The Memory Trial of Sera Valenti

My younger sister Lia is dead. Everyone is convinced that I was an accomplice who helped her murderer take her life. Because I was the only person who knew the killer’s identity. Yet I chose to protect that person, keeping the truth buried and refusing to reveal it. My mother knelt at my feet, crying and begging me to tell her the killer’s name. But I merely turned my face away, expressionless, and refused to say a single word. The members of the family called me a sinner. They smashed down the iron door of my cell and stormed inside, intending to punish me themselves. Later, I was locked in the underground prison. Day after day of interrogation, torture, and confinement slowly consumed my body. One organ after another was damaged and began to fail. Only intravenous nutrition barely kept me conscious. Just as I was close to death, my brother, Matteo Valenti, the Don of the Valenti Family, returned. His first order was to drag me out of the dungeon and strap me onto the Memory Trial platform, a device originally built for death-row prisoners. “Sera Valenti, you are a sinner. Even now, you continue to protect the person who murdered Lia. We were truly blind to have ever called you family.” “Today, I will activate the family’s memory extraction device and see exactly who you have been so desperate to protect.” But when the truth I had buried deep within me was finally projected before everyone’s eyes, my mother and Matteo, who stood in front of the trial platform, both collapsed to their knees. Chapter 1 On the night Matteo Valenti subjected me to a Memory Trial, almost every member of the Valenti Family’s inner circle gathered at the estate. Black-clad bodyguards formed a security perimeter, while cameramen recorded the entire process. I was barely alive. The torture in the underground prison had already destroyed my organs, and only IV fluids and pain medication kept me conscious. Even so, I was still treated like a condemned traitor awaiting execution. I was dragged out roughly and thrown onto the cold metal trial platform. At that moment, a man broke through the security line and rushed toward me, clamping one hand around my throat. It was my cousin Vincent. “Sera! Why are you helping that murderer?” “You traitor! You destroyed the Valenti Family! How dare you still cling to life?” Suffocation closed in, and patches of darkness slowly spread across my vision. The courtyard was filled with furious voices, and the overwhelming hatred surged toward me like a wave, completely drowning me. “It’s her! This despicable sinner! Lia was murdered, and she clearly knew the truth, yet she still protected the killer!” “On the day Lia was buried, their own mother knelt outside Sera’s cell and begged her to tell the truth, but she refused to say even a single word!” Curses struck me from every direction without mercy. A few steps away, Flora Valenti stood with her brows tightly furrowed. Within the entire Valenti Family, aside from our parents, there was probably no one who hated me more than Flora. Before everything happened, our brother Matteo had been expanding the family’s influence overseas. At the estate, the three of us girls—Lia, Flora, and I—had always been inseparable. We grew up together and shared every secret. Then, on a rainy night, Lia’s body was discovered at the estate, and I was found sitting beside her corpse, completely unharmed. Everyone demanded to know who the murderer was, and some even suspected that I was the killer myself. The investigation confirmed that I was not the murderer. But I was the only person who knew the truth and chose to protect the killer. Matteo slowly walked toward me. Wearing a tailored black suit, he carried the authority of a Don, silencing the entire courtyard. He looked down at me as I was held in place, his voice as cold as ice. “Sera, I’m giving you one last chance.” “Tell me the killer’s name. Admit your part in this now, and the family can still give you a dignified end.” “Once the memory extraction begins, the high-frequency neural pulses will destroy every nerve in your body. By then, you won’t even have the chance to repent.” My face turned deathly pale, and I struggled with all my strength, trying to break free from the bodyguards holding me down. “Matteo, don’t.” “You absolutely cannot extract my memories.” Matteo grabbed my wrist, his knuckles turning white from the force. “You’re afraid now?” “It’s too late.” “I came back to avenge Lia.” Tears blurred my vision. “Matteo, please. Those memories cannot be made public. You will regret this.” Beside me, Flora let out a bitter laugh. “Regret?” “The thing we regret most is that we once considered you our sister.” Two Valenti bodyguards forced me into the specially designed iron restraint chair. The cold metal cuffs locked tightly around my wrists and ankles. No matter how hard I struggled, I could not move. The heavy helmet slowly descended and locked over my head. Dozens of sensor probes pierced my scalp and bored into my skull. Violent pain exploded through me. I screamed until my voice broke and I tasted blood. My body convulsed violently, and even the iron chair beneath me trembled, as though my soul were being torn out through my skull. Yet the voices of the family members below only grew louder. Shards