When Kang Ji-yoon woke up from her sleep, it was as if she couldn't remember anything she had done the previous day.
Confused, she stared down at her own hands. The ring that should have been on her finger was gone, replaced by a thin scar… yet the strange thing was, she had no memory of how she got that scar.
Everything that happened yesterday felt hazy and distant—almost dreamlike, as though her experiences weren't real but part of some bizarre illusion that had faded the moment she opened her eyes.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the police officer was looking over the autopsy results with the medical examiner. According to the forensic doctor, the murder weapon carried only the victim's fingerprints and no traces of anyone else. Judging purely from forensics, the evidence supported the theory of suicide. The strange part, however, was this:
The fatal wound was a single deadly slash to the throat. But the wounds on the victim's face were inflicted before death. That alone made the situation completely unreasonable. After all, a person intending to commit suicide would not normally slice up their own face in such a chaotic manner before delivering the final lethal blow to their throat.
Because of this, the police officer firmly believed something was off about the case. While discussing it with his superior, he even joked that if they managed to crack a murder case inspired by a manhwa, both of them might catch the eye of the higher-ups—earning promotions, raises, and perhaps stepping onto the peak of their careers.
Elsewhere, Kang Ji-yoon was at a psychiatrist's clinic. She told the doctor that she had been having strange, vivid dreams recently—dreams filled with surreal and bizarre events. She couldn't distinguish whether these dreams were real or imaginary. Even the scar on her hand—she had no idea how she got it. Everything was jumbled together.
The psychiatrist explained that this was something called "Alice Syndrome," a type of psychological condition common among creative individuals. People with this syndrome tend to lose the ability to separate the real world from the fictional worlds they create. The two blend together, causing the kind of confusion Kang Ji-yoon was currently experiencing.
The psychiatrist also comforted her, telling her that this wasn't anything strange at all—creative writers often experience this. He advised her to rest well.
As she listened to the psychiatrist's explanation, Kang Ji-yoon absentmindedly took out her sketchbook and began drawing the little girl she had seen in her dream.
Back at the police station, the officer sat at his desk, reading through Kang Ji-yoon's manhwa. He felt that the case might have some connection to her as the artist of the manhwa , so he wanted to find clues in her work. The comic he was reading featured a coroner. In the opening panels, the manhwa described a worker electrocuted earlier that morning. The officer flipped to the next page—only to be greeted by a completely charred corpse. He jumped in shock.
Just then, the officer's assistant returned. He reported that he had interviewed the victim's relatives, and all of them insisted she had no reason to commit suicide. As for Kang Ji-yoon, she couldn't be contacted—her phone had been turned off. This made the officer's suspicions deepen.
At that same moment, Kang Ji-yoon was lying half-asleep on the inflatable pool bed in her home's swimming pool. Still groggy, she heard the doorbell ringing. She crawled up and walked to the door, peeking through the window. Standing outside was the team leader—the same woman who had died. But Kang Ji-yoon didn't know that yet; her phone was off, and she hadn't seen the news.
She opened the door, puzzled, asking why the team leader came to see her, saying that the newest manhwa chapter had already been sent via email. The team leader, however, said nothing. As Kang Ji-yoon turned around to invite her inside, she suddenly felt a strange chill. She turned back—and nearly screamed. The team leader's face had transformed into her death-ravaged appearance, grotesque and terrifying. Shocked, Kang Ji-yoon jolted awake from the water bed. It had all been a dream.
But something still felt off. Turning her head, she saw the disfigured team leader standing right beside the pool. The horrifying figure walked toward her, raising a sharp knife, about to stab it directly into her eye. Terrified, Kang Ji-yoon screamed—
—and woke up again. A dream within a dream. This time, she was sitting on the sofa.
Soon after, she heard knocking again. Startled, she looked over—only to find that it was merely the police officer and his assistant. She let them in and agreed to cooperate with the investigation.
The officer asked whether anyone besides her and the team leader had seen the manhwa. Kang Ji-yoon said no—only the two of them ever read it before publication. The officer then informed her about what happened the night before and asked for more details. Kang Ji-yoon replied that she didn't know anything; she had finished the manhwa and gone to bed.
The officer then pulled out a photo from the team leader's autopsy report and showed it to her, hoping to provoke a reaction. He asked where she was last night and whether she had any witnesses to verify her whereabouts. Kang Ji-yoon said she had been working at home all night—but of course, there were no witnesses. The officer noted that the team leader's final contact was her, yet Kang Ji-yoon claimed ignorance. For the moment, everything was at a stalemate. The officer left to continue his investigation.
Afterward, Kang Ji-yoon turned on her phone and listened to the team leader's voice message. The police officer had also retrieved the same message. Hearing the team leader's voice strengthened his belief that Kang Ji-yoon was the killer.
As Kang Ji-yoon listened, she suddenly remembered: if this murder case unfolded exactly like her manhwa, then the next…
She immediately rushed to her computer to check what she had drawn next. The story turned to the coroner, old Lee.
At the police station, the officer sat beside his assistant, who was looking at a photo of his unborn daughter. The assistant then took out the victim's diary. Inside, they found the same line depicted in the manhwa—the curse she wrote wishing her mother dead.
