Secrets
The Sixth in the Morgue
At three in the morning, the funeral home’s Morgue was only supposed to have five registered bodies, yet I found a sixth, unregistered, nameless female corpse in locker number six.
A slip of paper was pressed against her chest with nothing but my name written on it.
Even more terrifying was the moment my hand brushed her wrist; I saw the last seven seconds of her life and heard her raspy, blood-choked voice whisper: “Shen Nian, don’t trust your father.”
That was the night I realized that sometimes, the dead don’t come to say goodbye-they come to reopen a case.
The Eleventh Step at Dawn
At one o’clock in the morning, I counted the Eleventh Step on the western staircase of my office building.
Resting on that single step was a white sneaker, its laces tied into the same blue dead knot my missing best friend always used.
Five years ago, a woman had died in this building.
Now, the security guard who holds the elevator for me every day looked up and flashed a smile.
“Miss Tang, you shouldn’t go around counting stairs.”
