If You Didn't Kill Your In-laws, Who Did?

Blood dripped onto Linda’s clothes, and in her eyes, struggle and pain intertwined.

“Finn… you want everyone to know the truth, don’t you? You just can’t speak it out loud. Right?”

The silver needles churned through my brain, the agony turning my vision black. I had barely begun to shake my head when a surge of electricity slammed into me.

Blood mixed with saliva slowly spilled from the corner of my mouth.

The scene shifted again.

I was kneeling in a pool of blood, my body shaking. The blade in my hand was slick with blood as I desperately pressed down on my parents-in-law’s gushing wounds.

Warm blood soaked through my fingers.

Their pupils were unfocused. They tried to speak, but no sound came.

Sobbing, I tore strips from my clothes to bandage them, only to clutch sticky, shattered organs.

The onlookers whispered among themselves. Someone sighed.

“The way he’s trying so hard to save them—how could he be the killer?”

Another scoffed coldly.

“What a convincing performance. Maybe he’s the one who stabbed them.”

Someone murmured quietly.

“He used to be a doctor. Maybe the knife was for first aid.”

But the rebuttal came quickly.

“What kind of doctor can’t save anyone? This is clearly an act!”

Linda’s eyes split wide. She dropped to her knees, trembling as she reached out to touch her parents’ cold bodies in the memory.

Her fingertips passed straight through the image. In her eyes surged overwhelming grief and despair.

In the scene, Linda's parents were holding a sheet of paper.

After reading it, my bloodstained fingers quickly shoved the paper into my mouth and swallowed it.

“Why—why won’t you tell me the truth?! I regret it so much. I regret being with you. If I hadn’t… Mom and Dad wouldn’t have died!”

Gregory gripped Linda’s arm tightly and whispered in her ear, “Linda, the truth is right in front of you. Your parents’ blood can’t be spilled in vain. Finn went back to the crime scene—who knows, maybe he was trying to destroy evidence and tamper with the scene.

“There must be something wrong with that piece of paper! If they knew their deaths could save more people, they’d feel comforted in the afterlife!”

Linda wiped away her tears with a trembling hand. Once again, the silver needles pressed deeper into my bleeding temples.

My convulsing body suddenly went rigid, my pupils dilating.

The hum of the memory decoder cut off abruptly.

Gregory watched my twitching body with cold detachment and calmly tugged at Linda’s sleeve.

“He’s reached his pain threshold. We need to intensify the stimulation to break through the memory block.”

As he spoke, Gregory clasped Linda’s trembling hand and shoved the current setting violently to its maximum.

“It’s not enough! Linda, think—what else can raise Finn’s pain threshold? We're doing this for the other victims!”

Linda’s gaze turned dark and unreadable. She stared at me, already motionless, her hand gripping a lighter so tightly that veins bulged.

Shaking, she moved closer to my festering wounds, her voice hoarse.

“Finn, I’m sorry… For… for everyone else not to be hurt, I have no choice but to wrong you. You only have yourself to blame for refusing to tell the truth back then!”

She kept murmuring apologies under her breath.

Flames scorched my rotting wounds, accompanied by searing pain.

My body convulsed violently, but only a soundless scream forced its way out.

The memory decoder lit up again.

In the image, flames twisted as they devoured the old house. Beams collapsed with a thunderous crash.

I was curled in a corner, watching my parents being swallowed by fire.

It was as if I had returned to that day.

Once again, I watched my parents die before my eyes, powerless to stop it.

In the scorching air, I reached out in vain and caught nothing but ashes swirling through the sky.