Part 1They Called Me Slow Until I Died To Name The Killer

I was the slow one. The one who never quite caught up.

The day my sister came to pick me up from school, she was dragged into an alley, brutalized, and murdered.

I was the only witness.

Mom and Dad gripped my neck, their eyes red and blazing.

“Tell us! You saw him, didn’t you? Say it out loud!”

I opened my mouth, but the sound was trapped behind my teeth.

In a fit of rage, they threw me out of the house.

Unable to care for myself, I ended up on the streets—begging, scavenging for garbage, sleeping under the city bridges.

Until the day a man in a black suit found me.

He said he was my sister’s fiancé. Dean.

He crouched down, looking straight into my eyes, his voice barely a whisper:

“I can take you to a place where we can replay the moment you saw that day.”

“But the cost is your life.”

My grimy hand clenched the stained fabric of my sleeve. I nodded hard.

“I’ll do it.”

What was there to fear about death?

I was afraid of forgetting… forgetting whose face my sister saw last.

* * *

The light of the high-powered broadcast lamps was blinding, aimed directly at my face as I lay on the Memory Retrieval Stand.

The auditorium below was packed. Cameras, like dull black eyes, stared at me.

They said this entire process was being live-streamed to the world.

Dean, the man who called himself my sister’s love, stood beside me, his expression unreadable.

“It’s not too late to back out.”

I shook my head.

Just then, a commotion erupted at the entrance.

I looked up and saw Mom and Dad rushing in.

The moment Mom saw me, tears streamed down her face, but the words that followed were like shards of glass:

“You heartless thing! Your sister was so good to you, buying you candy, picking you up from school… and she died such a horrific death…”

“You clearly saw the killer, so why didn’t you speak up?!”

Dad’s eyes were bloodshot, his voice hoarse:

“We raised you for this long. Even if you were slow, we never once resented you!”

“But you? Is this how you repay your sister?”

A wave of hushed chatter swept through the audience.

The cameras swiveled toward my parents.

Mom was crying so hard she could barely stand:

“You were always jealous of your sister, weren’t you?”

“Jealous because she was smart, because she was beautiful, because everyone loved her…”

“But did you know, she never once looked down on you, her slow little sister!”

“She didn’t even have to pick you up that day! She did it because she worried about you, worried the other kids would pick on you…”

Mom’s voice rose to a shriek:

“She died because of you! Do you even realize that?!”

I stared blankly at their hysterical faces, and my eyes slowly filled with tears.

So… they really did hate me that much.

In everyone’s eyes, I was the reason Soph died.

Dean’s hand pressed lightly on my shoulder. He murmured,

“Your sister… she wouldn’t blame you.”

I turned my head and looked at him, asking softly,

“If I go through with the Memory Retrieval, the person who hurt my sister will be caught, won’t they?”

Dean was silent for a moment, then nodded:

“Yes. Live, globally broadcast evidence. Everyone will see the truth of that day.”

“Then let’s start.”

Dean looked at me again. “But it’s going to hurt a lot.”

He gestured to the center of the stand, where a long, thick silver probe stood upright.

“See that needle? It’s going to pierce your skull and enter your cerebral cortex to read your memory.”

“The deeper the memory, the deeper it goes.”

“You need to pull the very deepest layers—the scene of the crime. So… it will go very, very deep.”

I froze for two seconds, then my gaze drifted back to my parents, still crying and cursing below the stage.

Then I smiled faintly.

“I’m not afraid of pain.”

Dean’s brow furrowed.

“If catching the killer is the only way to help my sister,”

“And if it means Mom and Dad can forgive me… I don’t care how much it hurts.”

Dean was silent for a long time.

Finally, he looked at the doctor in the white coat and nodded: “Proceed.”

The doctor stepped forward, his eyes sweeping over me before turning to Dean:

“Mr. Dean, once the Memory Retrieval process begins, it cannot be stopped.”

“The neural extraction is irreversible. Upon completion, the patient will suffer catastrophic brain damage resulting in brain death.”

He paused. “Should we inform the patient’s family of the risks beforehand?”

I spoke immediately: “No! Don’t!”

My voice was quiet, yet firm and absolute.

Everyone looked at me.

I met Dean’s gaze, my eyes unwavering:

“Please don’t tell them yet… okay?”

Below the stage, Mom was still weeping; Dad’s face was dark with anger, staring up at the platform.

Dean’s Adam’s apple bobbed once.

“…All right.”

Two nurses approached, helping me lie down on the cold metal stand.

My body was secured with restraints—at the wrists, ankles, and across the chest and abdomen.

Finally, a metal halo was clamped around my forehead.

A nurse approached with a syringe, injecting a cold liquid into my vein.

The world began to blur.

Above me, the long silver probe slowly descended, its needle-tip perfectly aligned with the center of my forehead.

The next moment, Mom’s horrified voice suddenly cut through the air:

“Stop, hold on!”