Chapter 8
Returning to the cemetery, it felt as if a cold, invisible hand was wrapped tightly around my heart.
Even as a spirit, I could barely breathe, cold sweat beading on my forehead. My very soul seemed to thin and flicker.
Being buried alive–there is no torture more terrifying.
The graveyard was a scene of utter devastation. My coffin had been pried open with brute force.
Inside, it was filthy, smeared with human waste, but nothing could hide the countless scratch marks gouged into the wooden walls. Each one was a desperate plea for survival..
The sight was too harrowing to bear. Zion just stood there, stunned, unable to process what he’d done.
He couldn’t believe it. Remi had been buried alive for seven whole days.
No food. No water. Just curled up in that tiny, suffocating space.
Remi was always afraid of the dark, tormented by claustrophobia. The despair she must have felt in those moments was unimaginable.
She fought so hard to live, clawing at the coffin until every finger was twisted and broken.
Suddenly, Zion’s eyes widened as if he’d spotted something.
He scrambled into the coffin, digging frantically through the filth and stench.
After a moment, a dull gemstone emerged from the muck.
“Wait, that’s… I remember now–when the coffin was first opened, Ms. Remi was still clutching this gemstone in her hand, like it was the most precious thing in the world. Derek struggled to pry it from her fingers before tossing it aside.”
The witness’s words hit Zion like a blow.
Overwhelmed, he collapsed to his knees inside the coffin, cradling the Luminous Gem in both hands.
That tiny gemstone seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, bending Zion’s back under its invisible burden.
“It’s a fake… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. The Luminous Gem I gave you was a fake, but you held onto it until your last breath.
“I promised you that as long as you had it, it would be like I was there, lighting your way. But I broke that promise…”
Zion knelt in the coffin, sobbing uncontrollably, as if he were the one who’d been buried alive.
Watching all of this, I felt only a sense of absurdity.
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Chapter 8
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Zion’s tears were nothing but crocodile tears. He was the one who hurt me most deeply, yet now he played the victim.
I didn’t want to see his remorse. I wanted him to rot in hell.
Zion took my body home, gently and meticulously washing away the blood and grime.
Every night, he slept with my corpse in his arms, as if he couldn’t even smell the stench.
My body decayed, crawling with maggots, my face unrecognizable–even I was repulsed by the sight.
But Zion acted as if he saw nothing, talking to me endlessly, promising to take me abroad, to marry me.
When he pressed a loving kiss to the rotting corner of my mouth, I felt every hair on my body stand on end.
All I wished for was to be cremated, my ashes scattered to the ends of the earth, so Zion would never find me again.
This grotesque routine continued for days, until the doctor finally brought the results of my full autopsy.
The report revealed that at the time of my death, I had been two months pregnant.
It had been just over two months since that night with Zion.
I thought nothing about Zion could ever hurt me again, but learning that I once carried his child broke my heart all over again.
Inside me, there had once been a tiny life.
How cruel. My baby had a grave before it ever had a chance to be born.
And the child’s father–my murderer–now wept over my body.
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