THE VANISHING EVIDENCE

Part 1: The Footage That Lied

The morgue was silent, but Orion's mind was screaming.

The body was gone.

The freezer was empty.

And yet, the whisper still lingered in the cold air:

"You shouldn't be here."

His pulse pounded in his ears. This wasn't a mistake. This wasn't some clerical error or a mix-up in documentation. Bodies don't just disappear.

Orion forced himself to move, his legs stiff as he turned toward the security monitors. If someone had taken the body, the cameras would show it. They had to.

He dropped into his chair, his fingers flying over the keyboard, pulling up the footage from the last hour. The grainy black-and-white screen flickered to life, showing the morgue in its usual sterile stillness.

There he was—standing at the autopsy table, leaning over the woman's corpse.

He clicked forward, fast-forwarding through the minutes leading up to her disappearance. The clock in the corner of the screen ticked along, marking time in cold, unfeeling numbers.

Then—a flicker.

The screen glitched. The static buzzed.

Orion narrowed his eyes. He rewound, playing it again.

Frame by frame, the footage played.

There was the body.

There was him.

Then—gone.

No movement. No one entering or leaving. The corpse just vanished.

Orion clenched his jaw, his stomach twisting into knots. That wasn't possible. It didn't make sense.

Then he saw it.

A shadow.

Barely visible in the dim lighting, but there. Standing behind him.

A cold sweat broke out along Orion's spine. His hand hovered over the rewind button, hesitating.

Then—the figure twitched.

A sudden, jerky movement, like something crawling beneath its skin. And then—

It turned its head toward the camera.

Orion's breath hitched.

The screen cut to black.

Part 2: The Call from 3:33 AM

A sharp knock on the morgue door made Orion flinch.

"Blackwood!" A gruff voice called. Detective Halliday.

Orion swallowed the lump in his throat and stood, his legs still unsteady. He reached the door and pulled it open, letting the detective step inside.

Halliday was a broad-shouldered man in his fifties, the kind of cop who had seen too much and cared too little. He took one look at Orion's face and frowned.

"You look like hell."

"Yeah, well," Orion muttered. "It's been that kind of night."

Halliday glanced around. "Where's the body?"

Orion's throat tightened.

He knows about her.

But when he opened his mouth to explain, Halliday's next words made his blood run cold.

"What body?"

Orion blinked. "The woman. The unidentified female. You sent her here a few hours ago—"

Halliday's frown deepened. "Blackwood, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. We never sent a body here tonight."

Orion felt the world tilt beneath him. "No, that's not—" He stopped himself. His hands balled into fists. This is wrong.

He turned back to his desk, scrambling for the intake report. The case number. The record. The proof that she had been here.

But there was nothing.

The file was gone. The records—vanished. As if she had never existed.

A sharp ringing cut through the silence.

Orion flinched. His phone.

The screen glowed with an unknown number.

And the time…

3:33 AM.

His stomach dropped. He shouldn't answer it. Every instinct screamed at him to let it go to voicemail.

But his fingers moved on their own, sliding across the screen.

He pressed the phone to his ear.

For a moment, there was nothing. Just static.

Then—his own voice.

"Don't let him find you."

The line went dead.

Part 3: The Blood That Wasn't There

Halliday was still talking, still questioning him, but Orion couldn't hear him.

His own voice. It had been his own voice.

The exact words the corpse had whispered to him earlier.

He turned, his mind racing. He had to find something—anything—to prove that he wasn't losing his mind.

Then he saw it.

A single streak of blood, smeared across the floor near the autopsy table.

He moved before he could think, dropping to one knee, reaching out—

The second his fingers touched it, the lights flickered.

The air turned cold.

And a voice—low, raspy, inhuman—whispered in his ear.

"You were never here."

Part 4: The Freezer That Opened Itself

Orion snapped his head toward the freezer.

It was closed.

But he had heard it. A creak. A shift.

