Click! Click! The alarm clock vibrated and let out an annoying sound.
I opened my eyes, rising and rubbing my temple.
It hurts.
It was painfully.
Did someone hit the back of my head with a damn baseball bat? I don't know but it felt that way.
"Hm?"
Looking around, I quickly recognized the familiar setting of my room.
I was… in my apartment?
That alone was strange.
Not because there was anything unusual about the apartment itself, but because I had no memory of coming back.
How exactly did I get here?
Frowning, I tried to recall what had happened.
The bell. The counter. My practiced smile.
And then… nothing.
My thoughts slipped the moment I reached for anything beyond that point, like my mind was skating over smooth ice with nothing to grip onto. There was no image or sound. Just a blank stretch where several hours should have been.
I pressed my fingers harder against my temple and hissed.
This damn headache...
Why does it hurt so much, huh!?
I sat up slowly, half-expecting the room to spin.
It didn't.
Everything was exactly where it should be. My desk cluttered with old receipts and unopened mail. My jacket draped over the chair. My phone resting on the bedside table.
I picked it up and checked the time.
Morning.
Not just early morning either. I had slept straight through my entire shift. Or did I complete it and returned back?
I scrolled through my call history. There was no outgoing calls and the message box was empty. There was nothing that explained how I got home, or who might have brought me back.
My clothes were the same ones I wore to work and my shoes were neatly placed by the door, just how I usually left them.
I leaned back against the headboard and let my thoughts settle.
The situation was unsettling.
Let's break it down.
I did not remember leaving the store.
I did not remember locking up.
And I definitely did not remember coming home.
Yet here I was, in my own apartment, with a dull, throbbing headache that refused to fade.
Whatever happened after that bell rang had been wiped clean.
And for some reason, I had the sinking feeling that it was only the beginning.
"Shit. What a mess."
My luck really was awful.
Still, that wasn't my biggest concern right now.
I pressed a hand to my temple and sighed.
"Where did I put the painkillers?"
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and planted my feet on the floor, wincing as the dull ache pulsed through my skull. My gaze scanned the room. The usual clutter of receipts, notebooks, and half-empty bottles littered the desk.
I shuffled toward the small cabinet by the nightstand.
"Where the hell did I put them…" I muttered, rifling through drawers, knocking over pens and loose papers in the process.
Finally, I spotted the familiar white bottle. My fingers closed around it and froze.
How perfect.
I held it up and glared. "Of course. Why wouldn't it be empty?"
A low groan escaped me. I rubbed my face, trying to will the headache away. Pills or no pills, this pounding wasn't going to wait.
Sighing, I grabbed my jacket and slipped on my shoes. If I wanted relief, or at least some sense of normalcy, I'd have to deal with this headache the hard way.
That meant heading back to the convenience store.
Even if part of me dreaded seeing what had happened, or didn't happen, there the night before.
I locked the apartment door behind me, the click echoing in the silent hallway, and started toward the elevator, every step making the throbbing in my head a little sharper.
The streets were quiet this early, but my unease didn't ease. Something about waking up like this…
Something felt off.
And that uneasy premonition only proved itself the moment I arrived at my destination.
"Oh my God, oh my God! Someone call the police!"
"The hell is this?! So much…!"
A crowd had gathered outside the convenience store, pressing close to the windows and craning their necks to see inside.
Everyone seemed fixated on the same thing.
What the hell was going on?
I pushed through the edge of the crowd, feeling the jostle of elbows and shoulders as people tried to get a better view.
The glass doors of the store were smeared with fingerprints and condensation, but through them, I could make out the chaos inside.
Shelves had toppled over. Snacks and cans lay scattered across the floor as if an explosion had detonated. The registers stood open, drawers yanked out, and the air reeked of spilled coffee laced with something sharply metallic.
Blood.
No surface inside the store remained untouched by that uncanny deep red. It dominated everything.
A few people stood frozen, staring in disbelief, while others whispered frantically.
I halted at the entrance, the bottom of my stomach churning work increasing unease and anxiety.
What… happened here?
I didn't understand at all. Could this... be a murder?
One onlooker shouted, "Look! There's someone over there!"
My throat dried as I forced myself forward.
Then I saw it.
Not a person, exactly… but the 'aftermath' of a person.
The source of all that blood lay face-up in the center.
A vast sea of red spread outward, so immense it defied belief that one human body could contain it all. It looked as though someone had wrung every drop from her like a soaked towel.
At the heart of that crimson explosion lay a woman.
Her arms and legs, exposed by short sleeves and a skirt, were shredded. The damage surely continued beneath her clothes. Her grey hoodie had soaked through until no trace of its original color remained. Her body appeared torn apart from within, along the paths of every blood vessel, as if thin wires had been threaded through them all and then violently ripped free. Her mangled arms resembled the splayed diagram of a dissected frog. Where her face should have been, there was nothing recognizable: only a dark-red cavity, like an open can or a cracked raw egg, exposing pink muscle and soft yellow fat beneath.
"Uuh...Ahh..."
Upon witnessing that gruesome scene, I could only take a step back. Following that was the irresistible urge to vomit and empty my food contents.
The world tilted. My vision swam in red, her red, the store's red, everywhere.
No. No no no. This can't be happening!
My stomach lurched violently. Acid burned up my esophagus. I doubled over, hitting the cold pavement just as the first heave ripped through me.
Everything came up in a hot, choking rush — bile, last night's cheap ramen, guilt I didn't even know I carried. I retched again, harder, splattering the sidewalk between my trembling arms. Tears stung my eyes. My head pounded as though it was about to burst.
Behind me, someone screamed. Sirens wailed in the distance, too late.
I stayed there on all fours, gasping, strings of spit dangling from my lips, staring at the mess I'd made while the crimson horror inside the store burned itself permanently behind my eyelids.
I vomited one last time until nothing remained but dry spasms and the bitter taste of dread.