They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Mine didn’t.

  All I saw was her face. Her — the one person I had loved more than anything. But this time, there was no warmth in her expression. No laughter. No joy. Just... cold. Lifeless.

  It wasn’t the way I’d always imagined seeing her. Not with the smile that made everything feel like it would be okay. Not with the spark in her eyes. Instead, her face was pale, drained of all color, her body motionless — just like the day they killed her.

  That image is burned into my mind, scarred so deeply that no matter where I went, it would follow me. Her death wasn’t an accident. It was murder. Cold, deliberate, and orchestrated by the very people who should have protected her. Her family.

  I remember every second. The way her body slumped in the chair, the distant look in her eyes just before she... fell silent. The panic in my chest as I reached out to her, only to find that she was already gone. The sting of betrayal, sharp enough to leave me gasping for air.

  But it didn’t stop there.

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  The last sound I heard — the last thing that rattled my soul — was my name. Choi Tae-hyun. Spoken not in affection, but with disgust, as if I were nothing more than an inconvenience. A piece on the board, a tool to be discarded when no longer of use.

  It wasn’t a scream. It wasn’t anger. It was just... a whisper.

  The same lips that once called me family. The same lips that swore loyalty and love, but in the end, were the same lips that sealed her fate. The same lips that pulled the trigger.

  Family doesn’t kill each other. Family doesn’t bury their secrets in blood.

  The air turned thick, suffocating. The pain seared through my chest, spreading through my body like fire. I felt my body give in, my life force draining out with each breath. It was a slow suffocation, but the worst part wasn’t the agony — it was the realization. The truth that all the years, all the trust, had been nothing but lies.

  And as the darkness consumed me, I thought I would never escape.

  But then — just as I felt my heart stop, just as everything went black — I woke up.