The Body that Shouldn’t have Existed by Yara I
I arrived at the ghastly village at 06:15 a.m., an hour or so after the call came in. unidentified male, estimated around sixty, found near the old forest path.
mist engulfed the gloomy horizon, an eerie silence settling over the landscape. cottages appeared and disappeared again as I drove through the quiet town, their windows dark against the early morning frost. I'd been warned by my peers about the unsettling muteness of the neighbourhood — how it was the place detectives were sent when their own city minds had grown too loud. somewhere quiet. somewhere uneventful. somewhere people went when they needed the absence of chaos.
yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease as I drove through the town. it felt as though no one was truly sleeping at all — only watching silently.
two uniformed officers were waiting at the old forest path when i arrived. the trees loomed overhead, their branches still damp from the midnight mist. neither officer spoke at first; they simply nodded as I approached.
the shorter one finally gestured toward a small clearing beyond the shrubs.
“Over there, ma’am.”
the body lay in the damp grass.
it hadn’t been flung or thrown aside. it simply lay there, almost as if asleep. the man was positioned neatly on his back, his eyes closed and his hands resting loosely across his chest.
for a moment I truly wondered if he might simply be resting.
there were no obvious signs of struggle. nothing to suggest violence, or even an accident. his coat was perfectly buttoned, untouched by the chaos one would expect from death in a forest. the nearby earth remained undisturbed, the only imprint being the damp grass pressed down beneath his weight.
how could it have been violent?
it didn’t feel violent.
just… arranged.
I dropped to my knees beside him, pressing my fingers gently against the side of his neck, hoping to find reassurance that he had simply collapsed in the wrong place at the wrong time.
but there was nothing.
“No wallet,” one of the officers said quietly behind me. “No identification either.”
I reached out and brushed some of the dirt from his cheek.
that was when the dread settled in.
I recognised him.
the memory arrived slowly, filling the blank space in my mind.
morgan Melendez.
I had seen his face during my first week as senior detective in the village — printed beneath a small obituary notice. a hiker who had died after a dangerous journey through the forest. I had even attended his funeral three years earlier, remembering clearly the agitation I felt as the church bells rang that day.
they rang for what felt like an eternity.
the same bells had rung again this morning.
04:47 a.m.
according to the village council records, the bell mechanism had not worked properly for years. no one had ever gotten around to fixing it.
That afternoon, the village council announced an emergency meeting after news about the death spread through the village like wildfires in the wind. I hadn't been invited, but I went anyway.
The council hall stood opposite the church hill tall stained-glass windows letting in long coloured streaks of light. Faded yellow wallpaper lined the walls in a looping repeating pattern, curving inward but barely touching the centre.
The longer i looked at it, the more engrossed I felt by the thought that the repition wasn't accidental.
Seven of the 12 council members appeared that afternoon. I observed them all as they took their assigned seats at the polished oak table, me sitting at the head. None of them had a hind of shock to see me.
At the opposite head to me sat Carol Krueger, the head of the village council, her eyebrows raising slightly as she spoke.
“Detective, how may we be of your assistance?”
I placed the file onto the table, hands trembling ever so slightly.
“Morgan Melendez,” I said carefully, “declared dead three years ago.”
I watched the expressions of everyone around me, lifeless and monotone.
“That would be impossible detective.”
A quiet pause settled over the room. Not shock. Or confusion. Just silence.
“I thought so too.”
No one asked how the man died. Or why he had appeared now out of all times, or where he’d been for the three years prior. No one spoke until a thin man – Mr Rowe – spoke out of the shadows.
“And the grave?” he inquired.
I frowned slightly
“What about it?”
“Has it been opened?”
The room was very still. Outside, somewhere in the distance, a single church bell rang once.no one in the room reacted. For a moment I wondered if I had imagined it.
And suddenly I had the strange feeling that everyone else in the room already knew the answer to his question.