His hatred was nothing like the bright, friendly young man who once called me “brother-in-law” when we first met.
Below the platform, my in-laws looked much older, leaning on each other as they stared at me with hatred in their eyes.
“Tasha loved you and gave you everything, yet you watched her suffer and still protected the killer, letting him go free!”
“Erickson, you monster, you deserve to die!”
When we discussed marriage, this well-educated couple never looked down on my poor background. They treated me like their own son and supported me in everything.
After the incident, they didn’t blame me at first. They understood I was scared and only encouraged me to tell the truth.
But even when they knelt and begged, I stayed silent. For five years, I was locked up as a suspect and tortured by Vincent every day.
Because of my terrible reputation, the prison ignored his abuse and even allowed him to use non-lethal methods if it meant getting the truth faster.
No one expected that even when I nearly died many times, I still never gave in. Now, memory extraction was my only hope.
Vincent shaved my head, then, without any anesthesia, forced a five-centimeter metal connector into my skull. I shook in pain and foamed at the mouth, but he ignored it and even refused the doctor’s offer of a sedative.
“This animal won’t die so easily! I want him to watch the killer he’s protecting get exposed in the most painful way!”
At his command, the memory extraction started. The first scene appeared: a university library, coming into focus.
I sat by the window reading. When I looked up, Tasha was tiptoeing to place a copy of The Little Prince beside me.
In my memory, I touched her hair. She leaned on my shoulder and said softly, “After you graduate, let’s rent a small place. I’ll cook, you wash the dishes and on weekends we’ll go to the morning market together, okay?”
The scene then shifted to a small rented room, its narrow kitchen filled with the smell of scallions.
“Wash your hands! I got paid today and bought your favorite braised pork knuckle!” I said as I hugged her from behind.
“Beep! This fragment is marked as top-priority memory,” the cold, mechanical voice said. The courtroom instantly stirred.