The video had been edited, lasting only five minutes.
Elisa sat dazed in front of the computer. When the video played, her blocked memories burst forth like a flood, inundating her entire consciousness, then slowly transforming into bright, shattered pieces like cracked mirrors, each one recording her lost memories.
Those memories, like bellowing demons, roared inside her, struggling and clamoring to conceal her most dreaded memories. However, as the video played, one by one, the locks restraining these “demons” were loosened, leaving them brutally exposed before Elisa’s eyes.
Upon hearing a gunshot in the video, Elisa’s eyes reddened, tears streaming down her cheeks. She clutched her head and fell from her chair, howling in agony.
“Don’t… Autumn!”
Her mind felt as though it would explode. She desperately tried to suppress the emerging memories, but it was futile. The vivid and cruel images forced her to confront them.
“Don’t… Don’t leave…”
-“Little crybaby, I can’t carry you home this time.”
-“Elisa, I don’t hurt, don’t feel sorry for me…”
-“I’ll take care of anything you’re afraid of, including people.”
-“Elisa, I’m sorry, Autumn is just a little fool, unable to protect you…”
“Ah!” Elisa cried out in anguish. After the video replayed, her account automatically logged out, the computer screen went dark. The sudden scream in the internet cafe startled everyone, their gazes turning towards the corner filled with sobbing.
Elisa covered her mouth, her body trembling, tears falling onto the back of her hand, scalding her heart.
She choked out, “No wonder I couldn’t find you. It turns out we are no longer in the same world…”
The blocked memories were horrific. She remembered her father committing suicide by jumping off a building, the Powell family going bankrupt, being treated like a dog by Hamish at Shallow Bay, being thrown downstairs and forced to become pregnant by him.
To save his beloved, she divorced him and was handed over to kidnappers. Her fingers were pierced by 28 steel needles, her skin was branded 22 times, cut 11 times, and burned by cigarettes 5 times… Her clavicle was pierced, and she was injected with unknown substances 8 times.
Yet, these were not the most agonizing. What plunged her into desperate struggle was witnessing Autumn’s death before her eyes. She called Hamish ten times, but he never answered. In the end, Autumn’s life was forfeited as part of this “bet.”
Autumn, who had been so good to her, sharing all her little biscuits and making candy earrings for her, saying she would always protect her, now lay in a pool of blood before her eyes.
He was the big brother who had carried her home nineteen years ago, the one who had comforted her with candy to stop her from crying, and now he had died in front of her just as she recognized him.
Elisa gasped in pain, the scars that had long healed on her body began to ache again. The blood vessels on her neck bulged as she tore at her hair.
The heart in her left chest had long been riddled with holes, and her soul was shattered. Elisa had enclosed herself in a small box, hoping to escape the past, but that box was filled with needles. No matter how she tried to evade them, they would always pierce her.
The owner of the internet cafe, hearing the commotion, approached and looked at Elisa curled up on the ground, softly inquiring, “Miss, are you not feeling well?”
Seemingly unable to hear him, Elisa’s once beautiful cat-like eyes now resembled two dark abysses, haunting and empty.
The owner reached out, lightly touching her shoulder. But at the slight touch, Elisa recoiled like a startled bird, her lowered eyelashes trembling.
“Do you need to go to the hospital?” the cafe owner asked in a hushed tone.
Under the intense stimulation, Elisa briefly lost her senses. She watched the man’s mouth move, but couldn’t hear his voice.
Leaning on the nearby chair, she stumbled and fell to the ground again, her disheveled hair covering her face like that of a madwoman.
The back of her hand was scraped and turned red from being pressed against the chair, but Elisa seemed not to feel it, as if she had grown accustomed to such pain.
The woman swayed as she stood up, her voice hoarse, “He’s dead. I’ve been a mistake from the very beginning.”
She had mistaken Hamish for the person who had saved her when she was eight years old, turning a deceitful and ruthless demon into her heart’s sanctuary for years.
Her stomach convulsing, Elisa hung her head low, blood trickling from her slightly parted lips, staining her face withher hair. She seemed like a ghost slowly moving away, causing those around her to instinctively distance themselves, fearing she might be a lunatic capable of harm.
As she left the internet cafe, she stood on the street, gazing at the misty sky, feeling as though a bleak, gray despair hovered over her, a palpable, invisible force gripping her, slowly and mercilessly tightening its hold, crushing her flesh, breaking her bones, and shaking the soul trapped within her shell.
A black luxury car swiftly pulled up in front of her, and Elisa’s pupils flickered as she saw Hamish step out of the back seat, dressed in an uncharacteristic white shirt, his tall figure elegant and refined. His complexion had not fully recovered from recently washing his stomach.
“Come back with me,” he said.
