Amorem Animalem

The Gamble

City Morgue
8:23 PM
July 30th

Scully snapped on her rubber gloves, adjusted her goggles, and cracked her neck in preparation of the eight brief autopsies she had to perform. She already knew that each body had high traces of ecstasy inside their bloodstreams, but that was not the initial cause of death. She went back to the first two bodies, searching for any wounds, bullet holes or cuts, that she may have missed the first time that could possibly further the case.

As she inspected the body of Daniel Knightly, she came across something that she definitely did not see earlier. "Oh my gosh." She exclaimed as she pulled the operatory light lower and a magnifying glass over her new discovery. It was a bullet hole, four centimeters across. "How did I miss this?" She said aloud as if someone would tell her how she did so. It was large, swollen, and crusted over. She couldn't help but think that the wound had appeared out of nowhere. "That's insane, Dana." She whispered to herself, trying to debunk her own mind. She cut open his chest with her scalpel, removed every piece of the shattered bullet, and placed it in a plastic bag. She would later have it analyzed to see whose gun it came from.

"July thirtieth, eight forty-five PM. I am now performing an autopsy on subject Daniel Knightly for the second time. Just within the last eleven hours since my initial investigation, I have found a bullet wound on his chest. It is four centimeters across and two centimeters down. The bullet hole sits directly atop his aorta, leaving the cause of death a gun wound to the heart." She sighed, tired, and hungry, into her tape recorder. "I will now move over to subject Molly Griswald."

Dana soon found a matching bullet hole on Molly, except this time, the bullet entered through her back and exited through the chest cavity. This only proved her theory all the more. Scully could practically see how the scene went down in her mind: Daniel holding Molly in his arms as he pressed the gun to her back. He released the trigger, tears in both of their eyes. A thunderous explosion sounded and the bullet flew threw his true love, and into his own heart. A double murder. A suicide pact. A modern day Romeo and Juliet.

Dana took her time as she walked over to unzip another body bag. This time, it was the body of twenty-two-year-old Jackson Ricely. He was a graduate of business from Louisiana State University and had married his wife, Carolina Emmertson only two weeks prior to their death. Scully began to carefully unzip the blue body bag, beginning at the top. The first thing she saw was dark brow hair, then hazel eyes, open, staring lifelessly into her soul. "How odd?" She thought. She had never before seen eyes of a dead body open at this stage of the investigation. As Scully began to analyze the eyes she stopped breathing, her heart froze in fear as she realized that she knew those eyes all too well. She nervously gulped, and continued to slowly unzip the bag, nearly unconscious to the world around her. To her complete and utter horror, she once again saw Mulder's stiff, pale face.

Her phone, at the exact moment, that her nightmares came to life had begun to ring. She jumped, letting out a small scream. Scully cautiously glanced back at the body, only to see that it was the face of a man with blonde hair, and closed eyes. She shook her head in confusion, her heart pounding, and answered her cell phone.

"Scully, it's me." A comforting voice said on the other side.

"Mulder-- it's so good to hear your voice." She said, gasping for air.

"Scully, are you alright? You sound overwhelmed."

Dana closed her eyes, trying to rid herself of the tears building up. She took a deep breath and told him that she was okay. "What did you find out Mulder?"