The morgue footage looped again, the grainy video flickering on the screen as Detective Simmons leaned forward, his tired eyes fixed on the images. The footage showed Marty, the night-shift technician, moving around the table where Camilla’s body lay—until the moment she started to move.

  Simmons had watched it a dozen times already, but the absurdity of it still rattled him. He clicked the mouse again to rewind, his eyes squinting at the frame where Camilla's body first shifted. She wasn’t just twitching; she was sitting up. Slowly, deliberately. A dead woman rising from the table.

  Harris, standing over his shoulder, exhaled sharply. “What are we looking at, Simmons? She’s—she’s moving. This can’t be right.”

  “Trust me, I’m asking myself the same thing,” Simmons muttered, clicking the footage forward. The camera showed Camilla rising from the slab in a stiff, jerky motion, her body fighting the weight of rigour mortis, as though it were struggling to wake.

  “Jesus, she’s alive,” Harris said, her voice a mix of disbelief and awe. “But that’s impossible. She was dead when we arrived at the scene. I know, I examined her myself.”

  Simmons paused the footage again, his mind racing. “It’s impossible, but there she is. Alive... at least, it looks like it.”

  Harris stood back, arms crossed, as the footage continued. Marty, clearly stunned, backed up in panic, tripping over his own feet. The camera caught him collapsing, his head striking the metal drawers in soundless black and white. Camilla’s body, however, continued its slow, unnatural progress.

  “She’s not just surviving this,” Simmons said, his voice quieter now, his fingers tapping nervously against the desk. “She was exposed for... what, over an hour before we even got there? No medical attention. No refrigeration in that warehouse. The body was just out there. What kind of chance does a person have after that?”

  “None,” Harris replied grimly. “But she’s moving now. She wasn’t just dead. She should’ve been dead, even after the shots, even with the exposure. This... this doesn’t make sense.”

  Simmons exhaled slowly, watching the footage again. “She should have been long gone from blood loss alone. No one survives something like that without intervention.”

  He clicked the mouse again, moving the footage forward. “And yet, here she is. The body’s still there on the table, then—poof!" He shook his head. “She just gets up and walks off.”

  Harris tapped her fingers against her arm, a troubled look crossing her face. “Maybe it’s some kind of miraculous survival. Cold temp preservation? She could’ve survived in an exposed state longer than anyone should. Maybe hypothermic shock slowed her metabolism. Some people... they survive in crazy circumstances.”

  “That’s one possibility,” Simmons replied, his mind turning. “But the temperature wasn't that low.”

  Harris shrugged. “I mean, maybe she’s got some kind of medical condition? A freak case? Maybe it was cold enough to preserve her long enough to kick-start some survival reflexes. But how does she—” She cut herself off, her gaze flicking back to the screen. “And how does she just get up as if nothing happened?”

  “Exactly,” Simmons agreed, his voice hardening. “Either way, she’s alive now, and she’s going to make a run for it. First thing on her list is probably getting the hell out of here.”

  Harris looked at him with a raised brow. “She’s probably disoriented, barely functional. She couldn’t have gone far.”

  Simmons nodded, his eyes scanning the footage one last time. “She could be weak, but she’ll move. She’s not going to stick around. And we need to think like her. If we were her, what would we do? We wouldn’t be heading to a hospital. That’s the first place we’d look for her. She’d stay off the grid, blend in somewhere... avoid drawing attention.”

  Harris frowned. “Right. No hospitals. No police stations. But she’ll need supplies. She might make for a place where she’s been hiding before. A safe house, if you will.”

  Simmons turned back to the footage, thinking aloud. “She’ll be looking for something. Maybe someone to help her, but most likely just a place to stay off the radar. A secure spot where she won’t be found. If she even knows where she is right now...”

  They exchanged a long look, both detectives silently agreeing. They needed to find her before she disappeared for good.

  Riya had just stepped out of the shower when her phone rang, slicing through the quiet morning. She wrapped a towel around herself and grabbed it off the counter.

  “Lennox.” She stated into the phone, as she held it to her ear.

  “Riya, you need to come in,” Greg said. His voice was tight. “Now! You’ll want to see this.”

  She straightened. “What is it?”

  “They’re showing footage. From the morgue.”

  There was a pause — just long enough to land like a blow.

  Greg continued. “The woman you shot… Camilla. She’s not there anymore. She got up. Walked out. And there’s footage to prove it.”

  Riya’s hand tightened on the phone. “She—what? She’s alive?”

  “I don’t know what to call it,” he said. “But the body’s gone, and we’ve got video. You should be here for this.”

  Riya didn’t answer at first. The silence on her end stretched.

