Dr. Esteban Fonseca did not believe in instincts.
Not the kind people whispered about. Not the kind that made your hands shake or your chest tighten for no reason. In fifteen years at the morgue, he had learned one rule:
Everything has a cause.
Everything could be explained.
Everything… except what was standing in front of him now.
The Mother Superior smiled again, her hands folded calmly over her abdomen, her posture flawless. Too flawless. The kind of stillness that felt practiced rather than natural.
“May I come in?” she asked softly.
Fonseca didn’t answer right away.
Behind him, the hum of the refrigeration units seemed louder. The air colder. He could feel Camilo standing somewhere in the room, frozen, waiting.
Do not trust the Mother Superior.
The nun’s voice from the video echoed in his mind.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible right now,” Fonseca said carefully, blocking the doorway just enough to make his refusal clear without turning it into confrontation.
The woman’s smile did not fade.
But something in her eyes did.
“I understand,” she said. “It must be difficult… handling someone so… special.”
The way she said special made his skin crawl.
“I only need a moment,” she added. “A final prayer.”
Fonseca swallowed.
“No one enters during an active examination,” he replied. “Hospital protocol.”
For a split second—just a fraction of a second—the sweetness in her expression cracked.
Then it returned.
“Of course,” she said gently. “I will wait.”
She stepped back.
But she didn’t leave.
Fonseca closed the door slowly.
Locked it.
Then turned toward Camilo.
“We don’t open that door again,” he said under his breath.
Camilo nodded too quickly. “Doctor… what if she knows?”
Fonseca didn’t answer.
Because he already knew.
They went back to the computer.
The video file still sat open on the screen, frozen on Sister Inés’s terrified face.
Fonseca hit play again.
The video resumed for less than a second—just enough to show her reaching toward the camera, her lips forming one last word before everything cut to black.
“—below—”
Then static.
That was it.
Camilo blinked. “Below what?”
Fonseca’s mind raced.
Below.
Below the bed?
Below the convent?
Below… the body?
His eyes slowly turned toward the autopsy room.
The nun lay exactly where they had left her.
Still.
Peaceful.
Wrong.
The message on her back seemed darker now, like it had sunk deeper into her skin.
Do not perform the autopsy.
Wait two hours.
What you need is in the pocket of my habit.
They had already broken one rule.
They had checked the pocket.
They had watched the video.
But the second instruction…
They hadn’t followed that.
Fonseca looked at the clock.
Only forty minutes had passed.
“Doctor…” Camilo whispered, “what if we’re not supposed to cut her open at all?”
Fonseca didn’t respond.
Because suddenly, the idea of performing the autopsy felt less like procedure… and more like a mistake.
A trap.
Three knocks.
Then three more.
The same pattern.
From the door.
Again.
Camilo flinched.
“She’s still there.”
Fonseca didn’t move.
The knocking came again.
Softer this time.
Almost patient.
“Doctor Fonseca,” the Mother Superior’s voice called through the door. “Time is very important tonight.”
That sentence made his stomach drop.
Time is very important.
How would she know that?
Unless—
Unless she already knew about the message.
Fonseca turned back to the body.
And for the first time since it had arrived…
He noticed something he had completely missed.
The nun’s fingers.
They were slightly curled.
As if they had tried to grab something… or push something away.
Or…
dig.
“Help me lift her,” he said.
Camilo hesitated. “Doctor—”
“Now.”
They moved carefully, repositioning the body just enough to examine the lower back more closely.
And that’s when they saw it.
A second mark.
Faint.
Barely visible beneath the skin.
Not written.
Not inked.
Something… under the skin.
Like something had been placed there.
Sewn.
Hidden.
Camilo stepped back. “No… no, no…”
Fonseca’s pulse pounded in his ears.
Below.
The word echoed again.
Not below the bed.
Not below the convent.
Below the skin.
The knocking stopped.
Completely.
The silence that followed was worse.
Fonseca reached for his scalpel.
His hand hovered above the nun’s back.
The message stared up at him like a warning.
Do not perform the autopsy.
But this wasn’t an autopsy anymore.
This was something else.
He made the cut.
What came out was not blood.
Not tissue.
Not anything he had seen in fifteen years.
It was a thin, sealed plastic sleeve.
Perfectly intact.
Hidden beneath her skin.
Protected.
Deliberate.
Inside it…
Photographs.
Dozens of them.
Girls.
Young.
Wearing habits.
Some smiling.
Some not.
Some—
Not alive.
Camilo staggered back, hitting the wall.
“Oh my God…”
Fonseca flipped one of the photos over.
There was writing on the back.
Dates.
Names.
And one repeated word.
“Transfer.”
The door handle behind them moved.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Click.
They both turned.
The door was no longer locked.
And standing there…
was the Mother Superior.
Still smiling.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said softly.
Fonseca felt his entire body go cold.
Because in that moment…
he finally understood something far worse than death.
The nun hadn’t been warning them to save herself.
She had been warning them… too late.
