"Before I go, I need to tidy up the office. I made a mess while searching for the file," the man muttered. After a few minutes, he finished and walked out of the room.
"Where is the exit?" he wondered as he looked around. Just as he walked by a window, a view caught his eye.
"Wait, is that... oh, I see now. The morgue and the hospital have separate buildings. I remember seeing this building when I was at the hospital yesterday. Right now, the only clue I have to finding that woman is in the hospital. So I'll go there and see what I can find. If I had my powers I wouldn't need to go through all this trouble. I probably should have checked what floor she was on after teleporting there yesterday. No matter, there was no way of knowing this would happen. "
After some time, posing as a doctor, the man was able to infiltrate the hospital. He saw the receptionist behind her desk and thought, "I don't remember the woman's name, but I know her mother's name. I can use her mother to locate her." He approached the reception.
"Good morning, ma'am," said the man to the lady.
"Morning, doctor. It's a little late to be clocking in, don't you think?" said the lady.
"No, I'd forgotten something in my car, so I went to fetch it," said the man.
"Oh, my apologies then. How can I assist you?" said the lady.
"I'm looking for a patient named Angelica Bernett. Would you kindly tell me what floor she's on, please?" said the man.
After a few clicks on her computer, she said, "Oh, she's on the fourth floor, room 3."
"Thank you, ma'am," said the man as he headed for the elevator. He went in, pressed the button, and it went up. On the fourth floor, the doors opened, and he exited, walking down the corridor.
At room three, he stood across the entrance and thought, "This is where I died, where I lost my powers, and where I became human. All because of that woman. I can't do my work because of her. Damn it, it angers me. Nonetheless, I'll fix it," he thought as he opened the door.
He found Aurora's mother staring out the window, enjoying the morning view. "Good morning, Miss Bernett. How are you feeling today?" asked the man.
"What happened to my usual doctor?" asked Aurora's mother.
"Oh no, I'm not replacing him," said the man.
"Her, you mean," said Aurora's mother suspiciously.
"If she's suspicious, I won't be able to get any information out of her. I need to lower her guard somehow," thought the man.
"I'm sorry for the confusion, ma'am. I'm not actually from this hospital. I'm a transfer sent by the Department of Health to do some inspection of patient information," said the man.
"Oh, is that so? I wasn't made aware an inspector would be coming to see me," said Aurora's mother.
"That's understandable because it was a short notice thing. You know how it is with these people," said the man.
"I can only imagine," replied Aurora's mother. "So, how may I assist?"
The man thought, "Good, her guard is down. Now for what I came here to do. It's a good thing I grabbed this doctor's note writing pad. I'll pretend to be writing as she's talking," he thought.
"For today I'm here to confirm the next of kin personal details of the patients on this floor. So I'll be asking some questions to make sure your details correspond to the ones in our databases," said the man.
"Oh, I see. Ask away then," said Aurora's mother.
"Can you give me the name of your next of kin?" asked the man.
"Umm, it's actually my daughter. Her name is Aurora. We share the same surname," replied Aurora's mother.
The man thought, "So her name is Aurora," as he said, "That's good. Is she currently employed anywhere, and if so, where is her place of employment?"
"Oh yeah, last time an inspector came, I said she was employed at Larry's Diner - a restaurant not far from here, but she recently quit, so she's unemployed," said Aurora's mother.
"Very well. I'll have that updated with management. So where is your current living address?" asked the man.
"That would be a rented apartment downtown. The address is 103 Marlin Street," said Aurora's mother.
The man thought, "That's all I need to find her. This woman seems kind. It's a shame she's... Never mind, without my powers, there's nothing to be done here."
He then said, "That's all I need for now. Thank you very much for cooperating. You've been very helpful," said the man.
"I'm glad I could help," said Aurora's mother.
"Take care," said the man as he left the room and continued to exit the hospital. "Now then, Aurora Bernett. Where are you?" he said as he began to walk away from the hospital.
[Back At The Hospital Morgue]
"Woah, I am stuffed. Maybe I really gotta start hitting the gym. With the way I'm eating lately, I see obesity on the horizon," said Damian as he walked into his operating room. "It seems I forgot to lock the door. How careless of me," he muttered, closing the door behind him.
"I finally filled the request. For now, I'll put the body in the storage unit so it doesn't decay," he said as he approached the operating table.
As Damian approached the operating table, a sense of unease washed over him. The table was empty. The body he had been working on, the one he had just filled a request for, was gone.
