said, his words slicing through the air like a blade. “If it weren’t for your sister, you’d be nothing. And now, you’re going to do what we say. Because your life doesn’t matter. You only matter to us because of what you can give.”
His words were like daggers, and they cut deeper than any physical wound ever could. I wanted to scream, to lash out, but all I could do was whisper, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” It was barely audible, like a prayer I had no right to ask for.
But he didn’t hear me. Or if he did, he didn’t care.
A Shattering Truth
The doctor’s footsteps echoed in the hallway, but I didn’t feel relief. I knew what was coming.
The doctor entered, and his gaze flicked from my father to me. The look in his eyes was hesitant, pained. I didn’t need him to say anything—his expression told me all I needed to know.
“Isabella… I need to speak with you and your family,” he began, his voice faltering as he glanced at my father. “We’ve reached the limit.”
“Limit?” My father’s voice was cold, dismissive. “What limit? Keep taking what’s needed.”
The doctor cleared his throat, his gaze flickering with discomfort. “Her body… it’s already in a critical state. If we take any more—”
“If you take any more of my daughter’s body, she will die.” The words came from the doctor, but it was a sentence I had long known would be coming. The fact that he finally said it out loud felt like a form of mercy.
My mother, who had been silently watching, let out a long, tired sigh, the weight of years of exhaustion and denial pressing down on her. “If Isabella dies…” she began, but her voice trailed off as she turned to Elena.
Elena stepped forward, taking my mother’s hand with a forced sweetness. “We’ll still have her,” she said, her words cold. “I’ve done everything I could. And if Isabella dies, we have each other. I’ve always been the better one. I’ll do my best to keep our family name alive.”
I wanted to scream. To tell them how they had drained me dry for her. But I couldn’t. My throat felt too tight. Too numb.
As my mother turned toward me, she pulled me into an embrace, but it felt like a prison more than comfort. Her hands were gentle, but I could feel the truth in her touch—the truth that I had always been just a body to her.
“I’m sorry, Isabella,” she whispered, barely audible, her voice cracking. “You’ve done your best. I will always be grateful for that.”
My sister, Elena, walked over to me, her eyes glinting with something between pity and amusement. She reached out, rubbing her hand over my bald head. My scalp was tender from the surgery I had undergone earlier that week—yet another sacrifice, another mark of my worth.
“Don’t worry, little sister,” Elena said with false sweetness. “I’ll be fine. At least, I don’t have to worry about my body being a waste.”
The words hit me harder than I expected, and I choked back a sob.
Then, something strange happened. Elena leaned in, her voice dropping low, almost conspiratorial. “The doctors? The ones who tried to help you?” she asked, as if it were an afterthought. “They stopped coming because they signed an agreement. They knew the risk. The family would never let it get out that we’re testing the limits of your body here. Foreign doctors, all of them. They had to die. And if you ever wonder why they didn’t come back… that’s why.”
I felt the room spin. I had known that something dark and twisted was happening behind closed doors, but to hear it confirmed—my family had covered their tracks at the cost of lives, all for the sake of their perfect image—was a reality I hadn’t truly understood until now.
As my mind reeled with the weight of Elena’s words, I remembered the image of my sister—always the picture of health and perfection in public, the media calling her the ‘sickly’ one, as though it were some tragic story we could all feel sympathy for. Elena had always been the perfect daughter. I had always been the sacrifice.
Dinner that night was a blur. My molar throbbed with pain from the extraction—an act done for my sister’s sake, so she could see what a real tooth looked like. At twenty years old, I had become nothing more than a tool for her whims.
The conversation at the dinner table drifted toward a marriage contract—an agreement that would bind me to another family, a rich and powerful one. I tried to block it out, but it was impossible. Elena, the queen of drama, was throwing a tantrum over the prospect of marrying for an alliance.
“I won’t marry an old man just for their money,” she said, voice shrill. “I refuse.”
But then they turned to me.
“We can’t let my baby suffer,” my mother said, her voice filled with a false sweetness. “Isabella is going to die soon, anyway. Let her marry the family and get it over with. Maybe she can be useful for something.”
The words struck me harder than anything they had ever said. I tried to protest, to say that I didn’t want to marry for convenience, but it was futile.
Before I could respond, the maid, hired by Elena, shoved hot food into my mouth. I choked and cried out, but they just called me an attention seeker.
“Dinner’s over,” my father said, dismissing me with a cold glance. “We’ll finalize the engagement tomorrow.”
I sat there, too numb to react, the pain of my molar and the weight of their indifference crushing me. They didn’t care. They never did.
- Writer
