"Pursuant to Article 17, Section 3 of the Criminal Code, and in accordance with the evidence presented before this court, the accused: Dan Lewis, has been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the murder of the deceased, Kim Barbra, a public figure and registered livestreamer.
Therefore, this court hereby sentences the accused to life imprisonment, to be served without the possibility of parole."
The words echoed again and again in Dan's mind, long after the gavel had struck and sealed his fate.
He remembered the expression on the judge's face; cold and distant, his decision was already made final before the verdict was even read. He remembered the murmurs in the courtroom, the flashes of cameras, the hateful stares and comments of people who had already decided he was a murderer. A man who had taken the life of someone beloved by millions.
Dan Lewis sat there, hands cuffed, and his heart pounding heavily in his chest.
Kim Barbra. A name he had been accused of causing harm to. He had never met her. Never watched any of her streams. Never even knew who she was until the day the police stormed into his apartment and slammed him to the floor like an animal. They called him the prime suspect, paraded fabricated timelines, and fed the media a story that painted him as a jealous, obsessed killer.
But Dan was none of those things.
He was just a normal office worker, one among thousands who woke up every morning, dragged himself to work, and came home every night with aching feet and tired eyes. Everything he did, every overtime shift he accepted, every insult he endured, was for one reason only.
To take care of his daughter.
She was his world. His reason for surviving after everything else had been taken away from him.
And now… even that was slipping away.
The world emptied around him, as Dan remained seated at the visitation table, staring blankly ahead as if his life had ended. That was when the man sitting across from him, spoke up.
He was a public lawyer assigned to his case. A Middle-aged, worn-out man, whose eyes were heavy with resignation. Not the eyes of someone who believed in justice, just someone who had seen too many cases like this and knew how they ended.
"Mr. Lewis," the lawyer said quietly, fingers tightening around a folder. "There's… something else you need to know."
Dan lifted his head slowly. His throat felt dry. Somewhere deep inside, a warning bell rang.
The lawyer hesitated before eventually speaking.
"Your daughter… she was found dead this morning. It seems she committed suicide."
All of a sudden, the world stopped.
Dan didn't scream, he didn't even blink. His ears rang violently, as if someone had detonated a bomb inside his skull.
"Suicide?" he whispered, sounding as if the word was wrong, or unreal.
"No," Dan said, shaking his head weakly. "That's not possible."
He let out a slight chuckle drenched of nervousness and disbelief.
The lawyer's lips pressed into a thin line. He said nothing.
"My daughter wouldn't do that," Dan insisted, his voice trembling now. "She's seventeen. She's… she's part of a school club that fights against suicide awareness. She talks to people who feel like giving up. She tells them to hold on."
His hands clenched into fists so tightly his nails dug into his palms.
"She wouldn't decide to kill herself, that's not her."
But then, a miserable thought crept into his mind like a hidden land mine.
His daughter had already lost her mother.
Dan could still remember it clearly. The screech of tires. The shattering glass. His wife's lifeless body sprawled across the road while his daughter screamed beside him, her small hands soaked in blood.
That day had broken something inside her.
And now… her father had been sentenced to rot in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
Maybe it was too much.
Maybe she thought there was nothing left.
Dan's chest tightened painfully.
If I were her… he thought bitterly, maybe I would have given up too.
But even as the thought formed, something else rose in his heart, louder, sharper, and more certain.
No.
No, it didn't feel right.
His daughter was strong, too strong-a-will to decide to commit suicide. She didn't even say her goodbyes to him. The last time she was here, though she was devastated by the situation he was in, she wasn't broken to the point where she would choose to commit suicide all of a sudden.
She told him to stay calm, that she would find a way to prove his innocence. She even reassured him, claiming she would bring the perpetrator down to justice.
Recalling all these, Dan was starting to realize that something doesn't feel right, but at the moment, he had no way of finding out.
As the guards dragged him to his feet and led him back to his cell, Dan's eyes burned with tears, a growing sense of dread overwhelming him all at once.
This was injustice, his daughter hadn't committed suicide. Whoever framed this crime on him had also gotten to his daughter.
And whatever truth lay buried beneath these lies… it had taken everything from him.