Meanwhile, as the manhwa progressed, old Lee appeared. He was a funeral home worker driving back with a colleague. They received a call saying a worker had been electrocuted, and if Lee collected the body now, he would earn double pay. Lee's colleague had other matters to attend to, so Lee went alone.
After bringing the body back, Lee struggled to straighten it. People electrocuted to death often die with their bodies tightly contracted, and rigor mortis only made it harder.
Unable to straighten the corpse, Lee rummaged through his bag for tools. His back was facing the corpse, which lay behind him, its feet sticking out.
He tipped over his bag, took a swig of alcohol, and noticed his colleague had left a tablet with him. Lee didn't think much of it and turned to continue working.
Then the overhead lights flickered. When Lee turned back, the corpse had rotated to face him—and its head now lay where its feet had been.
Startled, Lee stared at his bottle, wondering if he had drunk too much.
But when he looked again, the corpse's eyes had opened. It was staring straight at him. Horrified, Lee nearly collapsed.
He convinced himself he was just drunk. He draped a white towel over the corpse's face, but just as he went back to work, the tablet suddenly unlocked by itself.
Edward couldn't help but twitch his lips as he wrote this part. If it were him, he would've run away immediately. No—he would've fled the moment the corpse moved. But then again, movies always do this sort of thing…
Lee picked up the tablet and discovered a manhwa panel—depicting him. At that moment, Kang Ji-yoon was also watching the same page.
Puzzled, Lee kept reading and discovered it described the day of his wife's funeral. The film transitioned to that day as well.
At the funeral, Lee's colleague told him that he had done something remarkable—caring for a bedridden spouse for five years. Compared to hell itself, taking care of a terminally ill loved one was even more unbearable.
Lee sighed. What he wanted most now was simply a good night's sleep.
When preparing his wife's body for cremation, Lee suddenly noticed her eyelid twitch. She wasn't dead.
Instantly, memories resurfaced.
Late at night, he slept on the floor, only to be woken by the crash of spilled medicine and food. His wife had knocked them over and lay helplessly on the ground, calling for him to help her. The scene of chaos, of spilled fluids, of tangled tubes—reflected a life of endless fatigue. Lee had done this countless times.
He was exhausted. His wife showed no signs of recovery. Their finances were draining. His spirit was empty.
Now, if she lived, he would have to continue this nightmare indefinitely.
Driven to madness, Lee drove his apprentice away. As a coroner, he had the tools. He tightly bound his wife's joints, preventing her from moving. The bindings were so forceful that blood seeped out.
His wife weakly begged for help, but terrified someone might hear, Lee shoved rice and water into her mouth, reciting funeral rites loudly as she suffocated alive. Before dying, her eyes turned blood-red, and tears of blood slid down her cheeks.
The manhwa depicted everything. Lee panicked—nobody else knew this. How did the manhwa?
"This storyline is hard to judge," Edward wrote with a sigh. Caring for a terminally ill family member is unimaginable for someone who has never done it. Five years of constant care—especially for someone paralyzed and incontinent—was beyond what most people could endure.
At this point, both the police officer and Kang Ji-yoon realized that the manhwa's timeline matched today's date. Meaning everything was happening right now. They rushed to find Lee and prevent the next murder.
Using maps, Kang Ji-yoon quickly located the morgue. The police officer made calls, but he was slower.
By then, Lee had completely broken down. He tried to flee the morgue, but before he could leave, he felt someone grab his clothes—the corpse. The white towel fell off. The corpse stared directly at him. Terrified, Lee grabbed something like an ice axe and tried to get away.
Then he heard pounding from inside the body storage cabinets. Panicking, he struck them wildly to scare off whatever was inside. But as he turned back, he saw the door closing by itself. He rushed toward it but was too late—the door slammed shut and locked. He screamed in terror.
Blood began seeping through the morgue drawers, dripping to the floor. One cabinet suddenly shot open, its metal tray sliding out as if something were climbing out.
Then everything fell silent.
For some unfathomable reason, Lee, trembling, still approached the open drawer to see what was inside. It was pitch-black. Lee tried using his lighter to see—
—but a scraping, crawling sound came from within. Lee screamed.
At that moment, Kang Ji-yoon arrived at the hospital. She looked around and headed for the morgue. Lee had already been shoved into a morgue drawer.
Inside the pitch-black space, Lee's phone gave off faint light. He saw a white-shrouded creature crawling upward toward him. The burial cloth wrapped around him, tightening violently. His joints were pulled so hard that blood seeped out.
Lee choked out, "Honey… I'm sorry…" The corpse paused. Blood dripped onto Lee's face. His eyes began to fill with blood.
Suddenly, the corpse convulsed wildly, twisting and contorting. Moments later, the shroud loosened, revealing the horrible face of Lee's wife. Lee nearly fainted.
Just then, Kang Ji-yoon burst through the morgue doors. She found the cabinet and opened it, pulling Lee out. He snapped out of his hallucination—only to look at her and see the terrifying face of his wife.
Panicked, he tried to run and even tried to attack her. But it was all illusion. In his delusion, it felt like his wife's hands were grabbing his head from behind.
Kang Ji-yoon froze in fear, still shaken from nearly being struck earlier.
Lee, thinking his wife was crushing his skull, grabbed his own head and—
—twisted violently, snapping his own neck.
(End of Chapter)