Morgue

It’s dark. I can’t see anything. Are my eyes even open? “Where am I?

It’s cold. So cold I should be shivering, but I’m not. I put my hands across my chest for warmth. My bare skin is like ice to the touch. I must be naked but that’s not the weird part. I run my hands along with thick stitches in a long Y shape. I’ve been opened up. Am I dead? I must be dead.

The lights come on. They are so bright everything goes white. I sit up and finally my eyes focus on a figure. A man. He is dressed nicely with an apron over top.

“I hate how dark it gets,” he announces. He looks at me and smiles. “Let’s get you a sheet.” He walks over to a cabinet and opens it.

“Where am I? Who are you?” I ask abruptly.

“Right to it then!” He laughs pulling out a sheet. “Why you’re at Langton county morgue and I am the mortician.” He walks over to me. “Here. Cover up,” he says, handing it to me. “I would have already covered you but I wasn’t done with your examination.”

“I’m dead,” I whisper to myself. “I’m really dead!”

I take the sheet. Now that the lights are on I take a look at my body. The stitches in my chest go so deep. Tears stream down my cheeks. My legs are bruised and broken somehow. I can see bone poking out the side of my thigh. I tense, waiting for pain but it doesn’t come. I wrap the sheet around me so I don’t have to see it anymore. At least it’s warm. I begin to cry intensely, wailing out as loud as I can.
“How did I get here? Why am I here? Why am I talking if I’m dead?” I scream out these multiple questions in hopes of answers.
He looks at me with a sad face and says, “I know it’s hard. No one wants to die, but we all do. This place has a way of helping those who have died. Bringing them back for some time to help distinguish how they died and help them rest.” He sits in a chair and sighs. “You were found at the bottom of a cliff with nothing that could identify you,” He stops and rubs his face. “They think you were pushed because your hands were tied behind your back and there were signs of a struggle.”

“I was murdered?” I cry.

“I was hoping you could tell me, but if you don’t remember it’s ok. Sometimes it takes a bit. Can you tell me your name? It would get us one step closer to identifying you and maybe catching your murderer. ”

“My name?” I think really hard. My brain is like a fog. Do I not remember my name? Finally, it comes to me. “Evanth White.”

“Well Evanth White, whenever the rest of the story comes to you let me know. You should remember before the end of the night.” He says getting up and walking to the door.

“Wait!” I shout. “Where are you going?”

“To nap. Just in the next room over. I’m not going to sleep on one of these steel tables,” he chuckles and leaves.

I sit alone for what seems like an eternity. I start to cry thinking it will never come to me. What was the last thing I was doing? Where was I? Who was I with? All these questions fill my head. So many I think it will explode. Then suddenly I remember. I began shouting for the mortician, I wish he had said his name. “What? Did you remember?” he asks, running into the room.
“Yes! I Remember!” I yell excitedly. My excitement quickly turns sour and I mumble, “It was horrible.” My stomach turns at the events that took place and I start crying again. “I was murdered. By a man, I do not know. He was tall and stout with a shaggy beard.”

“Do you remember anything else about him? Any tattoos or piercings?” The mortician asks grabbing a notebook.

“No.” I shake my head. “He kidnapped me from my home. He came through the window. It was a hot summer’s night and I had it open. I live out in the middle of nowhere so this was common for me.” I watch him take notes. “He kept me in a shack, chained to the floor.”

I don’t want to think about this. It’s too painful.

“Keep going, you can do it,” he reassures me.

“I don’t know how long I was there, but it was a long time. Sometimes he would take me to the main house and make me sit with him. He would try to get me to make conversation. One today while he was walking me from his main house back to the shack, I made a break for it. I ran as fast as I could, I knew that if I didn’t get away now I would never leave. He was on my tail the entire time. Eventually, after running for ages, we got to a cliff. I stopped and he tried to grab me. I couldn’t go back, I would rather die. We wrestled for a while and when I slipped free, I jumped.” I put my face in my hands and wept.

“It’s alright now,” he says. “You can rest.”