It took some time for the nurse to calm down and regain her composure. Watching her, Mioray felt a pang of guilt for startling her so badly. You know you’re not supposed to be somewhere, if the first person you meet starts crying. Tears had smeared the nurse's mascara, leaving black streaks down her cheeks. Still, it wasn’t like he had any other way to get her attention. Despite feeling guilty, Mioray was relieved to have finally met another human being. It reassured him that he hadn’t completely lost touch with reality.

  But his bizarre adventure – waking up in the morgue – was far from over. The nurse, now composed, began questioning him. Who was he? How did he end up here? The problem was, Mioray wanted answers to those exact questions himself. Realizing they were getting nowhere, she called the pathologist who had been working in the morgue. The pathologist, in turn, contacted the hospital administration, who, in a ripple effect, summoned the police. Mioray’s sudden reappearance caused quite a stir. The pathologist swore that Mioray was the same young man whose autopsy he was supposed to perform, but first had to sew together his dismembered parts for future identification. The fear and confusion on everyone’s faces made it clear – they all believed Mioray should be, in fact, dead.

  As they waited for the police to arrive, the staff who had heard about the incident and were around found excuses to leave, all except the nurse who had found him. She was clearly nervous being around Mioray, but she had no choice since she was asked to look after him. After a quick check was made on Mioray, revealing no imminent danger to his health, the nurse brought him to a small room on the first floor, where she handed him a clean hospital gown and slippers to change into. As Mioray suspected, the morgue was located on the lower level, since the elevator had gone up when they took it. Once they reached the first floor, Mioray finally saw windows. The sky outside was pitch black. It was nighttime.

  Mioray sat at a table in the small room while the nurse, unable to meet his eyes, stood stiffly by the door. He could tell she was eager to leave, staying only because she’d been ordered to. Despite her discomfort, she remained polite, even bringing him a bottle of water, though he wasn’t particularly thirsty. The bottle sat on the table, untouched. She also asked if he was hungry, but Mioray told her he wasn’t. Glancing through the open door, he saw a security guard stationed outside. Although Mioray wasn’t a threat, the hospital administration seemed to believe otherwise. Or, perhaps they simply didn’t want him running off. To be honest, Mioray had thought about escaping, but now it was out of the question.

  The police didn’t take long to arrive. Two officers entered the room – a man and a woman. Mioray had expected them to be in uniform, but instead, they wore plain clothes with brass badges fastened to their belts, each marked with a star insignia. The man, in his mid-forties, had brown hair slicked back and was dressed in jeans and a brown leather jacket over a white shirt. Deep wrinkles lined his forehead. The black-haired woman with long eyelashes, around ten to fifteen years younger than her partner, wore khaki cargo pants and a blue denim shirt beneath a gray blazer. She clutched a paper coffee cup, wisps of steam curling from the lid. She must have grabbed it on the way over here. Both officers looked tired, as if they’d been woken in the middle of the night. Mioray figured this wouldn’t help their mood, which wasn’t a good sign.

  “Have you found out anything about him?” the policeman asked in a creaky voice.

  “Not really,” the nurse answered. “It looks like he suffered memory loss.”

  “Yeah, we get that a lot.”

  Great. Mioray could already foresee disaster coming. These guys from the police were not going to be his friends. The lamps on the ceiling hummed melancholically. Mioray wondered whether he should have run away while he had the chance, but there hadn’t been any opportunity. Getting involved with the police was always unpleasant. It wasn’t like he had done anything wrong, but they always knew how to twist things and make you guilty of every sin in the world.

  “Okay, we will take it from here,” the man thanked the nurse and let her go. She left eagerly, closing the door on her way out.

  The man sat on the other side of the table, while the woman leaned against the wall next to the door. She looked deep in thought or maybe she hadn’t fully woken up yet, but the man was staring at Mioray with suspicion. He instantly felt like he was about to be interrogated, which was ridiculous, to be honest. Mioray wasn’t even a suspect in any crime. For all he knew, he was the victim.

  "So, how are you holding up?" the man asked in a fake, buoyant tone, as if speaking to a child. "My name is Chad Haytham, and this here is my partner, Natalie Lance. We’re detectives, working here in Reques City. Can you tell us about yourself?"

  On the table, near the bottle of water, there was a crumpled piece of cardboard. It was the tag that had been tied to Mioray’s toe, the one he had torn off. The pathologist had searched the morgue thoroughly to find the body he had worked on, but the tag was the only thing he could find. He left it with the nurse as evidence for the police, telling everyone that either the body had disappeared, or Mioray had miraculously come back to life. The nurse had placed it on the table and forgotten about it.

  Of course, the detectives were already aware of all of this, and now they had to figure out which scenario was true. It wasn’t a hard decision. People don’t come back from the dead. So, the actual corpse the pathologist worked on must have disappeared. The challenge lay in understanding how Mioray fit into all of this. How did he end up in the morgue, seemingly swapped with a dead body?

