There was warmth.


    Soft sun filtered through a canopy of green, gold-touched and fluttering like breath. Clara blinked against the brightness, but it wasn''t harsh. It was soft, dappled, dancing across her skin like the brush of a lover''s fingers. She sat cross-legged in a patch of moss, the earth cool and damp beneath her legs. Her hands were full of petals—velvety, pale lilac and deep marigold. Across from her, crouched low in the garden bed, was her mother.


    She looked like Clara. More than Clara ever remembered.


    Same hazel eyes, framed by dark lashes and arched brows that never quite behaved. The same freckled bridge of the nose, the same wild, sun-dusted hair tied back with a scrap of silk. Her mother''s hands moved gently through the stems, pruning with a touch both practiced and reverent. There was dirt beneath her fingernails. Always had been. Her sleeves rolled to the elbow. The kind of woman who sang to her plants and gave names to her crickets. Clara watched her smile as she scooped a bright green one onto her finger and handed it to her like a secret.


    "You see how he doesn''t run?" her mother murmured, though the sound of her voice seemed to echo as if spoken through a long corridor. "You''ve always been like that. The ones who feel out of place... they see more. They stay still when others run."


    Clara didn''t know what she meant by it. But she liked the way the words settled in her chest, like something she''d been waiting to hear her whole life. The air smelled of rosemary and crushed grass. The garden shimmered in hues that didn''t exist in waking light—blues too deep, greens too luminous, every flower head turned slightly toward her as if she, not the sun, had become the centre of their orbit.


    And her mother''s smile lingered—bright but brittle. There was tiredness behind her eyes. A pallor beneath her skin that hadn''t been there the last time. A trembling in her fingers that she tried to hide as she handed Clara another sprig of lavender. Clara didn''t ask. She didn''t need to.


    She just reached forward and took her hand instead. Held it. Let silence bloom between them. The petals began to fall. One by one. From the sky, from the air, from nowhere. Floating down like snowflakes—soft, slow, silent. And her mother began to wilt.


    At first, it was her skin—translucent, paled like water-washed silk. Then her limbs, hollowing. Her hair unraveled in the breeze. Her smile faltered. And still Clara didn''t speak.


    She just held her mother''s hand until it wasn''t a hand anymore, but vines, threading between her fingers. Wildflowers erupting in her lap. Ivy coiling up her arms like veins made of green. The figure that had been her mother melted into the soil without a sound, until all that remained was a bloom of life. Purple thistles. Pale yellow daisies. Queen Anne''s lace blooming so quickly Clara couldn''t catch her breath.


    She reached out— And fell.


    The world cracked open beneath her like a trapdoor. And the Falling felt like forever.


    Wind screamed in her ears. Her limbs flailed through weightless space, dragged through air that felt thick with breath and memory. Down and down and down— Hands.


    They caught her. Not to save her, but to keep her.


    Dead hands. Cold and wet and desperate. Fingers tangled in her hair, clawing at her arms, pressing into her ribs. Some tried to climb her, others tried to drag her under.


    She couldn''t scream. Not because she was afraid—but because the air had been stolen.


    A thousand hands. A thousand lives. All grasping. She kicked. Twisted. Tried to claw free. But they only held tighter, whispering without mouths. Stay. Stay. STAY.


    Clara closed her eyes, falling and falling.. One hand. A strong one. Not dead. Clara opened her eyes, head spinning.


    It gripped her wrist with force, heat flaring through her bones like lightning.  And just like that—she was yanked upward. Light exploded behind her eyes. The hands let go. A single word thundered through her.


    Mine.


    -----------------------


    Water erupted from her lungs in a violent cough. Jack''s voice was the first thing she heard.


    "Clara—Clara, come on. Wake up—come on, don''t do this—"


    Hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her hard enough to jolt her spine. Then a single, sharp compression to her chest. She gasped.


