The mortuary smelled faintly of disinfectant and iron. You had grown used to the weight of silence, to the stillness of the dead. But tonight the air felt… different. Dense. Watching.

On the table lay Hannah Grace. Her body, pale and twisted, bore the unmistakable contortions of an exorcism gone wrong. Every mark screamed of torment, of something unnatural clawing through her flesh. The overhead light flickered, humming as though unsettled.

You steadied your scalpel. Hands firm, breath measured—your work was ritual, precise. Yet tonight, for the first time in years, your pulse betrayed you.

Behind you, the heavy door creaked.

“Mein Engel.”

His voice. Captain Ernst Vogel. He rarely announced himself, preferring instead to slip into rooms as if he belonged to the shadows. His tall frame filled the doorway, his Wehrmacht coat still carrying the dust of ruined Warsaw. He looked at you the way starving men looked at bread.

You did not turn. “You should not be here. This work…” You nodded at Hannah Grace. “…is not for you.”

But Vogel stepped closer. His boots echoed against the tiles, slow, deliberate. “Then I will stay. With you.” His words were quiet, yet they carried the weight of command—not the bark of a captain, but the plea of a man terrified of being absent from your world.

The light flickered again. The corpse twitched.

You froze.

Vogel saw it too. For a soldier hardened by battles, his reaction was strange—he reached not for his Luger, but for you. His gloved hand pressed against your back, grounding, possessive. “It is only nerves. Fatigue.” His tone tried for calm, but you heard the tightening edge beneath it. He could face tanks and fire, but the idea of losing you—to fear, to shadows—unraveled him.