  “I’m on my way,” she said and ended the call.

  When Riya arrived at the precinct, she was met with a mix of disbelief and confusion. The detectives were huddled around a screen, and when she entered, they barely looked up.

  “Riya,” Simmons said, motioning for her to sit. “You need to see this.”

  Riya sat down, her mind still reeling from the phone call. She stared at the screen, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the footage of Camilla’s body moving, rising from the slab with jerky, unnatural movements.

  “No way…” Riya whispered, leaning forward.

  Harris looked at her, shaking her head. “We don’t know how this happened, but here we are. She was dead, and now she’s not. We have no idea how, but she’s alive. And she’s not going to wait around for us to figure it out.”

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  Riya’s mind raced, trying to process everything. She had shot Camilla. She had seen her die. And now? Now, she was alive?

  She turned to the detectives. “So what now?”

  Simmons sighed, sitting back in his chair. “Now we figure out where she went. And how she could have survived this long.”

  The precinct’s interview room was quiet. Neutral walls, a simple table, two chairs. Through the observation window, Riya stood with arms folded, a file tucked beneath one elbow. The hum of the air conditioning filled the silence.

  Inside, Marty sat at the table, pale and wringing his hands. A Styrofoam cup of water sat untouched in front of him. Across from him, Detective Alex Harris kept her tone gentle.

  “You doing okay, Marty?” she asked, voice soft but even.

  He nodded, but it was a distracted gesture. “Yeah. Yeah, just... I dunno. Still feels like a bad dream.”

  Riya watched him closely, eyes narrowing. He wasn’t holding back — just dazed. Shock sat heavy across his shoulders.

  “We’re not here to grill you,” Alex continued. “We just need to understand what happened. You were the last person to see the body before it disappeared. That’s all this is. Just walk us through it.”

  “Alright,” Marty said, voice unsteady. He sat forward slightly, fingers curling against the edge of the table. “She came in the same night the report went through. Gunshots to the chest. I was on prep duty, no autopsy yet. Just... basic handling. Cold storage.”

  Alex nodded slowly. “Go on.”

  “I was doing dental impressions.” Marty gestured vaguely in front of him, as if the tools were still there. “Standard procedure for unidentifieds. We didn’t have a match on her ID, so I figured we’d try dental records later. But when I got to the wound site... something was off.”

  Alex gave him space. “Off how?”

  “She was... healing,” he said, almost in a whisper. “I swear to you. The skin was pulling together. The blood wasn’t dry. I’ve seen fresh deaths before, but this was different. Like it was reversing. I called Stevens. The pathologist. Told him I was seeing something weird. He told me to wait for him, and he'd be right over.”

  Alex’s expression didn’t change. “And what happened next?”

  “I turned to check something—just a second. When I looked back... she was sitting up.”

  Riya saw the shift in Marty’s posture — the way he leaned back, like he was remembering it frame by frame.

  “Stiff, like her muscles didn’t know how to move. She didn’t look at me. Didn’t say anything. Just... moved. And I panicked. Backed away, slipped, and hit the back of my head.” He tapped his scalp, wincing slightly. “Next thing I know, I’m out cold. When I woke up... she was gone. I was—uh—partially unclothed.”

  Alex kept a straight face. “We saw the security footage. No one entered or exited.”

  “No one,” Marty muttered. “I checked it too. Nothing. Just me, and her... then not.”

  Riya looked down at the file in her hands. Forensics – Camilla Stern. She flipped through the pages.

  No fingerprints. No matching ID. The name returned no records. The only medical data was from Marty’s dental impression — a partial chart, matched against known systems. No results.

  But another detail caught her attention.

  Noted absence of typical decomposition markers. Despite exposure time and temperature conditions, the forensic team had recorded no signs of bloating, lividity, or tissue breakdown. For a body stored for nearly three days, it was almost clinical in its preservation.

  Back in the room, Marty leaned forward again, rubbing his eyes.

  “I swear I didn’t hallucinate this. She was dead, and then she wasn’t. And now... I don’t even know what the hell I saw.”

  Detective Harris offered a small nod. “We believe you, Marty. No one’s blaming you for what happened. You did the right thing calling it in.”

  There was silence for a beat.

  Then Marty said, more quietly, “Whatever she is... she’s not normal. That body wasn’t natural.”

  Riya closed the file.

  Her gaze drifted back to Marty. Dishevelled, shaken, but earnest. Whatever happened in that morgue hadn’t been a trick of the light or a stress response. He had seen something real. And now he was part of it, whether he wanted to be or not.

  She turned away from the glass, the file clutched under one arm.

