Ghost of the cadaver’s past

Anatomy dissection hall used to be my favourite place in college. I was on Table 10 and we had the best cadaver in the room. He was the newest in the room, with bulky muscles and no bad smell. Twilight haters on our table named him Edward. The thought that he might have been an unclaimed body made me stroke his head once every day even when I knew that he couldn’t sense it. If he didn’t get enough affection in his lifetime, he would get it after death. That was my way of thanking him for helping us learn about the human body. People asked me what was wrong with me. And every single time I replied,”I love our Edward!”
One random night, I was breathless, somebody was strangling me. My murderer smiled sweetly at me, as if he were my closest friend. My stomach turned to ice and I was stricken by silence. But life preservation instincts kicked in and I tried to push his hands away. How could he enter the girls hostel? I didn’t even know him, why would he want to kill me? Why did my roomie decide to go home for the weekend and leave me all alone? A million questions crowded my mind. Before I could scream, he covered my mouth tightly. He was insanely strong. He said,”Calm down, love. Everything will soon be perfect.”
Adrenaline, pain and fright made me kick him with all the energy I had in me. I couldn’t afford to have a panic attack and shut down, I had to fight. He said,”I can see that you didn’t recognize me. You call me Edward.”
An evil human murderer wouldn’t have made my heart skip so many beats. Edward’s ghost had materialized in my room and that scared the living daylights out of me. I always thought ghosts didn’t exist! A mixture of shock, disbelief and terror made my hands shake convulsively. My head spun and I broke out in cold sweat. He said,”I died of lung cancer. I didn’t like being dead at 22, being cut open in a medical college. But that was for a reason. I found you. You treated me like your Prince Charming even when I was lying there in pieces. You have no idea how much I love you! Let’s unite in death. Let’s find paradise in the nether world.”
It felt incredibly stupid to die like that. I felt sorry for him, I never really loved him! I would never have stroked his head if I knew that he’d come back from the dead only to kill me. Tears streaked down my cheeks and I stopped kicking. Stark terror seized me when I couldn’t see anymore. An eerie silence clouded my mind and everything felt abnormally cold. By then, my heart was in my mouth and parts of my body felt numb. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time left. I could feel myself slipping away helplessly.
I gasped loudly and my eyes suddenly flew open. My hands flew to my throat. I could breathe normally. Edward was nowhere around. I switched the lights on. Except my racing heart, everything else around me was normal. My relief knew no bounds. It was a nightmare, a very bad dream. It had seemed so real!
The next day, I was scared to go back to the dissection hall. I didn’t sit at my usual front seat. I didn’t touch the cadaver. Fortunately for me, an announcement was made.
“Roll numbers 610 to 632 shift to Table 9.

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