Blood flowed from my mouth and nose, but I still shook my head stubbornly. The crowd’s faces softened with faint pity, yet when Owen turned the dial to its highest level, all sympathy disappeared.
The next scene showed the day Zara jumped from the building. She wore a white dress, standing on the rooftop, shouting toward me. “Owen, I truly love you, but I’m no longer pure. I don’t deserve to be with you.”
“After you saw me like that, how can I keep living?”
Zara looked at me as if I were her last hope. “Juliette, if you tell the truth and name the man who hurt me, I won’t jump.”
I smiled coldly and said, “Even if you die right in front of me, I’ll never say it.”
My young mother fell to her knees before Zara, slamming her head to the ground again and again.
“Zara, Mom begs you not to jump! Please, Mom can’t live without you!”
Her cries were full of pain, but Zara didn’t move at all.
Bang. In an instant, that once-living soul disappeared before everyone’s eyes.
My mother spat blood as she let out a broken scream, crawling forward on shaking arms to hold her daughter’s cold body.
“Ah! My Zara!”
Even after thirty years, the memory still felt painfully clear.