The metallic tang of blood filled her nostrils as she jolted awake, heart pounding against her ribcage like a caged animal desperate to escape. Her eyes darted around the unfamiliar room, searching for any clue to anchor her in reality, but the stark white walls offered no solace. A searing pain throbbed behind her temples as she struggled to piece together the fractured memories of the past year, each one slipping through her grasp like wisps of smoke.
But beneath the haze of confusion, a chilling certainty settled in her gut—the unshakable feeling that her hands had committed an unspeakable act, a sin so vile that her mind had no choice but to bury it deep within the recesses of her shattered psyche. With trembling fingers, she reached for the crumpled newspaper on the nightstand, the headline screaming a truth she feared to confront: "Brutal Murder Rocks Quiet Suburb." And there, staring back at her from the grainy photograph, were her own haunted eyes.
