I pushed through the doors and went back inside.

  The front of her torso was already open. The Y-incision had been completed while I was outside, the skin and muscle peeled back and pinned to the sides. Her intestines were exposed, lying outside the body cavity like pale, bloated balloons. The gas trapped inside them made them swell, distending against each other.

  The smell hit harder now. Even through my blocked nose, even through the single mask, it was overwhelming. Decay mixed with formalin mixed with something organic that my brain couldn't categorized.

  I found my spot along the wall again. Forced myself to look. Dr. Karim was speaking in that same calm tone. "The small intestine shows typical post-mortem gas accumulation. This is normal decomposition, not pathological."

  His assistant, one of the dome personnel, reached in with gloved hands and began removing organs.

  The lungs came first. Dr. Karim held one up, examining it under the light. Dark, congested, heavy-looking.

  "Note the pulmonary edema," he said. "Fluid in the alveoli. Consistent with asphyxiation."

  The dome assistant placed the lung on a cutting board and picked up a long knife. Started slicing through it like bread. Thick slices, each one revealing the internal structure—bronchi, blood vessels, tissue that should have been pink but was darkened and waterlogged.

  Dr. Karim pointed to the cross-sections with a probe. "In suicide by hanging, you see this pattern of congestion. In homicide by strangulation, the distribution is different—more uniform. In normal death from other causes, the lungs don't show this degree of edema."

  He moved to the heart. The dome assistant had already removed it, placed it in a steel tray. Dr. Karim picked it up, cradled it in both hands. He made a cut straight down the middle. The heart fell open in two halves, revealing chambers and valves.

  "Normal cardiac structure. No defects. No disease. This was a healthy heart."

  He set it aside and moved to the abdominal organs. The stomach came out, bloated and discolored. He made a careful incision along one side and opened it over a collection tray. Nothing came out. A small amount of partially digested material, barely enough to coat the bottom of the tray. Mostly liquid. No solid food.

  "Stomach contents minimal," Dr. Karim noted. "Consistent with not eating for twelve to twenty-four hours prior to death. She was starving."

  I felt uneasy in my chest. She'd been starving. A sixteen-year-old girl had gone without food for a day before walking to that mountain.

  The intestines came next. Long coils of tissue, the dome assistant handling them quite well. They were empty too but full of gas.

  Dr. Karim moved lower. "We'll now examine the uterus." He located it in the pelvic cavity and made a careful incision. "No evidence of pregnancy. No fetal tissue, no embryonic development. Uterus is normal size for age."

  He placed it in a specimen container. Then he moved to the neck. This part took longer. He worked carefully, exposing the structures layer by layer. Skin, muscle, the strap muscles of the throat, the larynx, the trachea.

  "The ligature mark compressed these structures," he explained, pointing with his probe. "You can see the pattern here—horizontal compression consistent with the rope. The hyoid bone is intact, no fracture. The thyroid cartilage is also intact."

  He demonstrated how the structures had been compressed, how the rope had pressed down on the airway and blood vessels, cutting off oxygen and blood flow to the brain.

  "In manual strangulation, we typically see fractures here. In hanging, the structures compress but rarely fracture because the force is distributed differently. Note also the direction of the ligature mark—it ascends posteriorly, toward the point of suspension. In strangulation, the mark is horizontal and uniform."

  One of the police officers asked a question about distinguishing suicide from homicide made to look like suicide. Dr. Karim answered patiently, explaining defensive wounds, ligature patterns, the angle of suspension.

  Then he moved back to examining the body externally. Turned her arms over, looking at the wrists. I saw them before he said anything. Thin white scars. Multiple lines across both wrists, horizontal shallow cuts.

  "Note the presence of healed scars on the inner wrists," Dr. Karim said quietly. "These are hesitation marks. Superficial cuts consistent with previous suicide attempts by cutting. The healing pattern suggests these occurred weeks to months prior to death."

  She'd tried before, multiple times. Cut her wrists, not deep enough, hesitated, stopped until she didn't stop.

  Somewhere to my left, I heard a thud. One of the girls had collapsed. Two other students caught her before she hit the floor, dragged her toward the door.

