“MARIA!! What are you doing?” my father shouted.

Everyone was shocked. My half little sisters cried and their mom hugged them, even my bastard little brother opened his mouth widely. My cunning big brother ran to his mother and tears flowed from his eyes. To be honest, that was the first time I saw him being emotional.

I was the one who was shocked the most. I just hurt a person, and it was my stepmother. She was a slut, but she was still my mother. However, for some reason, I felt relieved a bit, but scared feeling dominated me more.

Would I enter prison? Would my life be over? What had I done?

My legs felt weak as blood flowed out from her chest and I sat again. My breath was rough and my eyes blurred. Big brother seemed to point at me while shouting, but I couldn’t hear him.

The door opened and the butler and maids rushed in. Two maids grabbed my shoulders and dragged me into my room. I was locked. I didn’t know what happened afterward.

I buried myself among my dolls and hugged my mom’s diary. “Mom, everything will be alright, right? Please protect me, Mom.”

I couldn’t rest my mind. I panicked. My heart seemed like it was about to escape from my body when rough steps got closer to my room. The door was opened, and I saw father. His expression was grim.

“Maria!”

He approached me, and I felt his bad intention, so I immediately jumped out of my bed. I tried to run past him, but he caught my wrist and threw me to the wall.

In my life, that was the first time someone did physical violence against me, and it was done by my father.

My back felt hot, and my bones felt rigid to be moved. I could only crawl on my stomach as I tried to escape from my father.

“Maria! Maria!! Look at me, my daughter.”

I didn’t pay attention to him and keep crawling to my bed. Father knelt beside me and grabbed my shoulder. “Why are you behaving like this, Maria? Don’t you realize what have you done to your first mom? Luckily we have private doctors. Your stab isn’t deep, but it will leave a scar.”

I felt a bit relieved when I heard that. I did hate her, but if something happened to her, I didn’t know what would happen to me.

“I hold a great responsibility to keep this family’s prestige high, so you are lucky I forbid this matter to leave this mansion. But, I can’t let you like this. Can you please behave? What’s wrong with you?”

I stopped crawling. Originally, I didn’t want to mind him, but he talked like he didn’t have anything to do with my problem. I glared at him.

“It is always you. You are the reason I am like this. You never give me any happiness. You are always too selfish and only think of yourself.”

He cringed at my argument. “What happiness do you want from me? Don’t I give you more inheritance than your siblings and mothers? Think, Maria, think! Many people in this country can’t eat three times a day. You live in luxury, I give you the freedom to do many things, I never force you what to do in your life. If those are not happiness, what are?”

I spat at him, and my saliva landed on his forehead. If I felt wrong a little when I threw a knife at his first wife, I didn’t feel anything when I spat at him. He clearly deserved it.

He wiped his forehead and looked at his palm. “You spat at me. You spat at your father. Good. It seems I can’t teach you a lesson with words only.”

He stood and pulled the belt on his waist. Dad always wore fancy outfits and accessories. The belt he held was made from a crocodile’s skin, and so it was thick.

I was scared to see him with that belt and backed away to the glass wall behind me. “What will you do?”

As I finished speaking, he whipped the belt to my calf. I instantly felt searing hotness at the part where the belt hit me. I pulled my legs and caressed it as I rolled on the floor while screaming.

“Y—you made me do this, Maria. This is a lesson so you will behave in the future.” He launched another whip to my back.

I arched my back and screamed harder. It was so painful and hot that I was almost passed out, but I was scared of another whip, so I turned and faced my father. He stopped when he saw my crying face.

“Papa, it is hurt. I beg you to stop.”

His hand was shaking too, so he threw his belt away. He staggered to the door and opened it. His personal butler was waiting on the other side.

“Treat Maria. Do anything to not leave scars or else I will fire you and all of the doctors.”

“I understand, Master, but are you alright? You seem pale.”

“Hell, of course, I do. I—I hurt my daughter.”

After saying that, he looked at me one more time before walking away. I was still minding the pain in my back and my legs.

The doctors in my house were efficient. They applied many things to me, so my father’s attacks didn’t have scars. However, little did my father know that there was a deeper scar in my heart. It would never be healed by him.

After that incident, I always avoided interaction with others at lunch and dinner time. I always left early to my room. No-one stopped me, the first wife and my oldest brother never talked about that incident. Father probably threatened them not to bring that up.

I just graduated from primary school, and I didn’t have close friends for reasons too, so I spent my time alone. Maybe I could improve my life in my junior high school.

