Six Degrees Murder
I kicked the bathroom door open.
Steam billowed through the air.
The bathroom window was open. Lauren sat on the windowsill, staring blankly at me.
She said: Tell me the answer, Ian.
It was exactly the same way Serena had asked.
Lauren shifted her weight outward, her body swaying. Only her hands gripped the window frame. It seemed that if she let go, she would fall immediately.
I reached out toward Lauren and spoke with great care: Don't move. Keep your balance.
After what happened to Serena, for a long time, I kept replaying that question she had asked. What if I had said something different, given a different answer—would the outcome have changed?
I moved toward her slowly, saying: One hundred sixty squared is twenty-five thousand six hundred, cubed is...
The showerhead was still spraying. I passed underneath it, the hot water soaking my hair, spreading across my entire body.
I was about a meter away from Lauren. The bathtub was blocking my path. Of all places, this bathtub was right beneath the window, with no angle to get around it.
I lifted my foot to step into the bathtub, but saw her release one hand.
She said: Tell me the answer, Ian.
I quickly raised my hands to signal her, pulled my foot back, and said: Don't move. I'll tell you.
She slowly lowered her hand and gripped the windowsill again.
I suddenly lunged forward, stretching my arm to grab her wrist. She raised her hand to dodge. I felt my fingers brush against her and gripped tightly.
But I only managed to catch her left pinky.
This bathtub was impossibly in the way. I had one foot on the edge of the tub, my waist bent forward. Damn it—my center of gravity was entirely in my midsection, and I couldn't generate any force. Sweat was pooling in my palms, and her pinky was nearly slipping from my grip.
I tried to pull her down, but her strength was staggering. She struggled furiously, nearly shaking me off, and I almost toppled into the bathtub.
Afraid she would lose balance, I quickly released the force, just holding her pinky tight.
She gradually steadied.
After that, I tried several more times, but no matter how small my movements, her reaction was always fierce. When she looked at me, her eyes were already vacant, blankly asking me for the answer.
So I continued calculating out loud: Cubed, to the fourth power...
Once, in front of Serena, I gave a wrong answer. She took a step backward.
But I didn't know this time—if I gave the correct answer, would Lauren come down, or would she become even more agitated.
I was running out of time.
If only I could see Lauren's despair too...
My other hand rummaged through my pocket. I cursed under my breath—I had come out today to confront someone, I hadn't brought the Polaroid. Damn it, even my cigarettes were completely soaked.
My hand paused.
I felt the knife tucked into the back of my waistband.
I remembered that my left eye had become extraordinary because a shard of glass had pierced the eyeball.
Back then, it had only felt strange—hardly what you'd call pain.
Even the doctor told me my left eye was fine.
Yet from a minor injury, I could see things beyond the dimension of reality in Serena's photographs. And by repeatedly exposing it to cigarette smoke, its other side was activated, allowing me to see the past beyond the dimension of time.
What if I inflicted more serious damage?
Could I see Lauren's current despair on her body?
I looked up.
Lauren sat on the windowsill. A breeze came through, gently stirring the tips of her shoulder-length hair.
For a moment, I thought I could hear the wind from the evening before Serena fell.
That evening, I had been crouching on the floor, holding the Polaroid. The wind had drifted in through the gap in the sliding door, swaying the curtains, rustling the cat's wind chimes, a tinkling sound.
Serena had stood on the balcony railing, her back to the blue sky, her long dress swaying.
In the time after Serena left, I had fantasized about so many what-ifs. What if I had given a different answer, what if I had run faster, what if I had reached out sooner...
I knew that between those what-ifs and the outcome, there was only one step of difference.
Just one step.
I said to the girl sitting on the windowsill: Don't be afraid. I'm here.
I had made my decision.
I gripped the knife handle, clenched my jaw, and drew the blade across my left eye.
---
I didn't dare cry out—afraid of startling her on the windowsill. My jaw clamped tight, a faint metallic taste of blood in my mouth. My hand gripped the knife handle so hard it felt like I would embed the silent plastic into my palm. Cold sweat poured down my forehead. The wind blowing in from the window struck my face, and it no longer felt like my own.
My left eye snapped open.
I... could see!
Behind Lauren, shadow figures gradually materialized. As the blood-red haze faded from my vision, those figures became clearer.
Five shadow figures, connected by white lines, forming a five-pointed star that encircled Lauren.
Three men, two women. None of them were people I recognized.
I forced my left eye wider, pushing deeper into the vision. Pain gnawed at my eye socket. I could feel the eye's other side activating, the pupil slowly dilating until it covered the entire left eye.
Time rewound. The shadow figures began to move.
Lauren left an office. She closed the door and walked quietly down a corridor.
A woman dressed like a secretary came hurrying by with coffee and accidentally spilled it on Lauren's blouse. The woman apologized profusely, her lip movements... fortunately, out of stubbornness, I had skimmed through the lip-reading materials Lauren left behind. I could roughly make them out.
The woman said to Lauren: I'm sorry, I've delayed you from seeing your friend.
Lauren looked surprised: How do you know?
The woman pointed at a small white flower on Lauren's chest.
Lauren's expression went distant for a moment.
The woman smiled at her: I'm sure your friend will be very happy to see you.
There was a mirror in the corridor. Lauren walked up to it and studied herself.
She took several deep breaths, turned around, and continued down the corridor. It was a very long corridor—narrow, with a low ceiling that seemed to press down from above. Photographs lined both walls, displayed in expensive-looking glass frames.
An older woman dressed as a cleaner came toward Lauren, carrying a bucket.
