Chapter Text
Not for the first time, He Xuan was sure that he had finally snapped and entered a state of psychosis.
He'd been warned about hallucinations, after the prison sentence- In fact, it was the first thing that the government-mandated therapist had mentioned to him. She'd been right, actually- The people disappearing around corners and hints of laughter when he was fully alone had become part of his routine, and he tended to ignore anything that couldn't be explained by a trick of the light, or mishearing another, normal noise in the distance. It wasn't worth it to drive himself crazy– Crazier– over something like a few shadowy figures or some strange noises.
(If he thought back to a more peaceful point in time, he'd remember his mother holding his cheeks, looking into his eyes and telling him that they could see far more than most people; that his ears were made to hear the voices that no longer could speak to the ‘rest of them’. That he was special, her special, gifted son. She'd always called him gifted– From when he drew pictures with blue crayons in preschool, to his acceptance into a pre-med program. Her handsome, talented son, yes, she'd agree with anyone who said that, but she preferred gifted. Always gifted. A lot of good that gift did, when it couldn't save her, or his sister, or his–)
That being said, there was no way he hadn't lost it this time. There was no one here besides him and the very dead corpse on his table, yet clear as day, he heard a voice. Louder than any of the phone rings, or laughter, or calls of his name he'd heard in the past. It felt as if it were right next to him, this disembodied voice.
He Xuan supposed that he'd gone long enough without a serious psychotic break, so it was reasonable that it had finally happened. He'd contact his psychiatrist later, if he remembered when the office phone lines opened, should he still be awake- The graveyard shift at the morgue often led to him passing out not long after he got home, as the sun was just beginning to light up the few uncovered windows in his apartment, and he'd often not wake again until the sun was setting. It didn't make it easy to get an appointment, or to call, or to do... Anything, really. Maybe this break really had been coming.
“Helllooooo? I can see you jump every time I talk, I know you can hear me!” The voice called out again, louder this time and close enough to his ear to be painful. He did flinch back at the noise, but gave no other acknowledgement to what he was sure was simply the most intense hallucination he'd had to date. If he just ignored it, it'd most likely fade out as he got to work– And gods, did he have work to do.
The corpse that had been brought into his morgue had been fairly pretty at one point or another, He Xuan could assume. Or at least she had cared about her looks– The pink top and light colored jeans she wore, though they were at one time designer, had been ripped to shreds, so he felt no remorse in simply cutting them away to expose the flesh underneath. As He Xuan looked down at the corpse, gaze sweeping over her briefly as he prepared to begin the autopsy, he frowned slightly. She looked somewhat familiar, her face reminiscent of someone he used to know, but in a way that he couldn’t place nor describe. If she was local, he may have seen her before on the street, but it felt deeper than that. Almost as if he knew her before he–
He Xuan clicked on the dictation device, clearing his throat.
“My name is He Xuan, elected coroner of the county, and medical examiner of this county’s police department. Today is February 12th, 2007, and it’s currently 21:37, local time. My patient is Asian, biologically female, and in the early to mid 20s based on the facial appearance aside from wounds. They came in without any form of identification, so I'll be referring to her as Jane Doe.”
“I have a name, you know! Just because they lost my wallet doesn't mean I don't! My name is Qingxuan, you could at least use it!” The voice came again, and it gave He Xuan pause. The name was hauntingly familiar, and he briefly cursed his brain for choosing to use that as the name for this psychotic break. Although, if he was truly having an episode, it’d make sense to use the name of her. What an absolute joke his mind was.
Shaking his head, He Xuan continued. “...I'll begin the examination process now, as I've already removed the clothing before beginning the recording. I’m going to start by obtaining fingerprints from her, and do a preliminary visual exam, before the external autopsy.” He Xuan paused to get the ink pads and stock cards, continuing to speak as he worked. “Her hands have what appears to be passive defense wounds on them, as do her forearms, but thankfully her fingerprints are intact, and since she’s at the earlier stages of decay, there’s no need for rehydration. The fingerprint cards I’m taking will be repeated twice, along with a cast of her foot as well. I’ll keep a copy here for my medical records, and hand the other to the police. Due to the winter season, the rate of decay was decently slow, so most of her is decently preserved. Most of her body is near-frozen, actually, leading to the likely scenario that she was somewhere without heat, but aside from some mud on her clothing, there’s no evidence that she was outdoors for long. Her body is freshly wet, as if she was dumped in the outdoors maybe.. An hour, or three before she was found. Her clothes were wet on the side that she was found on, but since we had snow a day or two ago, she’d be wet on both sides, and likely covered in some amount of snow sticking to the fabric of her clothes, if she was actually left outside. Instead, there’s just some water from the slush on the roadside. According to the police report, which is barely filled out, she was found on the side of the secondary main road exiting town, which is part of route 12. I guess she was found by a civilian, who’s been.. Taken into questioning. Huh.” He glanced over at the side table, where the report and some of the developed photos were splayed out for him to reference as he worked.