"What the...?" Damian's voice trailed off as he stared at the vacant slab. "Where is it?" His heart began to race as he looked around the room, hoping the body had somehow just shifted or fallen. But it wasn't on the floor, nor was it anywhere else in the room.
"This can't be happening," he muttered, running his hands through his hair. "I know I left it right here. Bodies don't just walk away. Someone must have taken it. But who? And why?"
Damian's mind raced with possibilities. He checked the storage units, but they were all locked and accounted for. "No one should have access to this room besides me. Who could have gotten in here?"
He frantically searched through the cabinets and drawers, hoping to find some clue. "Maybe there was a mix-up, maybe someone moved it without telling me," he rationalized. "But no, that doesn't make sense. No one else has the clearance to be in here."
Pacing back and forth, Damian tried to piece together what had happened. "Think, Damian, think. Did I leave the door open for too long? Did someone sneak in while I was gone? But who would want to steal a body? And how could they have done it so quickly?"
His eyes darted to the security camera in the corner of the room. "The footage. I need to check the footage. Maybe that will tell me what happened."
Damian bolted from his office, his footsteps echoing down the corridor as he made his way to the hospital's security room. His mind was racing, filled with dread and confusion. He had to see the footage. He needed to know what had happened to the body.
As he burst into the security room, the guard on duty looked up in surprise. "Doctor Damian, is everything alright?"
"No, everything is not alright," Damian snapped. "I need to see the footage from the operating room, now."
The guard hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Sure, give me a second." He typed quickly on his keyboard, bringing up the relevant feed. "What time frame are we looking at?"
"From when I left the room to now, around after 9h30" Damian said, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice. "Just rewind it and let's see what happened."
The footage started playing, showing Damian leaving the room. He watched intently, his heart pounding. For a few minutes, nothing happened. Then suddenly the body on the table began to twitch.
"What's that?" shouted Damian, pointing at the monitor.
"What do you mean, doctor?" asked the guard, squinting at the screen.
"The body... I think I saw it move," said Damian, struggling to believe his own words.
While chuckling, the guard said, "Doc, no disrespect, but that's not possible. A dead body can't move."
Nervously, Damian said, "Yeah, you're right. Maybe I'm seeing things. It's probably just cadaveric spasm"
The two continued watching, and what they saw on the monitor was unbelievable. The body on the table twitched again, more noticeably this time. The fingers flexed, the arms jerked, and then the entire body convulsed as if it were having a seizure. Damian's eyes widened in shock.
"This... this can't be happening," Damian muttered, his voice trembling.
The guard, no longer chuckling, leaned closer to the screen, his expression one of growing horror. "What in the world..."
The body sat up abruptly, the sheet falling away to reveal wide, lifeless eyes staring straight ahead. Damian felt a chill run down his spine as the body's head turned slowly, looking around the room. Then, with a fluidity that seemed impossible for a corpse, the body swung its legs over the side of the table and stood up.
"This is insane," Damian whispered. "How is this even possible?"
The guard was speechless, his face pale.
The guard shook his head in disbelief. "I don't understand any of this, doc. This is beyond anything I've ever seen."
From there, the footage showed the man searching around the room frantically, as if looking for something. Then, seemingly talking to himself and making odd gestures.
"What is he saying?" asked Damian, leaning closer to the monitor.
"I don't know," replied the guard. "Unfortunately, our cameras are low quality, so we don't have audio output."
"This is really strange," muttered Damian, his brow furrowed in confusion.
The footage continued, showing the man attempting to leave the operating room, only to be intercepted by the police officer. It captured him going back inside, presumably to search for something, and then handing the officer a file before leaving.
"What did he give that officer? There are too many police stations in the city; there's no way I can find that officer even if I tried. He's the only one who had contact with the dead man," Damian thought aloud.
"From the looks of it, he's pretending to be me to get around the hospital," Damian added thoughtfully.
"So, what do we do about this?" asked the guard, looking concerned.
"Honestly, I'm not sure myself," Damian admitted, rubbing his chin in thought. "Maybe we should get the cops involved."
"Yeah, we can't exactly hide something like this - a dead man came back to life. This is huge, doc," said the guard, his voice tense.
"Yeah, for now, get me a copy of this footage. I'll take it down to the station and see if I can get this investigated," Damian decided.
"Alright, I'll try editing it out. You'll have it before the end of the day," assured the guard.
"And please, let's keep this between us for now until we make sense of it. We don't want to spread rumors and cause panic throughout the hospital," Damian urged.
"I understand. I'll keep it with me," nodded the guard.
"Thanks," said Damian gratefully as he turned and walked out of the security room, his mind racing with the implications of what he had just witnessed.