I continued to test Dismantle, and after each finger I updated the Human book within my Dreamscape. Which in turn made each following test easier. I got a deeper understanding of how tendons and ligaments were connected to bones.

However when I got to the fingers that had lost a nail I came upon a problem. It wasn’t a missing seam, not only did I have the secondary seam on the finger, but now. The problem was the damage to the surrounding tissue.

That damage had actually interfered with seams deeper within the finger, so when I first sent Dismantle through them my ability fell apart.

I had never thought about that before. Dismantle was supposed to take apart the subject, but not damage the important parts. But what if those parts were already damaged? This could be anything from a recent superficial cut, to an old deep scar.

I stood there, eight and a half of the Bronze Islander’s fingers dismantled, and thought for a long time.

Option one. Go around injured area. As the parts are now damaged they no longer serve as much of a purpose. While this method does hold merit the issue with it is the idea that injured parts are not useful. However I am sure that injuries themselves are treasure troves of information. A lot of moving parts work together when the body has to deal with damage.

Two. Dismantle will flow through wounds, utilizing the sense aspect of the Wit, and allow me to understand the wound better and to continue the Dismantling process. The issue with this is that I will not only need the normal understanding of the anatomy and physiology, but also various types of wounds and their stages of healing.

Option one would be good in the short term, but I wasn’t trying to go for the short term. With option two I would gain a deeper understanding, and if the situation called for it I could fall back onto option one.

After deciding my course I moved my attention to my regular journal. Several dozens pages of notes now had to be changed or added upon to accommodate injuries into Dismantles scope.

At some point Professor Pure stood up and spoke a few words to me before leaving. Something along the lines of he didn’t see anything about Dismantle that would harm me and he had things to do. I was too buys shifting things around in my experimental Room.

Finally after more than an hour of analyzing, planning, and adjusting, I was ready to Dismantle again.

“I have done a moderate amount of adjustments to see if I can still utilize Dismantle with wounds present on the body. I will now begin the next test.”

After hearing no scratching of pencil on paper I glanced to the stool near the wall of the barn. A journal sat atop it with a pencil lying on the ground. I only just now really registered that the professor left while I was thinking.

I picked up the scalpel, channeling the adjusted Dismantle Wit through it and pressed it to the seam running along the mans index finger.

The Intent flowed through the seam, slicing open a straight line on the top side of the finger. At the same time the Intent poured deeper through the skin, peeling the skin away from the tendons and bone of the finger.

When Intent began to run into where the mans nail had once been it began to fill the cavity instead of washing away like waves on a shore. I could feel the ripped skin, the torn blood vessels, the coagulated blood. It put a model in my mind of what had been damaged when the nail had been ripped out. Once that was done I then focused that pool of Intent into the seam of the nails root.

The power of the Intent had weakened quite a bit, but it still carried enough weight to slice through that seam and begin attacking the tendons. The tendon sheaths were sliced away, and the tendons themselves were peeled away from the bones. These tendons were small and closely nit, which meant it was harder to get a good understanding of how I should take them apart, but after doing it so many times I was finally able to do so.

Next my Intent ran into the bone, where the ligaments were for the finger joints. The bones began to pop off one after the other and the tendons and ligaments were now hanging limply off the knuckle.

I let my Wit lapse and focused with my eyes once again. The Distal Phalanax had rolled off the table, but the other two were still there. The layer of skin was filled with cushioned fat, and I couldn’t help myself from pushing down on it and feeling its bumpy texture.

“Test complete.”

I added my knowledge into the the Human book, and made a note in my journal to also start books for different types of injuries and how they display themselves on the body. That could be relevant to all types of creatures.

That brought up another thought and I made another note that I should create a broader book for animals of the same family. That way if I met a different species I wouldn’t be working with nothing.

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After I was done with the tenth finger I went back to the others and finished them off. Which made for a funny sight as it left bones on the table and ten nubs of skin, tendons, and blood vessels hanging off like spaghetti.

“Now I will begin with the actual hand itself. As I get closer to the torso the different parts will become bigger and bigger, which will make it easier to separate them mentally, but more challenging as it will require more Intent and my senses may get overrun from all the moving parts. The seams for the hand include a seam to connect the five seams of the fingers as well as another down the back of the hand to reach the tendons. I am thinking of adding one on the palm as that is where the muscles of the hand are.”

Two hours later I was panting, sitting in the stool that Professor Pure vacated hours ago. On the table the man was completely flayed of skin, large patches of fat weighing down the skin. The bones in his ribs, arms and legs were separated like one would see in a long dead corpse, only these bones were still a healthy pink.

