GHOST IN THE VEINS

The morgue was cold, but Kamon had grown used to the chill. He stood over the nurse’s body, jaw clenched as the forensic pathologist peeled back the sheet.

“Cause of death?” Kamon asked.

“Lethal injection,” Dr. Tida replied. “Midazolam and morphine. Same cocktail used in palliative care. But there are no signs she self-administered. Someone did it for her. Or to her.”

Kamon’s mouth went dry. “And the lipstick?”

“Lab says it’s a match to one brand. Same as found in Supat Wongchai’s bathroom. It could mean nothing. Or everything.”

He stared at the message scrawled across the nurse’s chest again:

“He lets them die. I make sure they do.”

A signature? A statement? A provocation?

This wasn’t just murder.

This was a message.

Across town, Anurak stood barefoot in his living room, trembling slightly. His recorder played back the last conversation with the nurse—Kanlaya, 29, bright, idealistic, troubled by what she called "silent suffering."

> “Do you ever wonder if we’re gods or monsters?” she had asked.

“We’re neither,” Anurak had replied. “We’re shadows. We just help them walk into the dark with dignity.”

She’d cried after that. He remembered the way her hands had shaken when she signed the latest consent forms. And now she was dead.

He should have known.

The guilt clung to him like sweat. He picked up his phone, dialed Kamon’s number.

No answer.

He scrolled through to a contact he hadn’t used in over a year.

Sakon (ex)

He hovered his thumb over it—then closed the screen.

Instead, he walked into his bathroom, filled the tub, stripped, and slid in. The water muffled the city outside. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what peace felt like.

The phone rang again.

Same distorted voice:

“You were wrong about Kanlaya. She believed in mercy. But you left the door open. I stepped through.”

He hurled the phone across the room.

Kamon watched the sun rise over the Chao Phraya River, cigarette between his lips, eyes burning from lack of sleep. Phupha stood beside him, arms crossed, no longer just a journalist—now part of the storm.

“They’re framing him,” Phupha said. “Or he’s slipping.”

Kamon looked at him. “You seem invested.”

Phupha met his gaze without flinching. “I know what it’s like to be accused of things just for being who you are. People like Anurak… they live in the cracks of what society allows. That makes them dangerous. Or vulnerable.”

“You think he’s innocent?”

“I think he’s too precise to be this sloppy. If he wanted her dead, she’d disappear. Not become a billboard.”

Kamon sighed. “Or he’s losing control.”

Phupha hesitated. “I want to talk to him.”

Kamon raised an eyebrow. “That’s not safe.”

“Neither is being gay in this city. We do it anyway.”

Anurak opened the door to find Phupha standing there, soaked from the rain, camera bag over one shoulder.

“I brought food,” Phupha said with a small grin.

“You brought questions,” Anurak corrected, but stepped aside.

They sat on the couch, silence settling like fog. Phupha handed him sticky rice and grilled pork. “You need to eat. You look like a ghost.”

“I feel like one.”

A pause.

“Why do you do it?” Phupha asked. “The euthanasia work?”

Anurak stared into the shadows. “Because I believe people should choose how they end. Not beg for it.”

Phupha nodded. “And you never cross the line?”

“I thought I hadn’t.”

Silence again. Then Phupha leaned in, voice low. “Someone is trying to turn you into a monster.”

Anurak met his eyes—and for a moment, there was something electric. Something dangerous.

“Then let’s find them before they do.”

That night, Kamon returned home to his apartment above a noodle shop. The moment he stepped inside, he knew something was off.

The lights were off. The air was still. A faint scent of lavender.

He drew his gun.

Moved slowly down the hall.

Into his bedroom.

The message was waiting on the wall, written in blood-red paint:

“Detective. If you don’t stop looking, you’ll see too much.”

His bedsheets had been neatly turned down.

And on his pillow—

—a photo of him and Anurak from the hospital’s security feed.

Side by side. Smiling faintly.

As if it had already begun.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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