Mara thought she understood the rules of the lab.
First-year medical students aren’t supposed to see the dead as anything more than anatomy. They’re bodies, not people. Facts, not stories. But from the moment her gloved hand brushes the scarred ribs of her assigned cadaver, something feels wrong. There’s warmth where there should be none, and a faint ache deep in her own bones that follows her home.
As the semester unfolds, strange things begin to blur the clean lines she’s relied on—unexplained bruises that match the cadaver’s scars, flickers of memory she’s certain aren’t hers, and a name whispered into her mind like it’s been waiting years to be heard: Evelyn Hargreaves.
Drawn into a silent exchange she doesn’t fully understand, Mara’s careful composure begins to crack. Every glance in the mirror feels watched, every night’s sleep feels borrowed, and every truth she thought she owned begins to shift. Someone wants their life back, and they aren’t asking.
With her sense of self splintering, Mara must untangle the boundary between body and identity before it’s gone for good. But how do you fight for your life when the one trying to take it has already been dead?
When the dead want what was theirs… how far will the living go to keep it?