  “Let me help you,” Detective Haytham leaned forward. “Here’s an easy one. What’s your name?”

  “John Doe,” Mioray answered thoughtlessly, using the name he’d seen on the tag. By the time he realized he’d lied, it was already too late.

  Still, Mioray was glad he hadn’t used his real name. He couldn’t quite explain why, but he didn’t want to associate himself with this incident. If he told the police his real name, he’d forever brand himself, and that scared him. There were too many unknowns in this situation. He was fine with keeping it that way. Mioray was alive, and that was enough for him. Now, he only wanted to get home. There was still a way to return to his usual life unsullied.

  “Something tells me that’s not true,” Detective Haytham snickered. “Would be quite a hell of a coincidence. You know that name is usually used for unidentified dead people, right? And you look pretty alive for a John Doe.”

  “Do you say the same thing to all the John Does you meet?” Mioray asked, curious. The detective wasn’t entirely correct – the name was a placeholder for alive people too, whose identity was still unknown.

  Detective Haytham bared his white teeth, placing both hands on the table and folding his fingers. He tilted his head to the side.

  “We’ve got ourselves a comedian, huh?” he said, his smile fading from his face.

  Mioray pressed himself against the back of the chair. Maybe he shouldn’t have provoked the detective. Fortunately, his partner finally stepped in.

  “Don’t pressure him, Chad,” she said, moving away from the wall and placing a hand on detective Haytham’s shoulder. “We can work with ‘John Doe’ for now. Imagine the anecdotes you’ll be able to share if it turns out to be true. Now, tell us, John, where do you live?”

  The lady detective didn’t share her partner’s hostile demeanor, which eased Mioray’s nerves a little. But when he thought about it, he realized they were using the “good cop, bad cop” routine on him. Not that it changed much, really.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “I don’t remember,” Mioray answered briefly.

  “Uh-uh. And what happened to your arm?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Detective Lance took a sip of her coffee, her brown eyes fixed on Mioray. He swallowed nervously. No doubt they were catching every word leaving his mouth, ready to use it against him later. Mioray took the easiest way out, deliberately avoiding her first question and sincerely answering her second. Of course, she didn’t believe him either time. He could have given her a made-up address, but they would probably check it, so Mioray decided to play it safe. He wanted them to believe he’d forgotten things due to shock. For better or worse, he wasn’t sweating, and there were no signs of sweat coming out and giving away his nervousness.

  “Then what do you remember, apart from your name being John Doe?”

  “Not much. I lived my whole life in Reques City. And, uh, did you know that fingerprints are unique to each person? Even twins don’t have identical fingerprints. They’re similar, but not the same.”

  Mioray realized he was only making things worse. Whenever he got nervous, he had a habit of blurting out random facts, and now was definitely not the time for that. But he couldn’t help it.

  “Look, kid,” Detective Chad interrupted him, “you better stop playing games. See, things don’t look very good for you right now. A dead guy turning out to be alive? Medicine has come a long way, but I’m not about to believe someone whose body parts were dismembered and scattered across the city somehow stayed alive. I don’t know what you’re involved in, with your scars and stitches, but do us a favor and tell us where you hid the body of the young man who was supposed to be in the morgue.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Mioray was taken aback. So they thought he had something to do with the body’s disappearance? “I didn’t do anything! I woke up just about an hour ago, and I have no idea what happened to me or why I was in the morgue! I don’t even know what day it is today!”

  Detective Lance took another sip of her coffee.

  “It’s Sunday, the first of September, twenty-two twenty-two.”

  Mioray gasped. September 1st, 2222?! That can’t be right! It meant he was already twenty-one years old. His birthday was just three days ago, on August 29th. You’d think he’d remember that. Although, some memories were beginning to return...

  “The body of our John Doe, or rather its parts, excluding the left arm, were found a few hours ago,” Detective Lance continued. “It was established that he died around midnight, between August 29th and 30th. There hasn’t been a missing person report matching his description yet.”

  August 29th. On that day, Mioray had been planning to have a birthday party with his friends. But something had happened to ruin those plans, and the party was canceled. What happened next? He tried to recall, but the memories eluded him. He wished it was just a nightmare. He even pinched himself, but, of course, he didn’t wake up, nor did he feel anything. The missing body belonged to someone who died three days ago. Just when Mioray’s memory was blank, coincidentally.

  Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe he had encountered someone who looked like him and that person got killed, their body dismembered. He couldn’t explain it any other way, but he just needed to figure out the details. Mioray was sure he hadn’t hidden any bodies. Then again, he was the only one in the morgue. Without his left arm, and yet, in his hazy memories, it had been intact. So what happened? Who died? How? Why? These questions swirled in his mind, making him restless. He wanted to get out of this place, to breathe fresh air and clear his head. He wanted to forget this ever happened.

