Endless Puzzles (Nine Lives, One Killer)

The morgue was colder than usual. Dr. Elara Min didn’t flinch as she pulled back the sheet, revealing the lifeless face of a woman in her twenties. Pale. Still. Lips slightly parted like she’d died mid-sentence. The kind of face that lingered in dreams—not out of beauty, but because it had stories no one else heard. "Time of death?" a voice asked from the doorway. Elara didn’t look up. “Between 11:30 p.m. and midnight. Bruising on the wrists. Defensive wounds. But no fingerprints, no signs of forced entry. Clean, controlled. This one knew what he was doing.” Detective Raen Seo stepped into the room, his coat damp from the rain still pounding the streets outside. His eyes locked on the corpse—then drifted to the number engraved faintly on the victim's collarbone. A 9. Not carved. Not tattooed. Branded. "That's the third one this month,” Raen muttered. “Always women. Always alone. Always with that damn number.” Elara sighed, peeling off her gloves. "He’s sending a message. Or… maybe a warning.” As she turned to log her report, her fingers brushed something cold under the body’s shoulder. A small photograph. A Polaroid, yellowed with time. On it: the same victim, still alive—standing beside a man whose face had been carefully scratched out. Raen took it, his jaw tightening. “How did this end up inside the body bag?” Elara’s expression shifted, barely noticeable. “It wasn’t there when I wheeled her in.” They stood in silence. Outside, thunder rumbled. Somewhere in the distance, a train screamed through the dark. And in that sterile room of death and science, something unexplainable had slipped through the cracks of logic. Raen looked at her. “You believe in fate, Doc?” She met his gaze, calm and unreadable. “No,” she said. “But I believe in patterns. And this one’s just beginning.”