“That at least aligns with the water and dirt on her body, and the photos I was given alongside the file. She was found with no ID, or any identifying accessories on her body. The police reports state she had a gold locket, which has been removed and placed in a bag prior to her coming to me. I have the locket, and I’ll be most likely putting it on her body after I finish the autopsy and following embalming, if embalming is necessary. Jane Doe currently has no known family to contact given her anonymity, but the police will be looking at any recent missing persons reports, or so I assume. That’s none of my business and not my job. There was no medical examiner to give a liver temperature when she was found, but she was long dead by the time she had been found, either way. How they got her off the crime scene without an M.E is beyond me, but nevertheless, rigor mortis has both set in and released, and the officer writing reported her body.. Mostly pliant. Off the record, I’ll be having a word with the sheriff about this.. Officer Wen Chao, who signed the report,” He muttered, exasperated. “Err- Ahem.” He Xuan cleared his throat, taking a breath before continuing, “On the record, it can be deduced that Jane Doe died roughly between 36 and 48 hours before she was found. In that time frame she appears to have been moved several times. There are multiple spots of liver mortis, most notably pooled in her legs and.. Shoulders, as well as what appears to be antemortem bruising, which I’ll look at in more detail as I do my external autopsy more thoroughly.” He Xuan stopped his examination, but kept the dictator running as he glanced over at the clothes he’d cut off of the body, picking them up and shifting them around to see if there was any debris in them.
“The clothing she came in with were a pink tank top and jeans– Notably, she was missing shoes, and a jacket, which is odd for this time of year. It doesn’t look like she was wearing a jacket at all, but the shoes.. There’s evidence of her wearing them sometime soon before her death. Were she not wearing shoes at all, her feet would have either shown more evidence of her being outside- Frostnip, or have been clean, if she was killed indoors. However, her feet are dirty, but had only just become that way before she died. With the level of violence she experienced, I doubt the attackers just wanted to sell off her shoes and purse. All of her clothing shows clear signs of violence, and I'll likely find remnants of them in her wounds. I'll record any significant pieces of cloth in the wounds and set them to the side int their own bags as evidence– Though, off the record, I’m not sure how much I trust any of the police department to properly handle evidence in general, much less on an even remotely complex case. These people could barely catch a purse snatcher.” He shook his head, already exasperated with the amount of complaints he’d likely get about how much evidence there was to sort through. Not for the first time, he wished that Sheriff Pei could overhaul the entire police staff.
“On the record, Jane Doe experienced a great deal of trauma antemortem. I'll be taking my time with the external autopsy to decipher which of her wounds occurred before her death, and which are a result of moving her before I open her up to take a look at the internal damage and the state of her organs. Though, I doubt I’ll find anything internally, she seems relatively healthy-”
”You're going to cut me open?!” The voice shouted in abject horror, causing He Xuan to pause suddenly. It was as if his hallucination had no idea what occurred during an autopsy, which seemed odd given his profession- But who was he to judge this delusion? “You're going to ruin my skin like that! I wanted to wear a sundress in my casket, and now that dumb Y scar will show!” He Xuan could hear the pout in the disembodied voice, and the absurdity of it was almost enough to make him laugh.
“Ahem. I'll be starting at the feet.” He Xuan was determined to ignore the very annoying, and very persistent voice by his ear. He really needed to discuss changing his meds. And he could use another cup of coffee, but he needed to at the very least make some headway on the examination before he could step away to start up the dilapidated coffee maker and let it drip.
