You decided to sacrifice your sleep for three days to finish your favourite murder mystery manga. You refused to leave your room and avoided your phone like the plague in fear of getting spoiled. It was a tough three days but you pushed through in hopes of reaching the ending your favourite character, Dmitry, deserved.

How wrong you were.

All it took was for you to reach the last chapter for your world to end. They killed Dmitry in the last chapter. So suddenly. No hint or foreshadow of such an event happening. You flipped back through the multiple books spelled out on your bed, trying to make sense of such a choice. Sure he was messed up in the head, but he didn’t deserve death, he was only doing what he knew. Well, that’s what you believed anyway.

Sleep didn’t come to you that night. Not until the early hours of the next day. The bags under your eyes seeped deep into your flesh as you stumbled out of bed. Not even a step could be made before your vision went hazy. The pounding of your heart slowing was the last thing you heard before nothing.

. . .

You were jolted awake once more as a droplet of blood landed on your nose. Your breaths silently frantic as you cupped your hand over your mouth and stared into his beautiful eyes. Dmitrys beautifully dangerous eyes. If memory serves you right, you aren’t one of his victims but in the place of his lover who tried to escape, only to die at the hands of the real serial killer, the one Dmitry wanted to find.

“You wanted to hide from me, why would you try that little bird?” Dmitry’s voice sounded pained in a practiced way. His eyes bore into yours as he gripped your ankle tightly.