Chapter 3Valentine's Nightmare at the Cinema

Suddenly, the door to the interrogation room opened again.

Two more detectives walked in. The one in the lead was younger, maybe in his thirties, tall and imposing with a sharp, steady gaze that radiated authority. I recognized him from local news reports—Detective Chen, head of the Homicide Division, famous for cracking a string of bizarre, high-profile cases.

He was followed by a junior officer carrying a file.

Chen’s eyes landed on me. Without a word of greeting, he gestured to the officer, who pulled out a tablet and swiped through several photos, pushing it in front of me. They were crime scene photos, enhanced to show details on the floor and chairs.

"Ms. Brooks, we found a significant amount of blood and physical evidence at the scene," Chen began, his voice calm but crushing. "But what’s strange is that nearly all of the directional evidence—the drag marks, the drip patterns, the arterial spray—all of it either originates from, or terminates at, the exact seat where you were found."

The accusation was so monstrous I almost leaped out of my chair. "It wasn't me!" my voice was a shrill shriek. "It really wasn't me!"

"I don't know anything! I woke up and saw… I saw that! They were my colleagues! Why would I kill them?!"

Chen remained unmoved by my outburst. He simply watched me, his expression unreadable, until my energy was spent and I collapsed back into my chair, gasping for breath.

"We've reviewed the security footage from the theater's exterior and lobby," he said, changing tactics. "It shows the twelve of you entering last night. Between that moment and when the staff found you this morning, no one else entered or exited that theater."

A locked-room massacre. The thought sent a fresh wave of terror through me.

"However," Chen continued, "we did lift a single, clear fingerprint from the interior handle of an emergency exit. It doesn't belong to you or any of the victims. And from the outside, there were no signs of forced entry."

My heart hammered against my ribs. "That proves it! Someone else was in there! Right? The man in the mask! He must have been hiding inside, or someone let him in!"

Chen didn't answer directly. He just nodded to the junior officer, who laid out several printed documents.

"Lily Brooks," Chen said, his voice devoid of emotion, "we ran a background check. It seems you have a rather… unusual interest in the 'smiling mask' motif."

A printout was pushed in front of me. It was a piece of artwork I’d re-posted to my Twitter six months ago: a man in a top hat and a smiling mask. My caption read: "Mysterious and so cool. The perfect aesthetic for a crime."

Below it was a thread of replies, discussions with other users about perfect crimes, locked-room mysteries…

The blood rushed to my head. "That—that was just a random post! It doesn't mean anything!"

"Oh?" Chen arched an eyebrow. "And this?"

He pushed another document forward. It was a log from an anonymous psychology forum. The department's tech unit had apparently traced the IP address back to my home network.

The post, dated three months ago, was titled: How to stage the perfect mass disappearance?

I stared at the paper, a paralyzing cold seeping through me. That wasn't me. I never wrote anything like that.

"I… I don't know anything about this… I didn't post that!" My defense sounded pathetic and weak even to my own ears.

"But the account was registered with your personal email, which you still use," Chen stated coolly. "The password, while complex, contains the name of your pet and your birthday. That wouldn't be too hard for you to remember, would it?"

I felt like I’d been struck by lightning, frozen in place. The email was mine. The pet’s name and my birthday were correct. But how was that possible?

"Ms. Brooks," Chen's gaze became intensely focused, a look that seemed to see right through me. "A locked room. Eleven victims, incapacitated by a chemical agent. A crime scene that perfectly matches your 'aesthetic' interests. And a single survivor who conveniently slept through the whole thing after seeing a 'movie' that never existed. And now, all the evidence seems to be pointing in one direction..."

He paused, each word a hammer blow against my sanity.

"So tell me," his voice dropped to a low, menacing growl. "That smiling mask…"

"...was it you who was wearing it?"