I’ve worked the night shift at a funeral home for ten years.
There have been hauntings and reanimated corpses, but I’ve never been afraid.
Because I have the Night Watcher’s Rulebook: ninety-nine ironclad rules, my lifeline.
Until tonight, when a zeroeth rule appeared out of nowhere:
“When a body enters a morgue locker on its own, the night watcher must determine the cause of death within three hours.”
“Anyone who violates this rule will become the next body.”
And the first body to crawl into a morgue locker by itself was Lin Zhi, the supervisor on duty, who had greeted me just this afternoon.
She was clutching a slip of paper with these words on it:
“They changed the rules.”
On the back, in even smaller handwriting, was another line:
“Night watchers are no exception.”
The countdown has begun.
The truth this funeral home has hidden for ten years is coming toward me, one corpse at a time.
And I’ve spent ten years on the night shift waiting for this day.
Because I’m the only one in the whole funeral home who knows:
I wrote the rules.