of broken bottles and rotten fruit were thrown onto the platform one after another. “Traitor! Sinner! Go to hell!” The enormous projection screen behind me began to flicker. My memories began to rewind across it. The first scene appeared before everyone. It was the third day after Lia’s death. I was dragged to her memorial service, where people surrounded me and demanded that I reveal the identity of the murderer. Someone spat on me and threw stones. Several hands pinned my arms while someone viciously pulled my hair. Fists rained down on me. My face was badly swollen, and my entire body was covered in bruises. I staggered away as the crowd chased after me. Then came the flames. My house burned red against the darkness. I stood beside the fire, watching my home turn to ashes. Chapter 2 The image on the projection screen froze on the flames. Jeering laughter erupted through the courtyard. “See that? That’s what happens to sinners.” “She deserved it. That’s what she gets for protecting a murderer.” Flora lifted her chin and looked at my miserable figure on the screen, a mocking smile curling at the corner of her lips. “Sera, who are you trying to fool with that pitiful act? Everything that happened to you was your own choice. If you had told the truth, none of this would have happened.” The people below the platform immediately echoed her words, and insults continued to rise from the crowd. I closed my eyes, letting the blood run down from my hairline. The machine continued running, and my memories kept pouring out. The image on the screen changed. It no longer showed my desperate escape. Instead, a snow-covered hillside stretched beneath a blanket of white. Heavy snow blanketed the forest. Lia, wearing a red coat, ran down the slope toward me with a bright smile, her cheeks flushed from the cold. “Sera! Catch this!” She laughed as she threw a snowball at me, striking me on the shoulder. A sudden cry of grief rose from below the platform. Father gripped the railing and stared at the image of his daughter, alive and smiling, on the screen. He covered his face and broke down in tears. For all these years, he had pursued countless leads and tracked down countless suspects, yet he had never been able to find the real killer. The truth had always been inside my mind. But I had refused to tell anyone. In the memory, after our snowball fight, I knelt beside a weathered statue of the Virgin Mary by the mountain path, clasping my hands together and whispering a prayer. “God, please protect Matteo, Flora, and Lia. Keep them safe. The four of us will always be a family.” “You think you deserve to talk about family?” Flora finally snapped. She rushed toward me and slapped me hard across the face. “You hypocritical liar! You prayed for our safety while you let Lia die and protected her murderer! How dare you call us a family?” As if responding to her anger, the screen changed again and revealed another memory. Lia happily handed me a box of nuts. I smiled and accepted it. But after she turned around and ran away, I quietly threw it into the bushes. An uproar swept through the entire courtyard. “Look! She acts one way to Lia’s face and another behind her back!” “Lia treated her so well, and she still rejected her kindness like that! She was rotten from the beginning!” Flora stared at the screen, her lips pressed tightly together. She knew perfectly well that I was severely allergic to nuts. But she said nothing. She simply let everyone continue condemning me. “Continue.” She turned to the operator and gave a cold command. “Increase the power. I want to see the night it happened.” Chapter 3 The hum of the machine suddenly grew louder. The probes inside the helmet drove deeper into my skull, and electric currents surged through my brain. The pain forced my back to arch, and a strangled rasp tore from my throat. Blood slowly seeped from my nostrils and the corners of my eyes. The screen flickered violently, skipping through fragments of my memories. The three of us reading together in the library, lying in the garden under the sun, running to the docks to welcome Matteo home when he returned from overseas... They were all moments from before the incident. Except for that rainy night. The people below the platform began to grow restless. “What’s going on? Why are they showing nothing but these old memories?” “What about the night Lia died? She was there, wasn’t she? Why isn’t it showing?” Matteo frowned and looked toward the control panel. “Why is there no memory from the night of the incident?” The operator wiped the sweat from his forehead, his voice trembling. “Don Valenti, her subconscious is resisting. Her mind has completely sealed that memory away. We can’t extract it.” “Resisting?” Matteo repeated the word, his voice as cold as ice. “She thinks she has the right to resist?” He walked toward me and stared down at me. “Sera, you’ve kept that person hidden for this long. Aren’t you tired?” “Do you really think you can protect them?” “Today, even if I have to tear the answer out of your mind myself, I will find out who they are.” I slowly opened my eyes and looked at him through the pain. “Matteo... don’t force me. You won’t want to know the truth.” “I don’t want to hear any more excuses.” He turned to the operator and ordered: “Maximum