My fingers paused on the label of the specimen jar, and the entire dissection room suddenly became hair-raisingly quiet.
Not the normal kind of quiet. It was so quiet that even the sound of the ventilation ducts disappeared, and even the volatilization of formalin froze. I raised my head, and the fluorescent tube buzzed and flashed twice above me. The light changed from pale white to dark yellow, and then from dark yellow to green.
The notebook my grandfather left for me is lying next to the dissecting table, glowing by itself.
"Fuck..."
My first reaction was to look at my phone. At 3:17 in the morning, the anatomy building of the medical school is the last place in the school where anyone is expected to come. I was going to stay up all night to review pathology, and I had my final exam next week. It was too noisy when the lights were turned off in the dormitory. Although this place was a bit creepy, it was cool and no one was around.
But I have never opened that notebook. On the day my grandfather was buried three years ago, I brought it back from the old house and stuffed it into the suitcase. After moving to the dormitory, changing beds, and folding quilts, it has always been on the bottom of my closet, used as a sock pad. It was a complete accident today. I took it out when I was looking through my socks and put it on the autopsy table.
Now it's glowing.
I didn't dare to move. I stared at the old book with a yellowed cover and curled corners, and counted five seconds in my mind. It did not go out, but the light became brighter. There was a bulge in the middle of the page, as if something was about to come out from the cracks in the paper.
I took a step back. The heel hit the rollers at the bottom of the dissecting table, making a muffled sound.
