Our history. It's quite long before we actually got together and eventually got engaged.
I met her and an orphanage. She was this sweet, shy,
pretty girl, and I was this dorky socially or goward clown who tried to
make everyone laugh for me, who was love at first sight. Making a
laugh made my entire day during those times, and seeing her cry with trigger
emotions I never quite understood. It made me want to hurt whatever or whoever
was upsetting Winter. Yes, her name was Winter. Mine was Kira.
It was strange because I did not look Japanese at all, yet my birth
certificate had Kia written on it. My birth parents abandoned me when I was
two. I don't remember much about them, really. Sometimes I can see
their very blurry faces with no expressions. I don't like thinking about them.
They left me so they don't deserve to live rent free. In my head,
it was similar to Winter. She too was left at the doorstep of
an orphanage, except the difference was there was no record of her birth,
no record of her existence, and she had no name, so the orphanage
gave her one. They called her Winter because she blessed the orphanage with her
presence during the Christmas holidays. Eventually, though, we were separated. I
was adopted into one family while she was into another. I didn't see her
for over five years until one fateful day or walking home from school with some
bodies, I spotted her in the park kneeling over some flowers. I instantly
knew it was her. I excused myself from my friends and built up the
courage to walk up to Winter. I wanted to talk to her. I
missed her Hello, I said. She was startled by my sudden appearance behind
her, so she jumped looking at me with horrified eyes, but she didn't
look scared. I couldn't quite figure it out back then, Hi, she
answered, she couldn't remember me, which was okay. She didn't need to
I could remember her. You remember me, Kira. Her expression softened a
little and her eyes grew wide. Kira, Kira, she said, jumping
up and hugging me. We spent the entire day in the park just talking
and catching up. It was nice. We made plans to meet again the
next day, and we did. Summer was coming up, and we spent
the entirety of it together. That's the summer that I found out that I
really loved her, but fate had to separate us again. Her family moved
away and I didn't see her again for another seven years. But fate and
destiny have a strange way of playing with your feelings. I met her once
more in college. We somehow ended up applying and getting into the same college.
It was awesome seeing her again, but it did hurt so much seeing
her with someone else. She had a boyfriend, Jackson. That where all
my troubles began. I really really wanted to be with her, and her
boyfriend was such a jackass that sometimes I just wanted to kill him. One
night, while drunk at a bar, he provoked me, I know you
have a crush in winter, he said. My heart was pounding, but
I knew it wasn't that feeling of anxiety you get when you're caught in the
act, caught doing or saying something embarrassing. No, this was something else.
It came from the deepest pits of my conscience. It was anger,
It was hate. You can't have her, he slurred at me. In
his drunken state. He was barely standing up on his own two feet.
She's mine, he added, This was my blowing point, I wasn't really
thinking straight anger an alcohol cloud. In my judgment, I do not remember
what happened. I blacked out right after I threw the first swing at him.
That my last memory. I woke up in the hospital the next morning,
a cast on my arm and leg. Winter was by my bedside.
My bedside not that jerks, but mine. Later I learned why we fought.
The security guard threw us out, but we continued fighting. He got
disorientated from taking a punch and walked out into traffic and got hit by a
car. He'd died on impact. All of my injuries were inflicted by him.
Apparently I was quite the punching bag. I was lucky I was in
charge with any prison time or manslaughter. In fact, they wrote the entire
thing off as an accident. I really thought I was screwed this time,
but somehow I came out alive, out of prison, and now I had
my dream girl. She was everything that I could wish for, and we
stayed together for four years. We moved in together during the fourth and I
proposed to her just at the beginning of the last year, twenty twenty two.
It was such a magical moment. It was beautiful. We've been living
together ever since, planning our wedding, and it's supposed to be happening at
the end of March. We're both so excited to tie the knot. To
celebrate our engagement, my so good parents gifted us a German shepherd puppy time
to learn how to take care of someone else in the house. They teased
us they clearly wanted a grandkid, but a kid wasn't something we had discussed
yet. But we did have that discussion eventually about half a year ago.
You know, I always wanted to have a kid, Winter had said.
I popped my head to one side and looked at her, trying to study
her and figure out what she was thinking. She looked back at me.
