The corpse on my table was still warm.
That alone told me the official report was wrong.
"Male, thirty-four. Sudden cardiac arrest," the police officer said, standing stiffly near the door of my private autopsy lab. "No signs of struggle. Family wants a quick confirmation."
I didn't respond immediately. I was too busy looking at the body.
The air smelled faintly of disinfectant, but death clung stubbornly beneath it—slightly metallic, slightly sweet. The fluorescent lights above flickered, casting long shadows across the stainless-steel table.
No lividity pattern consistent with cardiac arrest. Fingertips faintly bruised. Pupils slightly dilated, not enough to be obvious unless you knew what you were looking for.
He hadn't died peacefully.
The officer cleared his throat. "Doctor Shen?"
"I heard you," I said, finally glancing up. "You can wait outside."
He blinked, confused. "Procedure—"
"This is a private autopsy," I interrupted, calm but firm. "You're not required."
After a tense moment, he backed away. The door clicked shut behind him, and the room fell into near-silence. Only the faint hum of the ventilation system and the soft drip of condensation from the ceiling remained.
I rolled up my sleeves and removed my gloves. Bare hands. That part mattered.
Placing my palm gently on the corpse's chest, I felt the residual warmth, the subtle tremor of muscles stiffening into rigor. The skin was soft, slightly cool at the extremities, but still pliable. Death hadn't been long.
A headache pressed behind my eyes—a familiar warning.
"One question," I murmured aloud.
The corpse's lips did not move. No breath stirred the air. Yet I felt it in my mind, direct and cold.
> "Ask."
The voice was emotionless, neither male nor female. Neither living nor echo.
I had learned early not to waste this moment. One question, one chance. Mistakes were permanent.
"What caused your death?" I asked.
A pressure slammed into my skull like a fist. Panic flickered across my vision. A hand clamped over a throat, faint, imagined but terrifyingly real. I clenched my teeth and steadied myself.
> "I was suffocated."
"By what?" I pressed.
The pressure vanished as quickly as it came. Silence returned, final and complete. The corpse was mute once more.
I stepped back, jaw tight. One question. Only one. I had no choice but to rely on what little I'd been given.
I examined the corpse again, this time through the lens of my professional training. The neck bore a faint, almost imperceptible indentation—not rope. Not anything commonly used. A gloved hand. Carefully applied. Surgical, even.
No official report would notice it. The family would never know. The police would never question it. Unless someone like me saw the subtle difference.
I exhaled slowly, feeling the familiar chill that came after every first question. My ability always left a mark, even if invisible to others. A mental bleed, a taste of the dead's fear. Tonight it lingered on the back of my skull, cold and insistent.
The officer outside would assume routine. Routine deaths, routine paperwork. But nothing about this death was routine.
I reached for my scalpel, starting the autopsy proper. My mind traced over the details: lividity inconsistent with heart failure, slight bruising on the fingers, dilation of the pupils, no obvious trauma to the chest.
All clues pointed to one thing: this death was deliberate.
And yet, I couldn't act rashly. My one question had already been spent. Misuse could erase the truth forever. Misinterpretation could cost lives—or mine.
The process was methodical. I made the first incision along the sternum, careful to note the angle and depth. The tissues underneath were normal, no internal bleeding. My gloved fingers traced the ribcage. No broken bones. No weapon. Nothing but the faint impression of a hand at the throat.
Every move I made in the autopsy was a conversation with the dead. Each cut, each probe, each note I made was part of the dialogue, even without another word.
And then it struck me: the indentation wasn't the work of an amateur. The precision, the care, suggested someone who knew their anatomy, someone trained.
The first question had given me the method—suffocation—but not the culprit. Not the motive. Only the bare skeleton of the truth.
I paused, hand hovering over the corpse. Even after twenty autopsies, the power never felt easy. It was a knife edge, the weight of another life pressing against my mind. The slightest hesitation or wrong word could ruin everything.
The city outside continued its indifferent hum. Cars, sirens, neon lights reflecting off wet streets. The living went about their lives, unaware that death had already spoken in my lab tonight.
I recorded my findings meticulously, every scratch, bruise, and unusual mark. I photographed the neck, the fingers, the fingertips. Later, I would compare it to previous cases. Patterns were everything. The dead never lie, but the living often obscure the truth.
The room grew colder. I felt it—another subtle pressure behind my eyes, the residual echo of fear, not from this corpse, but from all the others I had questioned before. I had started to notice a pattern: the more I listened, the more the dead left a mark on me. On my thoughts. On my nights.
I wondered, briefly, how long it would be before I became as distant from the living as I was intimate with the dead.
And then I remembered the subtle warning: not all deaths were meant to be uncovered. Some were protected. Some would never answer—even if I asked the right question.
Tonight had been easy, in comparison. Simple. Straightforward.
But the gloved hand, the methodical suffocation—it was only a taste. I could feel, deep in my chest, that this case would lead somewhere dangerous. Somewhere far beyond a simple autopsy.
I cleaned the tools, wiped down the table, and stepped back. The corpse lay silently, eyes half-closed, lips slightly parted, as if sleeping. But I knew better.
The dead always speak.
If you know how to ask.