…
Dan was thrown back into his cell after receiving the devastating news from the lawyer. The sun dipped below the horizon, leaving behind a soft glow that felt like a quiet goodbye.
The dim bulb overhead flickered weakly, bathing the cramped space in a sickly yellow glow. Dan stood lost in thought, the lawyer's words echoing again and again in his mind.
Your daughter… she was found dead this morning. It seems she committed suicide.
Dan sat on the lower bunk, his elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped tightly as if he could crush the thought into nothing. His chest hurt, not a sharp pain, but a deep, crushing weight that made breathing feel pointless.
Because of him.
That was the part his mind refused to let go of.
If he hadn't been arrested… if he hadn't been framed for a crime he didn't commit… If he hadn't been dragged into this nightmare of a prison—
She would still be alive.
His jaw clenched tightly.
I need to get out, he thought. I have to.
The prison walls suddenly felt too close, too suffocating. If there was even a shred of truth left in this world, then it was the fact that his daughter hadn't taken her own life. And if that was the case, then whoever destroyed his life wasn't done yet.
He needed answers, but answers didn't exist behind bars. He needed to escape, no matter the cost.
That was when he heard movement.
The faint creak of metal. The shuffle of feet against concrete.
Dan lifted his head slowly.
Three men were getting off their bunks.
Big. Scarred. Faces carved with the kind of cruelty that came from years of violence. Their eyes gleamed in the dim light as they approached, spreading out until Dan's path was blocked from every side.
Grins stretched across their faces; wide, ugly, and predatory.
"Hey, newbie," one of them said, cracking his knuckles. "Don't you think it's time you started doing your work around here?"
Another chuckled. "Yeah. Why don't you start by taking one or two hits from each of us, huh?"
The laughter that followed was low and mocking.
But Dan didn't respond, his expression didn't even change.
His gaze passed through them, unfocused, his mind still trapped in the image of his daughter's smile. Of her waving at him every morning before school. Of her voice telling him not to work too hard.
The silence stretched.
And the men didn't like it.
"What the hell are you looking at?" one of them snarled.
Still, Dan said nothing.
That was when one of the inmates had pulled his arm, dragging him out of the cell. Surprisingly, the door of the cell was still open, which shouldn't have happened, if not for the influence the inmates had on the guards.
They continue dragging him till they reached a separate region of the prison, far from the eyes of anyone who could try to interrupt or intervene. The guards turned a blind eye as they watched them head towards an equipment room of the prison.
The door was locked behind them, and right at that moment, one of the men had immediately landed a first punch. Pain exploded across Dan's face as his head snapped sideways, the taste of blood flooding his mouth in seconds.
Before he could even react, another blow followed after… then another, and another.
"Don't you dare stare when we talk to you!" the man barked.
Fists rained down on him mercilessly.
On his face, his ribs, his back.
Dan collapsed to the floor, curling into himself instinctively as boots joined the assault. Every impact sent jolts of pain through his body, but strangely… he barely felt it.
Not compared to what was already tearing him apart inside. With each beating raining down on him, something started to stir in him.
All the injustice.
The false accusations.
The humiliation.
His daughter's sudden death.
It felt wrong, like a deliberate plan. It was as if an unseen hand had been arranging his suffering step by step.
There's something bigger at play, that he couldn't shake off his mind.
And then, something else happened.
A heat spread through his chest, deep and unnatural, like a furnace being stoked. His heartbeat changed, growing heavier, louder. Each thump echoed in his ears, drowning out the sounds of fists and laughter.
The punches weren't hurting anymore, in fact, they were awakening something in him.
Dan's fingers dug into the concrete floor. His teeth tightly clenched.
Anger… raw, violent, and unfamiliar, instantly surged within him. And with that, he let out a single shout.
Enough!
With a growl that didn't sound entirely human, Dan pushed himself up and shoved the nearest inmate away.
The force behind it shocked even him.
The man flew backward as if struck by a speeding vehicle, slamming into a roll of metal behind him. A loud, sickening crack echoed through the cell.
The inmate collapsed, screaming as he hit the ground, his arm twisted at an unnatural angle.
All of a sudden, there was silence…