If I didn’t spend time in my room, I always went to the deer field to feed deer. A field worker accompanied me when I enjoyed time with deer.

As I knelt with a bucket of veggies at my side, many deer approached me. They were so tame, and they let me touch them. I suddenly looked at the worker and spoke, “You can go.”

“But, Miss—”

“They are tame. You must have something better to do than following me. Go.”

After I insisted him to go, he left happily. Maybe he really had something better to do.

I stopped thinking about it and focused my attention on these cuties. Looking at animals created peace in my mind sometimes. They had a simple life.

A cub circled its mom and head-butted her, but the mom wasn’t angry. She licked her baby instead lovingly. I felt jealous a little. Even animals felt affection.

I continued enjoying my time with these cuties until the bucket empty. I walked to the mansion alone. When I was on my way, I saw the fieldworker sitting under a tree with a woman on his lap. It turned out he was in a relationship with one of the maids.

The worker whispered something in her ear and the woman giggled and leaned against his chest. He cuddled her from behind and kissed her cheek lightly.

I only smiled and left them be. Somehow I felt a dim spark of desire in my heart. Maybe I would find someone special like that in the future. I wanted to act spoiled with him, and of course, I would treat him sweetly.

I wanted my significant other to accept me and my violent tendency, but I knew that was wishful thinking. I didn’t live in a fairy tale. A shining prince didn’t exist. That was why I would hide this violent desire from my significant other.

I took the round route to the mansion and passed a lake. On there, I saw my new little sisters playing with muds. They always had a bright expression. I admitted they looked innocent, so my curiosity about them grew.

I subconsciously approached them. Realizing I was coming, they stopped playing and stood side by side. They held hands as they glared at me intensively.

“Hi,” I greeted, but they still put their guard against me, and it made me awkward. “Are you playing with muds? It seems fun, but I hope your mother know you are playing in here.”

At the mention of their mother, they stared at each other and looked at me. The elder sister spoke, “Nana and Nene come here secretly. Mom will be angry if she knows about this. Can big sis keep this a secret?”

I felt weirded out when she said old sis, but it wasn’t bad. I hadn’t recovered from the first call, and the youngest sister called me big sis too with a begging tone.

My lips arched up uncontrollably into a smile. This was the first experience for me.

“Is big sis fine?” asked Nana, the older twin.

“I am fine. More importantly, the sun is almost sunk. You both better go home.”

They immediately looked down. Mud stuck all over their body. The youngest twin pulled the older twin’s hand. “What should we do, Nana? Mama will be angry at us.”

“It is alright, Nene. She is probably busy playing with her accessories collection.”

“But the maids will see us and tell mama.”

Nana hugged Nene and patted her head. I giggled because the mud on her palm made her little sister’s hair dirtier. They were such an interesting sibling.

“There is a bathroom in my bedroom. Do you want to take a bath in there?” I offered.

Nana—the older sister—looked at me suspiciously. She was about to refuse when Nene nodded and accepted my offer. “I want to see big sister’s bedroom. Does sister have cute dolls?”

“Of course,” I said.

Without further ado, we went to the mansion together secretly. I spotted a random maid and called her. In this mansion, there was a common dressing room containing all kinds of outfits for all sizes and genders. I asked her to fetch us two sets of kid dresses and told her to leave them behind the door.

They dirtied my room with muds, and I quickly escorted them to the bathroom behind another door in my room. We bathed together.

As expected of kids, they liked to play with water. They splashed warm water on each other. I stood between them and applied shampoo onto their head. I helped them wash so they could stop playing.

After that, we soaked ourselves in a bathtub. I rested my back against the bathtub while watching my cute little sisters playing with a rubber duck and water in front of me.

At one point, Nene splashed water on my face. It caught me off guard, and the water entered my throat, making me cough. When I caught my breath, their bodies stiffened. I didn’t like it because the bright expression suited them better, so I splashed their faces with water.

Nene returned the favor with a handful of water, and I laughed. Her face beamed and she looked happily at her twin sister. We then played with water until we were bored.

……

I snapped back from my nostalgia when the door of my bedroom opened, and it annoyed me a bit. I kind of missed the time when I was close with those twins. Maybe if I didn’t bully them, we would still be close like normal siblings.

I looked at the face of the person who had disturbed my sweet nostalgia, and it was my hateful little brother. He leaned against the door and folded his arms before his chest as if acting like a big deal.

“Yo, whore.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing… I just want to pay back everything you have done to me.” He closed the door and locked it, putting us together in this room.