Yohan was admitted to the hospital.
He spent a week there, recovering from PTSD. The forest encounter had left him broken, breathless, and hollow. He felt helpless—like the Angel had already won.
But once he could stand again, the hunt pulled him back.
He dug into the director's files, tracing every breadcrumb. That's when he found it: the orphanage director had taken the so-called Masterpiece to a hospital in another town. Not here. Suspicious. Why would he hide the boy so far away? Something had gone downhill—either inside that hospital, or the boy's life had already been sent straight to hell the moment he was admitted.
Yohan made the trip.
The hospital smelled of disinfectant and old smoke. He searched the archives, pulling at every drawer, every record. But to his horror, all files from that year had been burned. Destroyed. Wiped clean, as if someone had erased a past too dangerous to remember.
Once again, Yohan was lost. Once again, the Angel was ahead of him—maybe not by a step, but by miles.
He dropped onto a wooden bench in the corridor, exhausted, head hanging. That's when he noticed a man sitting beside him. A doctor, not too old, gray streaks in his hair, calmly filling a sudoku puzzle in pen.
The doctor glanced at Yohan, smiled faintly.
"Are you alright, detective?"
Yohan's eyes narrowed. "How do you know I'm a detective?"
The man chuckled softly, not looking up from the puzzle.
"You came here searching for something. You carry authority in your posture, but not the arrogance of a cop. You're desperate, restless—hunting for clues. And when you didn't find them, you sat beside me, hoping I could give you answers." He finally set the pen down and met Yohan's eyes. "So, ask."
Yohan froze. His mind raced at this stranger's precision. Finally, he whispered:
"You know anything about the orphanage fire? About the kid who was admitted here?"
The man's laugh was quiet but sharp, almost surgical.
"Of course I do. He was treated here. By a doctor named Elias."
Yohan's pulse jumped. Hope, sharp and sudden.
"Where can I find this Doctor Elias?"
The man placed the sudoku on the table, leaned back in his chair.
"You can't. Because he's sitting beside you."
Yohan's breath caught. His stomach sank. "You're Elias?"
The doctor inclined his head politely, almost playfully. "Dr. Elias Rook. At your service."
For the first time in days, Yohan felt both closer to the truth and further away than ever.
"Tell me what happened to the boy."
Elias's gaze sharpened, his voice losing its warmth.
"He was admitted here, yes. His face was almost entirely burned. His body shattered by injuries no child should survive. I did what I could. But in the end, there are limits even to medicine. He didn't make it."
Yohan's chest tightened. If the boy had died, then who was Headless? But if he had lived…
"What happened to his body?"
Elias closed the sudoku book and set it aside. His tone grew darker, stripped of his teasing lilt.
"The people who sold him to the orphanage came for him. They took the body and left. Simple as that."
Yohan's voice trembled, but he forced himself steady.
"Any idea where I can find them?"
For the first time, Elias's smile faded. He stood slowly, straightening his coat.
"The cemetery records will have what you're looking for. But tread carefully, detective. Graves are rarely as quiet as they seem."
And without another word, Elias walked away, leaving Yohan with more questions than answers, and the chilling sense that Elias hadn't told him everything—only what he wanted him to know.