Her eyes too, were full of wonder, full of endless possibilities. Do
you smell that I tried to change the topic sniffing around. It really did
smell bad, like something was rotting. I wondered where I was coming from.
Smell what? Stop trying to change the subject, She scolded me.
I I never had real parents, and I just told myself that if I
had a kid, I would make sure to be the best parent they could
ever have, she said, after a long moment of silence. I couldn't
say I didn't understand her. I even related to her. At some point,
my deranged and hurt mind thought the exact same thing. But I soon
realized that it was wrong to think that way. I realized that I only
wanted a kid just to win a bet against my kid's self, just to
prove to myself that I can do better. And I realized that wasn't a
good reason to have a kid. I don't want to have a kid just
so we can prove a to ourselves, I responded to her. Winter's eyes
grew a little wide. I could tell she didn't expect that answer. Maybe
she expected that I would agree. Are you saying you don't want to have
a kid with me? Her expression grew grim. It was like I just
told her that someone died. No, I'm saying that I don't have a
kid just to prove a point. And then I added, I do want
to have a kid, just maybe not right now, not so soon.
Her eyes were tearing up. Now she was really taking this seriously. Winter,
Listen, I love you. I love you so so much. You're
my world, and right now, my love doesn't have enough space to fit
in a third soul. I tempted to cheer her up. She loved when
I told her that I loved her, but instead she began crying. So
you're saying that you love the dog more than you love our kid. The
dog, really, she was trying to spit back fire. I just looked
at her wide eyed. You know, just screw you, she screamed at
me. I couldn't really understand why she got so violent. Were kids such
a touchy subject? Maybe I crossed the line. I'm sorry. I began
to apologize, but she interrupted me, screw you and your apologies. She
was really crying. Now. Winter stood up and just left. I didn't
try to follow. I just let her be. We didn't really talk for
a while after that fight, but we made up eventually. We both agreed
to have a child. One night, about a couple of weeks ago,
we got into a discussion about our roots, about our origins. You know,
it's weird how you have a Japanese name but you don't look Asian like
at all. It makes me wonder, you know, she told me,
while sitting cross legged on the couch. The dog was laying at my feet.
I really hated thinking about it because it made me think of my parents
of who they were. It made me think of them like there were people,
and to me they were simply monsters. There's an ancestry test I found
online. We send in our DNA samples and they can tell us what kind
of genes we have where we come from. You know. Her marine blue
eyes were lit up with excitement. She really wanted to do this. I
don't know, Winter, I don't know if I want to know. I
really was conflicted with this. I was afraid that maybe somehow I'd be disappointed.
Come on, Ka, it'll be fun. She had a puppy Isaac's
spression on the same expression she used on me almost every Saturday to go out
for dinner, and it always worked. Wonders. I took a deep breath
and sighed fine. She squealed, you're the best. Winter placed a hand
on my shoulder. It made me smile. I was happy that she was
happy. That's all that mattered. The dog got up and went into another
room. After Winter scooted over to me. This was an unusual For some
reason, that dog just didn't like Winter at all that much, Maybe because
Winter was always the bad cop, and I was the good cop. While
I gave the dog treats, Winter gave him loud lectures. So how do
they work, I asked Winter. We ordered those tests online the very same
night, and thanks to Amazon Prime, they came the following evening. We
read the instructions and did the tests, and I mailed them out first thing
in the morning while going after work. Winter was all giddy and excited all
week. She was like a kid waiting in line for the ice cream truck.
I'll admit her excitement was rubbing off and me too, and I found
myself waiting for the results in anticipation as well. They came in a couple
of days ago. Winter ran into the living room holding two envelopes in her
hand, waving them around like a trophy, with a wide grin on her
beautiful face. We got them, We finally got them, she squealed,
like a little girl at a theme park. She handed me one of the
two envelopes. It had my name and our address on it. Come on,
let's open them. She was all jumpy and giddy. It was really
cute. Oh it's here that I'm seven percent French. Maybe that's where my
flirt comes from. She was reading her results out loud. I'm eighty three
percent American, seven percent Russian, six percent Polish, three percent Korean,
and one percent German. I just read mine out loud, and a sequence
special genes. It says here that I have the monoamine oxidase a gene short
for m aoa. Winter said, thoughtfully, what is that? I asked
her, while looking at my own special gene section. I don't know,
it doesn't say, she replied, thoughtfully. Mine says I don't have any
special genes. I was kind of disappointed. I didn't even know they came
with that. I just thought it told you your ancestry, she said,
her eyes still glued on the piece of paper. I took out my phone.
