Death Justice System

Chapter 5

Elias waited beside the side exit, allowing the shadows of the concrete wall to swallow half his body.

The corridor was narrow and dim, a stark contrast to the grandeur of the Metropolitan Institute of Forensic Sciences' main lobby. A service light flickered erratically overhead, casting a pale glow across the tiled floor. From behind the thick walls came the muffled sounds of the conference room—the occasional roar of applause, the thud of footsteps, and the low hum of hundreds of voices.

Elias checked the time. 10:56 a.m. The keynote lecture should be ending soon.

He had stood there like a statue for nearly forty minutes. A dull ache began to creep up his legs. The physical weakness of Adrian’s body did not simply evaporate just because Elias’s iron will refused to acknowledge it. His empty stomach twisted, his muscles lacked strength, and sickening waves of dizziness occasionally washed over his head.

But he endured it. All the physical suffering meant nothing. Soon, Marcus would walk through this door.

For ten years, Elias had studied Marcus inside and out. He knew the man’s habits by heart, his routines, his preferences. Marcus despised crowded exits and hated being swarmed by people after a speech. He always preferred quiet corridors, where he could speak privately with select colleagues before leaving.

That was why Elias had chosen this exact spot.

He pulled the brim of his cap down and leaned against the cold wall.

Suddenly, the applause from beyond the wall erupted louder than before. Elias straightened his posture. The conference was over.

Not long after, footsteps began to approach from the opposite end of the corridor, followed by the voices of several people. Elias lowered his head, letting the shadow of his cap obscure most of his face.

A group of people emerged from around the corner. And in the center of them stood Marcus Vance.

The man looked exactly as Elias remembered him. Hair elegantly graying at the temples. A perfectly tailored dark suit wrapping his frame. A calm and commanding posture. One hand rested casually in his trouser pocket as he listened to a senior institute researcher walking beside him.

He was alive. Healthy. Smiling. Without a single trace of guilt on his face.

Elias’s fingers slowly curled into a tight fist.

Marcus laughed at something the man beside him said. The sound struck Elias’s chest harder than he expected.

He had heard that laugh hundreds of times over the years. At conferences. In the laboratory. Over dinner. During late-night discussions cracking complex cases.

The same man—who had once placed a hand on Elias’s shoulder and told him that forensic science was about giving a voice to the dead—was the exact same man who had silenced him forever.

The group's footsteps drew closer. Marcus’s gaze swept briefly over Elias, but glided past without a second thought. Empty. To Marcus, he was probably nothing more than a janitor or a manual laborer who happened to be standing near a service door. A nobody.

Marcus kept walking. Elias waited patiently until the man was right in front of him. Only then did he speak.

"Quite a performance, Professor."

Marcus did not stop. One of the men beside him turned toward Elias with a furrowed brow, but Marcus kept walking as if he hadn't heard a thing.

Elias smiled coldly beneath the shadow of his cap. "A murderer lecturing an audience on how forensic evidence can expose the truth behind a homicide."

Marcus’s step faltered for a fraction of a second. His eyes darted sharply toward Elias. Just a glance. Then, the man looked straight ahead again.

"Excuse me, what did you say?" one of the senior researchers near Marcus asked, looking bewildered.

Marcus carved out a small, dismissive smile. "It's nothing." He intended to keep moving.

Elias’s pulse raced. He hadn't expected Marcus to react immediately, and that was fine. He had something far sharper. Elias lifted his head, letting the dim light of the corridor illuminate his face. This time, Marcus’s gaze collided with his.

"October fourteenth," Elias stated flatly.

Marcus stopped entirely. The people around him managed one more step before realizing the center of gravity in their group had frozen in place. Elias stared straight ahead, piercing right through Marcus’s eyes.

"St. Jude Autopsy Suite. 9:17 p.m."

The smile still lingered on Marcus's face.

Elias didn't give him room to breathe. "You entered the autopsy suite after everyone had gone home. You locked the door from the inside. You took a syringe and injected the poison directly into my body."

A suffocating silence instantly ambushed the corridor. One of the researchers stared at Marcus in disbelief. Marcus turned slowly toward Elias. For several seconds that felt like an eternity, neither of them spoke a word.

Then, Marcus smiled.

The smile was warm. Impeccably polite. Almost brimming with sympathy. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "Have we met before?"

Elias felt a creeping coldness squeeze his chest. That voice. That expression. The absolute, perfect composure. Even now.

"You know exactly who I am."

