On the night when laughter faded,
and candles turned to ash,
a soul was extinguished,
and a fire was lit inside the heart of a young boy.
His tenth birthday
would remain etched in his memory,
not as a gift,
nor a celebration...
but as a turning point—
an end.
It was Jin's tenth birthday.
He was happy,
celebrating it with his mother and grandmother.
As night fell,
he went to bed and fell asleep peacefully.
But when Jin woke at dawn, he had no idea
his world was about to collapse.
He thought the house was dark because the night still lingered,
and that the fluttering in his chest was just from a bad dream.
But the moment he opened his mother's bedroom door,
he collided with a nightmare
from which no scream could awaken him.
Blood soaked the pillow.
The blanket was stained.
The metallic scent filled the air.
His mother—the one who sang to him just hours ago—
lay motionless.
Her arm was cold.
And one of her fingers was missing.
Jin screamed.
The house shook.
Sophia, his grandmother, heard it.
It sounded like a scream from another world.
She ran.
Wearing nothing but her old night robe,
she didn't feel the cold,
nor the air,
nor the floor beneath her feet.
When she saw her daughter…
She fell to her knees.
Covered her mouth with her hand,
as silent tears poured down her face.
"Lee Da-in…"
she whispered,
then gasped,
then cried out:
"LEE DA-IN!!!"
The neighbors heard.
They called the police.
And in less than half an hour,
the house was surrounded by blue lights,
radio static,
and a flood of unanswered questions.
"Did she have any enemies?"
"Was she threatened?"
"Who visited her recently?"
"Did she leave the house last night?"
No one knew.
Sophia sat on the floor, holding the trembling Jin,
who hadn't spoken a word.
His eyes wide open,
his body growing cold.
The police took the body.
Investigators searched the room,
but the discovery was even more disturbing than expected.
The crime hadn't happened inside the house.
The first traces of blood were found outside—
on the grass,
then on the porch steps,
then drag marks leading inside,
all the way to her bed.
As if someone had killed her outside,
then carried her,
bleeding,
back to her bed.
But why?
And why the severed finger?
Was it a threat?
A symbol?
A message?
No one knew.
A criminal investigation was opened,
but the evidence was nearly nonexistent.
No fingerprints.
No cameras.
No witnesses.
Lee Da-in had no known enemies.
She worked quietly, lived in isolation.
For two years, she had rarely left the village.
Even her neighbors barely saw her.
When it came time for the funeral,
it rained heavily,
as if the sky itself mourned her.
Jin stood by the casket, confused.
Why wouldn't she open her eyes?
Why wouldn't she get up?
Why were they putting flowers on her instead of birthday gifts?
Sophia held his hand,
but her touch was cold.
She was a broken woman,
every thread of her heart unraveled.
She spoke to those gathered with a hoarse voice:
"She didn't deserve this... She was just trying to start over... She loved Jin…"
But who was listening?
They buried Lee Da-in on top of a hill, beneath a lonely pine tree.
And on her gravestone, they wrote:
"Lee Da-in.
A daughter, a mother,
a heart shattered before it could heal."
Days passed.
Then weeks.
Nothing changed.
Jin no longer spoke.
Didn't go to school.
Sometimes refused to eat.
He would sit for hours by the window of his room,
staring at the fields,
or at nothing at all.
Sophia tried to fill the void.
She cooked for him, told him stories, tucked him in at night.
But she knew—
his wound ran deeper than her old hands could ever reach.
One night,
she heard him talking in his sleep.
"Mama... don't go... you weren't supposed to go alone..."
Then he began to tremble,
as if his body was reliving the scene,
as if the pain never left—not even in dreams.
Sophia cried,
sat beside him,
and whispered:
"I'm here, Jin. I won't leave you. But... we need to know who did this to your mother. We need to help her rest."
And from that night on,
something in Jin's eyes changed.
Grief still clouded his face,
but behind it...
something else was growing.
Anger.
Questions.
Determination.
Jin didn't know who killed his mother.
Or why.
But he started to write.
Everything he remembered.
Everything he heard.
Every strange face he saw in the days before it happened.
Cars.
Sounds at night.
Odd movements near the house.
He felt, deep in his heart,
that something strange had been happening.
But he hadn't understood it at the time.
Now,
with pain matured inside him,