    Water surged from her mouth like a tide breaking loose—choking, retching, her whole body convulsing. Her vision blurred, her lungs screaming as air finally clawed its way back in. She coughed, shuddered, felt the bathwater cling to her skin in clammy sheets. Jack crouched beside her, soaked, pale with panic. His breath was ragged. "Jesus, Clara. Jesus Christ. What the fuck happened?"


    She tried to speak, but her throat burned. Her fingers dug into the edge of the tub as her mind scrambled for coherence. "Someone—someone was here—"


    "What?"


    "In the bathroom. Someone pushed me under. I couldn''t breathe—Jack, I was drowning—"


    His face twisted. "Clara..."


    I didn''t fall asleep, I didn''t—


    "I''m serious," she hissed, louder now, hoarse with fear. "Someone was here. Someone touched me. Held me down."


    "There''s no one here." He stood abruptly, water dripping from his sleeves. "I checked the whole flat before I even got to you. The door was locked. Nothing''s out of place."


    "That doesn''t mean—"


    "You had wine. You were exhausted. You fell asleep."


    "I didn''t fall asleep!" she shouted. Her voice cracked, too raw. Her heart pounded in her ears.


    "You think I''m lying?"


    "No. I think you''re scared." He dropped to his knees again, his hands on her wet arms. "I think you scared yourself. You said you hadn''t been sleeping, that you''ve been feeling weird. You''ve been working too much. Clara, you need to breathe. You''re okay now." Her lip trembled.


    She stared at him, searching for something in his eyes—belief, maybe. But all she saw was concern laced with dismissal. Like he''d made up his mind, filed this under "accident" before she''d even finished speaking.


    And still—she was too tired to fight.


    "Come on," Jack muttered, standing and offering his hand. "I''ll get you some toast. Something to soak it up."


    She let him pull her to her feet. Let him wrap her in a towel and guide her, shaking, into the living room. Her legs almost gave up underneath her.  She didn''t argue. She ate the toast without tasting it, swallowed the paracetamol like a ritual. Her hands trembled as she set the plate down.


    He led her to bed, pulled the blankets over her shoulders, kissed her forehead with a sigh. "You scared the shit out of me," he said, voice low now. "Just rest, alright?"


    She nodded. But she didn''t rest.


    Her heart still beat too fast. Her skin buzzed like static. Her body ached in places she couldn''t name. Her head was fuzzy, little flurries of memories, Grabbing and the cold press of the water.


    She turned her face into the pillow. Closed her eyes. Tried to let go of the way her lungs still seemed unsure of air.


    As Clara drifted in and out of sleep she felt a hand, stroking back her hair. Gentle. Careful. Reverent. She almost sighed with relief. Jack, she thought. He''s never touched me like this before. It made something inside her ache.


    She took a deep breath, a small huff in approval. The scent. Not beer. Not skin. Something else entirely.


    Mint. Damp earth. Resin and smoke. Something warm. Dark. Almost—


    delicious.


    She was too exhausted to care,  and didn''t open her eyes. She leaned into the touch, instinctive, drawn toward it like heat in winter. It lingered a moment longer. And when it left— She whimpered. Just once. And then let herself drift, quietly, into sleep.


    ---------------------


    Jack stood in the hallway with his suitcase already zipped and upright, one hand resting on the handle like he wasn''t sure whether to take it or abandon it altogether.


    "You gave me a scare last night," he said. "When I found you in the tub—fuck, Clara, you weren''t breathing."


    "I know."


    He stepped toward her. "It was the wine, right?"


    Clara said nothing.


    "No signs of forced entry. All the doors were locked. Nothing missing. You were alone." His voice tried to stay calm, but it pitched at the edges.


    Her knuckles whitened around the mug. She didn''t correct him. She wouldn''t. Not now. Not when she herself couldn''t quite piece together what had happened.


    Jack sighed and reached down, pressing a quick kiss to her hair. "Promise me you''ll take it easy while I''m gone."


    "I''ll rest," she said. It felt like a lie.


