Log 03
Invisible Pattern
Every corpse speaks.
Most people just don’t understand the language.
I do—because I’ve listened to too much silence.
At nine the next morning, I brought Lee Man Tseng and Cheung Man Man to the affiliated Psychological Research Laboratory at New City University’s School of Medicine.
The building was white. Too white.
Glass walls reflecting the morning sun, clean lines, harmless design.
I’ve seen places like this before.
Walls that spotless usually hide the dirtiest secrets.
A young assistant in silver-rimmed glasses received us.
“Dr. Lau is expecting you.”
Her voice was steady, but she wouldn’t meet our eyes.
Inside the lab, the first thing I noticed was a row of metal chairs fitted with electrodes and headbands. In the center, a monitor displayed a brainwave pattern—regular, but violently active.
Dr. Lau Zi Him stood beside it in a lab coat. Calm expression. Sharp eyes.
“Chief Inspector Loke,” he smiled. “I’ve heard about you.”
“I hope it wasn’t all bad,” I replied flatly.
“In your line of work,” he said lightly, “legends are rarely pleasant.”
“We’re here about a homicide,” I said. “The victim, Lam Chi Ying. She may have come into contact with a substance linked to your research.”
His eyebrow lifted slightly. “The hypnotic induction compound? It hasn’t entered clinical trials. Are you certain?”
I placed the small bottle of pink powder on the table.
“You tell me.”
He opened it, inhaled.
For a fraction of a second, his face froze.
“That’s not our final sample.”
“But it came from you.”
A long pause. Then he nodded. “It’s possible. A batch went missing last year. One of our research assistants stole it.”
“Name.”
“Chan Yau Ting.”
I wrote it down.
“Where is he now?”
“He resigned. Supposedly left the country.”
I gave him a cold smile. “Supposedly.”
Man Tseng stepped forward. “Doctor, explain what the drug does.”
“It’s designated E-IX,” he said. “Originally designed to treat PTSD—allowing patients to re-enter trauma within a controlled dream state. But the side effects…” He glanced at the bottle. “Some subjects developed dependency.”
“On what?”
“On dreaming.”
He continued, voice lower. “We call the condition ‘Conscious Suspension.’ Patients begin to blur reality and dream. Some choose not to wake.”
I spoke softly. “Lam Chi Ying.”
“If she overdosed,” he said, “her heart could stop—because her brain believed she had already ‘left.’”
Left.
Not death. Another form of departure.
“What about the chatroom, ‘The Far Side of Dreams’?” I asked.
His lips curved faintly. “Not official. But an informal discussion space for dream participants.”
“Who ran it?”
“Solus.”
The air thickened.
“You recognize the name?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“It was Chan Yau Ting’s experimental alias.”
The pieces began locking into place.
“Do you have contact information?” I asked.
“No. But he left behind a prototype device. It can reconstruct dream imagery from neural data.”
“Reconstruct dreams?” I frowned.
He activated a machine along the wall. Brain heat maps flickered across the screen.
“Visual Reconstruction,” he said. “We translate neural activity in the visual cortex into images.”
“You can see what she saw?”
“If there’s residual neural data.”
“Forensics extracted cortical wave traces,” I said.
“Then we may see what she saw before she died.”
—
At four that afternoon, we were in the morgue.
The room was ten degrees cold. Fluorescent white. Clinical. Merciless.
Dr. Lau attached electrodes to Lam Chi Ying’s temples.
“Brain tissue retains microcurrents for up to sixty hours postmortem if preserved properly,” he explained. “Like residual echo on a recording.”
The monitor flickered.
Waveforms rose.
An image began forming—blurred, trembling—then sharpening.
Taka Square at night. Neon lights. Wet pavement.
A figure walking toward the steps.
Lam Chi Ying.
The camera shifted—her perspective now.
She looked up.
Across from her stood a man.
Black coat. Face blurred by light and shadow.
He smiled.
Dr. Lau adjusted the audio feed.
A faint voice emerged from the speaker.
“You should sleep now.”
Low. Gentle.
Cold enough to crawl under my skin.
The image flared white.
Then—light.
Pink mist.
Jasmine. Sandalwood.
Black.
“That’s all,” Dr. Lau said quietly.
I didn’t move.
“That wasn’t a dream,” I said at last.
“No,” Hui Hing’s voice came from the doorway. “That was persuasion.”
Someone didn’t kill her.
Someone convinced her.
—
Back at the station, I reviewed her messages.
Each line was subtle. Measured. Surgical.
【Solus】: You said reality is too loud.
【Lam】: Yes.
【Solus】: Then stop listening.
【Lam】: I’m afraid.
【Solus】: Of what?
【Lam】: Of not waking up.
【Solus】: Then don’t.
I shut the screen off.
Rain-slick city lights shimmered outside like a thousand watching eyes.
Years ago, I worked a case like this. Another girl. Another smile at death.
Back then, I thought she had glimpsed heaven.
Now I know.
It wasn’t heaven.
It was a trap.
The phone rang.
I answered.
No voice.
Just breathing.
Soft.
Measured.
Then—
“Loke Tin Kay… you should sleep now.”
Click.
Silence.
My fingers felt cold.
Outside, a light flickered in the building opposite.
Pink.
A faint scent of jasmine drifted through the room.
I don’t know where it came from.
But I know this—
Someone was watching me.