KILL THIS LOVE | JENLISA

Chapter 101

Jennie

The floor creaked faintly, the weight of my footsteps, as gentle as they were, failing to prevent the sound from resonating in the perpetually silent night. With only a plastic bottle in my hand, I walked down the soulless hallway, my eyes having barely adjusted to the brilliant ceiling lights illuminating the otherwise dark dormitory. It was merely eleven minutes ago, that I'd jostled awake from yet another nightmare. Only this time, instead of getting stabbed by a hundred needles or having to face my dead family, I found myself back in at Daenam Psychiatric Institution. Back to that night.

I saw her.

"I don't feel guilt, I don't feel remorse,I don't feel pain, no happiness, nothing."

In my memory, Lisa's face was soft and warm. Her cerulean eyes, sparkling with nothing but candour.

This wasn't Lisa Manoban, the Seoul Ripper.

This wasn't Lisa Manoban, a clinically insane killer bound in the psych ward.

"But I'm feeling this"

As her soft lips touched mine, I realized this was the Lisa that had fucked all of my mind up. And what made this particular recollection an unnerving nightmare, was perhaps the fact that I couldn't escape the part where I kissed her back.Ardently. My lips moved in stellar sync with Lisa's, a flare of sublime desire moving down my shoulder. I was giving in to her, my mind free from every reservation I ought to have had.

And then I got stabbed. Naturally I woke up, all out of breath and oddly, hot.

I reached for the bottle of water kept on the nightstand, sighing as I realized I'd downed all of it along with the last bit of pills I had left, before I went to sleep. So there I was, half-asleep, slugging my way to the water faucet at the end of the corridor. The silence in the building was so acute, that even the paltry sound of water trickling down into the bottle seemed to echo throughout the space.

Even three weeks ago this would have been very unusual, the fact that it was only 1am, yet there was not a single young adult out and about in the campus. But then, it's not every day that the truth about an unhinged serial killer escaping comes out in the open. With that English girl's body being found and the psychiatric institution being shut down, it didn't take long for reporters and budding conspiracy theorists to put two and two together. The police and administration had no choice but to divulge the truth to the public.

Between young activists calling out the government for its negligence and budget cuts, and the police department being scrutinized for its incompetence; an entire can of worms had been kicked opened. For me, it felt like someone had struck me with a brick. Especially, considering the rumours that the FBI was now going to get involved in the manhunt for the Seoul Ripper, my lies were going to come out sooner or later, and it was an absolute storm inside my head.

I closed my eyes, weeks of drowsiness taking over my body. A sudden flash of movement made me pop my eyelids open. The ceiling lights were all off, except one in the very middle of the corridor that kept flickering, plunging me into total darkness one second, then pulling me out the next.

The scene chilled my bones entirely. I quickly turned to grab the bottle, only then realizing it wasn't there. The faucet wasn't running either. I furrowed my eyebrows, my lips parting in perplexity as I could've sworn I had the bottle in my hands.

A faint but noticeable sound of the floorboards creaking straight in front of me, right about the other end of the corridor made me whip my head towards the source of the noise. Paranoia clawed its way down my ribs in an instant.

"H... Hello?"

I called out warily, praying to God that it was just another partygoer who was too drunk to watch her step. I took a cautious step ahead, reminding myself that there was a police car right inside the campus, that there was no way Lisa Manoban could break in.

I made my way down the hall against my better judgement, the ceiling light still strobing eerily. My steps were daunted and unsure, my heart expanding and contracting too quick for my liking. Just as I made it to the end, the light flickered off, but much to my relief I found no one. I let out the breath I'd been holding in, shaking my head for acting all crazy.

I had just turned around, the light turning on, when my breath hitched in my throat.

There she was.

Lisa.