  “Why are you telling me this?” he asked warily. In the back of his mind, he realized it wasn’t the first time he’d asked that question, though before it had been directed at someone else and meant something different.

  “Have you heard about the Dismantler?” Detective Lance continued her own line of questioning, ignoring what Mioray said.

  “The serial killer?”

  Of course Mioray had heard of him. Only someone living under a rock wouldn’t know about the Dismantler. Or someone from another city.

  “Yeah, he’s all over the news. He’s killed a dozen people in the past few months.”

  The air around him grew more ominous. Mioray didn’t like where this was heading. It felt like a trap, but not one laid by the detectives. Something more sinister was closing in on him. Has anyone checked the entire basement where the morgue was located? Was the missing body in one of the other rooms? What if it would never be found, because there was no other body? The truth could be much simpler. Just admit that Mioray was the one who had been killed, dismembered, and scattered across the city, then stitched back together, minus his left arm. Sounds plausible, right?

  “Sixteen people. Sixteen dead by the Dismantler,” Detective Haytham corrected Mioray. “Roughly one person every four days. And that lunatic is still on the loose. Our guys are exhausted from collecting his victims’ body parts almost every day. It’s slowing down the investigation of other cases, you know? There’s practically a bounty on his head on the streets. It’s not just the police after him, every criminal in the city wants him caught too. They can’t run their illegal business with everyone on high alert.”

  Mioray felt an unpleasant itch on the stump of his left arm. The twisted murderer, nicknamed the Dismantler for his gruesome modus operandi of killing victims, dismembering them, and scattering their body parts – head, torso, legs, and right arm – throughout the city, never leaving a left arm behind.

  The Dismantler had appeared out of nowhere two months ago and immediately dominated the headlines. People felt unsafe, avoiding desolated streets and traveling alone at night. The police were under immense pressure to capture him; authorities promised swift justice, while the opposition blamed the failure to stop the killings on those in power. Despite precautions, people kept dying.

  With Mioray potentially being one of them. He had mysteriously lost his left arm and skipped his own birthday party, ending up somewhere else entirely.

  "But what does this have to do with me?" Mioray asked, more to himself than to the detectives.

  "You tell us," Detective Haytham said, pointing a finger at him. "The latest of the Dismantler's victims was in the middle of an autopsy, and now the body's gone. And you, an intruder, were found near the scene. What were you doing here? Hiding evidence of a crime?"

  “I get how it looks,” Mioray said, feeling the tension rise, “but I can't be the Dismantler's accomplice. Look at me. How could I hide a body with one arm? Ask the pathologist. There wasn’t even enough time between him going on a break and me being brought to the nurse.”

  “Well, maybe you're not the accomplice, but someone else is. Wouldn’t that be poetic? A guy loses his arm in some accident and starts killing innocent people, collecting their left arms as trophies.”

  “You’re joking, right?” Mioray forced a smile, but both detectives remained stone-faced. “Wait, you can’t possibly think that I am him? You really think I am the Dismantler? Come on, you can’t be serious!”

  "Prove to us you're not," Detective Lance said calmly. Her tone suggested she didn’t fully believe it, but she wasn’t ruling it out either. "Why are you really here, John?"

  Mioray wanted to howl. If only he knew! The most absurd explanation was starting to feel like the truth. He’d been killed by the Dismantler and somehow brought back to life. He didn’t know whether the killer followed some twisted logic in choosing victims or if his targets were just unlucky.

  Three days had passed since the last thing Mioray remembered. His parents hadn’t heard from him in all that time, yet the detectives said there were no reports of him missing. Did that mean his parents expected him to come back, even after whatever had happened between them? They couldn’t possibly know that the Dismantler put his – or her – eyes on their son, approached him and killed him.

  The thought was surreal. Mioray shook his head to clear it. He wasn’t dead, not yet anyway. All he had to do was come up with some plausible theory for how a body vanished from the morgue and how he ended up there. Anything would do. It wasn’t his job to solve this mystery, that was for the detectives. But there they were, across the table, waiting for him to break.

  They weren’t going to let him go. That much was clear now. Even if they didn’t believe Mioray was the Dismantler, they were convinced he had done something wrong. He regretted not running away before detectives arrived. If he had known how this interrogation would turn out, he’d never have sat obediently, waiting to be questioned. Never in his wildest dreams had Mioray thought they would link him to the Dismantler.

  In hindsight, it explained everything – the detectives’ cautious approach, the fear from the hospital staff. They weren’t terrified because Mioray had seemingly come back from the dead. They thought he was the Dismantler or at least involved with him. But that didn’t make sense! There was no news about the Dismantler having followers.

  Mioray closed his eyes, trying to focus on his fragmented memories. Maybe the answer was buried there, somewhere painful and hidden. He had to dig deep, no matter how much it hurt. He needed to know.