“Her feet seem to have antemortem bruising, and her ankles appear to have stress injuries on them. Without an x-ray it's difficult to tell the severity. The injuries appear to have happened close to her death, by the amount and coloration of the bruising. When I rotate the joints, the right appears to move normally, but there is an issue with the left ankle. I suspect a break, but I see no need to investigate it much further. If this office was outfitted with an X-ray machine, I’d take some images, but as I’ve stated in previous cases, this office is both too small and too underfunded to afford one. If necessary, I can have someone take her to the hospital out of town for imaging. Moving upward, on the left leg there's a deep gash, reaching the muscle layer and severing the tendons at the back of the knee interspersed with more minor scrapes and cuts. It appears that many of these wounds have some form of fabric trace in them, including the large laceration. Upon feeling the lower leg, there is no breakage in the tibia or fibula, but as I move upwards I can feel the femur shift in two different directions with simple palpation. The skin is not broken around the break site though, but there's an incredibly large, semicircular bruise that seemed to form close to death. The right leg is considerably less damaged, mostly bearing minor cuts and scrapes, though there seems to be a large patch of abrasion on the calf- Likely road rash, or something similar. There’s multiple patches of this abrasion, including some on the side of her face and the much of the exposed skin on her arms. There’s also a rash on her inner thighs, though it’s not as severe as the one I mentioned previously. It seems to have been caused by some other type of friction.” He Xuan took a deep breath, centering himself before continuing. With the feeling of being watched, it felt almost disrespectful to move on to the next step, but it needed to be done. Even without this feeling, it never got less awkward.
“To preserve dignity, I've left the undergarments on. I'll be removing them now to perform a rape kit, as procedure dictates. I’ll be swabbing the outer labia and inside the vagina for traces of semen, or any other particles. While I’m doing testing, I’ll also draw some blood to do a tox-screen, and a general panel as well. ”
“You're going to what- Excuse me?! That swab is going where?!” The voice yelled again, at such a register it caused He Xuan to visibly wince. Without even thinking, he responded, voice low enough to avoid being picked up by the dictator.
“You're dead, you won't feel it anyway.” He Xuan muttered, grabbing the necessary swabs and vials. He tried to work without listening to the voice, who was even more incessant now that he'd acknowledged it even a little bit.
“HAH! I knew you could hear me! And you're rude, you know that? You're putting swabs and things all up in my.. You know, personal areas! And you're acting like this is just a standard Tuesday! Do you treat all your corpses like this?” It seemed rather indignant as it spoke, still talking loudly and in a higher, nearly whining register.
Trying to continue on as if he’d never spoken to the voice in the first place, He Xuan’s voice faltered a few times as he explained the process. He coughed awkwardly, speaking faster than his usual calm, easy to understand pace. He was still audible, but obviously a bit uncomfortable- Describing the process never got easier. Neither did describing the examination of a corpse’s genitals, either. “Err- The area looks normal- Pardon, looks clear of any trauma. There’s no evidence of assault. I doubt the kit will come back with anything important, but it’s important to be thorough. Any evidence could at the very least point us to identifying Jane Doe, even if it’s by a partner.”
He Xuan finished up the kit as fast as he could without risking any sort of damage, putting the vials in the box. Taking blood to put through testing was a bit easier, but still shaken, he moved quickly. Immediately after, he all but ripped his gloves off to slam the pause button on the dictator, moving away from the autopsy table as if it were burning him to even stand beside it. Further back now, he leaned on a clean counter almost opposite the autopsy table, he rested his elbows on the table and pressed his palms to his eyes. After a second or two he paced back and forth, only to come to rest back at the same counter, leaning forward on his elbows and putting the heels of his hands to his forehead.
“I'm losing it. I'm just fucking losing it. I'll ask Hua Cheng to find a floater or a student for a few days, I'll check myself into a psych ward, and they'll up my dosage until I stop losing it.” He muttered to himself, not lifting his gaze from the cold steel of the countertop.
“... You're not losing it,” the voice called, much softer now, as if it’d be scolded, or made afraid. “I don't.. Know how to convince you, but you aren't losing it. It's okay, really- I didn't mean to freak you out so much.” A cold, gentle pressure touched He Xuan's back, and he startled so hard his hands slammed into the steel counter as he whipped around to try and see what the hell touched him. There was nothing, of course- Why would there be anything there? He was just finally having a breakdown, what did he expect–
And then he saw it.
Further proof that he was actively slipping deeper into an episode, or proof that he wasn't crazy at all, He Xuan didn't know which it was. But a few paces away, there was a girl. She was translucent, and lacked the crusting of dried blood and mud that the corpse had, but otherwise she looked nearly identical (The strange, twisted part of his brain flashed the thought that he had been correct, before her death she was rather pretty). He Xuan refused to trust his vision at that moment, and rubbed his eyes. Much to his chagrin, the figure didn’t disappear; instead, she only looked more sheepish the longer that He Xuan stared at her and tried to make her go away by rubbing his eyes with increasing pressure and blinking quickly.
