Chapter 1: Bound to the Man I Loved

After I died, I lost my memory. But my soul was bound to a forensic pathologist. I watched, helpless, as he examined my broken, ruined body—no eyes, no fingers, no organs left inside. No eyes, no fingers, no organs left inside. I barely recognized myself. The horror of it hit me in waves.

There was a weird, faraway ache as I hovered there, invisible and weightless. I couldn't even shudder; I just floated, numb. The room felt colder than any winter I'd ever known, the kind of cold that seeps into your bones—or what's left of them. I wondered if I'd ever feel warm again.

Later, my memory came back in pieces. It turned out he was the man I loved. The shock of that nearly knocked the wind out of me—if ghosts could lose their breath. Later still, I traded every blessing I’d ever earned for a sliver of hope to save him. I would’ve given anything, and I did.

Funny how love sticks around, even when you can’t remember your own name. Seriously, it just hangs on. Even as a ghost, the ache of loving someone doesn’t let go. Honestly, not even death can erase that.

I was miserable. No question about it. As a dead woman, I’d lost every memory—my name, my past, whether I had family. I couldn’t even recall how I died. It was like I’d been erased, and all that was left was the ache.

It’s a special kind of hell, drifting through the world with no anchor, no sense of self. I was like a half-finished song. Notes trailing off into silence, leaving nothing behind. I kept hoping something—anything—would spark a memory, but all I got was static. Just empty echoes.

Originally, I was supposed to be led away by the local reaper, taken to the cemetery gates, and crossed over. But that reaper just glanced at me, then looked at me with sympathy and said, “Man, you poor thing—died so horribly, and after death can’t remember a thing. But here’s the rub: I can’t take you. A ghost like you, who can’t remember her life, can’t cross over. If you want peace, you gotta recover your memory.”

He looked like the kind of guy who’d wear a faded Cubs cap and drink black coffee at midnight. The kind of guy you see at a diner, staring into his cup. His voice was gentle, but there was a tiredness in it—a kind of resignation that comes from seeing too many lost souls.

Maybe because I’d just died, my mind was still foggy. I only half-understood what the reaper said. But I did get the last part: within seven days, if I couldn’t recall my past, I’d be just...gone. For good. In other words, if I didn’t recover my memory within a week, I’d truly disappear for good.

That deadline echoed in my head, ticking away like a clock you can’t see. Seven days. It sounded like forever—and not nearly enough at the same time.

I felt lost. For a ghost who didn’t even remember her own name, recovering my memory in seven days felt impossible. Like trying to run a marathon with both legs tied together.

I drifted in circles, the way you do when you lose your car in a Walmart parking lot—except worse. Except this time, there was no car, and no one to ask for help. Every time I tried to focus, my thoughts slipped away like soap in the shower. Slippery, impossible to hold. Ha. Story of my afterlife.

Maybe seeing how pitiful I looked, the reaper sighed. He suggested I should first find my own body, at least to know how I died. That way, maybe something would click.

He sounded like a weary social worker. He rubbed his temples and shrugged. “Start with the basics, kid. Sometimes the body remembers what the mind forgets.”

I rolled my eyes at him. I didn’t even know my name—why would it matter how I died? Even if I knew, so what? I couldn’t come back. What was the point?

But even as I said it, a little voice in the back of my mind whispered—maybe, just maybe, knowing would help. It’s hard to move on when you don’t know what you’re moving on from.

Still, I had to admit there was some logic in finding my body first. The reaper asked if I remembered any place, and said he could take me there. Maybe a street name, a smell, a sign—anything.

He sounded hopeful, like he’d seen this before, and maybe it worked once or twice. “Sometimes a place sticks with you. You remember a smell, a street corner, a door.”

I thought this reaper talked too much, but I did remember a place. I didn’t know why, but even though I’d lost my memory, there was one road I could recall. Deep down, it felt like a voice was telling me to go there, insisting I must return. But I couldn’t remember where that place was, or its name. I didn’t know why the voice inside insisted I had to go. The whole thing was maddening.

It was like a song stuck in your head, a road that twisted through my mind, tugging at me with every invisible step. I didn’t know what I’d find, but the need to follow was overwhelming. Like I was being pulled on a leash I couldn’t see.

I just followed the road in my memory, drifting along until I stopped at the entrance of a police precinct in a small Midwestern city—Maple Heights.

The station looked exactly how you’d picture it: brick walls, faded flag fluttering, a couple of cruisers parked out front. The kind of place where everyone knows everyone, and the coffee’s always two hours old. You could practically smell the burnt grounds from the sidewalk.

“Wow, I don’t know whether to praise you or laugh at you,” the reaper said. “You actually remembered, ‘when in trouble, find the cops.’ But what’s the use? You’re a ghost now! Ghosts aren’t under police jurisdiction!” He threw in a little wink, like he thought he was being clever.

He grinned like he’d just cracked the world’s worst dad joke. I almost groaned. If he’d had an elbow, I bet he would’ve nudged me with it.

I didn’t know why this reaper insisted on following me. I figured he was just bored. Maybe he drew the short straw tonight.

Or maybe I was his assignment for the night—a lost soul with nowhere to go, making his shift drag on. Who knows?

I ignored him and went straight into the station. I had a feeling I might find what I was looking for inside. My feet—if I’d had them—moved on their own.

There was an unexpected warmth in the air, the scent of burnt coffee and old paper. It felt oddly familiar, like a place I’d spent too many late nights in. My chest tightened with something like nostalgia.