  This wasn’t over. And if Camilla had walked out of the morgue — truly walked — then Riya needed to understand how. And why.

  Because nothing about this case was normal anymore. Hah! When was it ever?

  Riya closed the apartment door behind her with a soft click, the familiar sound settling in the stillness of the room.

  The quiet felt strange, almost too quiet. No movement. No sound. Just the space around her, empty.

  Her eyes scanned the room, instinctively searching. The blanket Elias had used lay folded neatly on the couch, its edges crisply aligned. The cushions were undisturbed. No sign of him. Nothing out of place, nothing to suggest he’d even been here at all.

  She didn’t quite feel panic, not yet. But a small flicker of concern tugged at her, just enough to make her mind run through the possibilities.

  He hadn’t left the apartment, she was sure of that. He was tethered. Bound. That wasn’t the issue. But where was he?

  Her fingers brushed over the locket at her neck. Cold. Almost colder than usual.

  She pressed the emblem.

  There was no immediate change, no flicker of light, no obvious sign that anything had happened. And then—

  A gust of air, sharp and sudden, ripped through the space. The room thickened for a brief second, swirling with dust and smoke before it collapsed inward.

  And Elias was there. Exactly where she’d last seen him. Standing in front of the couch, hands relaxed, brow faintly furrowed in thought.

  “—but if that’s the case, then maybe the boundary isn’t physical,” he was saying, continuing a conversation that had long since passed.

  He blinked. Looked at her.

  “Oh—right,” he said, as if she’d just walked in from the bathroom. “Did you grab your—wait, where did you go?”

  Riya didn’t immediately speak. She watched him for a moment. Same reaction. Same confusion. He didn’t seem aware that any time had passed.

  “You didn’t know I was gone?” she asked.

  Elias blinked. “What do you mean? I didn’t feel you leave.”

  “I’ve been gone for hours,” she clarified. “You didn’t feel that?”

  He looked puzzled for a beat. “No. It didn’t feel like anything. You just stepped out the door.”

  She nodded slowly, turning her attention back to the door.

  “I need to test something,” she said, already walking toward it.

  He watched her go, still slightly disoriented, but said nothing.

  Riya stepped out onto the small porch, keeping her movements slow. She stood there for a moment, not sure what she was waiting for, but instinctively knowing she needed to test it.

  Time seemed to stretch.

  She stayed there for a few more seconds, long enough for the air around her to grow cooler.

  She turned back and crossed the threshold again, stepping back inside.

  Elias was still standing in the same spot. No sign he had moved. Looking very curious.

  “You’re still here,” she said quietly, her voice almost as soft as the air that filled the room.

  He blinked at her again, his confusion deepening. “Of course I am,” he said. “I didn’t... feel anything.”

  Riya stepped back, considering. This was strange. Far stranger than she’d expected. Stepping outside didn’t seem to matter — not in the way she’d thought it would.

  She tried again.

  This time, she moved farther. Down the stairs. Across the street.

  The cold air hit her skin, sharp and real, but there was still no sensation of him moving. No twinge, no pull.

  It was only when she reached the five metre mark that she felt it.

  A subtle absence, like the space around her, was slightly... wrong. Almost like something was missing, not quite tangible, but definitely gone.

  She turned quickly, walking back to the apartment.

  The door opened.

  Elias was gone.

  Her pulse quickened, but she didn’t wait. She pressed the emblem again.

  The locket responded immediately. Dust and smoke rushed outward and collapsed inward, pulling Elias back into view.

  He blinked, his eyes flicking around, clearly disoriented.

  “You were outside,” he said, his voice soft but laced with confusion. “Then you were there,” he pointed at where she now stood.

  Riya stepped forward, watching him closely. “I went outside. I crossed the street. You didn’t feel it?”

  Elias rubbed his head, like he was trying to sort through fog. “I didn’t... feel anything. You were outside, and the next, you were back.”

  Her fingers tightened on the locket. She had expected something more. Something immediate, tangible. But he hadn’t felt it. He hadn’t known.

  “I want to know where you go when you disappear,” she said, her voice sharp now, focused.

  Elias’s brow furrowed slightly. “What do you mean? Where I go?”

  Riya’s gaze stayed fixed on the locket. Something was pulling at the back of her mind — something important she wasn’t seeing yet.

  “I want to see where you go. I need to understand.”

  The words hung in the air. A beat passed. She took a breath, steadying herself.

  “I wish to be shown where Elias goes when he disappears.”

  The room shifted, pulling inward, collapsing around her in an instant. The air thickened, swirling with dust and energy, and the weight of everything dropped away.

  And then—

  Silence.