The Devil's Cage

Mumbles echoed around the morgue.

The man didn't notice anything unusual.

"D-Delicious… and cheap…"

Quite the contrary, after the mumbles, the man started to swallow his saliva and his stomach started to growl.

He stared down at McRose strapped on the operation chair.

He was as hungry as a starving beast!

McRose trembled when she caught his gaze.

She felt the man was scarier than he was before.

Before this, the man wanted to dissect her, but now he wanted to eat her!

If she had to choose between being dissected and eaten, she would beg for the third choice.

She hadn't finished paying off her loans!

She hadn't enjoyed life enough.

She didn't want to die!

"Please someone save me! Save me! Help! Save me and I'll…"

She prayed hard and even wanted to make an offer but she suddenly realized she had nothing.

Money?

She was heavily in debt, she had no money in her savings.

Her looks?

A rather decent look but nothing stellar, especially her daily makeup, a common man would not lay eyes on her.

Melancholy filled her heart in an instant.

The scariest thing wasn't falling into a dangerous situation but realizing that you had nothing at all, not even the qualifications to escape the danger.

Helpless, McRose looked down. She had to bring out her last chip to the table.

Other than money and looks, what else did she have?

Her life!

It was the only answer that she could come up with but it contradicted her original intention, which was to live…

'Whatever, every moment counts now!'

McRose had given up entirely.

"D-Delicious...and cheap…"

Just when she was ready to pray for her life again, the mumbles sounded again and the man was beside her with his mouth open. A vile stench came out from his mouth, assaulting her face to the point that she couldn't open her eyes.

McRose had no idea what caused a person's mouth to be that smelly, but the mumbles struck an idea in her mind.

"Save me and I'll get out my breakfast from my workshop!"

She said her prayers out loud, feeling embarrassed after that.

It was too cheap!

Her life was equivalent to breakfast?

No! It should be more than that!

While she was considering increasing the offering to 3 meals of the day, a voice entered her ears.

"D-Deal!"

It was a little bit muffled but when it subsided, wind blew into the slaughterhouse.

The wind was strong and violent, like a typhoon blowing into the limited space!

The man was ready to have a bite of McRose but the sudden violent wind sent him flying backwards. Under McRose's shocked gaze, a translucent figure was sucked out from the man's body, devoured by the violent wind before the body was slammed into the wall.

Bang!

A loud bang later, McRose regained her senses.

"What happened? Did my prayers come true? One breakfast to settle it all? Is my life that cheap?"

McRose was in shock, despite her body being special and having been through many unimaginable things, what happened just now made her doubt her life.

Did she choose the wrong occupation?

Should she learn to cook?"

"Life is priceless, likewise the promise to offer food."

As the words subsided, Kieran walked out from the shadow and went over to the man for a look.

The translucent figure that was devoured was the evil spirit that had possessed the man, not the man's soul.

However, the man was not in good shape. His body was very weak, his breath getting slower and his soul should have suffered damage from the evil spirit possession, but…

It also proved Kieran's direction was correct.

This dying man was the person who sent the box of dismembered body parts to the station.

It was hard for anyone to imagine a dying man curled up on the ground as a murderer who dismembered bodies. It was hard to look at him.

"I-I don't want to die, I want to l-live…"

Before he could finish, the man died off.

Kieran looked at the body coldly.

He followed the traces from the station to the morgue, his mind already drawing a general roadmap.

The secret slaughterhouse in the morgue.

The dismembered victim.

Living forever and undying.

And also the [Imperfect Mordin Sculpture] that was hiding in the operation chair.

"Seeking survival?" Kieran spoke to himself.

He didn't have any extra comments on this because he had experienced similar things too.

He could totally imagine what kind of emotions that would be.

In order to survive, one would jump into the hole even though it was obviously a trap or a lie.

It was obvious that things would turn bad, yet an attempt was made.

Why though?

To survive.

Even without diginity, survival was crucial.

It was part of the human instinct.

Like the man who had just died. He was despicable and pitiful but he did it all to survive. He'd even kill to breathe a little longer, but unfortunately, he was ultimately used by someone, as a beautiful 'ending'.

"Call the police," Kieran turned around to McRose, who had gotten up from the operation chair and stared at the scene blankly.

"B-But…"

McRose wanted to argue but when she saw Kieran pointing at the dead man, she gave up. She wasn't an idiot, or rather, since she was a pathologist, she should be a meticulous and calm person.

Otherwise, she wouldn't have faced the bloody bodies so frankly.

Recalling what happened yesterday and connecting it to the scene before her eyes, McRose had her own theory of what happened.

"Okay," McRose wanted to head back up to make the call.

Kieran then spoke again, "Remember what you promised me just now."

"Sure, I'll save the breakfast for you." she nodded.

She didn't want to admit it but she did save herself with breakfast, so rather than considering herself cheap, it was better for her to call it worthwhile.

Unknowingly, McRose felt like she got lucky.

Before she truly left the morgue, she took one last glance at Kieran, standing in the bloody stains.

Inside the dark red environment, his dark outfit didn't stand out as much, as if he merged with the scene. However, he was distinguished clearly by the lights, as two things from two different worlds came together.

"What a freak."

With curiosity in her eyes and such comments in her heart, McRose strode back upstairs.

