My Hockey Alpha novel Chapter 22

Nina

I woke up the next morning feeling slightly more rested than the day before, although my eyes still burned from crying so much last night.

I dragged myself out of bed, and after a shower and some coffee, I felt much better. I still avoided looking at my phone just in case there was more outrage over my photos with Enzo, and got dressed in a nondescript outfit to go to class.

People still stared at me and whispered about me all day, but I tried my best to ignore it. I just kept repeating what Lori told me in my head: this would pass. All I had to do was keep my head down, focus on school, and wait for the bitchy girls at this school to move on to the next bit of drama to gossip about.

After my classes, I decided that I had to return to the anatomy lab to finish my project, as it was due in two days and I had hardly even started. I really didn’t want to go back after what I saw in there last time, but I just kept telling myself that it was all in my head and that it would be fine now… I still didn’t feel like it was all in my imagination, but I had to tell myself that in order to get my work done.

It was getting dark out by the time I made it to the anatomy lab, which only made the environment seem even more spooky. I steeled my nerves before opening the door and stepping in.

The room looked perfectly normal and quiet. Taking a deep breath, I crossed over to my locker and put on my lab coat and goggles, then put on a pair of plastic gloves before pulling my cadaver out of the mortuary cabinet and pulling back the sheet.

Just as I figured, the cadaver was perfectly normal. He was still completely healed, as though I had never cut into him to begin with… had I just imagined the whole thing? Had I passed out, or dissociated, when I thought I was performing an autopsy?

While I studied the cadaver, I was suddenly alerted to the sound of something rattling. I took in a sharp breath and whipped around, only to see absolutely nothing. I shook my head and returned to my work. Surely my nerves were just making me overly sensitive to sounds.

I got my tools ready and started to cut into the cadaver’s abdomen. I cut down to the belly button, then began to shakily peel back the layers of skin and muscle as I prepared myself for potentially seeing more strange mutations inside.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. Just a regular human body, with regular human organs. I let out a sigh of relief.

I heard the sound of rattling again. It sounded like… bones? I turned around toward the direction of the sound and shrieked when I saw the skeleton that was used for osteology… moving! It was off of its stand and staggering directly toward me with its bony hands outstretched toward my throat.

I stumbled backwards, tripping over a table leg and falling to the floor. The skeleton continued to lurch toward me, clacking its teeth while I screamed in terror. I scrambled to my feet and over to the door, but when I tried the handle, it was locked somehow and I couldn’t get out.

I fumbled for my phone in my pocket, but it wasn’t there; it was halfway across the room, on the floor where I fell. The skeleton was already past it now, and there was no way I could get around it to grab my phone. I was cornered.

While the skeleton continued to advance on me, I shut my eyes and shook my head.

“This isn’t real… This isn’t real…”

The sound of bones rattling toward me was replaced by the sound of those very bones being kicked to the floor.