    "I mean it. No weird bug-collecting. No late nights in the lab. Maybe even talk to someone, Clara."


    That one made her jaw twitch. "Go."


    "You really want me to go?" he asked for the third time, voice lower than usual, like he hoped softness might coax her into changing her mind.


    Clara leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest, an old sweater swallowed around her like armour. She nodded. "Yes."


    Jack frowned. "Two weeks is a long time."


    "You''ve done longer."


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "Not after—" He cut himself off, gesturing vaguely toward the bathroom behind her, toward everything neither of them had said out loud. "After what happened."


    She held his gaze. "I''m okay."


    "You''re not."


    "I''m not helpless."


    "I didn''t say you were."


    There was a long silence between them, filled only by the low hum of the radiator and the early morning light filtering through the blinds in stripes.


    Jack rubbed a hand over his face. "I can stay. I can tell them I''m not well, or—"


    "No." Her voice was quiet but resolute. "Go. You''ve been planning this trip for months. Just... go."


    Something shifted in his expression then—something reluctant, something that knew. He looked at her like he was seeing her from far away. Like maybe he''d already lost something and just hadn''t figured out when.


    "You''re sure?"


    She hesitated. Then nodded again. "I''ll be fine."


    He didn''t believe her. But he kissed her cheek anyway, slung his bag over his shoulder, and walked out the door with that last glance back—one she wouldn''t forget. A look too weighted to be casual, too lingering to be indifferent.


    She stood in the silence after he left, the sound of the lock sliding back into place louder than it should''ve been.


    And then she exhaled.


    She didn''t cry. Didn''t sit on the floor in a heap of grief. She just stood there, heart thrumming in her chest like it had been waiting for this exact moment of stillness.


    -----------------------


    Clara sat by the window, a tangle of thoughts in her lap. Outside, the city had fallen away into a blur of wet fields, blooming hedgerows, and sleepy woodlands stitched together with grey sky.


    The town was small. Quiet. She liked that. She liked how no one looked twice at a woman walking alone with a canvas bag full of vials and tweezers, a battered sketchbook tucked under her arm.


    She spent her days in the rain-damp forest, crouched beneath canopies of greening trees, collecting beetles and moth wings and fragments of things once alive. It was the closest she came to peace.


    There was a rhythm to it. The careful silence. The cool press of moss beneath her boots. The muted thud of her pulse when the world felt far enough away that it couldn''t touch her.


    She didn''t think about the bath. Or the hands. Or the thing that had pulled her under.


    At least, not out loud.


    The woods were soft with rain and moss, dappled with light that filtered through new spring growth. The air was cool, damp, green. She let it fill her lungs like a balm, like she might be able to press it into all the places that still hurt.


    She walked for hours each day, past leaning birch trees and dripping pines, through the hush of fern beds and the crunch of sodden leaves. Her boots sank into earth softened by days of drizzle. Her fingers skimmed bark, damp and rough beneath her touch.


    She didn''t think. Not in full sentences, anyway.


    She just moved. Breathing felt easier in the woods. The kind of quiet that didn''t demand anything from her. The kind that let her be strange. Alone. Unapologetic.


    Sometimes she stopped and stood still, just listening. To the creak of branches in the wind. The distant caw of a bird overhead. The hush of the forest breathing around her.


    It wasn''t healing, exactly. But it helped.


    She didn''t go into the bathroom when she returned to the flat. Not unless she had to. Showers were short, perfunctory. Lights left on. Doors ajar. The bath remained dry, untouched, silent.


    But her sleep was beginning to return in longer stretches. Her appetite had crept back slowly. Her hands didn''t shake as much when she reached for things. It was almost enough to feel human again.


    By Sunday night, she had washed the forest scent from her hair, folded her laundry, made a list for the grocery store. She stood by the window and watched the city hum to life beneath the drizzle—cars and lights and strangers moving in tandem. And for the first time in days, Clara didn''t feel haunted.