“.... What the fuck,” said He Xuan rather eloquently as he crossed the distance back towards the autopsy table. Not willing to indulge his maybe-hallucination-maybe-paranormal-encounter just yet, He Xuan opted to instead rewash his hands, glove up, and hit resume on the dictator, hoping it’d solve itself if he immersed himself in his work.
“I've completed the rape kit, and it’ll be processed in the morning with the other vials of blood I took from her. The results should come back in about 24 or 48 hours from the pickup time, and I’ll record the findings as well as add them to the file. Moving on to her torso, there seems to be considerable bruising around her stomach and chest, including a large stripe bruise over her right breast. While this is only speculation, I can assume it came from a seatbelt. Many of her injuries could align with a motor vehicle accident, but not all. I'm choosing to refrain from any theories until I've gotten further along in the autopsy. Her left arm seems to have multiple crush injuries, and there is red paint, glass shards, and some scraps of metal embedded into many of her wounds. Her right arm has a friction burn on her wrist, along with abrasions on her knuckles. Interestingly, there's a large amount of debris under her nails, which I'll be collecting samples for testing on. These will be processed by the forensics team on the morning shift. There’s been a lull in cases requiring their assistance, so I should have these results by the start of tomorrow’s shift.” He paused to do so, taking care to scrape under her nails and placing the samples in tubes before sealing them. Moving upwards to her–” He Xuan was left speechless for a moment at the sight before him, swallowing thickly before continuing to speak.
“... Jane Doe has considerable and severe bruising around her neck, with seemingly variations on time, as if she were choked multiple times, potentially with multiple implements. The bruises range from a straight line, in multiple sizes, to the shape of hands. I'll be photographing the hand marks to see if the police can use them, and trying to pull the prints.” He Xuan had to remove his gloves once again to hold a rather large and bulky camera, provided by the police department to him. After adjusting the lens a bit, he snapped pictures in multiple angles and with varying degrees of lighting to best highlight the finger marks in case any semblance of print could be clarified from them. It was only after this that He Xuan touched the body again, hands much gentler than before as he tilted the body’s head back and forth, dusting over the finger-shaped bruises on her neck and laying a strip of tape down to try and get anything useful out of it. It was only moderately successful; the strips of tape came away with a few partial prints that he laid out on paper to add to the growing amount of evidence.
“I’m also going to open her eyes, to confirm my suspicions.” He Xuan said as he so delicately lifted a lid, grimacing as he found exactly what he expected. “Her eyes have moderate petechial hemorrhaging, confirming that she was strangled close to her death. It’s still far too early to say if she died from asphyxiation, but there is clear proof she was strangled in an attempt at violence.” With a careful touch, he closed her eyes once more, choosing to put the caps underneath her lids after he had fully completed the autopsy, if for nothing more than to maintain some semblance of procedure among his now swirling mind.
The soft touch of his hands compared to the clinical hold he used before that– While it wasn’t rough, it was impersonal. But now, with the figure watching him manipulate what was, presumably, her own body, and seeing some of the more intimate, personal abuse that she had suffered, He Xuan regarded the body on his table slightly differently. He’d have done this even without the hallucination. Call it his flaw; the more violent the case, the more graphic the abuse the victim suffered, the more gently he handled their body as he embalmed them. These people deserved it the most– Everyone deserved a kind hand to send them to rest, but these poor people, who had violent ends, who had their chance at a future ripped away so carelessly– It struck a chord with him. So he handled their affairs a little more tenderly, washed their hair and the last traces of their demises off of them with caring, softer hands. He could only hope that his family had received the same care by whoever embalmed them. He hoped that they’d appreciate him doing so for others, if they hadn’t.
Lost in his thoughts, and the growing guilt for how he’d treated this hallucination- He was still sure that this was nothing more than a delusion, and feeding into it would probably only lead to more problems down the line; the doctors had said to avoid losing himself, like he had in prison. They advised him to seek out a second opinion on anything he might consider to be a hallucination, to frequently check his delusions against reality and be mindful of himself; but staring at the beaten and brutally murdered body on the table, he felt his resolve crack a bit more. Even if it was just a delusion– Would it bring him some comfort to, just this once, feed into it? This had never happened before. None of his other cases, even the ones that were equally as horrific, had appeared like this. It was one time- In moderation, maybe he could acknowledge it. He shouldn’t, he knew he shouldn’t, but…
He Xuan was jerked out of his thoughts as the figure spoke again, causing him to look up at her.