5 minutes later, the irritating sirens arrived and broke the peaceful afternoon.

Inspector Gredith and a few more officers stormed down to the morgue. She frowned when she saw Kieran.

She realized ever since she made the man's acquaintance, he would be around every single incident, as either the person directly involved or a bystander, and someone would die each time.

'Is this guy the grim reaper?'

Gredith thought in her head but she quickly discarded it and turned to the body and the secret room.

She sized it up carefully and walked over to Kieran.

"What happened?" She asked.

"I thought I came here to have a look at Mary but when I came down here, I saw McRose held hostage by this man. So I saved her," Kieran spilled out the words he had prepared.

"I don't know what happened either. This morning when I came back to the workshop to start my job, I came down here for some cleaning and then this man barged in, seized me and opened this secret room—I don't even know about this room behind the wall of body cabinets before this," McRose tried her best in going along with Kieran's words.

Since Gredith already got the surveillance camera's footage, she did not suspect the two of them because it clearly showed McRose's arrival first, followed by the attacker and then Kieran.

Their words matched the time and made perfect sense.

The only thing that caught Gredith's suspicion was the identity of the attacker.

How did he know about the secret room in the morgue?

Or rather, why was he in the morgue?

"I want details on his backgrounds, starting with hospital records," Gredith told her men.

"Yes, madam," the officers quickly moved out.

The search quickly bore results as the attacker's motives were clear and had a picture of him.

The attacker was a patient suffering from serious kidney and liver failure.

Half a month ago, he gave up on treatment and left the hospital.

Based on the address he left for the hospital, the officers followed the lead and found his place and also… the scene where the body was dismembered.

"What?! You are saying this guy is the killer of the dismemberment case?!"

Gredith was astonished when she picked up the phone call.

A severely ill man was the killer behind the dismemberment case?!

Doubt filled her heart but no matter how reluctant she was in believing it, the facts were placed before her and she chose to compromise with the truth.

When her men further told her no one else was involved in the killing, Gredith looked at the secret room in the morgue with a sense of doubt.

She then made another phone call.

When her call provided her with the fact that the man was the first and original owner of the forensic lab, despite the doubts in her heart, she had to believe the man was indeed the killer.

The man built the lab with the secret room, dissecting bodies and even living human beings, but his condition forced him to give up on his horrible hobby.

However, the sinful thoughts in his mind ushered him into committing crime again. He first chose Mary, the poor lady who isolated herself from society. The man easily got what he wanted but his body condition worsened.

He knew it too, so it drove him crazier. He started to provoke the police and wanted to end his crazy life in the place where it all started, too bad he was stopped.

"Thankfully he was stopped, I do not want to switch to another contracted forensic lab."

Gredith exclaimed when she told McRose about what really happened in her office.

"Me too, I do not want to die so early," McRose showed a bitter smile.

Gredith wasn't concerned about that, she assumed McRose was frightened.

"The written testimony is all done, so get some rest Rose. I'll contact you if there's anything," said Gredith.

"Okay, I'll go back first," McRose nodded and walked out.

At the entrance, McRose ran into Kierank, who had just finished another testimonial recording.

Both of them walked out together.

Gredith shook her head at both their backs. It seemed like the sudden incident at the morgue shortened the distance between them. Besides, other than McRose's weird makeup, she was an easygoing person. It wasn't weird for friendship to bloom between them.

Gredith wasn't afraid that McRose would tell Kieran about something confidential, she knew McRose cherished her job very much.

"Get ready to close the case!"

A deep breath later, she returned to her office and started to arrange the files. She ought to compile everything on the case before she signed off for the day.

As for the press conference?

Someone else was on that, her job was to finish the compiling and send it over.

However, while she was arranging the files and documents, the phone on her desk rank.

Her face turned pale when she picked up the phone.

…

Inside the cab, Kieran was sitting beside McRose.

Other than stating her address when she hailed the cab, neither of them talked at all during the journey.

McRose was troubled by her thoughts, with no intention to speak; Kieran was never a person who liked to start a conversation.

Silence became the melody between them.

The cab driver felt unusual pressure from the silence. Unknowingly, the cab sped up and the driver tried to complete this trip as soon as possible. The two customers he picked up were weirdos, especially the lady with bleached make up, no way she would be a good person. The man was a little wasted, looking proper and decent but was influenced badly by the lady.

The pitiful words roared in the cab driver's mind, making him step on the pedal harder. The journey that supposedly took one hour ended in 45 minutes.

Kieran and McRose arrived at the destination and after both of them got off, the can drove away quickly.

The destination was a sanatorium.

"Water & Sunshine Sanatorium," stated the sign.

Through the door, Kieran saw the elderly exercising on the field with workers guiding them. Further away was a small lake and on the other side of the field was a five story white building, the body of the building straight and neat but with an arched rooftop.

People would walk through the well-lit windows.

"A rather decent sanatorium," Kieran commented.

McRose, on the other hand, walked inside without pause.

It seemed like she was a regular at the place. The security at the entrance didn't even stop her, showing a smile instead.

Kieran followed her and went straight to the main building.

However, just as the two of them got closer to the main building, a frightened scream came from the lake.

"Aaaaa! Someone is dead!"