What was it called? Again? Them something m aoa gene. Winter
read it out for me. I put it into the search bar. It
just says some random gibberish about it putting some sort of chemical or something into
your body or brain or whatever. I was honestly not smart enough to understand
this. I copied the full name of the gene monoamine oxidase a gene and
put it into the search bar. The same thing came up. I tried
searching it up a bunch of other ways to see if anything would show up,
but all it said was that it was some sort of enzyme type of
gene. I sighed in defeat. Can't find anything special about your special gene,
at least not in terms that I can understand, I admitted, feeling
defeated. Winter finally looked up from a piece of paper. She had a
smug expression on her face. I got a special gene and you don't,
she sang in a nursery rhyan type of tone, sticking her tongue out like
a five year old would. I just laughed, he's so childish sometimes.
She gave me the screw you tongue. We talked about our ancestry for a
while. Maybe my parents just like the name Kira, and that's all there
is to it. Thinking of them just put a sour taste into my mouth.
So I wanted to get this topic over with as soon as possible,
but Winter's special gene still held my interest. After she went to bed,
I couldn't really sleep. I continued googling about it, going into different forms
of people talking about it, of people who have it talking about it,
Eventually I discovered two different names for this special gene, the warrior gene,
which sounded kind of cool and mighty. I'd love to think of my fiancee
as a warrior, but it's also known as the serial killer gene, which
may my blood freeze over. What the hell did that mean? That sounded
terrifying as hell, so I stayed up all night reading about it. I
didn't even notice when Winter walked into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing her eyes.
Didn't find your bed today. You got up early, she asked,
in between yawns. For some reason, I felt the urge to lie to
her. I never had that urge before, but just this one time,
I felt like telling the truth was worse. Yeah, I got up a
little early. The dog woke me. I lied. Winter nodded and walked
over to the coffee machine, turning it on. I haven't had your morning
coffee yet. My heart dropped. I realized I got caught. I always
made a coffee. That is literally the first thing I do in the morning.
I was thinking of something to say, anything to get me out of
this situation. She just shrugged, want me to brew you on as well?
Then her back was facing me. Yeah, I muttered out weakly.
What the hell was going on with me? What was I acting so weird?
Was actually scared of her? Scared that she might be a killer?
That's simply not possible. She's the sweetest girl I've ever known in my entire
life. Winter placed the hot coffee bug in front of me, and I
almost jumped startled out of my thoughts. Hey, are you okay? You
look pale. There are bags under your eyes too. She had a concerned
expression. I took a deep breath. This was the Winter that I always
knew, the Winter that worried about me and cared and loved me. Yeah,
I'm fine now. I smiled at her, trying to put on the
most real smile that I could, but it felt fake on my lips.
I've never felt a fake smile before. She smiled back and nodded good.
I got up from the chair, closing the laptop. I'll take the dog
for the morning walk, I announced, and Winter gave me a thumbs up,
sipping on her coffee. I put on a leash on the dog and
we went outside down to the trail leading up to the park, where I
saw Winter for the second time. In my life where we talked for hours
on end. It was a sweet memory. I also remembered her expression when
I said hello. She didn't really look scared. She looked like she had
been caught doing something, something she didn't want others to know. I tried
to explore that memory. I tried to analyze the memory I had of her
expression that day, but it just blinked out whenever I tried harder. We
finally got to the park. Flowers were blooming again. I walked over to
the exact same spot where I saw her, trying to recall that memory,
to replay it in my head. There were daisies all around the park,
but I remembered this spot specifically because while we were talking and Aunt bit me
itched like hell. Looking at it. Now, there's an ant's nest exactly
where she would have stood many years ago, in this exact same park.