“You really don't spare detail, do you? Everything is so.. Matter of fact. And kind of grotesque. If it weren't my own body, I think I'd have hurled by now.” The figure commented, though it was sheepish, almost afraid of what He Xuan would say, or do, if it spoke too loudly. It flitted close to the table- He Xuan noticed now that while it didn’t float or the lower half of its body didn’t morph into a wisp like the ghosts in children’s movies, its feet didn’t quite touch the floor, and seemed to hang slightly limp. Its hands tried to reach out to touch the cold body on the table, but stopped short. Even its hands seemed to hang slightly, as if its limbs were no longer working properly, as if the weight of them were too much for the spectral figure to bear properly.
For a reason unknown to him, the quiet way the figure spoke and the way its limbs fell tiredly caused He Xuan’s chest to squeeze. He tried to shake it off– Even if he felt pity, this was still only a hallucination. The more real he treated it, the harder it would be to separate it (it, not her) from reality later. A little indulgence was fine, but this level of sympathy– it was not empathy. What he felt was barely more than pity, He Xuan continually told himself, would only lead to further problems down the road. Even talking to it was a bad idea, but…
“It’s necessary,” He Xuan said bluntly, reaching to turn off the dictator just before he spoke, “I need a detailed report for the police and for your family. Given the… Circumstances of your death, they’ll want to know what happened. And I need to analyze everything thoroughly for that.” Even now, He Xuan was indluging more than he really wanted to– He had only intended to say a few words, but instead here he was explaining his reasoning to himself and his psychosis-induced partner in the lab.
“Family?” The figure parroted, tone edging towards hysterics, high pitched and reedy. It was grating to He Xuan’s ears, but he refrained from stopping it, or covering his ears as he wanted to. That wouldn’t do anything anyway, since it was technically coming from inside his skull anyhow. He listened to the figure as it continued, rambling on.
“My family– The family I have left aren’t around here. He can’t– He doesn’t need to know about this. I don’t want him to see me like this. He can’t see me like this, got it?” It asked, voice growing more and more desperate with each fragment of a sentence it managed to get out. As much as this “ghost” shouldn’t need to breathe, it still sounded as if it were about to hyperventilate.
“... Got it.” Was all that He Xuan elected to say, not really knowing what else to say to the figure. What could he say to this that his brain wouldn’t already know? The fact that this hallucination had no knowledge of anything that he did was interesting, but he’d never had one this intense or realistic before. Maybe this was the status quo for such deep delusions. It seemed to placate the delusion enough that it stopped talking, so he reached over to turn the dictator back on and continue with his examination.
“The hair is matted with blood, seemingly from an injury on the temple- The injury has glass shared embedded in it, likely from the same glass pane that embedded itself in her arm. The face is bloody– Jane Doe's nose was most definitely broken and a large contributor to the amount of blood present on her face. Her lip is also split, and there is antemortem bruising around her eyes. This bruising seems somewhat minor, and potentially may be older, but the fresh injuries to her face are making it difficult to trace back the other injuries. Once I clean her up, I can make a better judgment. I’m going to pause the dictation while I wipe the blood from her face and collect any evidence, which I’ll dictate afterwards. I will be collecting samples of the glass embedded in her temple before rinsing her down.” Another click as the dictator was paused and He Xuan took tweezers to gently pluck some of the glass from her head, gently pushing some of the matted hair out of the way. He lingered for just a second, looking at the mess that was her hair and already planning on how to detangle and clean it for viewing later. But that wouldn’t be for a while yet– Instead, He Xuan focused on getting a basin of clean water and a small cup, which he used to pour water over the corpse’s head in small doses, checking each time for any debris that may have begun to wash away with the flow of water. He was midway through cleaning her face, focused on his task, when he heard the figure speak again.
“Why are you doing it like that? Doesn’t that take a while?” It asked, and he could see the figure peeking at its lifeless body as He Xuan poured another cupful of water.
“How old are you?” He Xuan asked rather than answering its question, not glancing up from what he was doing all the while.
“I asked you something first!” The figure whined, a pout already appearing on its face and audible in its voice. “Why should I answer you, when you won’t answer me?”
