The night was cold enough to make breath visible. Red and blue lights fractured through the trees, washing over the narrow road that led to a lone house crouched at the edge of the forest. Police vehicles lined the gravel drive, their engines humming in the still air. Dogs barked, pulling at their leashes, noses pressed to the ground as if scenting the truth beneath the soil.
An officer pushed past the gate, the crunch of boots against frost echoing in the night. The air smelled of pine and iron. From the outside, the house looked almost peaceful — a warm glow spilling faintly from a second-floor window. But peace here was a lie.
Inside, the silence was heavy. A few pieces of furniture were scattered across the living room — a couch, a bookshelf, framed pictures that looked too normal to belong in a crime scene. It was the kind of home that could have belonged to anyone. Wholesome. Familiar. Until the officers began to climb the stairs.
The wooden steps groaned beneath their weight, the sound sharp and uneasy in the dark. At the top of the staircase, a door stood ajar. Light flickered through the gap — not from a lamp, but from the harsh white of flashlights cutting into the room.
And there she was.
The room was dim — the kind of darkness broken only by the cold tremor of flashlight beams slicing through the air. Dust motes floated like ghosts in the narrow shafts of light, settling over the chaos that had unfolded.
Mira sat on the floor beside the bed, her spine pressed against the pale, cracked wall. Her bare feet were streaked with drying blood, leaving faint, sticky prints on the tiles beneath her. The once-white pyjama top she wore had turned into a canvas of crimson — the stains darker and heavier near her chest and wrists, where her trembling hands pressed against the soaked fabric.
In her right hand, she clutched a pair of scissors. The steel blades gleamed faintly, catching the light just enough to show the slick sheen of blood coating their edges. Her grip was unsteady — knuckles pale, the tool slipping slightly as though her muscles no longer obeyed her.
Before her lay the body of a young man, sprawled half on his side, half on his back. His head was tilted unnaturally toward the left, jaw slack, eyes open — glassy and empty. His shirt had been torn open down the middle, revealing a chest marred by multiple puncture wounds. Blood had pooled beneath him, seeping into the fibres of a beige carpet, spreading outward like an inkblot. One arm was bent awkwardly beneath his torso; the other reached outward, palm open as if still reaching for something — or someone.
The silence in the room was suffocating. Only the shallow rasp of Mira's breathing broke through, uneven and panicked. Her eyes, wide and unfocused, stared into nothing — her pupils dilated, face pale under the trembling light.
When an officer's flashlight caught her face, her pupils constricted sharply. It was as though the light pulled her back from wherever her mind had drifted. She blinked rapidly, eyes darting around the room — confusion dawning, horror setting in.
The scissors slipped slightly from her grip. Her lips quivered, parted — no words, only the jagged sound of her breath filling the stillness.
Then her gaze landed on the body. Her features twisted from blankness into pure terror. She looked down at her hands, at the glistening red that painted her palms, and finally whispered — barely a sound, but enough to cut through the room:
She stared at the body, at her own hands, and whispered — barely audible —
"...What did I do?"
Outside, the police dogs howled again, their cries echoing through the trees — a chilling harmony to the chaos that had just begun.