They say it's easier to forget if you pretend it never happened.
They told me guilt is a parasite that only grows if you feed it.
And I fed it.
I fed it until it became a beast.
One that wore my face, used my voice, but whispered horrors only I could hear.
It began with a doorbell.
A simple ding-dong, the kind that shouldn't have felt so heavy in my ears.
I was home alone—my flat in the old district, tucked between two abandoned buildings, always smelled like rust and the rain.
I hadn't had visitors in months.
When I opened the door, there was no one there.
Only a letter. Black envelope, no stamp, nothing. Just my name.
Inside was a card with a single sentence:
"You know who you killed."
?!!
My knees buckled. I sat on the floor, letter trembling in my hand, breath quick and shallow.
It had been years. Almost a decade since it happened.
I told myself it wasn't my fault. That I didn't know the brakes were faulty.
That he shouldn't have been crossing the road.
That I was tired and it was raining and accidents happen.
But I had looked away and I had pressed the pedal too late.
His name was Ciel.
He was 13.
And I drove away.
I buried that night beneath excuses, therapy, and wine.
I cried at his candlelight vigil.
I even donated to the school's memorial fund.
I told myself it was redemption.
But the black envelope told me otherwise.
That night, I barely slept.
Shadows in the corners of my room looked like fingers reaching for my throat.
I heard whispers in the faucet's drip.
I kept checking the door.
Waiting for another note.
It came the next day. Under my pillow.
I hadn't left my room.
This one was a photo.
An old one, weathered.
A boy on a swing.
His face half-turned.
Blurry. But I knew that striped sweater.
I knew that crooked smile.
Ciel.
And behind him, standing in the woods—something else.
Someone tall. Dark.
Wearing a paper mask with a hand-painted smile.
Nails too long. Body too thin.
Watching.
I blinked.
My hands trembled.
I dropped the photo, but it floated down gently like it wanted me to look again.
When I picked it up, the figure was gone.
The next day, I saw him.
At the bus stop, sitting beside an old woman who didn't react to him.
At the grocery store, standing by the freezer aisle, staring at the glass.
At night, outside my window. Behind the curtains.
I stopped leaving the house.
I blocked my windows.
Turned off all the lights.
But the letters still came.
"You know who you killed."
"Say his name."
"He's waiting."
One morning, I woke up to find my bathroom mirror shattered.
Written across it in condensation:
"He forgave you."
But below that, scribbled in something darker, something that smelled like rust:
"But I didn't."
I screamed. I smashed the rest of the mirror.
I called the police.
They searched. Nothing.
No signs of forced entry.
No fingerprints.
Nothing on the cameras. Nothing but the letters.
They told me to rest. To see someone.
I did.
But he was there, too.
Sitting in the chair beside mine in the therapist's office.
Lurking behind the receptionist.
Always in the corner of my eye.
And then came the dreams.
In them, I stood on the road.
Rain poured.
I saw my car coming toward me.
Headlights blazing.
My own hands on the wheel.
I screamed for it to stop. It didn't.
Every night.
Over and over.
Until I stopped waking up.
I don't mean that metaphorically.
I mean I stopped waking up.
Or maybe I did, and the world I returned to wasn't the same.
Because the letters started answering me.
I tried burning them. They came back, like nothing happened .
I buried them. They appeared on my desk.
I began losing my mind.
So I wrote back:
"Who are you?"
The reply:
"You."
I wrote again:
"What do you want?"
The reply:
"Justice."
I asked:
"What can I do?"
The reply:
"Say his name. And disappear "
So one night, I did.
I sat in the middle of my room, lights off, letters spread around me like a paper shrine, and I whispered:
"Ciel. Ciel. Ciel....."
And the room breathed.
The air grew heavy. The walls pulsed. My skin crawled.
And then I saw him.
Not Ciel.
Him.
The man with the paper smile.
He stood inches from me.
I didn't hear him walk. I didn't see him arrive.
He was just there.
And when he took off the mask, I saw my own face.
Older. Hollowed.
Twisted with sorrow and hate.
He whispered:
"You made me."
Then he stepped forward—and vanished into me.
That was four days ago.
Since then, I see things.
I know things.
Other people's sins.
Their guilt.
Their secrets.
I walk past strangers and I feel their shame.
Their buried horrors.
I am haunted by screams I didn't hear.
Cries from people I never met.
And somewhere inside me, that thing—that other me—feeds on it.
I don't sleep.
I don't eat.
I write. Over and over.
One sentence:
"You know who you killed."
[Stream Commentary – Tape #22: You Know Who You Killed]
[Kai returns]
"So... was it justice, guilt, or something worse that came back for her? What do you think, friends?"
[@Enchomay : "It was guilt. A festering, living thing. She fed it for years until it made a home in her mind."]
[@Oviesix: "But it knew things. It knew the future. Maybe it wasn't guilt. Maybe it was punishment wearing a familiar face."]
[@Jaija:The paper mask figure… I don't think it was just a ghost or something . It felt like a personification of guilt. Or maybe trauma?]
[@642: Nah … that lady did not deserve redemption. She was shaking, yeah, but she still drove. People died. And when she remembered who it was—she crumbled like wet paper. That's not grief. That's regret getting caught.]
[@642: "Why do humans run from their own shadows? She knew what she did. She just didn't want to pay."]
[@Enchomay : "There's something deeply human about denying your crimes until the victim is screaming it into your ears."]
"And maybe that's the lesson here. Guilt is a door. Keep it closed too long, and something will open it for you."
This story is not just about this lady and Ciel,
It's about what happens when you lie to yourself so deeply that even your own soul forgets the truth.
We all build mental walls. Sometimes to protect ourselves. Sometimes to trap what we fear.
But eventually, something… always finds a way in.
And when it does, it may not knock.
It may simply appear—like a letter that was never there.
Remember that in life, you can never escape your deeds.
Kai (leans toward the screen)
Next up : "LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON"
Blood runs deep.
But in this family…
so does violence.
You might think you know your dad.
But what if he's been teaching you how to kill… since birth?
Bye~~
STREAM ENDED