The Dark Night

The crescent moon scratched faintly through a blanket of thick, dark clouds, as though even the sky refused to fully witness what lay beneath. The hospital stood unnaturally still as I entered it that night.

I had long stopped fearing nights like these. Years of duty had hardened me. Blood, broken bodies, last breaths, grieving families, cold morgues; each carving away a piece of my innocence. The stories whispered among staff about spirits wandering corridors had faded into nothing more than mere background noise.

“Reni,” came the flat voice from reception, slicing through the stillness. “Dr. Thomas has left the death report file for you.”

It was Preeja. Her voice lacked its usual warmth.

“Who’s on morgue duty?” I asked, adjusting my file.

“Zayan.”

A pause followed; silence heavy enough to be felt.

“All well?” I pressed gently.

“Hmmm.”

Nothing more.

But something had shifted. I felt it not in her words, but in whatever she withheld.

By the time I reached the elevator, my mind was already restless, stitching together possibilities. A new ward boy. Uneasy staff. A silence too deliberate.

The basement welcomed me with a biting chill. Pale blue lights washed the corridor in a sickly hue, flattening the shadows but never fully erasing them. The morgue lay at the far end and its presence pressed against the air like a held breath.

I intentionally silenced my footsteps when I couldn’t find Zayan around.

Not a soul in sight.

I reached the morgue door. It resisted slightly, as though reluctant to open. A thin metallic creak broke the silence as I pushed it inward.

And thats when time shattered.

A young girl’s body lay sprawled across a steel table. Lifeless. Naked. Violated in the most unforgivable way.

And over her was Zayan.

His body moved with a grotesque rhythm, stripped of all humanity. His eyes… they were not empty. They were alive with something dark… something unhinged. A sick devotion. A hunger that had crossed every boundary of dignity, of morality, of human existence itself.

For a second, my mind refused to understand what my eyes were seeing.

Then it hit. Necrophilia…

My Soul simply refused to contain the horror unfolding before me.

My stomach twisted violently. A scream clawed its way up my throat, but my hands smothered it before it could escape. I tasted salt as tears flooded my mouth. My entire body trembled… not with fear alone, but with rage. A rage that burned through the paralysis.

This was not mere madness. This was desecration. This was violence beyond death.

That girl on the table had no voice, no defense, no dignity left to protect. And he had sought refuge in that silence, in that helplessness.

I ran.

I don’t remember the corridor. I don’t remember the elevator. I only remember the sound of my own heartbeat; pounding, frantic, desperate to escape my chest.

Weeks passed.

But the night simply refused to leave me.

“Reni,” Dr. Thomas said gently one afternoon, “I need you to come to the psychiatry ward.”

“No.” The word came sharper than I intended. “I’ve done what I had to. I cannot stand in front of him again. Not after what I saw.”

“This isn’t about obligation,” he replied. “It’s about closure.”

Closure! There was no closure for something like that.

Before I was about to leave, I felt arms wrap around me.

Preeja.

She clung to me as though I were the only thing keeping her from collapsing. I held her, sensing the storm she had been carrying alone.

“I should have told you,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “That night… before you went down…”

I stayed silent, letting her gather strength from the pause.

“He came to the reception,” she continued, trembling. “But he wasn’t… normal. His eyes—there was something wrong. He… he exposed himself. Boldly. With a wicked grin. As if… as if it was some sick joke.”

My grip tightened around her.

“I froze,” she said. “I couldn’t even scream. He just… walked away. Towards the morgue.”

Her words filled the gaps I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.

This wasn’t sudden. This wasn’t accidental. This was a pattern. A sickness that had been allowed to exist. Something unchecked, unseen and dismissed.

Later, we learned the truth.

Zayan had worked as an undertaker at the crematorium tied to the hospital. Access to the dead had never been a responsibility to him. It had been an opportunity. His psychiatrist confirmed it: this was not an isolated act. It was habitual. Gender meant nothing. Humanity meant nothing.

Only control. Only domination over the utterly defenceless. That realisation was the most horrifying of all.

Not just what he did… but why?

Because necrophilia is not desire. It is power. It is the ultimate exploitation of silence.

Even now, the law struggles to name such acts for what they truly are. In a system where the dead are denied justice. Crimes like these risk being buried along with their victims.

But silence is where monsters thrive. That night changed something in me forever.

I had witnessed death countless times before. But that was the first time I saw dignity die.

And I knew then… Fear is not what we should feel. It is anger that demands we see and speak.

Because the real horror is not what hides in the dark. It is what we choose not to confront.

Word Count: 898 excluding the title

Cover Image Credit: Pixabay- aknologia6path