Room Experiment 6
Name- Breakdown B2
Goal of Room- While utilizing the Wit ability our Intent will be used like a cloud and things within the cloud will begin to break down to their smaller working parts. We will start with mechanical things only. Instead of the shape of the Room being a cube we will try a circular room to see its effects on the Wit. We have already tested this with no design so we will first try it with a curved shape design for the walls and floor.
Room- Cylindrical, Slate.
Door- Wooden, oak, mid-tone brown. Hinged, outward opening.
Exterior Design- None
Interior Wall Design- Basic circles bordering one another in rows
Floor- Bubble design
Interior Design- Mechanical devices that are in the process of being taken apart.
Quadrant A- A door lock
Quadrant B- My Grandfather clock
Quadrant C- An old powdered lever action rifle
Quadrant D- A bicycle
Centerpiece- My Stygoscript watch
-
I had moved onto testing out the shape of the room itself to see its impact on the ability. So far there seemed to be little difference between the cylinder and the cube with no design on the walls and floor. I theorized that was because the efficiency of the cube shape for a Room in general equaled out with the efficiency I would get from the circular shape language; or that the shape did not matter in Breakdowns case.
In order to keep my experiments true I was still using the same mechanical devices as before and also keeping the size of the Rooms as equal as I could.
“Test six.”
In my left hand I held the same cheap watch I had been using for all of the experiments and in my right was my wristwatch as I kept time.
It was only me in the testing room. After the third test Elina grew bored with watching and decided to go and do her own thing. I could have done it in my own room, but I didn’t want any distractions from other students talking and moving around.
Someone knocked on my door.
I flinched in surprise and my concentration wavered, the haze of white Intent thinning. My test was now poisoned, results would be skewed. I let the Wit lapse and placed the watch in a case.
“Yes?” I asked.
The door handle rattled.
“The door is locked,” said a familiar voice.
Well he didn’t ask if he could come in, he only knocked.
I went to the door and opened it, where Professor Pure waited.
“Hello Professor. How may I assist you.”
“Mister Monty, I am delighted to tell you that the morgue has sent us a body for you to dissect.”
I dropped the case with the watch.
“Let’s go,” and I quickly left the room.
—
The professor had the body taken to his animal barn, as there was almost no chance of a student interrupting us in the middle of it, and he already had the tools there.
My fingers trembled with anticipation and a hint of fear as I followed the professor into his barn. What I feared I didn’t know, but I wouldn’t let it stop me now.
There were none of the friendly Nightmares in sight at the moment. Perhaps the professor had made them leave beforehand.
Lying inside a too large metal table was a covered body.
“I’ll go grab the tools I have,” the professor said.
I barely heard him. My mouth was dry and it seemed like the only light came from the table with the corpse. No, I needed to calm down.
I was no rabid animal. I wanted to learn from this, not hack away at the body.
I breathed deeply in for five seconds, held it for three and let it go over five more seconds.
This would be the first human body I would be able to dissect. My goal should be to do a general exploration of the body, with a secondary goal of figuring out the cause of death.
"Here they are,” Professor Pure said, knocking me out of my daydreaming.
He placed a case on the table and opened it up. Scalpels, hammers, saws, forceps, clamps, sutures; all the toys I would need to play.
“What will you be doing in the meantime Professor?”
“I’ll stay here, perhaps in the future I’ll allow you to do this on your own, but I want to supervise for now.”
“… Will you not be disgusted?”
“Perhaps, but that is irrelevant. I am your caretaker while you are enrolled here.”
I shouldn’t have asked the question if I knew the answer. Perhaps things had been going to well and I was expecting him to say not at all.
“If you are willing could you take shorthand notes of what I say while I dissect.”
He raised his eyebrows, but nodded. I handed him the notebook I always carried and a pencil.
After putting on a pair of gloves, a face-mask, and goggles I examined the tools. Checking the weight of them, the sharpness of the blades, the grip of the hammer, and once I was satisfied that I was familiar with them I moved to the corpse under the sheet.
“First impressions, subject is male based on lack of breasts and bulge in the groin indicating male genitalia. Other indicators include broadness of body and sharper angles of body. At the moment I have no indication of cause of death of subject, as they had no missing or misshapen body parts. Removing sheet now.”
I pulled the sheet off the corpse to show and Empyrean man that looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. For a moment I just stared at the corpse in silence, the only noise coming from my breathing and the scratching of Professor Pure’s pencil.
