{ Please… don't do this }
I had finally slept after a long period of restless wakefulness. Before that, the hallucinations had started to become disturbingly vivid.
The maid came in, visibly relieved to see that I was finally well.
I ate quietly while thinking about what I should do next.
I had two days of medical leave that I had requested in advance—just in case my condition worsened.
Well… I'm not going to work today.
There are some documents I still need to finish.
Nothing else.
When I'm done, maybe I'll watch a movie.
I had turned off my phone since yesterday so no one would bother me.
Honestly… it's better that way.
I walked toward my desk.
Let's see what work I still have left from last time.
Wait… are the pens finished?
Damn.
Looks like I'll have to get another box.
But wait… if I remember correctly, there should still be some boxes in the basement.
Good. That saves me the trouble of going outside to buy them.
I opened the desk drawer and took a few keys.
One of them leads to the basement.
I just want to grab a pack of the pens I had previously stored down there.
I didn't tell the maid. No need to bother her while she's preparing lunch.
I began descending the stairs slowly…
Anyone who has fallen down a staircase knows how painful that can be.
Finally, I reached the bottom.
The place was dark.
Did no one change the light bulbs here?
Should I go back and get a flashlight?
…Wait.
I have a lighter.
Lucky.
It's not very bright, but it will do.
I started walking carefully, searching for the box of pens.
I remember someone saying it was on the shelf in the corner.
I just need to keep walking a little further.
CRACK
I stepped on something.
The sound of shattering echoed through the basement.
{ Please… don't do this }
Huh…?
What the hell was that?!
Damn it—you scared me.
I bent down to pick up what I had stepped on.
It was a photograph.
A picture of me…
standing beside an elderly man.
My father.
(The "father" here refers to the man who raised me, not my biological father.)
What is his photo doing here?
It looked abandoned… forgotten in the darkness.
A person like me… fortunate enough to be adopted by someone like him…
Even though I never cared much about the environment around me, I always felt a strange sense of comfort when I sat with my siblings before sleep.
We would talk about our day.
Boasting about what we had done.
School.
Games.
Small victories that only children find important.
Sometimes my father would sit me on his lap and begin telling stories about his work.
He was a lawyer.
And from the way he treated people…
and the way people respected and loved him…
I could confidently say he was the model of the ideal lawyer.
Unlike me.
My father suffered from lung cancer.
He never showed weakness until the illness had already worsened.
But…
everything has a limit.
A human's strength, their endurance—
all of it eventually fades before a disease like cancer, especially when it reaches its advanced stages.
The day finally came.
We were all gathered, waiting for news after the surgery.
His wife entered the room.
Her eyes were hollow…
as if she had already lost the companion of her life.
"Your father… has died."
I was twenty-three when he died.
He left behind two sons and a daughter.
And me.
The adopted one among them.
I carefully removed the photograph from its shattered frame and placed it in my pocket.
I'll put it on my desk later.
Tomorrow…
I'll continue searching through these things.
Eventually I reached the corner shelf.
But the pens weren't there.
Strange.
They were supposed to be here.
Wait.
What's under this cloth?
I removed the cover.
Underneath were several old files.
Cases I had handled before.
Most of them built on bribes.
Rape.
Murder.
Smuggling.
I suppose I'm disgusting on the inside… whether people see it or not.
It doesn't matter.
My interests come first.
Then I noticed something beside the papers.
The box of pens.
Finally.
I picked it up.
Time to go back.
But the moment I touched it…
something fell behind me.
I turned around.
The lighter went out.
Darkness swallowed the basement.
What the he—
A whisper crawled through the silence.
"You will die soon… I'll be waiting for that."