Sunday Short: ENVY

Mira had always believed envy was a quiet thing.

It lived in the spaces between compliments, in the pause before congratulations. It showed itself in smiles held too long and laughter that came a second too late. It never screamed. It waited.

Elise had everything Mira didn’t—effortlessly. A house that looked like it belonged in magazines. Parents who never worried about money. Skin that glowed under fluorescent school lights. A future that unfolded like it had already been written.

Mira told herself she didn’t hate Elise. That would be too ugly, too honest.

She only wanted what Elise had.

The night it happened, the rain came down in sheets, blurring the city into streaks of white and red. Elise was laughing in the passenger seat, scrolling through her phone, talking about a summer trip her parents were planning—another country, another resort, another life Mira would never touch.

Mira gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“You’re quiet,” Elise said. “Everything okay?”

Mira smiled. “Yeah. Just tired.”

That was the moment envy tipped into something else.

She swerved.

The car broke through the guardrail like it had been waiting for permission. The world turned weightless, then violently heavy. Metal screamed. Glass burst. The cliff swallowed them whole.

Mira woke to blood and ringing silence.

Elise was still breathing.

Barely.

Her face was ruined—bones wrong, skin torn beyond recognition. Mira crawled toward her, hands shaking, heart pounding not with fear but with clarity. The thought arrived fully formed, as if it had been waiting all along.

No one would know.

She pressed until Elise stopped breathing.

The hospital accepted the story easily. Two girls. One dead. One survivor. Faces destroyed. Identities confused. Elise’s parents cried and clutched Mira like she was their miracle returned.

Mira became Elise.

Living as her felt like stepping into a perfectly tailored coat. Everything fit. Money stopped being a problem. Doors opened. People listened. The life Mira had envied welcomed her without resistance.

But strange things began to happen.

Elise’s parents watched her too closely, as if checking for cracks. They insisted on routines—specific meals, specific prayers, specific nights when all the lights in the house had to remain on.

And the dreams.

Mira began dreaming of places she didn’t remember visiting. Stone floors slick with wax. Candles burning in circles. A voice whispering from somewhere beneath the ground, calling a name that wasn’t hers.

Elise.

The house seemed to breathe at night. Floors creaked without footsteps. Doors opened just enough to remind her they could.

On her twenty-first birthday, Elise’s mother dressed her in white.

“You look perfect,” she said, eyes shining with something that wasn’t love.

That night, Mira followed the sound of chanting down into the cellar.

She watched from behind the door as Elise’s parents knelt before a symbol carved deep into the stone floor, blackened by years of flame and ash. The air smelled like iron and incense.

“We kept our promise,” her father said. “Raised her well. Sheltered. Cherished.”

Her mother’s voice trembled. “We loved her as instructed.”

Mira’s chest tightened.

“Tonight,” the father continued, “we return what was given.”

Mira stumbled backward, her breath loud in her ears.

Return?

Her foot scraped the stone.

The chanting stopped.

They turned.

Elise’s mother smiled in relief when she saw her. “You came down on your own,” she said softly. “That’s good.”

Mira shook her head. “What is this?”

Her father stood, brushing ash from his knees. “A debt. One we’ve honored for decades.”

“You’re sick,” Mira whispered. “Both of you.”

“No,” her mother said gently. “We were blessed.”

They told her then.

Elise was never meant to grow old. She had been born as part of a bargain—a child raised in comfort and love, allowed to ripen, before being given back to the Devil who secured their fortune.

Twenty-one years.

The perfect age.

Mira laughed weakly. “You’re lying.”

Her father stepped closer. “We’re telling you the truth.”

“She was a baby,” Mira said. “You raised her.”

“Yes,” her mother replied. “We were told to. Love strengthens the offering.”

The room tilted.

Mira’s thoughts raced back to the crash. To the choice she made. To the life she stole without knowing what it was worth.

“I’m not her,” Mira whispered. “I’m not Elise.”

Her mother’s smile didn’t fade. “The Devil doesn’t care about names.”

Her father nodded. “A soul stepped into her place willingly. That matters more than blood.”

The candles flared brighter.

Mira felt something watching from below the floor, patient and amused.

She thought of Elise—of the life she envied so badly she destroyed it. Of the moment envy had whispered that she deserved more.

Now she stood where Elise was meant to stand.

The ritual circle pulsed.

Mira took a step back.

Then another.

The cellar door loomed behind her.

She didn’t know if escape was still possible.

She didn’t know if envy had already marked her as the offering.

All she knew was that the life she stole was never meant to be lived—

And the Devil was ready to reclaim what envy had delivered straight into his hands.