Five in, hold for three, exhale for five more. Okay I’m ready. Licking my lips I continue.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Subject is an Empyrean male between the ages of thirty-seven and forty-three. Subject is supposed to be a homeless man, but has no facial hair or evident dirt on body. Most probably the morticians cleaned and shaved the corpse beforehand. Eyes are a dark grey and instead of being fully opened or closed they are half-opened as though halted in the process of blinking.”
The smell began to leak through my face-mask.
“I can smell chemicals which were likely used in both cleaning and to help preserve the body. I will now inspect the body hands on to look for any possible wounds I may have missed.”
With my Intent suffused body I could move the dead weight of the body easier than I could have a few months ago.
“Small of back on subjects left side shows a scar proximately three inches in length. Based on the shape of the scar and the ragged look it was not from a past surgery. Outside of bruises on feet, fingers and arms there looks to be no wounds that indicate a violence related death. The body is not thin enough to be starvation and…”
I pinched the skin, it was not rubbery exactly, but definitely was different than normal skin.
“Based on the thickness of the skin I assume it was not due to dehydration either, though I do not know exactly what someone who died of lack of water would look or feel like. There are still plenty of potential causes however.”
Once I finished my initial assessment I explored the body more in depth. I pinched the hair on his head to see if it seemed different than normal hair. I moved the eyeball around, noting that they didn’t look off in the same direction any longer, and how the cornea was cloudy now. I pinched the nail beds of his fingers almost skipping with joy when there was no capillarity refill. I knew there wouldn’t be, but it was still fun to see something different. I even moved the joints of the body around to see how easy it was. Rigor mortis had long passed so it was easier than I had been anticipating.
“Now I will begin to inspect the insides of the subject.”
I picked up the scalpel and pressed it at the top right part of the subjects chest, in the hollow where the shoulder met the torso. A dozen imaged passed in my mind. Burst, a cut out diamond on its chest. My parents and little brother on the other side of the table in the living room. The bird Brax had hit out of the sky. Elina trusting me to be there when she drank the Awakening Potion. Diagrams upon diagrams of the human body.
“Blade has sunk into the flesh with more ease than I had been expecting. I am using my other hand to hold the skin in place to help have cleaner cuts… I have completed the square cut and will now peel away the skin with the scalpel. I am not happy with my cuts, they are choppy instead of clean, and require a bit of tugging in some places. More practice needed. I can see a lot of branching veins, the vasculature is mesmerizing.”
Once I finished cutting out a window for me to see the next layer of the body. I could see places where I had cut too deep and had pierced into the next layer, getting a glimpse of intestines. There was also plenty of fat still clinging onto the muscles of the man where I had not skinned him properly.
“Note- next time do a different cutting method for the layer of skin so it can all stay as a single piece. Do in a similar way as a hunter skins an animal… The muscles of the man remind me greatly of steak, for a good reason, however more intact thanks to them still being whole and connected to bone through tendons. It is a shame that the man is dead because I would like to feel the temperature difference between the skin and muscle layers. If not for the likelihood of him dying of disease I would love to do this without gloves. Now we will cut away the pectoral muscles to see the rib cage.”
First I did play around a bit and see how it felt to cut through the different muscles at different angles. Of course going with the flow was easier but I was surprised at how easy it was to cut through some of the smaller muscles on the side of the chest.
“Using a slightly thicker blade now I am opening the pectorals. The weight of muscle is very evident as I do so. With the layering muscle and more tight connectivity it is harder than it was for the skin. I can now see the ribs, or at least the thin layers of flesh surrounding the ribs.”
I ran my gloved fingers over the ribs and noticed something.
“Professor.”
“It’s okay Monty, your Dreamscape is merely reacting to your actions right now. This is a good thing, you are becoming more in tune with your Dream, fulfilling it.”
Wisps of white Intent were coming off my arms, most likely the rest of my body too. I don’t know how long this had been happening, but it wasn’t like when I usually use Intent where it is like I am using up a resource or tiring a muscle with extended use. It was the opposite, my Dreamscape felt more real now than it ever had.
I needed to note this down.
“Dreamscape has reacted to dissection of subject. Small wisps of Intent are coming off me. It is invigorating rather than draining and does not come off at the same rate as when I channel Intent through my body. I will now continue with dissection. Cutting away the flesh around the rib in a similar fashion to how I did the skin I can see that the bones are very much pink. Books will show that they are either white or sometimes yellow when having diagrams. There is a lot of give when pressing upon the bones and I will extract one later to see how flexible they are. Now it is time to move onto the internal organs. I will go about this in a similar way as one would gut a deer.”
I moved my sight to the abdominal muscles. They were much thinner than the pectorals and with no bone around them it was easier to cut them away than it had been for the chest.