Muscles were pulled off into a pile on the foot of the table next to those bones. While his vital organs were resting near his head.

I was unable to finish with the pelvis, back and head, but everything else was Dismantled. A raging headache slammed into my skull with each heartbeat. I had over-drafted on my Room and couldn’t continue. I was too tired to even add the details of my last test to my Human book, so instead I just wrote it in a regular notebook.

Once I was done I stood to go back to my dorm, but a wave of dizzyness hit me. Falling on my butt I rested my back on the wall of the barn. I took a steadying breath, blinked, but couldn’t find the power to open them again.

—

I awoke to a sharp pain in my shoulder. My eyes shot open and I sat up. My neck screamed in protest and a swirl of dirt entered my eyes.

I looked around, expecting to see a wild jungle that was many times larger than it would be in real life. I had been as small as a mouse using my hands to peel away the flesh of a giant dead man that I found in the forest.

A disgruntled squawk brought me back to reality. It had been a dream, I wasn’t a tiny man in a forest that stumbled upon a random dead man.

Then I focused on the bird in front of me. Calling it a bird was an insult. The creature was more than ten feet tall, and had dark grey and blue feathers. Its eyes were a bright sky blue, and as our gazes met a ripple of lightning flowed down its wings.

I knew what this Nightmare was, a Thunderbird. A Nightmare that stood at the apex of the Second Layer. From the information I had read in the library, most Dreamers were not a Thunderbirds match.

The bird gave a smaller squawk this time and in a flash pecked me in the forehead. It was only enough to bring a sharp pain, but it still scared the shit out of me. The Thunderbird ruffled its feathers, gave me a decidedly derisive glance, and jumped out of the wide barn doors.

Looking at the light outside that fell from overhead I could tell something was off. When I finished with Dismantle the light from the sun had been entering its moon phase, but now I could see the shades of red that came with dawn.

A commotion around me drew my attention. There were dozens of Nightmares, I could see both Bliss and Kevil, as well as a few of the other ones Professor Pure had introduced me to. They had all quieted when the Thunderbird had been nearby, but now were moving about.

A monkey with three tails, each one lit like a Sun Stone, was on the operating table, smacking two femurs together while dancing. Ants the size of small dogs were crawling around the table, moving pieces of the dead man away.

It was with the daze of sleepiness that still surrounded my head that I was able to understand why other people thought I was different. A human body, that was in what could only be called a terrifying state, was having is dismembered body parts being dragged away and played with.

To me, I was not scared, but instead it was as though I was an pouting child that just had their favorite toy stolen. These ants were stealing my toy, and this monkey was playing with it without permission. I quashed that feeling of childishness after a moment. Was I really getting mad at ants? Nightmare ants yes, but ants?

I got to my feet, running my tongue over my chapped lips and approached the table. The ants scurried away, and the monkey gave me a sheepish smile before holding out the femurs for me. I took them, and just watched as the monkey hopped off the table and scurried away.

Did I scare them? That shouldn’t be possible, I was still a new Dreamer. I looked to the monkey with the glowing tails. Perhaps they too had been acting like children, and they got caught in the act. I bounced the femur in my left hand for a moment, then tossed it to the monkey.

The monkey caught it and screeched happily at me. I smiled faintly then looked back to the corpse on the table.

What would Elina think if she had watched me Dismantle this man? She knew a bit about my Dream, but that wasn’t the same as seeing it. Could she stomach being my friend if she saw what I did to my fellow humans? What about Melanie? She was much more lax than Elina, but that didn’t mean she would be fine seeing a person in this state. Then there were others, like Heidi and Cystella. They were not friends, but I could consider myself friendly with them.

Another thought shot through my head. I had barely talked to any other male student since enrolling. Brax might be the one I had spoken to the most, and that was just depressing. I shook that thought away, there was nothing wrong with being friendly with girls, I wasn’t going to try and force a random boy to be friends with me to even it out.

I stared at the corpse and let a thought that I had done my best to bury away out. What would my parents think if they saw me? What about the little brother I only just found out I had? I swiped a tear from my cheek. I already knew what they would think. Monster, weird, odd, no longer our child.

Over the past few months I had done my best to not think of them, but after seeing them again the feeling of wanting to be accepted by them grew over time. I wondered if that feeling would continue to grow until I finally went to see them again, or if one day it would finally die.

I wanted the latter, but I was also scared of that.

I breathed deeply in for five seconds, held it for three and let it go over five more seconds.

After getting a hold of myself I left the barn, I was already late for class.