The television stayed on long after I stopped watching it.
Sound continued to spill into the room, anchors trading sentences, graphics dissolving into one another, a low, constant murmur, but it no longer felt like it belonged to me. It was like overhearing a conversation through a wall, voices without weight, words stripped of meaning.
I sat on the floor in front of the couch, my back against the edge of it, knees pulled loosely to my chest. At some point I realized I was still holding my phone, my fingers locked around it as if it might disappear if I let go. The screen had gone dark. I didn't remember locking it.
On the television, the footage replayed.
Again.
And again.
A stretcher emerging from the shadows of a narrow alley. Emergency lights painting the walls red, then blue, then red again. A body bag zipped halfway closed, the black fabric stiff and scorched in places, edges uneven as if heat had eaten into it greedily.
"Due to the condition of the remains," the reporter said, voice measured, respectful in the way that always feels rehearsed, "authorities have not yet confirmed the identity of the deceased. However, sources close to the investigation suggest...."
The camera cut.
And there he was.
My fiancé's photograph appeared beside the ambulance footage, framed neatly in white, his name printed below it in clean, unforgiving text.
I felt something inside me give way, not shatter, not explode. It was quieter than that. Like a support beam snapping somewhere deep in the structure of a building, unseen but catastrophic.
"No," I said aloud.
The word came out small. Embarrassingly fragile.
I leaned forward on my hands, as if closer proximity might allow me to intervene. As if I could reach into the screen and correct them.
They were showing the wrong person.
They had to be.
The body on the stretcher was burned beyond recognition, they said. Unidentifiable. Dental records pending. DNA testing underway.
But the implication was already there, heavy and deliberate. The photograph. The timing. The careful phrasing.
They didn't need confirmation.
They had already decided.
My vision blurred, the edges of the room warping slightly, as if the air itself had thickened. I pressed my palm flat against the floor, grounding myself the way I'd taught patients during panic attacks.
Breathe in.
Count.
Breathe out.
It didn't help.
Because even as my mind resisted, scrambled for logic, for alternatives, my body recognized him, because the ring, our engagement ring.
Not from the footage. Not from the burned outline under the harsh lights.
From absence.
From the way the space he occupied had gone suddenly, violently empty.
The reporter continued, now speaking about motive, about connections, about evidence found near previous crime scenes. A timeline scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Dates. Locations. Red dots marking murders like coordinates on a map.
And then my name appeared.
Not spoken yet.
Just written.
Han Na-gyeong , Neurosurgeon, Fiancée.
The word felt obscene.
As if intimacy itself had become suspicious.
The screen shifted again. This time, still images. Surveillance footage. Blurry frames taken out of context. A woman walking near an alley at night. A figure in a long coat entering a building. A timestamp circled in red.
"That's not....." My voice cracked. I stopped, swallowed, tried again. "That's not what it looks like."
But the room didn't respond.
They zoomed in on one image in particular.
Me.
Leaving the hospital late at night, hair pulled back, coat buttoned up to my throat, face angled slightly downward. A still frame frozen at the exact wrong moment, my expression unreadable, distant.
Cold.
It was easy, I realized, to make anyone look guilty if you chose the right second to stop time.
I had spent years cultivating precision. Control. Emotional restraint. It was necessary in my work. You cannot afford softness when someone's brain is open beneath your hands. You cannot hesitate.
Now those same traits were being repurposed, reshaped into something sinister.
Cold.
Detached.
Capable.
The anchor finally said my name out loud.
I flinched.
It felt like being touched without permission.
______________
Twenty-four hours earlier, my world had been unbearably ordinary.
I stood on a small raised platform in the bridal shop, surrounded by mirrors that reflected me back from every angle. White fabric pooled around my feet, light and unreal, like something borrowed from another life.
"Turn just a little," the attendant said gently, adjusting the fall of the skirt. "Yes, like that."
I turned.
The dress was simpler than I'd imagined choosing. Clean lines. No excessive embellishment. It felt like me. Or at least, the version of myself I was trying to believe in.
I reached for my phone for the third time in as many minutes.
No new messages.
"He's probably stuck at work," the attendant offered, reading my face too easily. "It happens all the time."
I smiled, apologetic. "He said he'd be here."
I didn't mean it as an accusation. Just a statement of fact.
He had insisted on coming. Said he wouldn't miss it. Said he wanted to see my face when I found the one.
I stepped down from the platform, lifting the hem of the dress carefully, and moved closer to the mirror. For a moment, I allowed myself to imagine it fully, him standing behind me, hands resting lightly on my shoulders, that quiet smile he wore when he was trying not to look too happy.
My phone vibrated.
Relief flooded me so suddenly it made me dizzy.
But when I unlocked the screen, it wasn't a call.
It was a message.
I don't think I can make it today. I'm really sorry, love.
My chest tightened.
Something urgently came up. I don't know how to explain right now.
I stared at the words, waiting for more. The typing indicator never appeared.
Please, I'll come back tomorrow morning and explain everything. Please understand.
I read it twice. Three times.
The attendant hovered nearby, pretending not to watch me process disappointment in real time.
I typed back quickly.
Are you okay?
No response.
Is everything alright?
Nothing.
A strange unease settled in my stomach, not panic, not fear. Just a thin, persistent thread of wrongness.
I told myself not to overreact.
He had always been careful with his words. Always measured. This message carried that same tone, even if it was vague.
I told the attendant I needed a moment. Stepped into the fitting room alone. The mirror there was smaller, more honest. I looked at myself, really looked, and tried to reconcile the woman in the dress with the one reading that message.
"I understand," I typed finally. "Just come back safe."
The message delivered.
Read.
No reply.
_________________
Back in my apartment, the television cut to a press conference.
A police spokesperson stood behind a podium, expression grave, uniform immaculate. He spoke of public safety. Of cooperation. Of an ongoing investigation into a serial murder case spanning five years.
Five years.
The number landed heavily.
They believed the killer, or killers, had escalated recently. Grown bolder. Sloppier.
"And we are actively investigating individuals connected to the deceased," the spokesperson continued. "Including his fiancée, Han Na-gyeong."
My breath stuttered.
The camera flashed to me again. Another photograph. This one taken without my knowledge, from some distance. I was laughing, head tilted slightly back, unaware of being observed.
I barely recognized myself.
Cold.
Precise.
Successful.
Words the media loved. Words that now felt like accusations.
They talked about leaked images. About forensic evidence. About proximity and opportunity. They did not talk about grief. Or shock. Or the way your body rebels when the person you love disappears without explanation.
I thought of the burned body again.
Unrecognized.
Unclaimed.
A horrible thought crept in, unwanted but persistent.
What if it really was him?
What if he had died alone, in pain, believing I would never know what happened?
My hands began to shake.
I pressed them together tightly, nails biting into skin, grounding myself in sensation.
I was a doctor.
I dealt in facts.
And the facts were terrifying.
My fiancé was dead.
His body had been burned.
And I was being quietly positioned as someone who helped make it happen.
Outside, sirens wailed somewhere in the distance, the sound rising and falling like a warning meant for someone else.
Inside, my phone buzzed again.
This time, it wasn't the news.
It was a message from an unknown number.
I'm sorry.
No name.
No explanation.
Just two words that sat on the screen like a weight.
I stared at them for a long time.
Then I locked the phone.
Because whatever was happening, whatever story they were writing about me, I knew one thing with absolute clarity.
This wasn't over.
And the version of myself I had been yesterday, the woman in the wedding dress, waiting patiently, was already gone.