Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The letter came to an abrupt end.

I flipped through it from beginning to end, and only after confirming there was no more did I set the paper down.

I had some memory of the events described in the letter. Back then, I traveled from place to place to experience life and gather material. I did indeed have a romantic encounter in a small town with a high school girl, but many of the details had become a blur.

Thinking back carefully, that was 1998, and that trip was likely my last stint as a traveler. After the millennium, I settled down in this city to focus on my writing.

The people and things I encountered during my travels would eventually be broken down into fragments, leaving shadows within my work. Whenever I arrived in a place, I came and went cleanly; I generally didn’t maintain contact with the locals, so I had no idea what happened to them afterward.

But now, having read this letter, I was desperate to know the rest of the story.

I immediately followed the reader’s request and mailed the letter back to her.

That evening, my wife returned home from an exhibition. I was still dwelling on the matter. The more I thought about it, the more my heart trembled; I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something left unsaid.

“The exhibition today was quite good,” my wife said.

“Oh,” I replied absentmindedly. “Who did you go with?”

“A friend. The one who sent the embroidery.”

“Mhm.”

My wife studied me for a moment. “Why do you seem so restless today? Do you need to talk?”

My wife was always perceptive; she was originally my psychiatrist.

As a dedicated horror writer, I had delved so deep into the exploration of terror that I had been plagued by mental health issues since my debut.

My psychiatrist helped me immensely. After maintaining a doctor-patient relationship for several years, deeper feelings developed, and we eventually married.

It was thanks to my wife’s companionship that I was able to walk the path of a writer steadily until today.

She had sensed my abnormality, but I didn’t want to tell her about the letter just yet. I wanted to wait until the second letter arrived.

Another week passed, leading up to today.

It’s the weekend, and my wife hasn’t gone out; she’s busy in the kitchen. I am in the study reading, as usual.

The mailman finally arrived and delivered the second letter.