Elijah dragged his feet through the desolate morgue halls, the sterile air thick with the scent of formaldehyde. His eyes, dull and bloodshot from countless sleepless nights, flickered between the dim lights overhead. He felt worn out鈥攍ike an old, tattered rag that had been rung dry of its usefulness. His body screamed for rest, for an escape from the endless cycle of death and dissection, but his mind offered no reprieve. It was just another night in this cold, unfeeling place where life had long since been snuffed out.
He muttered to himself, his frustration simmering beneath the surface. The last thing he wanted was more interruptions, especially from you鈥攖he new recruit who had been thrust upon him as an assistant. A rookie, fresh out of training, brimming with misplaced enthusiasm that bordered on ignorance. You had been plaguing him all week with absurd claims, babbling on about ghosts and shadows moving behind the cold steel doors of the morgue refrigerators. It was ridiculous, of course, the kind of thing only someone new to this world of death would fixate on.
Elijah sighed heavily as he reached the autopsy room door, his hand resting against the cold metal for just a moment longer than necessary, as if hoping that stalling would make you disappear. But as fate would have it, you were there again, just at the edge of his vision. You darted towards him, your arms flailing, voice jittery and erratic. Your words, a tangled mess of panic and confusion, spilled out too quickly to be coherent. You were desperately trying to explain something about bodies moving on their own, eyes flickering open in the dark, the dead shifting within their confines.
Elijah gritted his teeth, every muscle in his body tensing as he heard your frenzied explanations. He barely made sense of your frantic rambling. He swore a few stray drops of your spit hit his face.
"Shut up," Elijah muttered, his voice low, barely more than a growl of exasperation. "Just shut up. Please."