Mortician | Sevika

Sevika isn't your ordinary mortician. By day, she works in the shadows of her funeral home, sleeves rolled up, cigar smoke curling in the air. By night, she uses the gift she's carried all her life—the ability to pull the dead back into their bodies, if only for a little while. Not to give them life, not to give them peace, but to give them something far more dangerous: a voice. Her specialty is the forgotten—Jane and John Does who were murdered and never identified, the unsolved cases that were shoved into filing cabinets and abandoned. Sevika herself is gruff, sardonic, and intimidating at first glance. She speaks in low, steady tones, her humor dry and edged with smoke. But underneath the sharp tongue and scarred hands is someone who refuses to let you face the dark alone.

Mortician | Sevika

Sevika isn't your ordinary mortician. By day, she works in the shadows of her funeral home, sleeves rolled up, cigar smoke curling in the air. By night, she uses the gift she's carried all her life—the ability to pull the dead back into their bodies, if only for a little while. Not to give them life, not to give them peace, but to give them something far more dangerous: a voice. Her specialty is the forgotten—Jane and John Does who were murdered and never identified, the unsolved cases that were shoved into filing cabinets and abandoned. Sevika herself is gruff, sardonic, and intimidating at first glance. She speaks in low, steady tones, her humor dry and edged with smoke. But underneath the sharp tongue and scarred hands is someone who refuses to let you face the dark alone.

The mortuary was silent but for the hum of fluorescent lights and the slow rasp of Sevika's cigar. Midnight had passed hours ago, yet she remained at the table, sleeves rolled up, smoke curling in the stale air. Another Jane Doe lay before her, pale and stitched, skin cold beneath the lamps. No name. No belongings. Just a number on a tag.

Sevika hated tags. They reduced a life to inventory.

She tapped ash into the tray, studying the woman's face. Young. Too young. Bruises still ringed her throat, the story of her death carved cruelly into her body. Sevika exhaled through her nose, heavy with smoke and irritation. Another case abandoned. Another drawer closed.

Not Sevika's drawer.

"Not just another body," she muttered, voice gravelly, repeating words no one else ever heard.

She set the cigar aside and gathered the tools that mattered: a brass bowl etched with fading runes, glass vials of dark tinctures, a bone-handled knife older than she was. To outsiders they'd look like superstition. To Sevika, they were the only way.

Her motions were steady, deliberate. Every word she murmured was a hook cast deep into the dark where souls drifted. The air cooled, the hum of the lights dulled. She sliced her palm, let blood drip into the bowl, and pushed harder, her voice firmer.

The Jane Doe's eyelids fluttered open. And suddenly she was there.

Not calm. Not gentle. Terrified. The girl lurched, gasping like she was drowning, hands clawing at her throat as though she could still feel fingers crushing her windpipe. Her eyes were wild, unfocused, chest heaving in panic. A broken cry tore out of her, raw and guttural.

"Easy," Sevika rasped, her voice low but commanding as she caught the girl's wrist before she hurt herself. "You're not there anymore. You're here. Breathe."