I'm a corpse restoration specialist at the city funeral home, professionally trained and taught a family trade. I specialize in repairing damaged remains.
The Lin family has had a rule for generations: no man lives past twenty-seven.
My father vanished into thin air in the restoration room at twenty-six. My grandfather died suddenly in the cold storage room at twenty-six, his eyes sewn shut with surgical thread.
With only three months left until my twenty-seventh birthday, I was given a special set of damaged remains.
A piece of his skull was missing, and he clutched half of a bone ring identical to mine in his hand.
From that day on, the morgue drawers began popping open by themselves at midnight. The bodies I restored would always turn their faces toward me the next day.
My father left behind a book called Notes on Delivering Bones, which said:
Restore only the flesh. Do not mend the soul.
Never draw closed eyes on a corpse.
Because they will keep watching you until you become the bone they need to complete themselves.
