Mysterious Death

"Assistants like us who wander around the morgue every day never discuss the deceased's past lives, I don't know if it's taboo or what. Maybe it's because we see so many bodies coming and going, it's like delivering babies in the maternity ward, no one asks how the babies got there.

If it weren't for the bodies that kept coming in with their mouths strangely stuffed with rice, four of them now, I wouldn't be so curious about the cause of death for these bodies. The examination showed that the rice stuffed in their mouths was just common rice, non-toxic, and the cause of death was either suffocation or sudden death. I'm not superstitious, but I just feel that something is off, so I started paying attention to this matter.

At half past six in the afternoon, there was another heartbreaking cry, the figure under the white cloth was very small, probably a child. We took the body and calmly watched the family members outside the door grab and pull at the child's belongings in despair. In that moment when the door closed, I suddenly felt very sad, and I thought of my mother.

Watching the doctor conduct the examination methodically, I, as one of the assistants, didn't play much of a role. I just stared blankly at the grains of rice in the little boy's mouth for a long time, and thought for a long time. After it was all over, I stayed behind and looked through the doctor's records: all these bodies with mouths stuffed with rice, died between five and eight in the evening, they were all unmarried, one female and four males, the cause of death was the same, and they all lived close by with no other connections.

I closed the records and walked out in a puzzled state, locking the door. The family members who had just been in deep sorrow were already dragged away by their relatives and friends. I glanced at a dirty little yellow lion toy in the corner of the corridor, remembered it was one of the child's belongings held by the parents. It looked dirty and worn out, lying next to the trash can without any sense of dissonance, and the fur on it was uneven, it didn't look like something a pampered child would have.

But still, I picked it up and went back in to place it by the poor child's bedside, and turned on the switch on its belly. I stared at it, but there was only silence, no movement, for a moment I thought the already blurry lion face would suddenly turn terrifying, but nothing happened.

It was already dark, after graduating from medical school it seems like every day I'm making my family wait. I thought about the light at home that was always waiting for my return, and I hurriedly completed all the examinations. After handing over my duties, I carefully rechecked everything before hastily picking up my bag and heading home, as if returning like this was the only way to see my family's smiling faces in peace.

Back at home, discarding all the troubles, I should have enjoyed my mom's hot meals, but the rice I was chewing suddenly felt hard, which made me think of those five bodies in the morgue. My stomach churned, and as I looked up suddenly, a red-eyed lion was right in front of me, its fuzzy face almost touching mine! All the blood rushed to my head, I wanted to scream but couldn't, mechanically I tried to swallow the rice, but the more I tried, the less I could scream...those rice grains slowly getting stuck in my esophagus, the despair of suffocation, mingled with darkness...

In the morgue, the music of the broken old lion toy started creaking, it spun on the ground weakly, the small red light in its eyes blinking on and off..."