Mei
The walk back from the Green Belt felt like navigating a dream that had curdled into a nightmare. Above, the sky was a bruised, heavy expanse of charcoal clouds that seemed to sag under their own weight, pressing the scent of pine and impending rain deep into the earth. Every step Mei took was a battle against the trembling in her knees and the bile rising in her throat.
The forest, once a sanctuary of ancient silence, now felt like a sprawling crime scene, every creaking branch a whispered accusation.
She clutched the metal tin in her apron pocket, her fingers brushing the cold surface. Inside lay the "Melted Line"—a fragment of evidence that turned a three-year-old tragedy into a calculated slaughter. It was a jagged piece of reality that tore through every lie she had been told since arriving at Mooncrest.
It wasn't an accident.
