Minh was sitting on the edge of the bed, counting the money left in his wallet for the third time. One hundred twenty-seven thousand dong. Enough to buy rice, but not enough to pay the electric bill. On the table, the birthday cake he had bought yesterday had collapsed on one side after getting crushed inside his delivery bag.
Tomorrow was their tenth wedding anniversary.
He had planned to cook a proper meal for Lan. It wasn't because he'd forgotten his promise to take her out to a restaurant with white tablecloths. It was just that the company had cut shifts this month, and part of his wages had been withheld again. Minh had lied to Lan and told her everything was fine, just as he'd been saying for the past ten years.
His phone vibrated.
The incoming number had no name. It was an exact match for his own number.
Minh frowned and opened the message.
“Don’t go home tomorrow.”
He stared at the screen for a few seconds, then let out a quiet laugh. Someone was playing some bizarre prank. But right afterward, a second message appeared.
“Lan will kill you at 9:40 p.m., in the kitchen.”
His smile vanished completely.
Minh called back. The person on the other end started ringing.
Once.
Twice.
By the tenth ring, the call disconnected on its own.
He stared at the number. The last four digits were his birth date. The first three were the old area code, something only Minh and Lan knew because it was the landline number in the house they had rented when they first got married.
The third message arrived.
“You won’t believe it. You’re always like that.”
The back of Minh’s neck turned cold.
“Who are you?” he typed back.
The reply appeared almost immediately.
“It’s you. Ten years from now.”
Outside the window, rain pattered against the corrugated-metal roof. In the bedroom, Lan shifted in her sleep. She was still sleeping with her back to him, her hair spread across the pillow, one hand resting exactly where Minh had grown used to seeing it for an entire decade.
He suddenly realized he was holding his breath.
“Proof.”
This time, the sender remained silent for longer.
Then a photo came through.
Minh opened it.
It was his kitchen. The refrigerator was dented in the upper-left corner. The wall clock was seven minutes slow. On the tile floor, a man lay facedown, blood spreading beneath his chest.
The man’s face was turned toward the camera.
It was Minh.
Not the Minh of the present. The man in the photo was older, with silver threading through his hair and a thin scar beside his left eye. But the wedding ring on his finger was the same one he was wearing now.
Right behind the body, Lan stood motionless, a kitchen knife in her hand.
Minh nearly dropped his phone.
The final message appeared beneath the photo.
“You have sixteen hours and twenty-three minutes to find out why she did this.”
Minh turned to look at his wife.
Lan was still asleep. Her face was so peaceful that no one could have convicted her of anything. On the nightstand sat the slippers she had already set out for him, their toes pointing toward the door as they did every morning.
A thought flashed through his mind, making his heart stab with pain.
If Lan really wanted to kill him, why had the sender told him to find out why?
The phone vibrated again.
“And Minh…”
He opened the message.
“Don’t let her know you’ve remembered that rainy night.”
Minh went rigid.
That rainy night.
The night he first met Lan.
The night someone else disappeared.