#1. Suspect

“You killed me.”

“You're the one who killed me.”

“Don't forget. You're the one who killed me.”

The day the world turned red with blood, I lost myself.

I struggled to pry open my eyelids, stiff and crusted shut.

“Ah…”

The ceiling was familiar.

Old wooden beams. Blackout curtains covering the windows. A fireplace filled with nothing but ashes.

I knew this place.The vacation house.His vacation house.

The place where we'd run outside hand in hand on the day of the first snowfall. Where he'd whispered that he loved me, where we'd spent so many hours together.

And where I'd stabbed him.

Cold wrapped itself around my body. My chest felt crushed, as though something were pressing down on my heart and lungs, making it impossible to breathe.

I dragged in a ragged breath. There was something metallic in the air.

Blood?

The smell of dried blood began to awaken every dormant cell in my body.

I forced myself upright and looked down.

Dark, reddish-brown stains covered me from head to toe.

With trembling hands, I touched the blood smeared across my skin.

My fingertips. My forearms. Even the insides of my thighs beneath my white nightdress.

This wasn't my blood. It was his.

“Ugh—”

A sharp crackle went through my head. Pain exploded behind my eyes, and I clutched my skull.

Memories flickered in and out, like an old videotape struggling to play.

Then— Click.

A broken fragment of that day came rushing back.

“You don't love me anymore? Why?”

“Please. Please, just let me go.”

He'd screamed those words at me, his voice raw with desperation.

His body had finally stopped convulsing from the electric shocks. Still bound, he looked up at me with trembling eyes.

And said—

“I'm scared of you now.”

Those words had come from the same lips that once whispered their love for me.

And something inside me snapped.

His words. His eyes. His mouth.

He'd said the one thing I never wanted to hear.And I was furious.

Then what? What had I done?

“Ah…”

The noise inside my head grew louder.

My memories were tangled together, making it impossible to separate truth from illusion.

Then another fragment jolted into place.

There was a knife in my hand.

And his chest…

I'd stabbed him.

“Ngh.”

He hadn't even screamed.

“Seo-wan.”

Tears spilled from his sorrowful eyes as he looked at me. A thin line of bright red blood appeared between his lips, bitten hard to suppress the pain.

I could still feel it.

The sensation of the blade sinking into him.

Did I… kill him?

I stared at my trembling hands.

Then clenched them into fists, desperate to erase the horrifying sensation.

Dark, dried blood was caked beneath my fingernails.

Where was he? I had to find him.

I slowly got to my feet. My stiff knees trembled beneath me.

I searched the house, but the place where he should have been was empty.

The bloodstains had dried.

I checked every corner of the vacation house.

He was nowhere. Was he dead? Alive? Or had he run away? Without me?

No.

He wouldn't have left me.

I had to find him.

Clutching at my aching head, I staggered toward the front door and stumbled outside.

The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and grass.

After the rain, the sky was impossibly clear. Brilliant sunlight stabbed at my eyes, as though the heavens themselves were condemning me.

A narrow trail wound through the forest.

The path we'd loved walking together, hand in hand.

A secluded path where no one ever came.

As always, there was nobody around this remote country house.

Nobody to help.

Shivering violently, I forced myself forward.

Outside.

Farther outside.

My ankles kept buckling, and I could barely stay on my feet.

Still, I walked.

My footsteps left uneven prints in the wet dirt.

My legs began to go numb. I could no longer feel my arms.

The dried blood clung to my skin, cold and stiff, like a second shell.

I walked. Collapsed. Got up. Walked again.

Over and over, until I felt certain I would fall and never rise.

Someone… Please… Help me.

And then, at last—

“Good heavens! Who's that over there? Hey! Miss!”

A middle-aged man working in a nearby field spotted me.

His face drained of color as he hurried toward me.

His features wavered in my vision, blurring until everything began to darken.

“Blood! You're covered in blood! What on earth happened? I need to call an ambulance!”

I caught a glimpse of his shaking hands fumbling for his phone.

“Help… me…”

My lips barely moved.

“I killed him.”

My eyelids grew impossibly heavy. I couldn't hold myself up any longer.

My knees gave way, and I crumpled to the ground.

Did I really kill him?

I couldn't stop seeing the look in his eyes. Fear.

And the words he'd spoken as he stared at me.

“You're not the Choi Seo-wan I fell in love with anymore.”

Something tore through my chest.

Those words had pierced my heart like a blade.

And whatever had remained intact inside me—

Shattered.

But you're the one who made me this way.

Bzzzt— Click.

Another agonizing memory flickered to life.

Me, consumed by rage. Picking up an axe. Walking toward him.

Now you'll pay the price for loving me.

“You can't leave me!”