Lights | A Forever Fanfiction

3. Medical Rapport

Jo looked in my direction.

I felt fear flash through me briefly, and I twisted out of the way, into another hallway, my feet moving of their own accord, into another corridor. There! A closet.

I shoved myself inside, locked the door, breathing heavily. I knew I recognized that man. He was the same one who'd joined the crime scene late the previous night. I closed my eyes. I knew where he was from, before that, and why he was imprinted in my mind. He was the medical examiner who'd been there when my father was identifying my mother's body.

Da...

I pushed back the half-thought, swallowing a small clod of pain in my throat. The darkness of the closet was getting unnerving, and I flicked on the light quickly, turning towards the back of the closet, to see if there was anything I could do until I was sure I was safe.

Lab coats.

A whole row of them. Unprinted, blank, clean, lab coats.

I sighed. Maybe I didn't need to stay here.

I snatched up the smallest size I could find and shrugged it on over my shoulders, ineloquently brushing my hair into my face so I was near-unrecognizable.

I inhaled sharply and stepped outside. The lab coat was too large, but it was comfortable. I was sure nobody would be able to tell, anyways, unless they inspected me closely. But this was a morgue. Surely nobody inspects anyone else closely in a morgue...?

I went back the way I'd come and sashayed into the lab, where a few people were loitering and a man in his mid-twenties was putting away a body. I ducked silently past him, and into the office at the end of the lab.

It was mostly tidy, except for the desk. The walls were lined with bookshelves covered in medical journals and mementos of a time long past. There was a single window, which showered golden-yellow light over the mess of desk.

I sat down at the desk, running my hands over the edge of the varnished wood. It looked... antique.

I started to work my way into the information, flicking through packets of paper and stacks upon stacks of folders. Eventually, my eyes settled on a lone manilla folder, with several papers poking out of it. I pulled it out, and flicked it open. It was the right one.

There was a quiet cough.

I jumped in the seat, my eyes darting upwards, wide with panic.

It was him.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek, glancing back down at the folder quickly, opening it as slowly and inconspicuously as I could.

"I'm sorry, but might I enquire as to what you're doing in my office?" he asked. His voice had a slight English lilt, and carried a spicy hint of annoyance.

"Um," was all I could manage, unable to form sentences as I tried to memorize the whole document, flicking quickly to the following pages - most of which were pictures.

"To phrase it more clearly: why are you going through my paperwork?"

"It's a bit... complicated," I replied carefully. "Why?"

"Because you're intruding in my workspace, and, potentially, the privacy of the deceased held here, and their families."

I glanced back down at the folder, and back up at him. Henry Morgan, Medical Examiner, read the label on his coat. "Not if that deceased person is my father, is it, now?" I returned to reading the file, and raised up a hand. "And before you ask, no, I couldn't just talk to someone about it. You all think us little people are children."

"But, you are a child," he said almost petulantly. He frowned, although he did seem a lot less concerned by the fact that I was in his office.

I sighed in exasperation. "I mean, like a really little child. TV is destroying any grounds kids even held as intelligent beings." My gaze flitted over the file, reviewing the information before it was snatched away from me.

However, instead of grabbing the file, Dr. Morgan sat down on the edge of the desk, and watched me curiously.

"So, what do you think?"

"I'm sorry?"

"About his death."

I raised an eyebrow at him, sure that he didn't mean to be so callous. "Um, yeah, there's not a lot to think about it. Shot in the eye, point blank, judging by the angle. Attempted poisoning, from a toxin 'diverged from a plant', and—"

"Attempted?"

Was he testing me? "Attempted. It just... sat there, in the veins. They injected the poison post-mortem, to finish him off, just in case, but..." I broke off. "Nevermind. It wouldn't have worked. Amateur. It says in this report, that it was a toxin derived from a morning glory. It would've just made him trippy."

His brow creased. "You couldn't possibly know about that."

"Why not?" I laughed bitterly. "I take eleventh grade science and go to a school that is usually off limits to people who can't pay."

He paused. "Well, your assumptions are, uh, correct. I'm not sure, exactly, but are you-"

"Henry, do you have-?" The man in his mid-twenties who I saw before opened the door and stepped into the room as Dr. Morgan started to finish. "Sorry. Um, who... is this...?"

"The deceased's daughter," Dr. Morgan said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, despite the fact that my father looked totally different from me, aside from our eyes. "What is it, Lucas?"

"Well, uh, two things," Lucas stuttered. "One: there's another body that you need to take care of. Two- Well, nevermind, actually."

Dr. Morgan sighed and followed his friend out of the office, pausing in the doorway. "Show yourself out when you're done. The copy machine is down the hall and to the left." The glass door swung shut behind him, hissing softly. "Now, Lucas..."

I hesitated, before pushing myself out of the chair and out of the lab. The copy machine was where he said it was, in a room just off the hall to the left, underneath a set of wooden cubbies. I copied the contents of the folder, and ditched the coat on a chair in the room.

I stood in front of the machine, tapping my foot patiently, waiting for the last papers to slide into the tray, when someone dropped the mail into a cubby, labelled 'Dr. H. Morgan.'

I glanced at the mail, and then at the copier, and then down the hall, and then back at the mail.

Life's too short.

I snatched up the mail, which consisted of a single, slim yellow package that felt unusually heavy, and carefully opened the top, turning it upside-down and shaking it so the contents would fall out onto the table.

I'm not sure what I was expecting there to be. Files, maybe, on my father's death, but...

Out fell a severed, human hand.