Joshua

They found seventeen ticks in her skin. Seventeen. They all sunk their venom into her body, and she died. Just like that.

How do people just die out of nowhere? Shouldn’t they gradually make their way toward death? They get sick. Then they get bedridden. Then they go to the hospital. Then they die. That’s the normal way people die.

But she just died. She was alive one day, and she was dead the very next morning. The light of my life, gone. Extinguished. Just like that.

They say it was an accident. Chaeyoung probably broke the rules and gone into the woods where she wasn’t supposed to be, not realizing the danger of the island ticks. They even have camera footage to corroborate it.

She did indeed leave her dorm that night. She and Seungkwan snuck out of the dorm the previous night to talk to me.

Seungkwan was questioned about it. I wasn’t involved in these investigations, but I do know he was also screened and examined. He was with her the whole time, and they found a grand total of zero ticks on his body. Zero.

How could Chaeyoung get seventeen ticks and he get zero if they were in the exact same place at the exact same time? Plus, the path to our meeting place in the media offices is clear. There are no shrubs or bushes or trees. How could the ticks have gotten to her?

It felt like a mistake. Like there was some sort of glitch in God’s matrix, and He accidentally killed her when He shouldn’t have. And I wanted to figure out the glitch and make an angry call to the heavens and get a refund or an exchange or something that would reverse what had happened.

But there is no way to reverse this. Chaeyoung is gone. I should accept it. Move on. Find happiness again. Stop feeling sorry for myself and letting my heavy heart sink me down down down deep into the dark holes of depression.

But a niggling voice in my head keeps me up at night. Prevents me from moving on. Tells that there is absolutely no way this was an accident. Seventeen ticks that exclusively latched onto her is one red flag. The other is the fact that the cameras in the building’s units were down that night.

I turned those cameras off, at her request. During our fight the previous night, she told me she wanted her privacy, and I gave it to her. Little did I know that turning those cameras off would be the biggest mistake of my life.

Ever since the first game, everyone had their sights set on her. All the contestants have a motive to kill her: eliminate the competition.

One of them killed her, I know it. I feel it in my bones.

I’ve spent countless hours going through all the footage in surrounding areas, looking for anything suspicious, a hair out of place, a passing shadow. But I found nothing. No one went in or out of Chaeyoung’s unit the night she died, except those who were already dorming there.

Six. There were six people dorming in that quarter of the hall where Chaeyoung was.

Contestant #09: Nagyung. She’s the heiress whose family’s business is facing bankruptcy. She’s desperate to marry me.

Contestant #18: Dino: An idol-in-training, wanting to gain publicity before his debut. He was onto me from the very first conversation I had with him. He’s clever and he knows it, and seems like the kind of person with devious intentions.

Contestan #21: Mingyu: Chicken shop employee. He partnered with Nagyung during the first game, and is also connected to Saerom.

Contestant #69: Jiheon: The 18-year-old who Saerom defended, also desperately in need of money to support her family.

Contestant #133: Seungkwan: The one I appointed to protect Chaeyoung. He failed in the most catastrophic way, and I am planning to make him pay.

Contestant #152: Saerom: That . I knew she was trouble from the start. She has a propensity for violence and a personality conducive to murder. Of all the people on this list, she’s the one I suspect the most.

Whoever it is, I’m going to find out who it is, make their lives a living hell. Then, I’ll murder them myself.