Lauren stepped aside. The woman tried to dodge her too, but in that fleeting moment of evasion, the woman knocked into a picture frame on the wall.
The woman fell, and the frame crashed to the floor. She scrambled up and began desperately picking up shards of glass.
Lauren crouched down and asked: Are you okay?
The woman muttered: It won't go back together. I shouldn't have walked so fast. I shouldn't have gone this way. It won't go back together. It's over, it's over...
The bucket had tipped over. Water spread across the floor, soaking into the photo inside the frame.
Lauren had been helping pick up glass. Suddenly her hands stopped. She set down the shard she was holding, rose in silence, and fled.
She left the corridor, and the space opened up. She came face to face with a receptionist area. The wall was covered with clocks, all ticking—second hands, minute hands, hour hands overlapping at that moment, like countless eyes blinking.
Lauren pressed her palms against her eyelids and hurried past the reception.
Two men stood behind the receptionist counter. They called out to her: Ms. Vance.
Lauren turned around.
Man A said: We need your help with something.
They held up two banknotes and asked her to tell which one was counterfeit.
Man B looked upset: I really don't know how the counterfeit got mixed in. This is the only money I have on me...
Lauren hesitated, then pointed to one of the notes. Before she could speak, Man A snatched it and tore it to shreds.
Lauren's face filled with horror.
Man A said: Ms. Vance, we trust your judgment.
He paused, then picked up the remaining banknote and said: Wait—there's no security thread on this one. This is the counterfeit.
The remaining banknote was also torn to shreds.
The shredded pieces drifted down like confetti. Lauren saw Man B glaring at her with resentful eyes.
She stumbled backward, covered her face, and kept saying: I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
She turned and fled toward the elevators, rapidly muttering: One-sixty squared, cubed...
The last figure was an older man—a security guard.
Lauren and the guard stood together in the elevator. The guard kept checking his watch.
He said: You're a police officer?
Lauren gave a somewhat detached nod.
He rubbed his head, embarrassed, and said: I used to be one too. That's how I could tell.
Lauren said: You used to be...
The guard waved his hand. That's all in the past. I was too impulsive. Fired my weapon during an operation, injured a bystander—left him permanently disabled. The force didn't actually want to dismiss me. I resigned myself. Because I knew... he would never forgive me, not for the rest of his life...
The guard turned his head and met Lauren's eyes, saying: To be worthy of the badge, I had to do something to atone.
Lauren stared, unable to speak.
The elevator stopped at the first floor. The doors slid open.
The guard checked his watch and said to Lauren: You're going to see a friend, right? It's time to hit the road.
Lauren lowered her head and murmured in acknowledgment.
She stepped out of the elevator. When she looked up again, I saw that her eyes had lost all focus.
The vision ended.
I stood in the bathroom, cold sweat covering my body—partly from pain, and partly because I couldn't solve it.
Actually, in the vision I had just seen, the first event was the security guard, then the reception, and finally Lauren walking down the corridor. To find the reason for Lauren's despair, I quickly rearranged the events in my mind into chronological order: corridor, reception, elevator guard...
Yet I couldn't see how these people had driven Lauren into despair.
The reason was simple: I knew nothing about Lauren's past.
Even if I wanted to look for clues, there was nothing in the bathroom—let alone old photographs of Lauren.
I recited the answer: One-sixty to the five-point-one power, one-sixty to the five-point-two power...
The calculations were ones I made up. But they were keeping her occupied for now.
I thought about what those people had said and done to Lauren.
The secretary mentioned the white flower and seeing a friend. That kind of white flower—to my knowledge—was used for funerals. And mentioning a friend... so the person Lauren was going to visit was actually someone who had already passed away?
The older woman knocking down the picture frame—that was the turning point where Lauren's behavior became abnormal. Lauren had been about to help, but when she saw the shattered frame with water pooling beneath it, she didn't say a word—she fled.
A shattered frame with a portrait photo and water flowing beneath it, in a dim corridor where the water appeared almost black.
It looked like someone lying on the ground, bleeding. In other words, someone may have died in front of Lauren like this before... Of course—she was in the criminal police unit, encountering such things was routine, part of her work.
And the woman kept muttering: I shouldn't have... her tone full of remorse.
If I replaced the woman with Lauren, then it was Lauren crouching before the dead, telling herself in remorse: I shouldn't have done this.
Could it be that one of Lauren's operations had resulted in the death of someone who shouldn't have died?
After that, Lauren was stopped by the two receptionists, who made her identify counterfeit money. She instinctively chose one, the money was torn up, and then they discovered her identification was wrong—the last bill was torn up too. The resentful look from the money's owner, Lauren covering her face and whispering, I'm sorry.
Lauren's "I'm sorry"—who was it meant for? I had a vague sense that some threads were connecting. The owner of the money—was it hinting at the resentment of the dead person's family toward Lauren? So at that moment, they were amplifying Lauren's guilt to its absolute limit?
Moreover, their entire exercise was about making Lauren choose. In other words, the incident that haunted Lauren with guilt had originated from a choice she had made?
And finally, the security guard. His words contained some strange details: being worthy of the badge, the victim would never forgive him, the paralysis and his resignation...
And—atonement.
I had a rough idea, though I wasn't sure if it was accurate—during one operation, a choice Lauren made had gotten her friend killed. Her despair came from the guilt deep within her heart. And those people used words and scenario recreations to unleash the shadows within her, consuming her.
And in the end, they offered her a path—atonement.
I noticed that the security guard hadn't said, "It's time for you to go." He had said, "It's time to hit the road."
In the bathroom, I was hunched over, one foot on the edge of the tub, arm outstretched, gripping Lauren's pinky.
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