I continued thinking about it, about what it could mean. I walked back
home with the dog. Winter was no longer in the kitchen. I let
the dog off the leash and he walked off, probably trying to find a
nice place to sleep in. I sat back down next to the table.
I could see that my laptop was moved. I opened it up. The
screen still looked the same. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I took
a of relief. The silent house noises were making everything else louder, like
my breathing. For example, I could also hear the shower of running upstairs.
I wrote a note that i'd be going out and left the house.
I just needed to get some fresh air, not including the dog. I
got into the car and just drove. I didn't really have any destination in
mind, just wherever the wind would take me, and it took me to
a police station. I don't know why my instincts drove me here, but
I didn't inkling to go inside. I had to make sure of something I
had to confirm. I walked inside the police station and asked to speak about
a case the accident Jackson and I were in where he walked out into open
traffic and died on impact. Yes, I can pull up the case file
since it's a court case, but I'm going to need to my d I
handed the lady my ID card. She looked at it and then at a
screen. You were one of the people on the scene, she said,
thoughtfully, one of two two I asked her, confused it was a bar
fight, or well, I guess just outside of a bar fight. Why
were there two witnesses? You were too far gone to make a witness statement,
and Jackson died during the exchange. So the third present witness made a
statement. She says you fought, and that Jackson, while trying to throw
a punch at you, stumbled over into open traffic while a car was speeding
by and died on impact. It was ruled in accident. While this does
sound familiar to what she told me, what she told me made it sound
like it was my fault, made it sound like I had done it.
I always had to live with that guilt. But to the police, she
said that he did that to himself. This wasn't making any sense. What
does Winter gain by lying to either of us unless she lied to both of
us. My eyes grew wide, Sir, Are you okay? I turned
around and began walking away. Sir, she asked again, in a more
concerned voice. I left the building and got back into my car. My
breaths were heavy and rapid. I needed to get to the bottom of this.
While we lived in a big enough city, there are a couple of
missing people cases in our local area, mainly single men. They were also
reported to be abusive. None of their bodies were ever found. There was
a pattern, but with no evidence of a crime, no proper investigation besides
a missing person's case was launched, and quite frankly, nobody cared about men
that abused other women. I tried to set the timeline for the disappearances.
I had a suspicion, a really bad one. I was praying I was
wrong. I was praying that once I got home and told my fiance about
it, we could both just laugh it off. There were six missing men
over the course of a year. The first case happened about a month after
we moved in together. I continued digging. The next was two months later,
and the next another two months. There was always a delay of a
month or two between each disappearance. Almost every disappearance began with them going out
for drinks in a local bar, but none of the disappearances shared the same
one but I found a single anomaly. The third disappearance happened around the time
when I was out of town visiting my adoptive family for the holidays, which
was around a week long visit. My fiancee stayed behind. It was the
only time when I could remember not being in town. We had our fight
after I got back, our fight about the baby. I remember that strange,
god awful smell in her bedroom. It smelled like rot. She dismissed
it. I remember the next day the smell was gone. My heart was
pounding. If she really My phone rang, which startled me. It was
winter. I had to stay calm. I had to sound normal. I
needed to know the truth. I needed to know, but not over the
phone. Hey, honey, where are you? You left without saying a
word. That's not like you. She sounded worried. Oh ah, my
hands were sweating. I was never a good liar. I just wanted to
get some fresh air. I said. There was silence on the other end.
I'll be back home soon, I said. Good. I could hear
her let out a sigh of relief. I have some good news for you.
Once you do. A voice sounded cryptic and mysterious. I wondered what
it could be. I momentarily forgot everything that I had just discovered. Okay,
I replied, I love you. She said I love you too,
I said back, but I wasn't sure. If I meant it anymore.
I drove home in silence, lost in thought. I had a million different
scenarios running through my head of how this conversation could start, go, and
end. I didn't like a single one of them. I prayed that I
was wrong. I didn't believe in God. Well, for the first time
in my life, I begged God for me to be wrong. I parked
and I drive away and headed inside. It was quiet. I'm in the
living room. I heard my fiancee yere loud. As soon as I entered
the kitchen, there was this god awful smell wafting through the entire house.
