The Cuckoo's Egg

"Yes, what do you need?" The voice of the staff resounded, and everyone turned to look at Winnie. Within moments, I'd managed to expose her for lying about me playing games on my phone, and her face was flushed in embarrassment.

"I want to donate my husband's corpse," I said. "He just passed away, so can you please come to Charity Hospital as soon as possible?"

The staff on the other end immediately agreed, and said they'd need thirty minutes to arrive.

Thirty minutes, huh?

I wondered how long Joey could last.

Winnie finally reacted to what I was doing, and her eyes widened. "How could you donate Joey's body? He's not going to be able to rest in peace!"

Tony didn't offer a single word of apology for blaming me for something I didn't do, and continued to be Winnie's staunch supporter. "That's right! Who knows, maybe this is a ruse, and you plan to sell Joey's organs to the black market! I won't be surprised if a woman like you does something that dirty, after all."

The other firefighters nodded and voiced their agreement, looking at me as if I was a piece of irredeemable trash.

I thought it was a waste of time to try to explain anything to them, so I just took out the digital body donation application form Joey and I had signed.

In my past life, Joey had agreed to sign a body donation form with me to placate me, and I had forgotten all about it, too occupied with grieving his sudden death. By the time I remembered, his body had already been cremated and buried, so I threw it to the back of my mind.

Even Tony couldn't say a single word in rebuttal, seeing Joey's signature on the donation form.

"No, you can't donate his body!" Winnie ran and stood right between me and Joey. "His organs were damaged badly from the smoke, so it wouldn't have any value!"

She was a doctor, so she knew better than anyone that her reputation would be utterly destroyed once the people from the body donation center verified that Joey wasn't dead.

"Well, that's for the people from the body donation center to decide, isn't it?" I asked. "Even if his organs are damaged, I'm sure he could make great contributions for the medical field, right? He's a wonderful, selfless man who sacrificed his life to save me, so I'm sure he'd agree with my decision."

Hearing this, Joey's teammates started becoming convinced by what I had said.

"That's true, our captain was a good man…"

"Donating wouldn't be all that bad, at least we'd be able to see him at the medical school…"

Easily enough, I noticed how Joey's toes were trembling in fear, and how the white cloth on his forehead was damp with cold sweat.

If he was exposed for faking his death, his reputation that he had spent such a long time building up would hit rock bottom in no time.

Seeing how futile her efforts were, Winnie started going with a different approach.

"Actually, Joey had one last wish!" She exclaimed, reaching to grab my hand. "He wanted you to have a baby for him through IVF! You're responsible for his family losing its successor, so you should give birth to one for him!"

As she talked, she glanced at her subordinates standing beside us, and their hands scrambled towards me, holding me in place as Winnie continued to speak. "I already sent in a request for his sperm to be unfrozen, so they're going to become inactive if you don't go there soon. How will you take responsibility for their family line ending?"

In my past life, all I could think about was giving birth to a baby, an extension of Joey's life, and I didn't even care that I was still weak and frail.

In the end, I only gave birth to an ungrateful child, Winnie and Joey's flesh and blood instead of mine!

After my son grew up, he started contacting them behind my back, and was brainwashed by the two into treating me as a free nanny at his beck and call.

Once I outgrew my usefulness, he kicked me aside and reunited with his birth parents. They were all parasites, each and every one of them!

This time, I wouldn't let Winnie have her way.

Reaching to grab Joey's bed tightly, I shouted, "I won't move a single step until the people from the donation center arrive!"