“So I don’t lose evidence. How old are you?” He said rather flatly, only sparing a glance at it to see its shocked face as he talked so rudely to it, all the while acting so gentle and soft to the body on the table. Internally, he couldn’t help but laugh– His brain had truly conjured up something interesting with this one.
“Sixteen,” the figure sniped back at him, making a quiet ‘hmph!’ sound. It was only a few beats of He Xuan leveling it with a severe glare that it amended its statement. “Okay, okay– I’m twenty-five. I would’ve been twenty-six in April, but… Obviously that was cut a little short.”
April? The same birth month as him? This was just more proof that this was nothing but his brain playing tricks on him the entire time. Not to mention the fact that the age would make this victim the same age as–
“Hm.” Was all that He Xuan actually said, choosing to continue rinsing down the body’s face and head and not focus too much on the floating delusion that still stuck by his side. For a split second, he had an image of the figure clinging to his arm– Where that came from, he had no idea, and he shook his head to try and clear it from his thoughts.
“That should be good,” he muttered, reaching over to turn the dictator back on again. Once it began to record once more, he began to speak.
“Now that I’ve washed her face, I can see a bit more clearly. The yellow tones around her eyes, while partially attributed to the dark circles she has, also seem to belong to older bruises than the ones around her nose, lips, and cheek. It also seems as though I washed away the remaining makeup, since there are more older bruises that are showing through that weren’t previously. Based on the look of the bruises and how they were covered… I’d give my statement that some form of domestic violence was involved.” He Xuan said, face full of some indescribable emotion as he looked over to the figure, expecting it to say something. Much to his surprise, however, it simply looked away, shoulders hunching protectively, as if to hide its face from his view. It made He Xuan feel briefly guilty for the expectation that this figure would have some quip back at him over this, but he brushed it off and continued.
“All of my earlier comments about the state of Jane Doe’s face remain correct– Other than the older bruising, cleaning off her face didn’t reveal too much of note. I’ve set aside the glass samples, and took some samples of the blood off of her face, but I anticipate to see that all of the blood was her own. Nevertheless, I’ll send it off for testing.” He Xuan stepped back from the table for just a moment, nodding to himself.
“The next step is to turn the body over and repeat the same process on her backside. Beginning at the feet and working our way up- But, in the case of the extremities, I’ve already noted much of the visible damage on both the front and backsides of the limbs. I’ll still be giving them a look-over, but this portion of the exam should move by a bit quicker.” as he finished up his explanation, he took hold of the body– She was small enough that he could flip her by himself, thankfully, otherwise he’d have to wait to continue until the morning shift could give him assistance in moving her. But she was small and slight, enough so that it made He Xuan wonder if she’d been eating enough– A ridiculous notion for a corpse, she was already dead, He Xuan had no business wondering if she’d been fed well enough when she was alive. Furthermore, giving a look to her, she seemed to be well-off enough that food should have been the least of her concerns. And yet, here he was, silently questioning if she had enough at meals. He refused to let it show on his face, gently supporting her head as he laid her down on her front and began his examination.
“As expected, there isn’t much to note that hasn’t already been done. Going over the backs of the legs, it doesn’t seem like I’ve missed anything, however- It should be noted there’s a tattoo above Jane Doe’s hip–” When his eyes landed on the tattoo, both the character and the penmanship of it, He Xuan froze. Silently, he clicked the pause button one more time. He took the camera out, snapped a few photos without really caring of their quality, and immediately went to look at them. His mind had to be truly cruel, to do this to him– The already abnormal hallucination was one thing, but this? He’d never hallucinated something on a victim before.
He Xuan wasn’t sure if it was more comforting or upsetting that the camera still showed the tattoo, the strokes of it intentionally drawn somewhat sloppily, on her hip. With ever so slightly trembling hands, he restarted the recording.
“...of a traditional chinese character. It appears to be the character 玄 xuán, for black, however the penmanship of the character is.. Sloppy. Juvenile. Ahem- I’m going to take a photograph of it, to add to the evidence, and as a potential point of identification.” As He Xuan took the camera to take more photos, this time with the intent of capturing it in proper detail, he stayed silent. He didn’t know whether to hope that he was really, truly having a break, or hope that the tattoo was real and there wouldn’t be another level of questioning brought onto his work. And if it was– It had to be a coincidence, right? There were plenty of reasons a girl of Chinese descent would have a mandarin character tattooed, and this was just one of thousands of characters. Maybe it was a family name. There were a thousand explanations for why this would be here– And several very plausible ones as to why it looked as amateurish as it did. It meant nothing.