power. Continue.” “Even if it destroys her brain, drag that memory out.” “But Don Valenti, her body is already at its limit... If we increase the power any further, she may die on the platform.” “Die?” Matteo glanced at me. There was not a trace of emotion in his eyes. “If a traitor dies, so be it.” “If anything goes wrong, I will take responsibility.” The operator no longer dared to argue. He gritted his teeth and pushed the power output to its maximum. Devastating pain erupted through my entire body. I felt as though my skull were being ripped open by force and my soul crushed into fragments. I could not stop myself from screaming, my voice so ragged that it barely sounded human. Blood flowed from my ears, ran along my jaw, and dripped onto the restraint chair, spreading into a small patch of dark red. The screen flickered violently, and the images began flashing faster and faster. Suddenly, a clear image burst onto the screen. It was a cold, rainy night at the edge of the ravine. I was kneeling in the mud, and Lia’s body lay before me. Her body was waterlogged and swollen, her face pale and lifeless. She no longer looked like the bright, smiling girl I remembered. My entire body trembled, and I could no longer tell whether what ran down my face was rain or tears. The courtyard fell silent for a moment. Someone whispered, “She... she looks like she’s grieving too.” “She’s pretending. If she was truly devastated, why wouldn’t she reveal the killer?” My mother stood at the front of the crowd, holding Lia’s childhood stuffed doll. She stared blankly at the screen, repeating the same words over and over. “Lia... my girl...” Flora stared at my devastated figure on the screen, then turned her gaze toward me, barely alive in the restraint chair. Her eyes had turned red. “Stop pretending.” She gritted her teeth. “Lia is dead, and half the blame is yours.” “You could have saved her.” I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Yes. I could have. But I couldn’t say it. The machine continued to roar, digging deeper into the darkest corners of my mind. Chapter 4 “Don Valenti, her mind is instinctively fighting the system.” “Her subconscious has locked that memory away and refuses to let it surface.” “Refuses?” Matteo repeated the word quietly, his expression darkening as he slammed his palm onto the control panel. “Sera Valenti, even now, you are still resisting the family’s judgment?” “Who could possibly be worth risking your life for, knowing you would face punishment under the family code? Who could be worth protecting at such a cost?” “That person murdered Lia!” When the tragedy happened, there had been no one beside Lia’s body but me. The only other trace was a trail of indistinct footprints. I became the target of the entire family’s rage, and everyone demanded that I reveal the killer’s name. That night, members of the family nearly beat me to death. Afterward, Flora took charge of the internal search throughout the estate until Matteo returned from overseas. Blood blurred my vision. Flora rushed toward me, her eyes red with anger, and shouted: “Sera, we grew up together. You were one of us—our sister. What did this family ever mean to you?” “For the person who killed your own family, you are willing to abandon everyone who ever cared for you?” My own brother Matteo stood right in front of me, his eyes cold and completely devoid of warmth. He raised his chin slightly, his voice final. “Expand the scanning range. No matter the cost.” The operator looked terrified and hurriedly tried to stop him. “Don Valenti, her body is already on the verge of death. If we force the system to operate at maximum power while her mind is fighting back this violently...” “She could die on the spot.” Matteo remained expressionless. “Die? Someone who betrays the family and protects a murderer does not deserve to live.” “I spent a fortune building this trial system for one purpose: to uncover the truth. Whether she survives is irrelevant.” The operator trembled but could only grit his teeth and increase every setting on the device. The machine emitted a deafening roar, and the probes inside the helmet drove deeper into my skull. Devastating pain tore through my entire body. Blood continued to seep from my nose, ears, and the corners of my eyes, while my chest felt as though it were on fire. The operator’s voice shook uncontrollably. “Don Valenti... should we continue? Her vital signs are dropping rapidly.” Matteo stared intently at the flickering projection screen. “Continue.” The machine’s shriek grew even more piercing. My screams echoed throughout the entire courtyard of the estate. Flora’s eyes turned red, and she finally lost control of her emotions. She screamed at me as I sat restrained in the chair. “Sera! Who are they? Who could possibly be worth sacrificing everything to protect?” She collapsed against my shoulder, her entire body trembling as she broke down in tears. “We were sisters. We were supposed to be closer than anyone.” Her hot tears fell onto my hand. Without thinking, I tried to raise my hand and wipe them away. In that brief moment, my mental defenses slipped. The memory I had buried and sealed away broke through the walls I had built around it and burst onto the enormous projection screen. A collective gasp tore through the courtyard.