The blood was still warm

The blood was still warm. It clung to my trembling fingers, slipping through the lines of my skin as though it belonged there. I couldn't look away. People say that blood washes off. They're wrong. Some stains never leave. I stared at my hands, trying to remember the exact moment everything had gone wrong. The moment our perfect life cracked apart and began its slow descent into darkness. Perhaps it started with a single stab wound. Or perhaps it started much earlier. Before death entered our home. Before grief made a nest inside our hearts. Before my sister became someone I no longer recognized. Years ago, we were happy. Not the kind of happiness people pretend to have on social media, but the real kind—the kind that fills a house with laughter, arguments, slammed doors, and shared dinners. We lived in a large apartment building owned by my father. To everyone else, he was a respected businessman. To us, he was simply Dad: strict when necessary, soft-hearted when it mattered. Our family was large and loud. I had older sisters, younger twin brothers, and enough chaos in our home to keep the walls alive. But at the center of everything stood my eldest sister, Layla. She was the sun around which our family revolved. Beautiful, intelligent, and impossibly kind, she carried everyone's burdens as if they weighed nothing. She remembered birthdays, solved problems, comforted tears, and somehow still found time to chase her dream of becoming an architect. Everyone loved Layla. And Layla loved Adam. The day she got engaged to him was one of the happiest days our family had ever known. None of us realized that happiness had already begun counting down its final moments. Because only a few weeks later, Adam would be dead. And the man who killed him would walk free.