7:42 AM – Abandoned Wing, Cambridge Institute
The woman's breath still came in shallow gasps as Max held her trembling form. Her wrists were raw from the restraints, her lips blue around the edges.
Max didn't speak.
He was calculating.
The tubing had been timed to constrict just as the oxygen dropped below survival threshold. Julian wanted her to suffer, but not die. Not yet.
He was forcing Max to save her, because saving her meant playing.
The game was always the point.
The woman's voice broke through the silence. "He… he said you wouldn't let me die."
Max stared at her, jaw tightening. "He was right."
8:21 AM – Cambridge Police Station
Detective Lena Monroe slammed open the interrogation room door.
"You found her? Alive?"
Max didn't flinch. "Barely. He'd set up a timed choke using oxygen tubing. Medical-grade restraint. I recognized the dosage on the tank label — it was from the old surgical stockroom."
Lena paced, voice sharp. "So he's using your old university like a playground."
"He's mocking me."
"Then give me something to work with!" she snapped. "Because right now, every step you take makes you look more like an accomplice than a victim."
Max turned to face her.
"Julian West doesn't want to kill me. He wants to make me him."
9:12 AM – Forensics Evidence Lab
Max slipped on latex gloves and examined the tube Julian used to choke the victim. His fingers traced the manufacturer stamp.
Something was off.
He pulled a UV lamp from the bench, scanned the tank. Near the valve, in faded ink, was a message only visible under the light:
"Not all autopsies begin with a corpse."
He leaned back.
Julian wasn't just mimicking pathology. He was reversing it.
Max activated the lab computer and ran a search through past surgical records. The serial number on the oxygen tank traced back to Surgical Theater 3B, shut down after a lab explosion in 2012.
One of the students injured in that fire?
Julian West.
Max's pulse quickened.
FLASHBACK – 2012, Theater 3B
Screams. Smoke. The smell of burning skin.
Max had dragged Julian out of the flames that night — unconscious, scorched, bleeding.
Julian had opened his eyes just once, and whispered:
"Now I know how it feels to cut myself open."
10:03 AM – Surgical Theater 3B (Now)
The ruins of 3B hadn't changed since the fire. Ash marked the walls like scars. Tables lay overturned. Broken lights dangled like nooses.
But someone had been here.
Fresh footprints.
And on the center table: a recorder, already playing.
Max stepped closer.
Julian's voice — calm, clinical — filled the room:
"You saved me that day, Max. You pulled me out of fire. But you didn't realize: you preserved me. Like a specimen in formalin."
Max's fists clenched.
"And now it's your turn. Let's see what you look like under the microscope."
A spotlight on the ceiling flicked on.
It illuminated a photo taped to the wall.
Max stepped forward and froze.
It was him.
As a child.
Standing beside his father.
Dr. Edward Hamilton.
A man long dead.
A man Max never talked about.
Beneath the photo:"The first incision always begins at home."
10:17 AM – Outside Theater 3B
Max burst through the doors into sunlight, his breath ragged.
Julian wasn't just unearthing corpses.
He was digging up Max.
Lena met him in the lot, holding her phone. "We have a problem."
"What now?"
"Another body. Male. Mid-thirties. Found in the anatomy hall — your old classroom."
11:06 AM – Anatomy Hall, Cambridge
The classroom reeked of decay.
The corpse lay sprawled on the dissection table, the body freshly opened, ribs splayed.
On the wall, written in blood:
"I learn by imitation."
Max approached slowly, examining the technique.
The same experimental incision Julian had once tried on Elise.
This wasn't just murder.
This was a reenactment.
And worse—
Max recognized the victim.
"Who is it?" Lena asked.
Max's voice dropped. "Dr. Miller. One of our old professors. He taught us cranial anatomy. Julian hated him."
Lena's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
Max didn't answer.
FLASHBACK – 2009, Anatomy Lab
Julian stood over a corpse with Dr. Miller beside him.
"You focus too much on elegance," Miller said. "Dissection is about function, not form."
Julian's face had darkened.
He made one long incision from clavicle to hip and whispered, "Function is where beauty goes to rot."
Present – Anatomy Hall
Max leaned over the corpse.
Inside the abdominal cavity, where intestines should be, was a second note.
Typed, sealed in plastic.
He opened it.
"I removed his shame. Can you remove yours?"
Max stepped back, shaking.
"Lena… Julian's not just reenacting his crimes."
"What is he doing?"
"He's reconstructing me. From the inside out."
1:22 PM – Hamilton's Apartment
Max unlocked the door, expecting stillness.
But the air was heavy. Cold.
He moved slowly, checking the windows. All locked.
Then he turned toward his bookshelf.
There — in the center.
One item disturbed.
A single surgical glove.
Max picked it up.
Inside was a cassette tape.
He inserted it into the player.
Julian's voice emerged:
"Have you ever autopsied your own heart, Max? You will."
Click.
2:00 PM – Police Headquarters, Incident Room
Lena's team built a timeline — every victim, every symbol, every surgical link.
They looked at Max like a ghost.
Whispers spread.
Too many coincidences.
Too much access.
Too much calm.
Lena finally approached Max in private.
"Tell me the truth."
"I am."
"Then tell me why Julian has a picture of your father."
Max looked her in the eye.
"Because Julian wasn't the first one to teach me how to dissect."
Silence fell between them.
Until Lena whispered: "Jesus Christ."
2:47 PM – Unknown Location
Julian stood before a full-length mirror, dressed in surgical whites.
He touched the glass with one finger.
Then traced a line from his throat to his chest.
Behind him, another victim waited, bound.
Another symbol.
Another incision.
He pressed the scalpel to her skin and smiled.
"Time for the next lesson."
End of Chapter 5