Trial of a Parasite

My sister-in-law clung to me, crying as she pleaded, “I’m sorry, we won’t send Ethan to private school. Please, just don’t take it out on him…”

My mother cried even harder, leaning against the doorframe, her body trembling.

The memory ended there.

But the audience was fully ignited.

“What kind of lunatic beats a child for no reason?”

“That poor kid. Stuck with a crazy aunt and her crazy daughter. What rotten luck.”

My nephew stepped down from the platform, clutching an egg in his hand, sniffling.

“My mom said eggs are precious… I only get one a day. I couldn’t bear to eat it, so I gave it to Megan. I didn’t think Auntie would hate me this much…”

The bald man beside me looked heartbroken. He snatched the egg and stuffed it into his mouth in two bites.

“Good boy. Eggs are good food. If she won’t eat it, I will!”

“We’ll stand up for you. That parasite of an aunt is about to be judged!”

The more he spoke, the angrier he became. With a shout, he swung a punch at me.

Fortunately, the invisible force binding the seats held him back.

The judge had to strike the gavel several times before the room settled.

He cleared his throat.

“The verdict will now be delivered.”

“The charge of parasitism is confirmed. The defendant will be stripped to their true form.”

A wave of cheers erupted from the audience.

They clapped eagerly, all eyes on me, waiting for the spectacle.

But with a deafening boom, nothing happened to me.

Instead, the skin of my family on the platform split open, their bodies bursting into bloated, greasy worms.

The audience froze.

For a moment, the entire courtroom fell silent.

“What’s going on?”

My sister-in-law writhed, her bloated body twisting as she reached toward the judge, her voice rising into a shrill scream.

“Did you make a mistake? We’re the ones who accused her! Why did we turn into parasites?”

The judge spoke calmly, “There’s no mistake. The Trial of a Parasite judges parasites, not defendants.

“If the accuser is the parasite, they will be stripped to their true form all the same.”

The audience exchanged confused looks, unable to make sense of it.

“She’s been living off her parents like that, and yet the ones being leeched off are the parasites?”

“No matter what, judging from the way she beat her nephew, there’s no way she’s in the right.”

The judge remained expressionless. Using a pair of tweezers, he picked up the squealing nephew and dropped him beneath the memory extraction device.

The screen lit up with a scene from a morning.

My sister-in-law grabbed my reluctant nephew and forced a bottle and an egg into his hands.

“Take it! If you need to pee during the day, use the bottle. I’ll need it tonight.”

“These eggs are a delicacy. You only get one a day. Don’t waste it!”

“Ugh—”

The bald man who had just eaten the egg gagged violently, clawing at his throat.

“No wonder it tasted salty! You little brat, why didn’t you say it was soaked in urine?”

My sister-in-law writhed angrily, her voice rising into a shrill screech.

“You don’t know what’s good for you! It’s a well-known delicacy! I have my son collect his urine in bottles every day just to make this!”

Unfortunately, her son didn’t seem willing to cooperate in preserving this so-called delicacy.

When he walked into kindergarten carrying the bottle, the two teachers on duty exchanged a glance but said nothing.

After all, my sister-in-law was the type to fire off ten one-minute voice messages in a row, demanding, “Why isn’t my son smiling in today’s photos?”

No one wanted to get on her bad side.

But children didn’t understand any of that.

A bold little boy pointed at my nephew and laughed loudly.

“I could smell the pee from a mile away. Turns out, the walking toilet’s here!”

The other children recoiled, keeping their distance from him.

My nephew’s face flushed red with humiliation, but something darker began to take shape in his mind.

If there were someone who seemed even more like a “walking toilet” than he did, wouldn’t the ridicule shift to them instead?

He peeked out from the doorway of the teachers’ office, his eyes lighting up as he fixed on my daughter, Megan.