"Love makes you blind, they say. For my mother, it made her a prisoner.
She was once the brightest student in her village, but a mistake of the heart led her to elope with a man who promised her the world, only to give her hell. When she returned home, broken and pregnant with me, her parents accepted her with tears. But after they passed away, the masks of her siblings fell off.
My uncles and aunts didn't see a grieving sister; they saw a barrier to their inheritance. They threw us into the old shed at the edge of the garden.
I still remember the nights she cried in pain. As sickness consumed her, she begged for a drop of water. But her own brothers—my uncles—ignored her parched throat, too busy dividing the land she hadn't even left yet. She died thirsty, her heart broken by her own blood.
The funeral was a blur of rain and hypocrisy. Three days passed. The grief was heavy, sitting in my chest like a stone.
I was alone in the shed, staring at the empty mat where she used to sleep, when the door creaked open. It was my youngest uncle. He reeked of cheap alcohol, stumbling as he walked in.
"You're still here?" he sneered, his eyes bloodshot. "The funeral is over. Get out. This land belongs to us now."
I stayed silent, gripping the edge of the table.
He laughed, a cruel, mocking sound. "Why are you looking at me like that? You think your mother was a saint? She died because of her own lust. If she hadn't run away like a cheap woman, none of this would have happened!"
That word—Lust—snapped something inside me.
It wasn't just an insult; it was like spitting on her grave. My vision went red. Without thinking, my hand found a heavy iron vessel resting on the table. As he leaned in to mock me again, I swung it with all the rage I had held back for years.
CLANG!
The metal struck his head. He stumbled back, blood trickling down his forehead, shock written all over his face. He didn't fall, though. He just looked at me with wide eyes, then turned and stumbled out into the night, cursing.
I dropped the vessel, my hands shaking. I ran. I ran away from that cursed house, terrified of what I had done.
But fate is a cruel writer.
I later learned that he had staggered back to his own house. Drunk and perhaps haunted by his own guilt, he had reportedly banged his head against the wall in a drunken stupor. That second impact—not my blow—was what killed him.
But the world didn't see it that way. When the police found him dead, they saw the wound from my iron vessel. They didn't see an accident; they saw a murder.
And just like that, at seventeen, I wasn't just an orphan anymore. I was a wanted killer."