A heart pumped about 2,000 gallons of blood every day, enough to fill an 8-by-10 foot swimming pool. Samuel Chavez swore he'd fill two pools with how fast his heart raced after finding the remains of a corpse in the research and development lab. Fear crept in and lingered, he'd left Ligeia[1], they went on their separate ways. Sam to the Morgue to let Quincy St. James know about what he'd found. Ligeia to her floor's head healer to review the specimen she'd collected.

The staircase acted kind this day, as the larger-then-life wizard bounded up two stairs at a time. He wasn't sure he could breathe, the smell of the dead wix stuck to his clothes like a skunk spraying it's victim. Though he'd settled his stomach with the Pastille, the initial smell lived vividly in his skull.

Finally, making it to Quincy's office, Samuel beelined to a vigorous knock. Hoping he wasn't interrupting any of her important work, whatever that looked like.

1.	The Meat Puzzle

Quincy was sat at the desk of Lowercliffe, which technically speaking was now her desk since her superior had been suspended pending investigation. It wasn't that he was being held responsible for anything that had happened - after all, unless he had been snatching the bodies out of the morgue himself then he could hardly be accountable for them going missing - but rather his failings in how he dealt with the aftermath. His cowardice forced him to flee on a 'last-minute holiday', leaving Quincy to deal with the fallout.

The witch hunched over the desk, piles of paperwork spread out in front of her. The least she could do, for now, was sort out the terrible filing system that her boss had adopted. It was no wonder he disappeared as soon as shit hit the fan; there was no chance he was going to be able to muster together any sort of evidence if asked for it at short notice.

Quincy worked better in a darkened room with lamplight. Though the department was windowless, as naturally a morgue should be, the office had enchanted windows which reflected the outside atmosphere. Quincy could watch muggle red buses and black cabs whizz past on the street below. Today, however, she had case a charm over the windows so they were dark and speckled with stars of the night sky, the occasional shooting star dancing across.

There was a hasty knock at the door and Quincy was brought back to to her surroundings, blinking twice at the door as her eyes adjusted to something other than the marks of quill on parchment. "Come in." She called. Her voice was husky having not spoken to anyone for hours. She cleared her throat and took a sip of the coffee that sat on her desk. Her nose crinkled. Cold. She tapped the side of the mug with her wand and it gave one bubbling 'pop' before emitting steam. Much better.

Samuel nearly blundered over himself as he swung the door open with her permission, bend over gasping, holding onto his knees. "I-I came as quick as I could!" There was no context, except for the pungent smell coming off of him. His voice hitched, when he got nervous he tended to lose oxygen.

Gasp, gasp..."G-G-" He started, but struggled to spit out the words. He held his breath, and coughed, "Ghouls!"

Were the ghouls popping out and chasing him? Eyes readjusted to the darkened room, and he caught Quincy's in his vision.

"D-d-dead bo-body." He pointed at his glasses, and then out, "There's a dead body! A dead body, a dead body!?" Fists clenched, and pale, his face was sweaty, and he looked as though the color was drained from his body.

A figure burst through the door, puffing and panting, bending over at the waist and holding onto his knees. Samuel. The Healer from Spell Damage was known to Quincy, as were many of the Healers at the hospital. Though she spent the majority of her time in the morgue, she often had to take trips to other departments to have multidisciplinary team meetings.

Quincy watched, puzzled, as he tried to catch his breath. He looked like he'd seen a-

"Ghouls!"

He had brought with him a putrid smell, it was emanating from his very being. Quincy raised her hand and wafted in front of her nose discretely, so as not to offend him should the odour be one he could not control.

"There's a dead body! A dead body, a dead body!?"

He pointed out of the door, and Quincy's eyes followed his finger before slowly returning back to him. She tilted her head slowly to one side, an empathetic and concerned expression crossing her face as she slowly stood. "It's a morgue, Samuel. That's kind of the point." She gave a half smile. Was he going through some sort of breakdown? This whole body-snatching business had caught them all off-guard, some more than others. Maybe he was one of the very unlucky ones, perhaps it had hit him harder than most.

"It's a morgue, Samuel. That's kind of the point."

Healer St. Jame's inaction caused the wizard to try and stop his gasping, giving the senior healer a quizzical look. Did she not think he didn't know he was in a morgue? That was the purpose of being here, being here, being here. She was under the Deputy and would know what to do with a found dead body where it wasn't meant to be. The slurry, too! It was beyond...disgusting.

He really needed to get a handle on this anxiety, it wasn't helping him.

Sam took a few deep breaths, coughed, and tried to speak calmly. "IwaswithLigeiaandshefoundadeadbody.Wefoundouthowtheyeatthem." By they he implied the ghouls. The words came out much too fast, jumbled, he really wasn't communicating anything clearly.

"Water?" Samuel finally managed to squeak out, enunciate clear enough. Maybe if he took a drink, he could slow his brain down enough to produce something helpful.

Samuel looked quizzically at Quincy, as though not understanding why she had just stated the very obvious. Thoughts flicked in her brain as she tried to fathom what he could possibly be so anxious about. It was clear he was extremely anxious about something, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Quincy's brow furrowed, true concern now taking over. What had he witnessed?

The jumble of words that came out of his mouth after this did no more to make her understand or quell that concern. She caught "Ligeia", "body" and "eat" but the rest of his sentence came out as a flurry of syllables all merged into one, like multiple streams meeting and merging into the same fast-flowing torrent of a river.

His request for water, however, was as clear as day. Quincy flicked her wand quickly and a glass of water gently bobbed in front of her face. She took the water and tentatively passed it to Samuel, hoping this would help him to calm somewhat.

"Now," Quincy started gently, placing a hand tenderly on Samuel's arm. "Let's try that again, but slowly."

Gulp, gulp! His instinct was to recoil when Quincy touched him, and he tried not to. Sweat beaded on his forehead, he felt scared.

Sam chugged the water down and took a deep breath in, and out. He looked Quincy in the eyes, his own still full of terror. "I-I was with Ligeia, and we found a dead body in one of the research and development labs." He took a deep breath out. Though the wizard was still speaking quickly, he was able to enunciate the words a bit more the second time around.

"We think they might have been a victim of a ghoul." Sam winced, "I came as quickly as I could!" His voice cracked.