  Dr. Karim paused briefly, glanced over, then continued. "We now examine the cranial cavity."

  He moved to her head. Made an incision across the top of the scalp, ear to ear, hidden in the hairline. Then he peeled the skin forward, pulling it down over her face like peeling off a mask. Her face inverted, hanging down, exposing the pale bone of her skull underneath.

  The dome assistant picked up a small oscillating saw. He cut around the skull in a careful circle, maybe two-thirds of the way up from the eyebrows. When he lifted off the top section of skull, it came away with a cracking sound.

  The brain sat exposed in its cavity. Gray-pink, convoluted, glistening under the lights. Smaller than I'd expected.

  Dr. Karim examined it carefully before removing it. "Cerebral edema present. Petechial hemorrhages on the surface. Consistent with asphyxiation. No evidence of blunt force trauma, no subdural or epidural hematoma, no skull fractures."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The dome assistant cradled it out of the skull and placed it on the cutting board. Started slicing. Each cut revealed internal structures—white matter, gray matter, ventricles. All of it examined. All of it documented. All of it reduced to observations in a report.

  Another student ran for the door. I heard retching in the hallway. I stayed. Turned something off inside my head. Went somewhere else mentally while my eyes kept watching.

  This is nothing. This is education. I need to see death to save people from death. I need to understand this. I need to be able to handle this.

  Repeated it like a mantra while Dr. Karim examined every fold and fissure of her brain.

  After the brain examination, Dr. Karim moved back to the abdomen. The intestines were still lying outside the body cavity, bloated with trapped gas. "We need to release the gas before closing," he said.

  The dome assistant picked up a scalpel and made small cuts along the length of the intestines. Gas hissed out, foul-smelling, making the intestines deflate and collapse. The smell intensified. Several more students turned and left.

  I breathed through my mouth and stayed. Finally, after every organ had been examined, weighed, documented, and either replaced or preserved for further testing, Dr. Karim stepped back from the table.

  He looked at the police officers, at the official stenographer who'd been documenting everything.

  "Based on complete autopsy findings," he said formally, "I can conclude the following: The deceased shows all physical evidence consistent with death by hanging. The ligature mark pattern, the direction and depth, the absence of fractures to the hyoid and thyroid cartilage, the pattern of petechial hemorrhaging, and the pulmonary edema are all consistent with suspension hanging."

  He paused.

  "There are no defensive wounds. No bruising consistent with restraint or struggle. No evidence of sexual assault. No signs of blunt force trauma. The toxicology screening shows no drugs or alcohol in her system at time of death."

  Another pause. He looked at the body.

  "The presence of multiple healed hesitation marks on both wrists indicates a history of suicidal ideation and previous attempts. The empty stomach contents suggest she had not eaten for an extended period before death, consistent with severe depression. Combined with the witness statements about her recent circumstances—the abusive marriage, the divorce, family rejection, harassment from former in-laws—the psychological profile supports a conclusion of suicide."

  One of the officers spoke up. "The family insists she would never kill herself. That someone must have forced her."

  Dr. Karim's expression was gentle but firm. "I understand the family's denial. It's a natural response to losing a child this way. But the physical evidence is conclusive. There is no indication of foul play. No evidence that another person was involved. This was self-inflicted."

  He gestured to the body. "Every detail of this examination points to the same conclusion. The manner of death is suicide. The cause of death is asphyxiation due to hanging. I will certify it as such in my official report."

  The officers exchanged glances. One of them made final notes. "The family won't accept this," the female officer said quietly.

  "That's not uncommon," Dr. Karim replied. "But our job is to follow the evidence, not to tell people what they want to hear. The evidence is clear."

  He nodded to his assistant. "We can close now."

  The dome assistant began the process of putting her back together. Grabbed the organs that hadn't been sent for testing and slid them back into the body cavity. Not carefully arranged. Just... in, like stuffing a bag.

  Then he pulled the skin flaps back over the opening. Aligned the edges of the Y-incision. Started suturing. Long, crude stitches, nothing like the careful surgical closures we'd seen in the operating theater. This wasn't about healing. Just about closing her up so she could be returned to her family for burial.

