There were three burnt bodies discovered inside the abandoned mansion; two of them had been burnt alive whereas the third one had slowly bled to death from stab wounds on his chest. The fourth body was found outside, a fatal shot right through his heart.

Wrapping her slender fingers around the cocktail glass, Jessica eyes the amber sheen of the cubes as she pokes them with her perfectly manicured nail, making a comforting, clinking sound against the glass. She watches, entranced, as they slowly float back up half-submerged like mini icebergs. It’s almost hypnotizing; there’s a ghost of a smile on her lips and she tries to fight off the blinding glare of the chandelier lights, the world that's beginning to blur in and the exhilarating feeling of her favourite dry martini scorching down her tongue and throat.

She closes her eyes and pictures a peaceful landscape with swirls of pale lavender and magenta painting the azure sky, caressing winds and a field of pink and white daisies, where she could almost smell the soft scent of dewy grass. The brilliant sun rays shine on her father and mother warmly, while her vivacious younger sister, wearing a little romper, dances barefoot under the summer sky. She hears herself giggling in the background but her voice sounds too heart-breaking to her own ears. She doesn’t know and she can’t be sure because all she’s hearing now is the sound of her soul falling apart, a clean tinkling sound.

Fuzzy imageries of Soojung’s favourite Italian restaurant, the rain pitter-pattering on the windshield, a reckless young boy running across the street outside the restaurant, shrilling screams as the car swerves before skidding and the smashing of windshield against the tree, flash through her blurred vision. The driver is instantaneously thrown out of the car, unconscious with crimson blood smeared on his lifeless body while his front passenger dies of a cardiac arrest. The scene is too cruel, too tragic and too horrifying, but she prefers to think of their deaths as quick and painless.

Her soul aches for her sister more because Soojung is too young to understand, much too young to be left behind like this, and her eyes are red-rimmed and she’s bawling too loudly in front of all the adults whose faces are too grim and grave. Sooyeon wants to scream, wants to scream until the revolting sympathy everyone feels for them goes away, all the whispers (how pitiful, they are still