7
On my way there, I ran into a strange old witch.
She was wearing a dirty pointy hat and a crumpled long colorful robe and stared at me with a fiery gaze.
A faint smile played on her face.
Vaguely, I heard her say, "I can help you."
But as I turned the corner and looked back, she disappeared without a trace.
Inside, my heart pounding, I quickened my step and went to Michelle's store.
When I brought Michelle back to my place, the whole family was waiting anxiously on the sixth floor.
My mother, seeing Michelle arrive, grabbed her without hesitation and pushed her inside the secret room.
"What the hell are you doing, let go of me!" Michelle complained, her shrill voice ringing out.
"I wouldn't have come if you hadn't paid me so much!"
My mom tightened her grip, "Shut up, I'll give another ten thousand, just go in!"
With a swift move, my mother pushed open the slightly ajar door and dumped Michelle inside.
She then slammed the door shut, as if afraid of something.
After all that, Michelle was clearly unhappy, cursing inside the room:
"You crazy bitch, what do you want to lock me here?
"It's pitch black, I can't see anything!
"And the smell is putrid, are you keeping dead fish here, so stinky!
"You are a nut, your whole family's nuts…"
Before she could finish, a moment of silence followed.
Then, a bloodcurdling scream erupted from the inside room.
"Died… someone's died!"
Hearing that, my mom lost her mind.
She went nuts, not caring about anything.
She charged into the room, the door wide open.
With the outside light beaming in, I finally got a good look at the room's true state.
Michelle was unconscious from fear.
Charles was nearly naked, lying on the ground.
Clothes were scattered around him.
The room was empty, nothing else but an altar-like table.
On the tabletop, there was a creature that was hard to describe.
It was a mass of light-colored, slightly transparent flesh, gently squirming as if it were alive, breathing in and out.
And its abdomen held a slimy, disgusting egg.
It was the creepy meaty egg my mom used for her surgeries.
That day, Charles was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.
The good news was he wasn't dead.
The bad news: He was barely alive.
The hospital did a full check-up on him, but they couldn't find anything wrong.
Yet, he was still like a vegetable, not waking up.
Father and mother contacted with big-name doctors, but it didn't help.
They couldn't figure out what was wrong with him.
Father was so pissed off, he was yelling at Mother:
"Tiffany, this is all your fault!
If you had just listened to me and stopped the shady business, he wouldn't be lying in bed as a vegetable!"
Mother glared at him with cold eyes:
"Paul, you're such a loser, always talking out of your ass!
It was you who brought that creature, you who wanted to open a clinic!
Without me making money to support the whole family these few years, can you enjoy the good life today?"
As they were about to tear each other apart, an unexpected visitor showed up at Charles's ward.
She said she had a way to Charles.
"But the price is a life for a life."
I looked up and saw a familiar face.
She was the strange old witch from that day.
She looked at my parents with a smirk:
"Earning so much money from that creature, it's time for it to go back to its owner."
My parents seemed to remember something, their faces instantly panicked.
That day, I finally learned the truth behind everything.