I floated through the precinct doors. Instinctively, I wanted to ask someone something, stopping in front of a young woman in a navy uniform whose face looked indescribably tired. I reached out to pat her, but my hand passed right through her shoulder. Oh, right—I’m a ghost now. Ghosts can’t touch the living. Figures.

The reaper beside me patted my shoulder with a sympathetic look. “Don’t feel bad. I was the same way when I first died. Some folks, even after days, still don’t realize they’re gone.”

He tried to sound reassuring, but it just made the whole thing feel more real. I wondered how many times he’d given this speech. Probably too many.

“Oh,” I replied, not really caring. It all felt too big, too strange.

At that moment, even the comfort of a stranger couldn’t reach me. I felt like a shadow in a world full of light. Just background noise in someone else’s life.

Then I saw a woman in a white coat approach, her face full of worry. She handed a file to the young officer and anxiously said, “Sandy, the chief’s pushing for Officer Blair’s autopsy report. Can you check on Dr. Harrison? He’s been in the morgue for hours. We tried to help, but he won’t let anyone in.”

Her words tumbled out in a rush, the way people talk when they’re scared and trying not to show it. I could see her hands shaking, the file heavy with bad news.

“I’ll go take a look.”

The woman called Sandy sighed, took the file, and walked inside.

She moved like she was carrying the weight of the world. And maybe she was. The kind of exhaustion you can’t sleep off, the kind that comes from losing someone you care about.

I didn’t know why, but I followed her, almost as if something was pulling me, and arrived at a door. She reached out to turn the handle, but it was locked from the inside. After several failed attempts, she grew anxious, pounding on the door and shouting:

“Harrison, open up! I know you’re upset about Blair, but I’m no less upset than you. None of us are! You know as well as I do—Blair, she... she was barely alive when someone dumped her outside. She crawled all the way to the station—why do you think that was? She must have hidden something for us. The evidence she risked her life for—you can’t let her sacrifice be for nothing!”

Her voice cracked, raw with grief. Each word seemed to echo down the hallway, bouncing off the linoleum and faded blue paint. I could almost feel the pain vibrating in the air. It made me ache just to listen.

Sandy pounded on the door, choking up several times, unable to finish. When she finally stopped, she slumped against the wall, squatted down, and covered her mouth, sobbing.

The silence that followed was heavy. No one in the station dared to break it. The kind of silence that only comes after a storm of grief.

With a click, the morgue door opened. Out walked a man in a white coat, his face expressionless. His skin was so pale it looked like he’d never seen sunlight. His eyes were beautiful, dark pupils filled with indifference, but not a trace of coldness. The whole room seemed to hold its breath.

He moved like a ghost himself, gliding through the door, his shoulders hunched under a burden no one else could see. The air around him seemed to chill another degree. My own breath caught, and I wasn’t even breathing.

“Give me a little more time. Just a little more time.” His face was full of exhaustion, his hoarse voice a murmur, almost a plea. The words barely made it past his lips, but the desperation was clear.

You could hear the desperation in his words, the way a man clings to the last thread of hope. His hands trembled as he spoke, knuckles white from gripping the doorframe. I wanted to reach out, but I couldn’t.

“Harrison, we can’t let Blair die in vain. We have to make those bastards pay. Even if it kills me, I, Sam, will make them pay!”

Sam raised her head, her reddened eyes burning with determination and hatred—so raw it made the air hard to breathe.

The room seemed to shrink around her, her words pulsing with a kind of righteous fury that made even the ghosts take notice. I felt it in my bones—or what was left of them.

Dr. Harrison didn’t say a word. He turned back into the morgue. Sam said he was as sad as the rest of them, but strangely, I didn’t sense any sadness from him at all.

There was something else beneath the surface—something deeper, colder, maybe even broken. I wondered if he’d ever let anyone see it. The question stuck with me.

After Sam wiped her tears and left, I started to follow her. But before I could get far, a strong force pulled me back to the morgue door.

It felt like an invisible leash yanking me back, snapping me to a halt. My whole body—or what passed for it—buzzed with confusion. I spun around, frustrated.

I was confused about what was happening, so I floated out again, only to be pulled back once more.

It was like trying to swim against a riptide. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break free. The harder I fought, the more stuck I felt. I wanted to scream.

While I was puzzled, the reaper beside me suddenly brightened, looking at me in surprise. “Found it! Girl, you’re really lucky. You just died, your soul only recently left your body, so you can still sense things. You can’t leave here, which means your body must be nearby. Besides this morgue, there shouldn’t be anywhere else in the station for bodies, right? Hurry up and check inside.”

He sounded way too excited, like he’d just solved the Sunday crossword. He even bounced on his heels a little. I rolled my eyes at his enthusiasm.

Although we were looking for my body, the reaper seemed more excited than I was. I wondered—are the afterlife’s working conditions really this good? Are reapers always this idle? Must be a slow night for him.

I pictured him clocking in at some cosmic DMV, waiting for paperwork to clear. Maybe following me around was a break from the monotony. That thought almost made me laugh.

He pushed me in. Caught off guard, I lost my balance and hit the table at the door—or rather, I passed right through it.

The sensation was dizzying, like tripping over your own feet and realizing you don’t have any. I braced myself for impact, but there was nothing to land on. Ghost problems, I guess.

There was a loud bang as something hit the floor behind me. I shuddered, startled. Looking back, I saw the photo frame that had been standing on the table fall over.

The sound echoed in the sterile room, louder than it had any right to be. For a second, I wondered if I’d somehow become real again. The silence that followed was deafening.

The man called Dr. Harrison slowly turned around. He seemed to see the photo frame fall, and a trace of panic flashed through his emotionless eyes as he quickly walked in my direction.