Slowly, he stood up, his fingers tightening into fists. Halliday was still behind him, flipping through a notepad, oblivious to the thick tension in the air.

Orion took a cautious step forward. The freezer was massive, reinforced steel, designed to keep the dead from rotting too quickly. He had locked it himself.

He reached out—

BANG.

The sound made him jerk back.

Something had slammed against the inside of the freezer door.

Orion froze. His breath came in short, uneven bursts.

Another BANG. This time, louder.

Halliday finally looked up. "What the hell was that?"

Orion didn't answer. His trembling fingers gripped the handle, pulse hammering in his ears. He had to see.

He yanked the door open.

Cold air billowed out, sending a wave of frost curling around his ankles.

Inside—

Empty.

Every single body was gone.

Halliday stepped forward. "Blackwood—"

Then, before their eyes, a single breath of fog escaped from the depths of the freezer.

As if something inside had just exhaled.

Part 5: The Missing Evidence

Orion slammed the freezer shut.

Halliday was staring at him. "What the hell is going on?"

Orion swallowed hard. "I don't know."

He needed to check the files again. The records. The paperwork. If all the bodies were gone, then maybe—

He turned to his desk, flipping open his laptop.

His stomach dropped.

All the case files were missing.

Every single autopsy report, every record from the last 24 hours—gone.

It was as if none of these people had ever existed.

Halliday loomed over his shoulder. "What are you looking for?"

Orion hesitated.

How could he explain this? How could he tell Halliday that the body he had examined just hours ago had vanished? That the police themselves had no record of sending it here? That he had received a call—from himself?

No. He needed time to think.

"Nothing," he muttered. "Just a system glitch."

Halliday didn't look convinced. But before he could press further, something else happened.

The overhead lights dimmed.

The shadows in the corners of the room grew longer.

And from down the hallway—

Footsteps.

Slow. Wet. As if someone barefoot was walking across the cold morgue tiles.

Halliday turned toward the sound. "Is someone else in here?"

Orion's throat went dry.

Because he knew the answer.

There shouldn't be.

Part 6: The Shadow in the Hallway

The footsteps stopped.

A heavy, unnatural silence filled the room.

Halliday stepped toward the hallway. "If someone's screwing around, now's the time to—"

He stopped mid-sentence.

Orion followed his gaze—and felt his body go cold.

At the end of the hall, something stood in the dark.

Not quite a person.

Not quite a shadow.

It was tall, its limbs unnaturally long, its head tilted at an inhuman angle.

It had no face.

Yet Orion felt it watching him.

A deep, suffocating dread settled in his chest.

Then, the thing moved.

Not walked—shifted. Like a glitch in reality, skipping forward without motion.

Halliday grabbed his gun. "Hey! Stop right there!"

But the thing didn't stop.

Instead—it grinned.

A mouth. A mouth that shouldn't be there. Splitting its featureless face open, stretching too wide, revealing teeth that weren't human.

And then—

The lights went out.

Part 7: The Vanishing Time

Orion couldn't see. Couldn't move.

For one long, agonizing moment, there was only the sound of breathing.

Not his. Not Halliday's.

Something else.

Something that was too close.

Then—

Click.

The lights came back.

Orion gasped for air, his heart hammering against his ribs.

Halliday was gone.

The shadow was gone.

The room was normal.

As if none of it had happened.

Orion staggered backward, gripping the edge of the autopsy table. His hands were shaking.

He fumbled for his phone.

The screen showed the time.

3:34 AM.

He stared at it, confusion settling in his gut.

Last time he had checked, it was 1:12 AM.

Somehow, he had lost two hours.

Orion turned toward the small mirror hanging near the sink.

His own reflection stared back at him.

No.

Not quite.

His reflection was a second too slow.

He lifted his hand. His reflection followed—a beat later.

His breath hitched. His pulse thundered in his ears.

Then—his reflection smiled.

Orion didn't.

The reflection lifted a finger.

And slowly, deliberately, traced a word onto the fogged glass.

Four letters.

"RUN."