Chapter 62.1

Chapter 62.1

Blood splattered through the air, droplets scattering and splashing onto the woman’s face.

The blood-covered man stretched out his arm. His trembling fingertips reached toward the woman—no, toward Goyo herself. From his mouth came a ragged, choking sound as blood spilled out.

“…Huk.”

Without thinking, Goyo wiped her cheek, damp with something warm and wet.

“Go, Goyo..,” came a faint, distant whisper.

Same space.

Same moment.

Shattered memories began to flood her mind, crashing like waves against the walls of her consciousness.

The arm that had reached for Goyo, her father’s arm, slumped limply to the side. Crimson blood pooled thickly on the floor beneath. Her vision, no, her entire world, blurred and bled into a deep, unyielding red.

“Ha, huh… huk.”

Her breath caught, squeezed tightly by an invisible grip, making it nearly impossible to draw air.

“Child, close your eyes. Don’t watch such terrible things…”

Amidst the grating, knife-like static, another man’s voice echoed, distorted and urgent.

“Whatever you see here today, never remember it. You’ve never seen me here, understood?”

Above the glistening pool of blood, the polished tip of a shoe caught the light, shimmering ominously.

“What is that?”

On nights when her fevered body ached and she drifted into a restless sleep, Goyo was haunted by the same recurring dream.

Her father, moving toward her, suddenly collapsed heavily onto the floor. His eyes, filled with desperate pain, locked onto hers. He parted his lips, trembling, trying to speak something, anything, but the words came out muffled, lost in the thick silence.

Even though she was aware it wasn’t real, Goyo couldn’t pull herself out of the illusion that had taken over her mind.

Lee Yi-taek’s face, which had locked eyes with hers, began to distort grotesquely. His eyes turned blood-red, his brow bone jutted out, his ears elongated, and his teeth grew into fangs. He was transforming into a monster straight out of a horror film. From his mouth came a horrifying screech.

“What you saw was all an illusion. This isn’t reality. Once you get a good night’s sleep, you’ll wake up and everything will go back to normal.”

The monstrous voice poured down from above her like a curse. Goyo, paralyzed by terror, trembled uncontrollably and nodded without thinking.

“N-No! No, this isn’t right!”

As if breaking free from a trance, she clenched her teeth and shook her head violently from side to side.

She fought to cast off the nightmare creature, to deny Yi-taek’s words. But the monster wouldn’t vanish so easily—it clung to her, refusing to let go.

“Remember this well. If you want to stay alive, you must forget everything you’ve seen and heard.”

“F-Forget it…?”

“If you don’t, you’ll end up just like your father, devoured by the monster.”

The beast, its bloodshot eyes fixed on her, bared its sharp teeth and let out a low, menacing growl. Cold sweat poured down Goyo’s back, and her entire body shivered uncontrollably.

At that moment, the words of the congressman she’d met just yesterday came rushing back to her.

“Miss Goyo, you’ve been deceived. They’ve blocked your eyes and ears to hide the truth about what really happened that day.”

“If you want to know the truth, contact me.”

Prosecutor Ma Soon-jin’s voice echoed in her skull like a needle piercing through her thoughts, sharp and relentless.

If what he said was true, then everything she thought she knew had been twisted and manipulated—fabricated with malicious intent. Like one of those sinister documentaries that distort reality to create villains out of innocent people.

Lee Yi-taek had seamlessly woven lies into reality, to the point that even Goyo, a victim and witness, had believed it all. She had lived her life convinced it was the truth.

But now—now it was all unraveling.

She no longer knew what was real and what was hallucination. Trapped in a waking nightmare, she clenched her jaw as if to scream herself awake. The words barely made it out of her throat, choked and broken:

“M-Monster…”

“Hm? Goyo? What’s wrong?”

Jae-heon, sensing that something was terribly wrong, turned around. Her pupils had shrunk, and she was staring blankly into empty space.

“A m-monster… in… the house…”

The memory that had just surfaced in Goyo’s mind contradicted everything she thought she knew.

According to the official report on the kidnapping incident, Lee Yi-taek hadn’t even been present. The suspect was critically injured during the police raid and reportedly died from excessive blood loss en route to the hospital.

But now—

“Lies! All lies! It’s all a lie!”

“Goyo, snap out of it!”

Jae-heon gripped her shoulders firmly as she began to rant in a daze, her eyes unfocused.

But his voice couldn’t reach her.

All she could hear were the words Lee Yoon-geon had said not long ago, repeating endlessly in her mind. At the time, she hadn’t understood them.

“Goyo, want to hear something interesting?”

“If you don’t listen, you’ll regret it. Better hear me out while I’m still willing to talk. Before I change my mind.”

“Goyo, when prosecutors get corrupted, they can invent crimes that don’t even exist.”

She was confused. Her memories were breaking apart, her thoughts tangled, and a splitting headache was crashing down on her.

There was something she was missing—something important—but whenever she tried to recall more of the past, her chest would tighten, and she’d start gasping for air.

“Haah, haah, haah…”

“Lee Goyo! Goyo, what’s wrong!”

Goyo clutched her chest, wheezing for breath.

“Th-there!”

Suddenly jumping up from her seat, Goyo pointed at the screen.

“Wh-what is it!”

Jae-heon turned to look. On screen, a heavily armed SWAT team was storming into a basement to apprehend a murderer.

“Th-there… a m-monster! It… it was there. Kyah!”

Goyo screamed, clutching her head with both hands.