  He stitched from pubis to sternum, then both sides from sternum to shoulders. Pulled the scalp back over her skull, aligned the incision, stitched that too.

  When he finished, she looked almost normal. If you didn't look too closely at the stitching. If you ignored the waxy quality of her skin. If you forgot what we'd just done to her.

  "Complete," Dr. Karim said. "Total examination time: three hours, forty minutes. Manner of death: suicide. Cause of death: asphyxiation due to hanging. Full report to follow within forty-eight hours."

  He stripped off his gloves, dropped them in a biohazard bin. Turned to us, the students lining the walls. "What you witnessed today was a complete medicolegal autopsy. The purpose was to determine definitively how this young woman died. The evidence is conclusive. This was not murder. This was a sixteen-year-old girl who felt she had no other option."

  His voice was steady but sad. "Unfortunately, you'll see more cases like this in your careers. Young people, old people, all ages. People who choose to end their suffering the only way they think they can. Our job isn't to judge them. It's to find the truth, give their families closure, and if we're lucky, use what we learn to prevent the next one."

  He paused.

  "Dismissed. Thank you for your professional conduct. And remember if this affected you, don't ever think of ending your life."

  We filed out silently. Outside, it was drizzling. Light rain, barely more than mist, cooling the air. I stood on the steps of the mortuary building, face tilted up, letting the rain hit my skin.

  Students were scattered across the small courtyard, some sitting on benches, some standing in clusters, all processing what we'd just witnessed.

  "So it really was suicide," someone said.

  "Yeah. All the evidence confirmed it."

  "The family's going to be devastated."

  "They already are. But at least now they know for sure."

  I listened to the conversations flowing around me. I looked for Murin and Akki. Found them near a tree, both looking drained.

  Murin's face was pale but composed. Handling it internally, filing it away in whatever mental compartment he used for difficult things. Akki looked worse. He was breathing carefully, like he was fighting nausea through sheer willpower. I walked over to them. None of us spoke.

  A white van pulled up to the mortuary entrance. A man got out, opened the back doors. Inside was another body bag on a gurney. Akki walked over. "Who is it?"

  The man who looked like a mortuary worker, shrugged. "Unknown. Old guy, probably homeless. Been wandering the streets for years. No family anyone knows of. Someone found him dead on the roadside this morning."

  "Cause of death?"

  "Unknown. That's why he's here." The man started wheeling the gurney toward the entrance. "They'll do the autopsy tomorrow or the next day. Figure out what killed him, try to identify him, see if anyone claims the body. If not..." He shrugged again. "Pauper's grave."

  Akki watched the body bag disappear into the building. "No one even knows his name."

  "What was her name?," I asked. Akki hesitated. “Layla.”

  "Oh, It's layla. We know she was abused. We know she tried to kill herself before. We know she succeeded this time. But what did she like? What made her laugh before everything went wrong?"

  "The autopsy doesn't answer those questions," Murin said quietly.

  "No. It just confirms she's dead and how she died."

  "Which is what the family needed to know," Murin added. "Even if they didn't want to believe it."

  Akki kicked at a small stone. "Suicide. Confirmed. Certified. Official."

  Murin started walking toward the main campus. "Let's go." we followed. The drizzle turned into actual rain, light but steady. We didn't run. Just walked through it, letting it soak into our clothes and hair.

  Back at the hostel, Murin and Akki went to the room. I kept walking, down the hall to the communal bathroom. I turned the water as hot as it would go. Stripped off my clothes and stepped under the spray.

  Stood there for a long time, water beating down on my head and shoulders, trying to wash off... Everything. The feeling of having witnessed a child taken apart like a biology specimen.

  The water ran cold. I stayed under it anyway. Eventually got out, dried off, dressed in clean clothes Akki brought from the room. My hospital whites went into a plastic bag. I'd wash them later. Or burn them. Hadn't decided yet.

  I walked back to the room and climbed into my own bed without saying anything. Outside, the rain kept falling.