They Faked her Death For Months, When I Truly Died, They Went Mad Chapter 08

They Faked her Death For Months, When I Truly Died, They Went Mad Chapter 08

The witch didn’t end the vision right away. 

She showed me more than the funeral. 

She showed me how the people of the south were swallowed 

by regret, day after day, after I “died.” 

Oren became the most stubborn visitor at the Ravenwater search station. 

For the first three months, he stood on the riverbank before 

dawn every day, holding my photo and asking every dive 

team the same questions. They all told him that after so long 

in flood season, survival was impossible. 

But he refused to sign the death certificate. 

“She said it was real this time.” He repeated it over and over. 

“I didn’t believe her. At least this once, I have to believe she’s alive.” 

Back at the Pack clinic, he could no longer treat patients properly. 

Every time an injured young she–wolf signed her own surgery 

papers, he remembered the day the nurse called him. He’d 

been listed as my first emergency contact, and he’d refused to 

come, using his healing studies as an excuse, 

Once, a patient grabbed his sleeve through the pain and 

asked, crying, “My family hasn’t come. Am I going to die?” 

Oren lost it on the spot, falling to his knees in the exam room 

and apologizing over and over. 

In the end, he left the advanced healer program and spent all 

his time organizing accident cases, trying to prove from every 

medical detail that I could still be alive. 

But every report ended with the same line: 

Missing person Rhoslyn Ashborne. Survival probability extremely low.” 

Wilder closed the dessert shop. 

He’d always said my teeth were bad and refused to make 

anything properly sweet for me. Once I was gone, he made 

the first cream cake from the recipe on my old sticky note, with double caramel. 

He left it on the table in the secret base. No one took a single bite. 

He combed through five years of order records and found that 

every year I’d secretly ordered a birthday cake in Selene’s 

favorite flavor, but never once one for myself. My birthday 

was the same day as Selene’s, and he’d only ever remembered hers. 

After that, every birthday, Wilder lit two sets of candles. 

One set got blown out. 

The other just burned until the wax ran down the whole cake. 

The council of elders suspended Mistral from patrol. 

As an Evershade warrior, he’d received a citizen’s distress call 

and never reported it, never tracked it, never notified the 

Ravenwater rescue team. When the investigator asked why, 

he was silent for a long time. All he could say was, “I thought she was lying.” 

The elder asked coldly, “What did you base that on? Evidence, 

br your preference for another woman?” 

Mistral handed over his patrol badge. 

After that, every rainy night, he stood alone on Ravenwater 

Bridge. A car braking, wind hitting the railing, water 

slamming the pillars – any sound made his wolf jolt awake. 

He could always hear me saying on the phone: 

This time it’s real.” 

But he never got another chance to answer. 

Cael’s punishment was the most public. 

The elders traced every e–gift card he’d sent to the 

mountaineering club. The school revoked his project spot. 

Pack members who recognized him on the street would ask 

outright, “You’re the one who paid everyone to lie to your sister?” 

At first he tried to explain it away as a prank. 

Later, he couldn’t even say the words. 

He returned the gift cards at full value and went to each 

person who’d attended the fake funeral, forcing them to write 

down the truth. But no matter how many statements he 

collected, it didn’t change the fact that I’d gone into the river. 

He went back to the dorm Selene had taken over, retrieving 

my trophy, my laptop stand, and the old clothes that had 

been thrown away, piece by piece. 

When he sorted through everything, he found my emergency 

contact list. In the family section were my parents, him, and the three friends. 

Beside every name was a note: 

“They’ll come.” 

But that day, not one of them came.