Evelyn gripped the shovel, her knuckles white. Disgust wrinkled her nose as she moved the stagnant chamber pot to the far corner of the room, clearing the space. She began to dig. Every strike of the blade against the packed earth was a rhythmic release of fury. When her strength waned, she drew a flask of spiritual spring water from her Space, the cool liquid revitalizing her tired limbs in an instant.

It wasn't long before the shovel hit something solid with a dull thud. Another chest. This one was plain birchwood, secured by a heavy, rusted padlock.

With a practiced twist of a pry bar, Evelyn snapped the lock. Inside lay a collection of rolled canvases—paintings she didn't care to identify—and three smaller caskets. One by one, the locks yielded to her.

The haul was staggering: a trove of silver dollars, a collection of cold, heavy gold bars, and a pair of jade bangles so vibrant they seemed to glow in the dim light.

Evelyn stared, a bitter, self-mocking laugh bubbling in her chest. For years she had lived under this roof, yet she had remained a stranger to the true depth of the Wards' greed. With a sharp flick of her wrist, the treasures vanished, absorbed into the silent void of her Space.

She didn't stop. Her eyes scanned the floor like a hawk. She dug again, this time uncovering a shallow tin box.

Inside, beneath a few hundred dollars in cash, lay the real prize: a thick stack of ration coupons. It was a windfall of cloth and grain stamps, and even rare permits for bicycles, watches, and radios. Mrs. Ward must have been hoarding these as dowries for her precious sons. Well, Evelyn thought, a cold smile touching her lips, they belong to me now.

After two more fruitless holes, she abandoned the dirt and turned her attention to the rest of the house.

The Ward brothers—Marcus, the soldier, and Dominic, the laborer in the countryside—were the golden boys of the family. Marcus was the crown jewel, the one the Wards pinned all their pride upon. Even in his absence, Mrs. Ward forced Evelyn to scrub his room every three days. Evelyn knew the contents of that room better than Marcus did himself.

She cast a disdainful look at his belongings. Aside from a few thick, oversized cotton quilts, there was little she truly valued. But "valuing" it didn't matter. If she didn't want it, she would take it anyway, just to ensure they didn't have it.

The clock was ticking. The excavation in Mrs. Ward’s room had taken too long. Moving with a predator’s efficiency, Evelyn began a "scorched earth" policy. Every stick of furniture, every trinket, every scrap of cloth in the bedrooms—including her own—was swept into the Space.

She moved to the main hall. The table, the chairs, even the thermoses vanished.

The kitchen was the grand finale. She stripped the cupboards bare: oil, salt, soy sauce, tea, and bags of rice and flour. Even the cured meat hanging from the rafters disappeared. Once the room was an empty shell, the two massive iron woks on the stove stood out like sore thumbs. She pried them loose. She even took the firewood from beneath the hearth. Wood cost money, after all.

Outside, she cleared the courtyard. Coal stoves, brooms, even the dustpans. By the time she was finished, the Ward residence looked as though it had been scoured by a locust swarm. Nothing remained but the floorboards and that single, foul-smelling chamber pot.

The sound of a bicycle bell echoed from the lane. Mrs. Ward and Caleb were back.

Evelyn didn't hesitate. She picked up a heavy stone she had set aside, took a sharp breath, and slammed it against her own forehead. Pain exploded in her vision. Blood, hot and copper-scented, began to pour down her face.

She didn't black out, but as she heard the front gate creak open, she collapsed onto the floor and let her eyes flutter shut.

“Mom! Why is the door open?” Caleb’s voice was sharp with sudden anxiety.

Mrs. Ward’s heart skipped a beat. They had already been targeted by thieves once before. Her face turned a sickly ashen color as she bolted toward her bedroom.

She stopped at the threshold, her breath hitching. The room was a graveyard of empty holes. Her secret caches had been gutted. The realization hit her like a physical blow; her knees buckled, and she collapsed into a dead faint.

Caleb emerged from his own room, trembling with rage. “God damn it! Everything’s gone! Who took my things? They left nothing but the damn toilet!”

“Evelyn! Evelyn!” he screamed, looking for a scapegoat.

He found her in the middle of the empty house, sprawled in a pool of her own blood. Her room, like the rest, was a hollow shell. To Caleb’s eyes, it looked as though the intruders had tried to kill her before finishing their work.

“Mom! Mom! Evelyn’s been murdered!” Caleb shrieked, his face ghostly white.

He ran back to his mother, shaking her violently and pinching her upper lip until she gasped for air.

Mrs. Ward’s eyes fluttered open. “Caleb... I had a nightmare. I dreamed the house was empty... that they took everything...”

“It wasn't a dream, Mom!” Caleb cried. “We’ve been robbed blind!”

Despair washed over her, a suffocating wave that threatened to pull her back into unconsciousness.

“Mom! I think Evelyn is dead! There’s so much blood!”

The mention of Evelyn acted like a spark to a powder keg. All the agony of her lost life savings, her gold, and her security transformed into a singular, venomous rage. If Evelyn hadn't been so useless, if she had watched the door...

“Dead?” Mrs. Ward hissed, her face contorting into a demonic mask. “Good! Let her rot! It’s the least she deserves for letting this happen!”

“Mom...” Caleb recoiled, horrified. Whatever his faults, Evelyn was still his sister.

Mrs. Ward crawled toward one of the holes in the floor, reaching into the void as if she could pull her gold back from the ether. “Heaven has no eyes!” she wailed, a primal, screeching sound that tore through the quiet neighborhood. “My money! My gold! My life!”

The neighbors, drawn by the hysterical shrieking, crowded into the doorway. They gasped at the sight of the stripped house and the girl lying motionless in the gore.

“Mrs. Ward, for God’s sake, Evelyn is still breathing! Get her to a hospital!” a neighbor shouted.

Mrs. Ward didn't care about the girl’s life. She cared about the eight thousand dollars Evelyn was supposed to be carrying. She scrambled toward the girl, ignoring the blood, her hands frantically tearing at Evelyn’s clothes. “The money! Where is the money?!”

The onlookers were revolted. “She’s dying, and you’re looking for cash? She’s barely wearing enough clothes to hide a coin, let alone a fortune!”

“Caleb, go to the police!” the neighbor commanded. “We’ll carry her to the clinic. We can’t just let her bleed out.”

Reluctantly, with the help of the neighbors, Evelyn was moved.

By the time Evelyn returned with a bandaged head, Mr. Ward had been summoned from the factory. The police had already performed their sweep. Their theory was simple: a retaliatory heist. The thieves who had stolen the bicycle previously must have been nearby when Mrs. Ward spent the previous day cursing them in the streets. Driven by spite, they hadn't just stolen the valuables—they had taken the firewood and the brooms just to leave the family with nothing.

It was a perfect storm of bad luck. A neighbor down the lane had been celebrating a lavish wedding that day; the blare of trumpets and the crackle of firecrackers had drowned out every sound of the Wards' ruin. No one had seen a thing.