“I now have sight of the intestines, both large and small, as well as the stomach and liver. At a glance I can tell that the liver does not look healthy. It has a mottled color and is more dull over all. Running my hand over it I can feel the lumps. Is this the cause of death? Will need to cut open for further analysis. Again diagrams do not show how many blood vessels there really are and how they surround the organs of the body. In my dissection I have punctured a few of the intestinal lining that keeps the organs safe.”
What I said was true, the blood vessels really grounded me that this was really something I was doing instead of me reading a book and imagining myself there. Not to mention the smell and give of flesh on my fingers. I ran my fingers over the rim of the ribs, the diaphragm that separated the lungs and heart from the rest of the organs was being blocked by the stomach and liver. The pancreas was barely visible beneath the duodenum and if I moved the organs around I could see the abdominal aorta and the inferior vena cava as well as the kidneys and by exploring a little I found the gallbladder.
“Now it is time to begin pulling out the organs. Starting with the intestines I note no obvious deformities or signs of infection that would have caused death. Measuring them I see that the large intestine is five point one feet long and the small intestine is eleven point four feet long. Had the patient been alive I would have liked to test whether the intestines truly rearranged themselves if placed within the abdomen after surgery as I have read. Note- if the opportunity ever permits test that.”
I had read once that doctors sometimes will assume a cause of illness because they have seen it many times before and it will blind them to the real truth. I felt this slightly once I had finished examining the intestines. For some odd reason I was expecting to see something similar to Burst, a cut section that became infected and caused sepsis. This was a good lesson.
“Next the pancreas along with the stomach and bladder. Note- unlike what diagrams in textbooks show the pancreas is not a yellow corn looking blob. I can feel a mass within the stomach, and opening it I can see what I believe is bread, confirming that this man did not die of starvation.”
I was oddly disappointed that the pancreas didn’t look just like a cob of corn, it would have been interesting.
“Kidneys are next, and I can see now that they too do not look healthy. Similar to the liver they are more dull with a brown coloring and a bit shriveled. I cut one open and on initial inspection it almost reminds me of a bell pepper or tomato, but I can see several yellowish areas where I believe kidney stones were being formed. I would like to see a healthy pair side by side, one day.”
After the kidneys I cut out the large inferior vena cava and abdominal aorta. There were plenty of connections as they broke off into smaller bits that I had to cut as well, but it was worth it. They felt almost exactly as I thought they would. Smooth and flexible, almost like rubber tubes, but with much more give.
“As I saw earlier the liver is damaged quite a bit. The liver is a very robust organ that can take a lot of damage. Some patients can even donate a portion of their liver to someone and have it regrow. It may be assuming because of circumstance but I believe there is a good chance the liver damage was caused by alcohol. The gallbladder looks almost exactly like I expected it to a pear shaped green organ.”
I placed each organ out of the way, and now the subject looked odd. A mans face, a square of skin cut away, pectoral muscles pulled off to the side like wings, the ribs, and an empty abdominal cavity. I put my head into the cavity and looked at the empty part close up. The smell was disgusting for sure, but my fascination overcame it. I could see the holes where the stomach and blood vessels led up to the top part of the torso, blocked by the diaphragm.
Taking my head out of the guys stomach I ran my hand through the walls of his abdomen. I bumpy feeling of muscle, tissue, blood vessels and bone was amazing. I remembered my wooden toy, and wondered what organs I could put in this cavity and still have it function.
“Removal of diaphragm next.”
The resiliency of the diaphragm surprised me, but I was able to cut it out with a bit of effort. It was amazing that breathing in air didn’t actually require work from the lungs, but instead the diaphragm, a separate muscle to pull downwards and the negative pressure caused air to flow into the lungs.
“The lungs also seem to have a slight discoloration, as though bruised, but the heart actually seems rather healthy. It took a bit of trial and error but I was able to remove the lungs and heart, not having a good line of sight made it more difficult. Note- next time try cracking open the ribs in order to get a better visual. Cutting open the lungs I see a lot of fluid inside and what looks to be inflammation, perhaps pneumonia then. The hearty on the other hand seems to be perfectly healthy and has a surprising weight to it. The chambers and valves were not properly displayed within books. It is not all smooth like often shown, and instead the ventricles seem to have what looks like webbing within. Need to do research later in order to find out what that is.”
As I placed the cut apart heart next to the opened lungs I took a step back. It really was a dream come true. I felt more at home here than I ever did in my dorm room. There was more happiness in me right now then I could remember, even getting accepted into the R.D.A. and opening my Dreamscape hadn’t made me this joyful.
Breathe in for five, hold for three, release over five.
“Moving on…”