Criminal Mind

Para salvar os três homens mais importantes da minha vida, fiz um acordo com a Deusa da Lua. Trocar minha vida pela deles. Se eu pudesse fazer qualquer um deles me amar de verdade em cinco anos, eu teria o direito de viver. Mas no último dia da contagem regressiva, todos os três ainda tinham sentimentos negativos por mim. De acordo com as regras, eu havia falhado. Minha vida estava prestes a ser apagada. — Deusa da Lua, eu poderia enviar uma última mensagem? Uma tentativa final? Talvez por pena, ela me concedeu esta última chance. Esta mensagem era meu tiro final. Eu apertei o botão de voz em nosso bate-papo em grupo, lutando para manter minha voz firme. — Vocês poderiam me amar só um pouquinho? Eu realmente vou morrer. Após um momento de silêncio, veio o riso impiedoso deles. — Você fará qualquer coisa para competir com Lidia por atenção, não fará? — Pare com as mentiras. Isso só faz com que te odiemos mais. — Se você está tão desesperada para morrer, então faça isso de uma vez. Missão falhada. Eu lhes dei exatamente o que queriam. Mas quando eu estava prestes a morrer, todos eles surtaram.

When I found out I was pregnant, I immediately went to buy abortion pills. When I decided to take the pills, I could hear my unborn son’s heartbeat. [Mom, please don’t abort me! I can bring you fortune!] [My dad is super rich. He loves simping and chasing women.] [He goes after innocent and strong-willed women. He gives away gifts freely, but the women usually would throw them away. I know where these thrown away gifts are!] I thought I must be crazy. I hurriedly swallowed the pills and drank water. [Several hundred grams of gold! The latest handphone! Tens of millions of jewelry! What’s more…] I gagged and spat out the pills into the trashbin next to my feet. “Where are they? Tell me now!"

My husband was dead. He had saved a girl from drowning, yet he himself perished in the icy river. As I sank into a chasm of grief, the girl's father appeared at my door. He glared at me and demanded, "Where is my daughter's necklace? She was wearing it before she fell into the water!" Rage surged through me, and in the heat of our confrontation, he ended up dead. Then my phone… came alive. "Hide the body. The police are coming. I'll teach you how to dispose of a corpse…"

Sa taong 2030, sa lungsod ng Maynila, magtatagpo ang dalawang taong galing sa magkaibang mundo. Elaine Santos—isang simpleng babae mula sa isang maralitang pamilya, determinadong gawin ang lahat para mailigtas ang kanyang kapatid na may malubhang karamdaman. Nang mawalan ng pag-asa at pagkakakitaan, mapipilitan siyang tanggapin ang isang alok na magbabago sa kanyang kapalaran. Aidan Velasquez—isang batang negosyante at bilyonaryong kilala sa kanyang lamig, determinasyon, at pusong sarado sa pagmamahal. Sa mata ng publiko, siya ay perpekto. Ngunit sa loob, siya'y wasak—binuo ng pagkabigo, at nilason ng isang nakaraang hindi niya matahimik. Ang kanilang landas ay magtatagpo sa pamamagitan ng isang kasunduan—isang isang-taong kasal kapalit ng tulong pinansyal para sa kapatid ni Elaine. Sa simula, malinaw ang mga hangganan: walang damdamin, walang komplikasyon, isang kontrata lang. Pero sa bawat araw ng pagiging "asawa" ni Aidan, mararamdaman ni Elaine ang paglamlam ng kanyang mga pader. Unti-unti, binubuksan niya ang pintuan ng kanyang puso—hindi lang kay Aidan kundi sa lahat ng taong nakapaligid dito. At si Aidan, sa kabila ng kanyang malamig na maskara, ay masusubok harapin ang katotohanan ng kanyang nakaraan—lalung-lalo na ang sakit na iniwan ni Selene Navarro, ang babaeng minsan niyang minahal. Habang tumatagal, mas lumalalim ang komplikasyon. Lilitaw ang mga lihim. Mabubunyag ang mga sugat. At masusubok ang tibay ng damdamin sa gitna ng mga kasinungalingan, takot, at responsibilidad. Sa huli, ang tanong: Ang pag-ibig ba ay kailangang ikontrata—o ito'y malayang nararamdaman sa tamang panahon?

