I’ve never really seen myself as anything particularly special. In the seventeen years that I’ve been alive, I never stood out; just hiding in the shadows and watching life go by. Even my own family treated me like an outsider. My mother had died giving birth to me, and my father had failed to recover from a heart attack not a week later. Now my older sister and I were living with our aunt and uncle.

Life was the same every day. At home, I was spoken to formally by my aunt and uncle, and at school I was treated like I wasn’t there at all. Even my own sister refused to talk to me. She would just glare at me every time our eyes met, as if I was the cause of everything; in her eyes, I was the cause of our parents’ death and had no right to be called family.

But one day, when I was 16, I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, an illness inflicting the lungs. I had never really been sick in my life, and didn’t know how to react to the news. But since I never really valued my life, I didn’t cry. I didn’t seek comfort, and I just acknowledged the disease and watched as my uncle sign the paperwork. No one told me I was going to be alright, that I was going to get through this disease. But then again, why should they? My illness was described as terminal, and scientists were still a way off finding a cure.

For months, I watched as the other patients in my ward leave one by one and get replaced by others. I was the only one that remained in my bed for this long. Occasionally, my sister would drop by, but not out of kindness, but coldness. She would stare silently at me and place a basket of fruits beside my bed. Her eyes betrayed no emotion. No coldness, no compassion, and certainly no pity. In her silence, it was as if she was trying to tell me something. Tell me that I was causing trouble for everyone, and that I did not deserve to be looked after like this. And this did not surprise me, nor sadden me, as I knew I was the cause of everything.

Several months later, I heard the doctor and my uncle talking. Obviously, I was the topic of the conversation. The two of them conversed without any emotion, even though subject was grim and unpleasant.