Marcus tilted his head slightly. "I don't believe I do."

"You killed Elias Thorne."

The words echoed loudly down the corridor. The researcher beside Marcus frowned deeply. "Professor?" Another man looked back and forth between Elias and Marcus tensely. "What does this guy mean?"

Marcus raised a hand, calmly silencing the minor commotion around him. "I believe there has been a misunderstanding here."

Elias took one step forward. "There is no misunderstanding." His tone sharpened like a blade. "You killed him."

Marcus's expression remained gently unwavering. He let out a long sigh, then turned to his colleagues. "I understand now," he said patiently. "Elias Thorne's death was indeed very sudden. A heart attack, if I remember correctly."

The muscles in Elias's jaw pulled taut. "A heart attack?"

"Yes."

"You know damn well that isn't what happened."

Marcus looked at the young man in front of him with a gaze that closely resembled pity. "It's a shame, I really don't understand what you're talking about."

"Maybe we should call security," one of the researchers whispered.

Marcus shook his head slowly. "Not yet." He looked back at Elias. "Perhaps this young man is a devoted admirer of Elias's work. Sometimes, people can form excessive emotional attachments to public figures, especially following an unexpected death."

Elias's vision seemed to narrow. A devoted admirer. That was how Marcus perceived him. A stranger. A delusional, fanatic fan. Not the man he had murdered with his own hands. Not yet.

Elias stepped closer, closing the distance. "You stood beside the autopsy table."

Marcus's eyes remained locked onto him.

"You watched the poison flow into my veins."

The researcher next to Marcus began to shift uneasily. "Professor, should we—"

"No," Marcus interrupted calmly.

Elias could feel his anger boiling over. "You used a syringe."

Marcus's expression did not change in the slightest.

"You waited until I couldn't move."

Still no reaction.

"You looked me in the eyes as I died."

Marcus offered a sickeningly thin smile. "I am truly sorry you believe in such delusions."

Something inside Elias finally snapped.

He had spent forty minutes waiting for this moment. He had imagined Marcus's face. Imagined his fear. Imagined the exact seconds when this flawless professor would finally realize that the corpse he discarded had risen again. And now, Elias was going to slap him with that truth. Every word. Every detail. Every dark secret.

"I am El—"

The instant the words slipped from his lips, an excruciating pain exploded in his throat.

Elias froze. His airway felt as though it had been clamped shut. No sound came out. His eyes widened in panic. He tried again.

"I—" Empty. His throat strangled him even harder. He clawed at his own neck. The air refused to enter. His lungs burned fiercely. The surrounding corridor began to blur. Marcus's face warped at the edges of his vision. Elias tried desperately to force the words out.

Then, the blue glow of the System pierced through his darkening vision.

[WARNING.]

[Unauthorized disclosure of Host identity detected.]

Elias's eyes widened in horror.

[Identity Integrity Protocol activated.]

[Vocal output restricted.]

His knees nearly gave out. He tried to speak again, but only a broken, choking gasp escaped his throat.

Marcus watched him intently. The people around them took a step back in horror. "Professor..."

Marcus remained untouchable in his calm. "It appears he is having a mental episode."

Elias shook his head frantically. No. That wasn't it. He scratched at his throat, desperately searching for air. The System interface blinked again, mercilessly.

[Attempted identity disclosure detected.]

[Restriction remains active.]

Elias's vision began to black out. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tell them all. He wanted to shred the perfect lie Marcus had built upon his corpse. But his voice had been stolen from him.

The researcher standing closest to Marcus swallowed nervously. "We really need to call security."

Marcus nodded. "Yes. Please do."

A security guard, alerted by the commotion, appeared at the end of the corridor moments later. Elias tried to straighten himself, but failed. His chest heaved violently as he fought hard to draw in oxygen. The guard approached cautiously.

"Sir, are you all right?"

Elias looked right past him. Marcus was already walking away with his colleagues. The man had turned his back on him. Just like that. As if Elias were a nobody. As if the horrific accusations he had just hurled meant absolutely nothing. As if the man murdered by Marcus Vance had never existed in this world.

Elias glared at his retreating figure with blazing eyes, until his vision slowly darkened.

Then, as Marcus reached the end of the corridor, the man's footsteps came to a halt.

For a moment, Marcus didn't move. His colleagues kept walking ahead of him. Very slowly, Marcus turned his head back.

That sickeningly polite s

mile had vanished. His eyes searched for, and found, Elias's figure in the dim corridor.