Chapter 3: The Examiner's Shadow

Chapter 3: The Examiner's Shadow

The whisper was a physical thing, a needle of ice tracing a line down Leo’s spine. Professor Finch’s presence was an absolute, a crushing weight that pinned him to the chair. The scent of him—dry paper, old wool, and that faint, coppery tang of old blood—was suffocating. Leo’s gaze was locked on the dead boy in the photograph, his mind screaming, but his body was paralyzed.

Hesitation marks.

The term surfaced, unbidden, from a forensic psychology documentary he’d watched late one night. A dark corner of his brain, the part that stored useless, morbid trivia, offered up the answer against his will.

"They're… they're superficial," Leo stammered, the words tearing from his throat like sandpaper. "Made by the victim. A sign of… reluctance. The primal instinct to survive fighting the decision to die."

He didn't know why he answered. Perhaps it was the ingrained habit of a student facing a teacher, or perhaps it was a primal instinct of a different kind—the prey placating the predator.

The cold pressure at his back vanished. The air rushed back into the space Finch had occupied. Leo risked a glance over his shoulder. The examiner was already halfway back to the front of the room, moving with an eerie, gliding silence that defied the scuffed floorboards. He offered no praise, no comment, only a slight, almost imperceptible nod of his head. He lifted his stopwatch, consulting it like a priest consulting a holy text.

"You are wasting time, Mr. Vance," he said, his voice once again a dry, dispassionate instrument of command. "Continue."

With a trembling hand that felt disconnected from his own body, Leo forced himself to turn the next page. It was another photograph, just as glossy, just as horrifically clear. A young woman this time, with dark hair fanned out on a stone floor. Her face was a mask of tragedy, but it was the damage to her skull that drew the eye.

Question 6: Observe the concentric and radial fracture patterns on the subject's cranium. Deduce the sequence of impacts and the likely class of instrument used. Be specific.

His stomach churned violently. This wasn't a test of knowledge. It was a test of complicity. Each word he wrote made him an accessory after the fact, a participant in this butchery. He looked from the gruesome image to the clock on the far wall. Its long, thin second hand swept in a smooth, merciless arc. Four minutes left.

He began to write, his mind a frantic scramble of physics terms learned in a bright, clean classroom that now seemed a world away. "First impact to the right temporal bone… likely from a narrow, heavy object… a hammer or tire iron. The subsequent impacts…". His own words made him want to vomit.

He could feel Finch circling him now, a silent shark in the still water of the classroom. The examiner’s shadow would fall across his desk, a creeping stain of darkness that momentarily blotted out the light, before moving on. The soft click-click-click of the stopwatch was a constant, maddening counterpoint to the frantic thumping of his own heart. The room, once just an empty hall, had become Finch's personal amphitheater of cruelty, and Leo was the sole, terrified performer.

He flipped the page again. Another victim. A man in a simple button-down shirt, slumped over a desk identical to his own. His skin had a faint bluish tinge, his lips a dark cyanosis. Tiny, star-like hemorrhages dotted the whites of his eyes.

Question 7: From the visible signs of cyanosis and petechiae, identify the ingested toxin and postulate its method of administration for maximum absorption.

He knew this one, too. Ricin, maybe. Or cyanide. He wrote the answer, his hand flying across the page in a desperate, spidery scrawl. He wasn't thinking anymore, not really. He was an automaton, a machine for regurgitating horror. The scholarship, his mother, the life he was fighting for—it was all a fading dream. The only reality was this endless nightmare of paper and ink and death. The goal was no longer to win, but simply to reach the end. To see the last question, answer it, and pray the key would turn in the lock.

Another page turn.

Question 8: The human vocal cords can produce sounds up to 129 decibels. Describe a method of ligature application that would prevent vocalization without fatally compromising the airway.

He wrote. His hand was a blur. The pen felt slick in his grip. The clock on the wall showed one minute remaining. Sixty seconds.

He reached the final page. It was a relief so profound it was painful. He had made it. The paper felt different, lighter. He flipped it over.

It was almost blank. No more photos. No more diagrams of death. There were only two questions left, sitting starkly in the center of the page.

Question 9: From the methodologies you have previously detailed, or any other you deem suitable, select your preferred method of corporal cessation.

Leo stared at the words. He read them once. Twice. Corporal cessation. It was a grotesque, academic euphemism. The question was not a question. It was a command.

Choose how you want to die.

The pen slipped from his fingers for the second time, rolling off the desk and landing on the floor with a tiny, insignificant click. The air left his lungs in a silent rush. This was it. The final, twisted punchline to a joke so horrific he couldn't have imagined it in his worst nightmares. The photos weren't of past exams; they were a catalog. A menu.

He looked up, his eyes wide with dawning, absolute terror. Professor Finch had stopped his relentless circling and stood perfectly still at the front of the room, by the locked door. His cold, grey eyes were fixed on Leo, glinting with a sterile, scientific curiosity. The faint, cruel smile had returned to his thin lips. It was the smile of a researcher who has finally reached the climax of his experiment.

This was the test. It had always been the test. Not to see what he knew about death, but to see how he would choose to embrace it. The students in the photos… they had passed.

His gaze, trembling, dropped back to the page, to the last line of the exam, to the final instruction that laid the true nature of this horrifying ritual bare.

Question 10: Fulfill your choice.