The autopsy room was quiet in the way only places meant for the dead ever were.
Not silent—never silent—but hushed, as if every sound understood it did not belong there.
The ventilation system hummed softly above me. The stainless-steel table gleamed under the surgical lights. Beneath them lay the body of Zhao Ming, male, forty-two, officially deceased due to sudden cardiac failure.
Officially.
I stood on the opposite side of the table, hands gloved but unmoving, eyes fixed on the corpse's face. His expression was calm—too calm. The kind of peace that came not from acceptance, but interruption. A life cut off mid-thought.
I had already performed one autopsy. I should have been finished.
Yet my instincts refused to let me leave.
"One question," I murmured.
The words were not ritual. They did not summon anything dramatic. No sigils, no lights, no voices from the void.
And yet the moment I acknowledged the power, the room changed.
It was subtle—like the air thickening by a fraction, like the sensation before a headache settles in. A pressure behind my eyes, slow and deliberate, as if something unseen had turned its attention toward me.
You may ask.
The voice never came from a single direction. It wasn't sound, exactly. More like meaning pressed directly into thought.
I inhaled slowly.
Last time, I had been careless.
What caused your death?
Too broad. Too naïve.
This time, I forced myself to slow down.
The dead did not lie. But they did not explain either.
I examined the body again, letting my professional habits anchor me. Pale conjunctiva. No petechial hemorrhaging obvious at first glance. Faint lividity patterns inconsistent with sudden collapse.
Someone had moved him after death.
Or before.
My fingers traced along the neck muscles with careful pressure. The skin yielded slightly, memory echoing beneath it—resistance, tension, release.
I swallowed.
The question formed slowly, deliberately, shaped like a scalpel rather than a hammer.
"Who was the last person you saw before you died?"
The pressure spiked.
For a heartbeat, I thought I might lose consciousness.
Images flooded in without order.
A ceiling light flickering faintly.
The smell of antiseptic—cheap, industrial.
Footsteps. One set. Then another. Then a third.
Fear—not panic, but awareness. The knowledge of being surrounded.
Then the answer arrived.
Three people.
I stiffened.
"Describe them," I said reflexively, the words escaping before caution could stop them.
The pressure vanished instantly.
Like a switch flipped.
The room returned to normal. The hum of the vents sounded too loud. The lights felt harsh.
The corpse lay still.
I staggered back half a step, catching myself against the counter.
Damn it.
One question.
Always one.
I closed my eyes, jaw tightening as the headache bloomed fully this time, a dull throb behind my temples that pulsed in time with my heartbeat.
Three people.
Not one murderer.
Not an accident.
A coordinated act.
Behind me, the door creaked open.
Ling stood in the doorway, hesitant. She had learned to recognize the signs—the way my posture changed, the way my breathing slowed when I used the ability.
"…Did you get something?" she asked quietly.
I opened my eyes.
"Yes," I said. "And no."
The police did not appreciate ambiguity.
Officer Chen sat across from me in the consultation room, flipping through my amended report with visible irritation. His fingers drummed against the table, each tap sharper than the last.
"You're asking me to reopen a closed case based on what is essentially a hunch," he said.
"Based on forensic inconsistencies," I replied calmly. "And new findings."
"Which conveniently appeared after your first autopsy."
I met his gaze without flinching. "Science doesn't operate on convenience."
He scoffed. "You're saying three people were involved. No names. No descriptions. No motive. Do you realize how that sounds?"
"Yes," I said. "It sounds incomplete."
He leaned back, arms crossed. "Then complete it."
"I will," I said. "If you give me time."
Chen studied me for a long moment. There was skepticism in his eyes—but something else too. Unease.
Cases like this were dangerous not because they were unsolved, but because they were solved too cleanly.
Finally, he sighed. "One more day. That's it."
It was all I needed.
Back in the lab, I worked alone.
No power. No shortcuts.
Just method.
I reopened the body fully this time, documenting every detail with obsessive precision.
The neck muscles showed micro-tearing—subtle, but unmistakable under magnification. Not enough to break the skin. Enough to restrict airflow.
The lungs told a clearer story. Fluid accumulation consistent with hypoxia, but not instantaneous. He had been conscious. Struggling.
Restrained.
I photographed everything, annotated every abnormality.
Then I noticed something new.
A faint indentation on the inside of the left wrist.
Rectangular. Precise.
Not a bruise. An imprint.
I enhanced the image on the screen.
A watch face.
Someone had checked the time while Zhao Ming was dying.
My stomach tightened.
Three people.
One restraining him.
One administering something—pressure, perhaps.
One observing. Timing.
This wasn't a crime of passion.
It was procedure.
The realization lingered with me long after I finished.
That night, sleep refused to come.
I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, the room dark except for the glow of the city bleeding in through the window. Every time I closed my eyes, sensations not my own surfaced.
The weight on the chest.
The awareness of hands.
The sound of breathing that wasn't enough.
I sat up abruptly, gasping.
This was new.
Previously, the effects faded within hours.
Now they lingered.
The dead were leaving traces.
I rubbed my temples, forcing my breathing to slow. If this was the cost of asking questions, then it was only going to get worse.
And yet…
Three people.
That answer echoed endlessly.
Truth, partial and dangerous, was worse than ignorance.
Because now I couldn't stop.
The next morning, my phone buzzed as I unlocked the lab.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
Stop asking questions.
I stared at the screen.
Then another message appeared.
Some answers are not meant to belong to the living.
I looked up slowly.
Across the street, a black sedan idled at the curb. Engine running. Windows tinted.
Watching.
For the first time since I gained the ability, I felt something colder than fear.
I felt noticed.