Bodies That Shouldn’t Exist .
Chapter 19: Bodies That Shouldn't Exist .
Suzuki tapped her fingers against the desk, her office dimly lit except for the pale glow of the monitor. The reports stacked before her were ordinary at first glance-autopsies, missing persons, coroners' notes. Routine.
But patterns were beginning to surface.
And Suzuki wasn't the kind of woman to believe in coincidences.
She opened another file. The cause of death? Undetermined. Another. Same ruling. Another. Another. The pattern solidified.
Medical anomalies-victims without a single physical wound, no toxins in their system, no hemorrhaging, no signs of struggle. It was as if their bodies had simply... stopped.
Life erased.
She exhaled, rubbing her temple. Aqua. His name loomed over every unexplained tragedy like a shadow. No proof. No physical evidence. But she knew.
Science demanded logic. This was something else.
She leaned back, staring at the fluorescent ceiling lights. If it were a poison, she would have found residue. If it were suffocation, the lungs would have shown signs. If it were an attack, there'd be bruising, internal bleeding, fractures-something.
But there was nothing.
Even the bodies didn't behave as they should.
Suzuki turned to the latest report. Jane Doe, found nearly six months ago, preserved in cold storage. The cause of death? Still unknown. Her body had been examined, prodded, tested.
Suzuki's breath slowed.
The corpse had not decayed.
Not in the way it should have. Not at all. The cells, while technically dead, had resisted decomposition. Even under controlled conditions, something was stopping the natural breakdown of organic tissue.
She pulled on her gloves and stood. She needed to see it for herself.
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The morgue was silent, save for the hum of refrigeration units. Suzuki moved with clinical precision, her fingers trailing over the steel drawers before stopping at the right one.
With a single breath, she pulled it open.
The woman lay as if she had just fallen asleep. Her skin retained a pallor that should have darkened. Her limbs had not stiffened the way a corpse's should have after this long. The autopsy scars were precise, but no longer fresh yet somehow, they hadn't faded either.
As if her body refused to acknowledge time.
Suzuki swallowed. She reached for her instruments, her mind racing.
This wasn't science.
This was something that shouldn't exist.
And it was just the beginning.
Suzuki gripped the scalpel, her breath steady but her heartbeat betraying her. The cold air of the morgue pressed against her skin, but the unease running down her spine had nothing to do with the temperature.
She adjusted the overhead light, casting stark illumination over the woman's face. The body remained eerily pristine-no discoloration, no stiffness. A frozen moment in time.
She pressed her fingers to the woman's wrist. No pulse, of course. No warmth. But something about the skin-it didn't feel like a corpse.
Her fingers tensed.
Dead bodies felt hollow, lacking the tension of life. Yet this one...
It was resisting.
She reached for the forceps, leaning closer. If she could extract a sample, run tests-
Click.
The lights overhead flickered.
Suzuki froze.
The morgue was underground, completely isolated. No windows. No external interference. The power grid was stable.
And yet, the fluorescent lights above her guttered like a candle in the wind.
The steel table beneath her fingers vibrated. Barely perceptible, but enough.
Suzuki's grip on the forceps tightened. Her rational mind fought against the rising dread. Science dictated reality, not fear. Not paranoia.
She forced herself to move, carefully reaching toward the woman's face. If she could check the eyes, examine the pupils-
The cold air thickened.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Her breath curled in front of her. The temperature dropped, sharp enough to sting her fingers through the gloves.
The lights flickered again. This time, they didn't return immediately.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Suzuki didn't move. She barely breathed.
The silence stretched. A void. A waiting thing.
Then-
A whisper of movement.
Not her.
Not the hum of machinery.
From the table.
A slow shift.
A disturbance in the fabric of reality itself.
The lights flared back on.
And the woman's eyes snapped open.
A sharp intake of breath-but not her own.
Suzuki staggered back, the forceps clattering to the floor.
The sound barely registered over the pounding in her ears.
The body on the table-no, the thing-remained motionless, save for its eyes. They were wide, unblinking, pupils dilated far beyond normal human limits.
No confusion. No recognition.
Just staring.
A presence that should not exist.
Suzuki's mind scrambled for an explanation. Could it be a postmortem spasm? Neural misfiring? Some extreme case of catalepsy?
But none of that accounted for the cold.
None of that accounted for the way the woman's lips parted ever so slightly, as if about to speak-
A whisper, dry as paper:
"He sees you."
Suzuki's throat clenched. "Who?"
The body didn't move. Didn't breathe. Only the eyes, still locked onto hers, still full of something aware.
Then-
A blink.
And the cold vanished.
The lights steadied. The hum of the morgue's ventilation returned to normal. The air lost its weight.
Suzuki didn't dare step forward. Not yet.
She swallowed and forced herself to examine the monitor. The body's vitals-still flatlined. Still dead.
She reached for the scalpel again, this time with shaking hands.
And then-
A beep.
A heartbeat monitor beeped.
She wasn't even using one.
It came from somewhere deeper in the morgue.
A storage unit? Another body?
No.
A second beep. Then another.
Steady. Rhythmic.
She turned, pulse hammering, as the noise led her toward a specific refrigerated compartment. One that hadn't been opened in months.
Her fingers hesitated on the handle.
She pulled.
The metal drawer slid out smoothly.
Inside-another corpse. A man this time.
Same signs. Same untouched, preserved state.
And then-
His eyes snapped open, too.
His lips didn't move, but Suzuki heard the words.
"He's already here."
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Aqua stood at the top of a building, staring down at the city below.
He had felt it.
The ripple. The shift.
Someone was getting too close.
The night air was still, but the world around him was not.
He exhaled, his breath curling into the cold.
Somewhere, out there, someone thought they had found something.
Someone thought they were watching him.
But they didn't realize-
He had been watching them first.