Seeing her attire, Hamish knew she intended to escape. Although there had been fire in his heart, upon seeing her emaciated figure, swollen eyes, and the traces of blood at the corners of her mouth, his heart seemed to turn to ice, shattered by an invisible force.
He reached out and took Elisa’s cold hand. Surprisingly, she didn’t resist but obediently followed him into the car.
“Did you try to poison me while seizing the opportunity to escape?” Hamish asked as he encircled her with his arm.
“Yes, but unfortunately, the herbicide wasn’t potent enough to kill you directly,” she replied.
Hamish clenched his jaw, tasting a hint of blood. The pain from his freshly washed stomach resurged, making him ask in a hoarse voice, “Do you really hate me this much? Enough to dirty your own hands and poison my soup?”
Elisa seemed to find this a colossal joke. She laughed forcefully, her body trembling like a blade of grass in a storm.
“Do you think I’ve dirtied my hands?” She trembled as she extended her own ugly, scarred hands toward Hamish. “These hands were pierced with 28 steel needles, my fingernails torn off, covered in blood. Are they still clean?”
Hamish’s breathing hitched, and the things he had been trying to conceal burst forth. Fear in his eyes seemed to engulf him like a storm.
After a while, he attempted to speak, but it seemed he didn’t know how to begin.
The hatred in Elisa’s eyes grew thicker, scalding him like searing hot flames.
“Have you remembered everything?” he asked.
“Yes, I’ve remembered everything. Hamish, how can I not hate you? You destroyed my family, handed me over to the kidnappers, and made me suffer! How can I not hate you? For these past few months, you’ve spun so many stories to deceive a fool like me during my amnesia,” Elisa spat out.
Hamish’s throat tightened, and as he tried to say something, a bitter taste seemed to grow stronger in his mouth.
“You really hate me this much?” he finally managed to ask, his voice choked.
Elisa’s eyes were filled with an increasing intensity of hatred, almost like scalding hot fire etching into him.
Elisa suddenly sneered, taunting, “I’m curious how you can tell our love story from beginning to end when you see all these wounds on me. Are you not feeling guilty? Does it not disgust you?”
“I’m sorry,” Hamish never anticipated how difficult it would be to say those words, and how ineffective they would prove to be.
“So, a simple ‘I’m sorry’ from you can resolve everything? Then, can I shoot you and say the gun just went off on its own?”
She could never accept Hamish’s apology. What did a body full of wounds count for? What did the wounds all over her body mean? And what about Autumn’s death?
Thinking of Autumn, Elisa’s tears fell once again, her heart wrenching in pain, feeling like she was being driven insane.
“I know that a simple ‘I’m sorry’ won’t solve anything. So, Elisa, can you give me a chance to make it up to you? Blame my arrogance, blame my disbelief in your stomach cancer causing those injuries.” A tear escaped from the corner of Hamish’s eye. He tightly grasped Elisa’s hand, feeling as if he would have knelt down long ago if they weren’t in the carriage.
Elisa’s icy gaze filled him with fear. He didn’t know what he could do to stop her from looking at him with such eyes.
“Elisa, please give me a chance to atone. Even criminals have the chance to stand trial. Don’t just give up on me. I truly realize my mistake. I caused the miscarriage because of your stomach cancer. The doctor said you couldn’t get pregnant. I’ve even found a medical team abroad that specializes in cancer research. Soon, you’ll be saved.”
Elisa remained silent, listening to his words. When he mentioned the child, she smirked. “The only thing you did right was to kill that bastard. You’re right, he should never have come into this world. If I had remembered earlier, I would never have tolerated him staying in my belly for four whole months.”
“Congratulations, Hamish. You’ve killed your second child. You deserve to end your lineage.” She sneered coldly, her eyes like venomous snakes.
Hamish’s pupils dilated. “No, what you’re saying can’t be true…?” How could Elisa, who loved their children so much, speak of their deceased child in such a way? Would she despise anything related to him?
Elisa laughed again, mocking Hamish’s arrogance. His once clear and innocent eyes began to shatter, as if merging into an increasingly dark ink…
In Elisa’s darkened eyes, only hatred remained, burning deep into her core.
She reached out and removed her coat, tearing open her clothes to show Hamish her flesh.
“Do you see these wounds?” She pointed to the scar on her collarbone. “Your enemy, in order to see you regret, used all kinds of torture on me: whipping, scalding, electric shocks… He used a sharp tool to pierce through my collarbone and hang me on an upright board!”
Hamish seemed to have lost his soul. His breathing gradually became painful and constricted as Elisa’s descriptions of her torments reached his ears, piercing his heart.
Elisa was somewhat out of control. She released her grip on her collar and said, “Do you know how the uneven skin on my back came to be? You used to touch it every night.”
Her eyes red, her tone calm, “He injected anesthesia into my back and then slowly poured sulfuric acid on it. I couldn’t feel the pain, but I could hear the sizzle of my flesh corroding.”