“She barged in from the street,” said the chief of security. “She was obviously not in her right mind. I’ve never seen anyone act like that before. She attacked everyone who tried to get in her way. Look here,” he said playing a recording from a hallway camera where the woman in a red suit frantically ran around, trying to open every door. Several nurses attempted to subdue and calm her, but she shoved them aside and moved on. “She got the canister in the storage and slammed one of our security guards in the head with it. After that, she just ran out back into the street. That’s about all we have.”

“Can you show me the front door camera once again,” Myra said, peering into one of the screens on the wall.

The tape ran the same. A woman kicked the door open with her shoulder, knocking back an unsuspecting nurse. Her movements were erratic, unbalanced almost, like every step was made without a clear plan and she was only preoccupied with a single thing.

“She’s saying something there,” Myra concluded, pointing to the moment the woman got to the reception desk. “She was in a bad state even before she got here. Was she looking for help?”

“Could be,” the guard added pointing to the screen at the top left corner. “I heard from the nurses she was saying her body was on fire or something along those lines.”

“Fire?” whispered Myra shifting her eyes from screen to screen. There was nothing on them that gave her a clear solution. The woman, though behaving strangely, had no visible signs of injury or any outside factor that would make her act in such a way. The only clue was a tormented expression on her face. It was contorted and bent downwards pulling her whole body down with it, like the source of her pain was inside her chest.

“Something was seriously wrong with her, but this is just a small clinic, so there wasn’t much anyone could do.”

“She must have come here for it,” Myra taking several photographs of the screens as she’d suddenly forgotten how technology worked. “Damn it,” Myra returned as he fer phone began to ring again.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Do you still want these tapes?” asked the security chief leaning back, but Myra had already disappeared through the door.

***

“I say this again, this is something I’ve never seen before,” said Avva over the phone.

Myra took a long look at the sky and winked as the sun hit her face. For a brief moment, she wondered if things had just begun to get complicated. She was certain that the body was in no way unusual. It had no strange colours, no hidden wounds, the eyes were normal, and the teeth were too, frozen or not. Just like so many people that ley on Avva’s table, the victim was a boring human being. Or so Myra had hoped.

“What is it this time?”

“There’s no way you’ll guess what’s wrong with this one?” Avva said excitedly. The sound of metal tools clanked in the background followed by whispers of a small army of intrigued interns.

“Isn’t it too early to make claims? You’ve only just received the body.” Myra returned. She tried to remember where she left her car and tapped her pockets hoping that the keys would solve that mystery. “I’m really hoping what you’re getting at is a kidney stone.”

Avva laughed shortly and the interns echoed back like magpies, “You need to have a kidney to have kidney stones.”

With the keys in her hands, she stared at the long street overflowing with cars. The crime scene at the busiest intersection in the city made the traffic an even bigger nightmare than what it usually is, overwhelming everything with the endless sound of honking. “What did you say? No kidney?”

“No kidney, no spleen, no stomach, no liver, no heart… should I go on?”

“What?” she yelled, never minding she was in the middle of the street. Several angry drivers yelled at her, but she paid them no mind and kept looking for her car.

“I’ve only made the first cut when I noticed something was off.”

”Are you saying someone cut her open and took all the organs? How’s that even possible? Are you sure you have the right body? That woman was running around the clinic mere minutes before killing herself.”

“I know, but It would be hard to mistake the havoc inside her throat. Her chest cavity is frozen solid.”

“Are you saying she had no organs while she was alive?” Finally, she could see the lights of her car blinking just down the street. If only for a second, she wondered if that was the first time she’d forgotten something so important. “She was hollow?” she concluded, once she was safely inside, and the ramble of the city died down just a bit.

“As far as I can tell, yes.”

She took a long breath and grabbed the small bottle of water from the back that had already gotten too warm to drink. She opened the window and threw it out, missing the trash can by just a little. She cursed and got back out to fix her mistake, now throwing it in with unrelenting anger.

“Detective Tamon,” she heard Avva say. “What happened?”

“Magic,” Myra returned slamming the door and starting the car.