Absorbed in his thoughts, he nearly flinched when the delusion, who had for a while been quiet, suddenly piped up- Angry and indignant voice calling out. “Hey! My best friend wrote that when we were teens! You can’t just say that about someone’s tattoo!” It called out, crossing its arms.
“Enough.” He Xuan muttered, too low for the dictator to register, as he set the camera aside and continued upwards. Fortunately for him, the figure seemed too shocked at his sudden change to an even colder demeanor than before that it stopped complaining for the time being. “The pooling is as I reported earlier, mainly centralized in the shoulders and legs. Her shoulders most likely made the most contact with the floor during her death, and then when she was moved, the blood pooled in her legs. I can’t see anything particularly notable on her backside otherwise, that hasn’t been reported thus far. This is to be expected- most of the trauma was to her extremities and head. I’m finishing up my examination of the scalp, and aside from getting a better idea of the severity of her head injury, there is nothing to note. With that, I’ll conclude the external portion of the autopsy. After a short preparation break, I’ll continue with the internal portion, wherein I’ll remove her organs for various testing and begin to pack the cavity. Thus far I’m not planning to embalm until I’m given direct requests from the surviving family, once she’s identified and they’re contacted.” He Xuan tenderly moved the corpse onto her back once more, stepping back to let her rest there for a moment as he paused the recording and took in a few deep breaths. Normally, after a moment of respect for the corpse, it was easy enough to move forward with the autopsy, or the embalming, depending on the situation. But, with this.. Apparition of the corpse watching him, he felt hesitant to continue. But there was no real, concrete reason not to. This being a violent crime, he was required to perform an autopsy whether the family wanted him to or not– In fact, since she was currently unknown, she belonged to the state and federal governments, and they mandated him to thoroughly examine her body for evidence. It was just the regulations– And more than that, it was his job. He was paid by the town to do this, so he would. It was just another job, and another victim he was going to bring justice to. She deserved that– Her loved ones deserved that.
Gathering the tools needed for an internal autopsy was simple in the small morgue that this building had. Everything, while not within arm’s reach, was certainly close enough. Specimen jars, vials, and needles were all in the same area of the counter; the stainless steel bowls that hung in the scale, as well as the trays, were all sanitized and in the same area- And his dressing supplies were all stored in the same closet. It took about the same time to collect everything that it did to actually suit up so he could begin the autopsy. His hair was tied back and stuffed into the net, gown and apron both put on, and gloves pulled over the sleeves of his gown so he could begin the first few incisions. Stepping back up to the table and raising it just slightly so he could tilt it, he began a second recording on a different device.
“This is the beginning of the internal autopsy on Jane Doe, who was found dead on February 12th, 2007. It is currently 2:13 A.M on February 13th, 2007. My name is He Xuan, elected coroner and the medical examiner of this county’s police department. I’ve switched to a voice activated device for sanitation purposes. I’ll now begin the Y-incision on the body.” Taking the scalpel in hand, with a pressure he’d come to perfect over the last few years, He Xuan sliced cleanly through the layers of skin, fat, and muscle, carefully freeing the pieces from the bone and lifting them away. With the tissue peeled back, he could see the state of her organs and ribcage.
“The state of her organs reveals no massive trauma, except for some bruising that seems to be consistent with her external bruises. While much of her important organs, such as her heart and lungs were protected against whatever blunt force hit her, there’s some mottling on her lower organs that goes to show how deep the bruising goes. I’m going to use a syringe to take a urine sample directly from her bladder. Alongside the rape kit, this can be used to provide some information about her health– It’s most commonly used for a pregnancy test, since the blood is being used for so many other tests. It’s not as if she needs her blood anymore, but for the sake of collection and succinct evidence, it’s easier to run a few tests on the urine as well as the blood.” He Xuan took a syringe and poked the needle into her bladder, drawing up a syringe’s worth and setting it aside in a vial. He ignored the pained gasp behind him, the dramatic reaction from his delusion would have been amusing if he weren’t so aggravated at the way his own brain was disrespecting the dead by doing such a thing. Her- Its dramatics were irritating, the way it acted like this really was its body. He turned after labeling the sample, taking up the scalpel to cut open her stomach next.