    --------------


    By the time Clara pushed through the morgue''s back entrance on Monday morning, the scent of bleach and cold metal felt almost comforting. The chill in the air kissed her skin, clean and clinical—sharpened by the fluorescent lights and the soft buzz of distant machinery.


    She hadn''t worn makeup. Her hair was damp from the rain and all wavy. But there was a strange steadiness in her chest. The solitude had helped, as it always did. Three days of muddy boots, mist-clung woods, and the quiet hush of spring''s early breath had done something for her—dulled the edge, softened the noise.


    She peeled off her coat, hung it by the door, and reached for her apron. There was already a body waiting on the table.


    Male. Forties. Car accident.


    The damage was mostly cranial—blunt force trauma, a collapsed skull. But there was something about him she didn''t like. Something in the curl of his lip, the way rigor had fixed him in a half-smirk. She didn''t know why that bothered her more than the shattered bone.


    She was halfway through cleaning the blood from his temple when the phone rang. Clara blinked. The phone never rang.


    She stripped off her glove and crossed the room, picked up the receiver. "Erelis City Morgue."


    "Hi," a male voice said. Low. Measured. "Is Clara there?" She paused, fingers curled around the cord. "Speaking."


    "This is Gabriel Aldrin. I''m with the forensics team. I was on the Duncan case last week. The one with the—"


    "The moth burn," she finished for him, pulse ticking. A beat.


    "Yes," he said, slowly. "Another came in over the weekend. We''re seeing a pattern. I wanted to ask if you''ve seen anything unusual. Matching marks. Or...anything that felt off." Her eyes flicked to the corpse behind her. She leaned against the desk, deliberate.


    "No," she said easily. "Nothing like that." It came out smooth. Untroubled. Not even her heartbeat gave her away.


    But Gabriel didn''t speak for a moment. And when he did, his voice was different—curious. Like he was trying to feel his way through fog.


    "I see," he said. "It''s just... your name came up."


    Clara raised an eyebrow. "In what context?"


    "You were the technician who prepped the last two bodies. Both with identical burns, both missing autopsy reports."


    "That''s a coincidence," she said. Calm. Effortless. "Reports get lost all the time."


    Another pause.


    "You''re right," he said, but it didn''t sound like agreement. It sounded like something he was chewing on. "Do you mind if I come by? Just to cross-check the files. We''re re-examining the chain of custody."


    Clara exhaled softly, feigning annoyance. "If you have to."


    "Appreciate it."


    She hung up without saying goodbye.


    -----------


    He arrived an hour later. Taller than she expected. Broad-shouldered under a slate coat, camera slung diagonally across his body. His hair was a tousled mess of soft brown, rain-damp and curling slightly at the ends. His eyes—moss green, strikingly so—moved too much. Too quickly. Like he was always scanning, always looking for the crack in the glass.


    Clara didn''t smile when he entered. She rarely did. Gabriel hesitated in the doorway, then stepped in like he wasn''t sure the air was safe.


    "You''re Clara."


    It wasn''t a question. "And you''re the one asking about moths."


    He gave a faint smile at that, like she''d amused him despite himself. "I didn''t think morgue techs looked like you." She tilted her head. "Like what?"


    His gaze flicked over her—not lecherous, just... assessing. Trying to figure something out. "Like they could kill a man with their eyes."


    "I restore the dead," she said. "Killing''s someone else''s job."


    Gabriel''s smile twitched again. He pulled out a small file, set it on the counter, and flipped it open to a page with a photograph. It was of the most recent body. Male. Pale-skinned. The mark behind his ear clear as ink—moth wings flared, skull-face gleaming in the harsh camera flash.


    Gabriel studied her reaction. She didn''t blink. "That''s... intricate," she murmured. "Did he have tattoos?"


    "No," he said, watching her too closely. "No ink. No matches on databases. This one wasn''t done postmortem. It was... branded. Deep. As if it meant something."


    He waited for her to respond. She tapped her fingers on the metal counter, eyes flicking to the corpse behind her—different case, different story. But her gaze lingered like something tugged at her.