On Father's Day, I received a heartwarming gift. My one-year-old son called me Dad for the first time. But moments later, he convulsed, foamed at the mouth, and died before we could reach the hospital. My wife was shattered, and I was devastated. The doctors couldn't identify the cause of his death. Three years later, my wife emerged from her grief, and we welcomed our second child. But the moment this child called me Dad, they, too, died instantly. To spare her further pain, I suggested adoption. Yet, even our adopted children met the same fate. Unable to bear the losses, my wife divorced me. Everyone said I was cursed, never meant to be a father. Defiant, I remarried and had another child, vowing never to let them call me Dad. For years, we adhered to this rule. But when our daughter turned four, she came home from preschool, eager to celebrate Father's Day. Holding a card, she read aloud, "Dad."

I opened my eyes to a dark, windowless room. Overhead, a voice crackled from the speakers. “Welcome to The Judgment Room. Each player will state the crime they committed. Do not lie. After all six of you speak, you will vote. The one with the most votes will be eliminated. “The game starts now.” In this deadly game, whose sins weighed the least?

When the heat wave hit, I was working at the National Weather Service and was the first to spot the climate irregularities. I warned my family to get ready ahead of time. My parents trusted me without question. They even proposed starting a "family survival fund." They told me to use the savings I'd built up since graduating to stock up on supplies, promising that they and my little sister would chip in every dollar they had too. If we were going to make it, we had to stick together as a family. I smiled. "Sure. I'll take care of the plans." That same night, I converted every penny into gold and locked it in a safe. I also went all out into building an apocalypse-proof bunker. When doomsday finally came, they showed up demanding the money we'd pooled together. "Hand over all the gold," they said coldly. "A deadweight like you is just wasting resources by staying alive." Smiling, I tossed them the safe with the gold inside, then sealed the bunker, locking them out completely. Laughing triumphantly, they opened the safe… and stared in shock at what they saw inside.

In my previous life, my sister, Clarissa Smith, and I were adopted at the same time. She chose the Newmans, a prestigious family of scientists, leaving me with an impoverished divorcee. But later on, the Newmans kicked her out, and her reputation was completely ruined. Meanwhile, I'd married rich and had tens of millions of dollars from the government's relocation compensation package. Clarissa couldn't accept how differently our lives turned out, so she stabbed me to death. When my eyes open once more, I find myself alive again. I've gone back in time to the day Clarissa and I were adopted. To my surprise, I can hear her thoughts. [This time, I'm going to be the one who gets rich overnight!] As it turns out, she has been reborn as well. Well, this time around, she can be the one who gets to endure the torment instead.

On the seventh day after my daughter goes missing, I kidnap an entire kindergarten. I lock away all 27 students and two teachers in a classroom. I tell the police that if they can't find my daughter, I will kill a kid every 30 minutes. The principal falls to her knees, wailing and begging, "It's not my fault that your daughter is missing. Why should other children pay for it?" I glance at my watch. "29 minutes left. Find her." I know she's in this kindergarten.

The entire ward could hear the thoughts of the beautiful intern nurse, Sonya Row. When a patient kept vomiting nonstop, and I suggested increasing the pain medication, she stood nearby, sighing. [What should I do? Should I tell the family this painkiller can be addictive and really bad for the body? If they just wait a few more minutes, he'll recover on his own. There's no need to spend money at all.] The room fell silent in an instant. Everyone's gaze shifted toward me, and the family quietly refused my treatment plan. After that, I became the joke of the entire department. Every patient specifically asked not to be assigned to me. Later, while comforting a terminal stomach cancer patient, I followed her family's wishes and lied, saying it was just gastritis. Sonya complained about it in her thoughts. [The patient's practically dying already, but she's still saying she can be cured. It's obviously just to trick this old woman into draining her life savings on treatment.] That night, the old lady jumped off the building so she wouldn't burden her family. Her family thought I had revealed the truth and driven her to her death. They reported me directly to the hospital director, and I was stripped of my position as department head. Then, on a holiday weekend, the hospital admitted a pregnant woman with a suspected amniotic fluid embolism. To save her life, I had no choice but to remove her uterus. At that moment, Sonya's thoughts rang out again. [She doesn't have an amniotic fluid embolism at all. She was on her phone during surgery, which caused this. Now look what happened. This baby's a girl. This family wanted a son, and now they'll never get one.] The family attacked me on the spot, recorded it, and posted the video online to harass me. The desperate husband, obsessed with having a son, stabbed me to death to vent his rage. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Sonya first revealed her thoughts. This time, I could hear her thoughts, too.