PROLOGUE: AFTERMATH

In the crimson-hued aftermath, I stood paralyzed, my mind struggling to comprehend the sight before me. The boy who had once been so full of life now lay cloaked in scarlet. The lingering warmth of my tears contrasted sharply with his chilling stillness. His eyes, which had always been windows to a world of dreams and laughter, now gazed emptily, caught between open and closed, reflecting a smile frozen in time but devoid of its former warmth.

A pool of red spread beneath him, and I knew he had embarked on a journey from which he could never awaken. My heart shattered as the scene around me erupted into chaos. The ambulance and police cars screeched to a halt, their sirens piercing the air, but it all felt distant, like a nightmare I couldn't escape.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw teachers trying to shield the students still in their classes from the horror, but those who were already out witnessed a lifelong trauma. Their wide-eyed, trembling faces mirrored the terror I felt inside. Some officers held a couple of boys in the corner, their expressions haunted as they recounted what they had seen.

His body, broken and lifeless, was now wrapped in a white sheet. A suffocating gloom engulfed the scene as if a heavy blanket of despair had descended upon everything. The air hung still and dense, thick with unshed tears and unspoken fears. Shadows lurked in every corner, swallowing the feeble attempts of light to penetrate the darkness. Hope struggled to breathe, and each moment seemed to weigh down on my soul with a palpable sense of impending doom. The sun had disappeared somewhere behind the clouds, and it was going to rain soon.

One of the boys pointed towards the roof where I stood, a solitary figure against the backdrop of flashing lights and swirling rumors. I couldn't think of why they pointed at me.

The afternoon now felt like late evening, a cold breeze cutting through my bones. I stood motionless, my gaze fixed on the spot where the happy boy's smile had once been.

"Step away from the edge!" Someone called out, his voice strained with urgency. But it all sounded fade. I remained rooted to the spot, my hands clenched into fists at my sides, unwilling to leave the site of his final moments. My chest was aching, so bad that it hurt even where I took a breath. 

Soon, I heard the adults pleading with me, their voices filled with desperation, trying to coax me away from the precarious edge. Those same adults who never thought of their actions consequences.  He did not kill himself. These adults killed him.

My eyes, once bright with laughter, now reflected a turbulent sea of grief and guilt. Each word they uttered was crashing against the walls of my anguish, but I remained unmoved, caught in the relentless storm within.

Suddenly, I felt two heavy hands trying to pull me back, and my resistance turned primal. I thrashed against their grip, my body caught in a frantic struggle between desperate adults. My chest was heaving with gasps, each breath, a battle cry against their efforts. I was not ready to leave yet. My throat was tight from the suppressed cry. I couldn't bear the pain! It hurts. It hurts everywhere. 

"Leave me! You killed him!" I screamed, my voice echoing through the rain-soaked courtyard, a haunting blend of anguish and madness. Tears were streaking down my face, mixing with raindrops, as I thrashed against their iron grip, my movements frantic and erratic.

I couldn't contain myself anymore.

My screams were piercing the night air, filled with a primal intensity that bordered on madness. With each futile attempt to break free, I was convulsing with raw, unrestrained emotion, my body contorting in a desperate attempt to escape their grasp. The officers, unmoved by my turmoil, were holding me firmly, their faces hardened masks of authority against my frenzied outburst.

In a sudden surge of anguish, I doubled over, retching violently, my body racked with spasms of grief. The scene was a tableau of raw, unfiltered despair—a boy teetering on the edge of sanity, consumed by a grief so profound it manifested in physical agony and emotional war.

In the seam chaos, rain continued to fall, casting a melancholic sheen over the scene, mirroring the tumultuous storm raging within my fractured mind.

"Calm down," an officer urged, her voice strained with the effort to maintain control. But my pain poured out unchecked.

"You all killed him!" I wailed, my words choked with tears. My protests were echoing off the walls of the school, mingling with the distant wail of sirens and the murmurs of the crowd.

I don't know what I was fighting for. Why I was resisting so much. I was not willing to leave. It felt like Jimin was still there, smiling me.

As the officers finally managed to pull me away from the edge, I collapsed to my knees, my body trembling with exhaustion and despair. I felt like the boy of my dreams just faded into thin air.

My once-defiant posture crumpled, leaving me vulnerable and exposed. Tears streamed down my face unabashedly, mingling with raindrops, as I struggled against their grasp with weakened resistance. My voice, now hoarse and broken, was pleading to be left alone with my grief, each word a poignant cry for solace in the middle of the overwhelming tumult.

—

In the days that followed, I found myself trapped in a nightmarish blur of interrogations and accusations. The weight of suspicion was bearing down on me like a crushing force, suffocating any hope of clarity or peace. I was questioned relentlessly, my every word dissected and scrutinized for signs of guilt.

The small interrogation room was a stark, oppressive space, the harsh fluorescent lights casting unforgiving shadows on my haggard face. The officers' voices were sharp and relentless, each question a blade slicing through my already fragile heart. They were probing into my actions, dissecting my every move and casting them in a sinister light. Every detail was twisted into something sordid, a potential motive, an implication of my culpability.

My mind was a chaotic whirlwind, replaying the final moments of that fateful day in an endless, torturous loop. The accusations felt like a betrayal, a perversion of the truth I desperately wanted to hold onto. Grief and guilt were intertwining in a suffocating embrace, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. I longed to scream my innocence, to make them understand that I would never hurt anyone. But my voice was drowned out by the cacophony of blame and sorrow surrounding me.

The world is cruel.

Not only to me, but the world was also cruel to him. How could people judge a love so pure? How could someone even think of destroying a love so strong? How could someone think of leaving me broken behind?

I was no longer myself.

The day came soon when I was sent somewhere, isolated from the world. The walls of my new prison were closing in around me, a constant reminder of the life I had lost and the future that now seemed impossibly distant. Each day was blurring into the next, a monotonous cycle of pain.

The world outside was moving on, but I remained trapped in that moment, forever haunted by the crimson-hued aftermath of my shattered dreams.