    "That''s above my pay-grade," she said at last. "I clean faces. Not decipher occult symbols."


    Gabriel didn''t answer right away. He stood in silence, gaze shifting to the corner of the room where a tray of instruments sat glinting under the cold light. The kind of silence that wasn''t idle. It tested things.


    "You said this was the third body," Clara said, finally. "With the same mark."


    He nodded once. "Same placement. Same style. No pattern to the victims otherwise."


    "No connection?"


    "None we''ve found." He tilted his head, considering her. "Unless you count being dead."


    She arched a brow. "Unfortunately, that doesn''t narrow it down in here."


    His mouth curved—not a smile, but something like it. The beginnings of one, maybe.


    She turned from him and moved to the body in front of her, gloved hands adjusting the tilt of its chin with practiced care. Gabriel watched her work—the fluidity of it, the reverence that didn''t seem performative. There was something about the way she moved, like she''d been trained by silence itself.


    He cleared his throat. "You don''t seem fazed."


    Clara didn''t look up. "Should I be?"


    "Most people would be."


    That earned her a long look. The morgue lights caught the faint gold in her eyes, and for a moment, he forgot what he was supposed to be doing. Her stare was too steady, her stillness unnerving. Like she''d been carved out of something that didn''t flinch.


    "Sorry," he muttered. "I''m used to people dodging questions."


    "I''m used to people asking the wrong ones."


    He exhaled through his nose, almost a laugh. "Touché."


    A beat passed. Clara adjusted her gloves. "So why are you really here?"


    Gabriel blinked. "To photograph the scene. To compare the markings."


    "I''ve already done that part."


    He hesitated. "I wanted to see how you reacted to it. In person."


    Her gaze flicked to him then—sharp and unreadable. "And what did you learn?"


    He held her stare. She didn''t blink. Neither did he.


    "You''re a very good liar," he said softly.


    Clara smiled, but it didn''t reach her eyes. "So are you."


    Gabriel''s chest tightened. It wasn''t fear, exactly. It wasn''t an attraction, either. It was something worse—something in-between. She was quiet, but not passive. And it made him feel like she could see straight through the parts of him he preferred stayed hidden.


    "Do you believe in omens?" he asked.


    She considered it. "I work in a room full of dead people. If there are omens, they''ve already done their job."


    He looked down at the file again, at the symbol burned behind the victim''s ear. His voice dropped. "They called them ''returners'' once. The ones marked with wings."


    Clara''s breath hitched—so slight he almost missed it.


    "What?"


    He lifted his gaze, watching her carefully. "Nothing. Just... folklore. Latin stuff. Rituals. Myths."


    Clara didn''t ask for clarification. Didn''t press. Which unnerved him more than if she had.


    He watched her as she peeled her gloves off and dropped them neatly into the bin. She turned to face him, arms crossing over her chest—not defensive, but decisive.


    "Anything else you need, Mr...?"


    "Gabriel," he said. "Call me Gabriel."


    She tilted her head slightly. "Anything else, Gabriel?"


    He liked the way she said his name. He should''ve left then. Should''ve thanked her, stepped out of the morgue and into the cold daylight where things made more sense. But instead, he lingered.


    "Just curious," he said slowly. "Do you... ever feel like they''re still here? The ones on the table."


    Clara''s expression didn''t change, but something in her voice shifted. "No. They''re not."


    "They''re dead," she said firmly. "Whatever that means."


    He nodded once. Then backed away, his fingers drumming against the file.


    "Thanks for your time."


    "Try not to think too much about wings and omens," Clara added as he reached the door. Gabriel glanced over his shoulder. "That sounds like advice you''ve given before."


    She smiled—small, sharp, unreadable. "Maybe I have."


    He didn''t look back again. But he felt her eyes on him as he left. And for the first time in a very long time, Gabriel couldn''t tell if he''d just been lied to... or warned.