The morgue was silent except for the faint hum of the fluorescent lights. Anna’s gloved hands trembled slightly as she reached for the golden ring on the deceased man’s finger. She had done this before — quietly taking trinkets from the unclaimed, convincing herself that the dead no longer needed them. But tonight felt different.
As her fingers brushed against the ring, she felt it — a faint warmth radiating from his cold hand. At first, she dismissed it as her imagination, the product of nerves and guilt. But when she tried again to pull it free, the warmth spread up her arm, pulsing gently beneath her skin.
Then she felt it — a pulse.
Anna recoiled, her breath catching in her throat. “No,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head. “It’s just… a muscle spasm.” That was what she told herself, what every medical worker knew could happen. And yet, deep down, she wasn’t convinced.
The man’s face remained eerily calm, but something about his expression seemed… knowing. The longer she stared, the heavier the air grew around her. The morgue, once familiar, now felt suffocatingly cold.
And then — a sound.
It was faint, like the sigh of someone barely awake. Anna’s heart lurched. She looked down at the man’s chest — still. Not even a twitch. “It’s just the ventilation,” she muttered, her voice trembling.
But when she reached for the ring a third time, determined to prove her mind wrong, she froze in horror. The man’s fingers — the same lifeless fingers she had touched moments ago — twitched. Slowly, they curled around hers.
Anna’s scream died in her throat. She stumbled backward, her blood pounding in her ears, her legs refusing to move.
Just then, the morgue door creaked open. An orderly entered, whistling casually as he wheeled in another gurney. The sound snapped Anna out of her paralysis. She snatched her hand away, composing herself as best she could.
“Everything alright, Anna?” the orderly asked, noticing her pale face.
“Yes,” she lied quickly. “Just… tired.”
He nodded and went about his work, unaware of the terror still etched across her expression. As soon as she could, Anna left the room, her breaths coming in short, panicked bursts.
That night, she couldn’t sleep. The sensation of the ring’s warmth lingered on her skin, as real as the faint pressure of those fingers. She replayed the moment again and again — the sigh, the pulse, the impossible touch. Was it guilt? Imagination? Or had something truly defied death that night?
Whatever it was, Anna never stole from the morgue again. She chose honesty, choosing peace over greed. Yet, in the quiet hours of the night, when the world was still and her thoughts wandered, she sometimes felt it again — that faint, rhythmic pulse on her skin.
A reminder that some lines — between life, death, and conscience — should never be crossed.