It smelled like a dead animal. The smell mami gag. I slowly walked
into the living room, my guard up. My wife was sitting on the
couch, cross legged. She looked at me with a warm smile. You're
back, she whispered. It's sounding bittersweet. I never heard her speak that
way. I hated that bittersweet voice of hers. I am, I replied,
not moving from the doorway. Aren't you going to sit? She asked,
leaving a hint of hurt in a question an expression. I just looked
at her. I did know how to respond. I was frozen in place,
standing in the doorway. This god awful smell still invaded my nostrils.
I was trying my best not to gag, especially in front of her.
Not now, what is that smell? I avoided a question, what smell?
She smiled back at me. I looked at her for a long time.
She looked at me. I couldn't figure out what she was seeing,
but her eyes were sad. I have some good news, she finally said.
Yeah. I wondered what she could say right now. I'm pregnant.
My ears began ringing. I was frozen in place. I'm pregnant. Her
voice tumbled around in my head. Kira, she asked, aren't you happy?
She sounded hurt. I am, I said, under my breath.
Aren't you going to hug me? She stood up. Then. I couldn't
get the smell out of my head. What was this goddamn smell? Okay?
I said? She walked up to me. I was an entire head
taller than she was. She looked up at me, the same bitter sweet
expression on her face as when I walked into the room, and then she
put her arms around me. Her head was on my chest. And suddenly
the world slowed down. I forgot all of my worries. I forgot about
the smell, I forgot about my concerns, I forgot about a bitter sweet
expression. All I could think was that I loved her. I have some
bad news too, she said, and that brought me back to reality.
My heart was pounding. My eyes noticed a blotch of red on the back
of a gray sox. My eyes grew wide. I began trembling. I
felt as if something sharp stabbed me in my back. You won't see your
child grow up, she whispered, right into my ear. She kept hold
of me, her grip grew tighter. I could feel something wet dripping in
my hands. I realized it was her tears. Why did you have to
go and do this? Why couldn't you just ignore it? She was crying,
She was sobbing. Everything sounded muffled, like I was underwater. The
stab didn't really hurt anymore, but it felt itchy at the earth to try
and itch the spot, but my hands were unmoving. They were trembling.
My fiance let go of me, and I collapsed onto my knees. I
could see her pain expression through my teary eyes. I could see her say
something to me, but I didn't hear it. I could no longer hear
anything but the sound of ringing, and all I could smell was that distressing
odor. Then everything went dark. I awoke sometime later. Everything was dark.
My entire body was an intense pain. I couldn't really move. It
took some time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I realized I
was still in the living room. I used my hands to feel around my
body. Everything hurt, but everything was also numb. I couldn't tell what
hurt, just by the pain alone. I found the knife still stuck,
wedged in my back. By some miracle, I had survived. I somehow
managed to pull out my phone from my pocket and twine one. They answered,
but I couldn't speak. I had no more strength to speak. Then
I blacked out again. The next time I woke up, I was in
a hospital. I was alive. Luckily, the knife didn't hit any vitals,
and even luckier, my attacker didn't take out the knife. I survived
because the knife stayed in my body. It slowed down the rate which I
was bleeding out by exponential amounts. I barely lost any blood. I was
lucky, they said, But I know I wasn't. I know. She
chose to let me live. She's experienced. She's not sloppy enough to make
such rocky mistakes, even if it's a fiancee. She has the silence.
I told the police everything and what I discovered during the ancestry test to what
I managed to figure out by connecting the dots. They didn't sound convinced by
all my crazy theories about her being a serial killer killing all those abuse of
men, but they did believe that she was the one who stabbed me,
and she disappeared right after. They also found my dog. That's where the
smile was coming from. I'm still in the hospital trying to recover. They
haven't been able to find any trace of her yet. Jackson's case was reopened
as a murder investigation, and she's the main suspect. All of the missings
men's cases have also been reopened to a dumb ancestry test termed my Life A
four one eighty. I was supposed to be getting married this March. Now
I'll be spending that night in therapy. I really wish I'd been wrong about
this. A part of me wishes that I did ignore it. Then we
both could have lived happy lives and raised the child. If you ever do
an ancestry test, be careful. Won't you find out