The smell of formalin clung to everything. Even silence.
Dr. Max Hamilton moved like a man rehearsing a familiar ritual — latex gloves snapping into place, the cold stainless-steel table gleaming under the harsh white morgue lights, and the sound of his own breathing muffled behind a surgical mask. Outside the morgue, the city was waking up. Inside, time remained still.
Case 067-A: Female. Mid-thirties. Blunt force trauma to the skull. Found near Dockside District, alone, unclaimed. The tag on her toe read "UNKNOWN," but Max knew better. Every body told a story. And he was fluent in the dead.
He lifted the scalpel, letting it hover just above the chest cavity. "Let's begin," he whispered — not to himself, but to her. They all deserved that much.
With clinical precision, he made the Y-incision, slicing through layers of skin and tissue, revealing secrets the living never speak aloud. As he pulled back the flesh, he wasn't just looking for cause of death — he was searching for patterns. Clues. Echoes of the killer's mind.
Most forensic pathologists stopped at biology. Max went further. He saw motives in the angles of broken ribs. He heard whispers in the bruising around the wrists. And tonight, this body was screaming.
"Impact from behind," he murmured to the recorder. "No defensive wounds. Likely knew the attacker."
His eyes narrowed.
There, tucked beneath the clavicle — a crescent-shaped scar.
Not fresh. Old. Almost surgical.
He leaned closer.
Not many would have noticed it. Fewer would've cared. But for Max Hamilton, scars were confessions.
He stood motionless for a moment, scalpel frozen in his hand. The scar — it matched another body. From years ago. From a case that never saw the light of day. A case sealed under court order. A case he had buried with everything else.
He felt it — that low tremor under his ribs. Not fear. Not yet. Just… recognition. Like an old photograph flashing behind his eyes.
He turned off the recorder.
This part wasn't for the file.
He stitched her closed without another word.
The night air outside the morgue was thick with summer humidity. Max pulled the collar of his coat higher, walking past flickering streetlamps that buzzed like dying flies. He passed a police cruiser parked across the lot. A young detective leaned against the hood, lighting a cigarette with shaking fingers.
"Dr. Hamilton," the man nodded. "Working late?"
"Always," Max replied without stopping.
But the detective called after him. "I heard they found another one. Two blocks from the docks. Similar injuries. They're saying it could be connected."
Max paused. His spine straightened.
"Connected to what?" he asked.
The detective shrugged. "Rumor is… a serial."
Max stared at the distant skyline, the harbor lights dancing like eyes in the dark.
The past was never dead. It simply waited — cold, preserved — until someone reopened the case.
Tonight, it had begun again.
And this time, the silence might not hold
🔥 Flashback Teaser – Thirteen Years Ago
Cambridge Medical Institute – Autopsy Room B
The blood on his gloves wasn't supposed to be there.
"Max, step back," a voice barked from the doorway.
But he couldn't move. Couldn't stop staring at the body — her body. Elise Montgomery. Third-year anatomy student. His classmate. His friend. Her chest was open like a textbook, but the pages weren't supposed to look like this. Too deep. Too deliberate. This wasn't a medical exam. It was a performance.
And he had walked in too late.
Or… just in time?
The scalpel lay on the floor. His prints would be on it. His DNA. His lab coat stained.
A hand gripped his shoulder. "Say something, Max. What the hell happened here?"
But Max didn't answer.
Because he wasn't sure if he had come to save her…
Or to finish what someone else started.