“I’ll be collecting her stomach contents as well, though I’m not sure it’ll do much good. Unfortunately, her stomach is largely empty, but there is still plenty of acid present, so my guess would just be that she hadn’t eaten anything or had digested whatever she had previously eaten fully.” Carefully removing her stomach to place off to the side and emptying the contents of it into another collection jar, he turned back to her body.
“Next, I’ll be looking at the organs that were mostly shielded by her ribcage, and will report anything of note once I completely finish examining them, unless it’s something urgent or defines the cause of death. Device, pause recording,” He said, the direction a bit louder than the rest of his sentence to make sure the device could register it. When he heard the click and the small automatic voice that said “recording paused”, he got to work. For whatever reason, he preferred to do it this way– Unless a case needed constant dictation, he could afford to give a report at the end of an examination, since much of it was removal, weighing, and examining the organs. He preferred to use a cheap pen and a sheet of paper for this– too many numbers tended to confuse the dictator anyway, so it was all around less problematic to just note it down himself. And if it allowed him to hold his own vigil for the victim on his table, then so be it. There was no one here to judge him– In most cases.
There had always been a certain reverence with which He Xuan held the corpse’s organs as he moved each of them to the scale, then to the tray, and how he manipulated them in his hands as he checked for anything unusual, no matter the case or the victim. Everyone deserved the kindness of having their innermost parts handled with care. He held them with both hands as if they were a gift bestowed to him that he was afraid to drop, and with the care that one would handle a small animal, hands only applying enough of a grip to keep hold of the organs. He repeated this process with her liver, pancreas, gallbladder, and any other organs he needed to weigh, setting them all aside one by one to take photographs and look over. Samples were collected from a few and placed in vials for testing, but one after the other, each organ was placed in a plastic bag and sealed shut with as little air as possible, and set aside on the tray. It wasn’t until her chest cavity was all but empty that he paused– All that was left was her heart, and he stared at it then, swallowing thickly. This part was always the hardest; medical science told him that there was no evidence of a soul, and that any thought or cause of action came from the brain, sending messages to the rest of the body. Without a brain, the heart would not beat– And yet, as he stared into her now mostly empty chest cavity, he had pause. Severing the few precious arteries that tied her heart to the rest of her cold, still body felt so final– even though it had to be done, to every autopsy he performed, each time it was just as hard as the first. There was something symbolic about cutting away the heart, taking it from the body and releasing the spirit from within, and it took He Xuan a moment to work up the nerve to do so. But with a deep breath, he lifted the scalpel again, severing the arteries with one smooth slice, then a second. Her blood, which had been steadily draining from her this entire time, was not much of a concern in its amount but nevertheless stained his fingers as he pulled the organ out of its resting place. He stood still a moment, before carefully placing it on the hanging scale, letting the hand of the scale stop moving before he wrote down the final weight.
“13.2 ounces,” He Xuan muttered aloud as he wrote it down, as if he wasn’t aware that he was even speaking. “A bigger heart than average, but not terribly so. I guess she had a big heart, physically speaking– I wonder if, metaphorically too..” His musing as near-silent, trailing off as he scribbled down the final measurements. He should be removing her brain, as well, but that would come after the body was identified and there was a course of action set in place for her remains. It was better to leave it in her head until it was necessary to take it out– The quality would degrade as it was, but it’d do so much faster once removed, and on the off chance he needed to examine it, he’d be better off letting her keep it for the time being.
A small sniffle came from behind him, and He Xuan all but jumped out of his skin. The hallucination had been silent for the entire process of examining the body’s organs, and there was some quiet, superstitious part of him that had hoped that if it were a ghost, it’d disappear once he severed the heart from the body. He’d had no such luck.
Another sniffle, this time accompanied by a quiet, choked off noise– He Xuan turned this time, to see the hallucination with tears in its eyes. This too, he attributed to his own emotions; of course his brain was projecting them onto this delusion. He had no time for them when he had work to do, still needing to carefully bag up her organs and pack them back into her chest cavity. So why was it that, though he knew there was still work to be done, he stood frozen in place as he watched this girl– This delusion, helplessly wipe away at the tears that streamed down its cheeks? What was stopping him from simply moving forward and getting on with the next step of his job? It was nearing daybreak, and he still needed to finish the verbal report and clean up, so why–
A tray clattered to the ground behind the figure as it put a hand down and caught the lip of it and flung it off the counter, causing it to squeak in surprise.
What. The. Fuck.