A City on Edge

The precinct’s briefing room buzzed with unease.

The grainy footage from the USB had been replayed five times, each cycle scraping fresh dread into the gathered officers. The victim’s voice—trembling, forced—still echoed in the walls: “The dead remember. The living lie. He is among you.”

Detective Han Jiwon sat stiffly at the table, jaw clenched, every nerve in her body screaming for action.

Across from her, Captain Park Hyunwoo rubbed his temples. “This cannot, under any circumstances, leak to the public. The city is already in a panic. If they see this video, we’ll have riots.”

“It’s already too late,” Jiwon muttered. “The killer leaks what he wants, when he wants. We’re always two steps behind.”

Park’s eyes narrowed. “Watch yourself, Detective.”

She held his gaze. “I’m not the one turning this into a performance. He is. He wants an audience. He wants us to dance to his tune.”

“And maybe you’re giving him exactly what he wants,” Park snapped.

Silence thickened. Officers shifted uneasily in their seats.

Finally, Kang Minjae spoke, his voice calm but cutting. “We need to stop reacting and start predicting. He leaves messages because he wants control. But control means patterns. And patterns mean mistakes.”

Park exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine. Find me the mistake.” He stood. “I have to meet with Councilman Choi in an hour. And trust me, he’s furious.”

He stormed out, leaving the room heavy with tension.

---

Later that afternoon, Jiwon walked the narrow hallway outside the city courthouse, the storm clouds above Seoul pressing low and heavy. She had been ordered to deliver sealed case updates to Judge Kwon Jisoo, one of the few judicial figures not tangled in political corruption.

She found him in his office, a tall man with silver-rimmed glasses and an air of unyielding calm. He accepted the files with a nod of thanks.

“I appreciate your diligence, Detective Han,” he said. “But I fear the more you uncover, the more dangerous this becomes. For you, and for anyone who refuses to look the other way.”

Jiwon studied him. His eyes were clear, steady, but there was a shadow in them too. He knew more than he was saying.

“You’ve read the victims’ backgrounds?” she asked.

“I have.” His voice lowered. “Three of them were witnesses in sealed corruption trials. All involving the same political bloc. All tied to Councilman Choi.”

Her stomach sank. “So it’s not random.”

“Nothing about this is random,” Jisoo said gravely. “And if I were you, I would be careful. When the powerful bury their sins, they bury anyone who digs them up with them.”

---

That night, back in her apartment, Jiwon poured herself tea she didn’t drink. The city outside her window was restless, sirens echoing through the rain.

On her table, she spread the case files: Seojin, the subway victim, the first two murders. A red thread connected them all in her mind—witnesses silenced, messages left in blood. And in the center of it all, her brother’s file.

She couldn’t shake the thought: Was Jihoon killed for the same reason? Did he see something he wasn’t meant to?

Her phone buzzed. Another unknown number.

Heart thudding, she answered.

A low chuckle spilled through the speaker, distorted and wrong.

“Detective Han,” the voice whispered, “you ran through the tunnels like a hound chasing shadows. But you’ll never catch me there.”

Jiwon gritted her teeth. “Who are you?”

“Someone who knows the truth,” the voice crooned. “Someone who knows your brother didn’t die by chance. He was the first. The beginning.”

Her chest froze. “What do you mean—the first?”

Static crackled, then a soft hiss:

“Check your door.”

The line went dead.

Jiwon’s pulse is hammered. She grabbed her gun and crept toward her apartment entrance, every step deliberate. Her breath clouded in the dim hall light as she reached the door.

Pinned to it with a single knife was a photograph.

Her brother, Jihoon. Smiling. Alive.

But across the photo, written in thick black ink, were four words:

“He never left you.”

Jiwon’s breath caught, her hand trembling as she ripped the photo free.

The hallway was empty. Silent.

But for the first time since his death, she felt it was not just as grief—

but as a haunting.

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