Working in autopsies wasn’t exactly what his parents had wanted for him, but surprisingly it was more accepted than the fact that he had a husband. Who, on the other hand, worked offering funerals, so it was easy to imagine how it was their meet–cute and subsequent love story.

His husband believed he worked for the police doing autopsies of corpses to solve crimes. Fortunately, it wasn’t the type of work where he could bring pictures or funny stories home, much less invite his husband to see him in action, so he accepted the lie easily.

He didn’t like lying. But how could he explain that he opened bodies of creatures that escaped human comprehension? Creatures like the one he had in front: girl’s body, a half a meter long neck, and a head so horrendous that would’ve made him shudder if he wasn’t used to scenes like that. He also couldn’t explain to him how those bodies reached his table… Not yet at least. Not until the experiments gave positive results and he could tell him, proud, that he’d been part of the process.

He was afraid that his husband would change his opinion of him after knowing it, but trusted that he’d understand. For the advancement of science, sacrifices are required. Test subjects are required, sometimes animal, other times human. And someone is needed that’d analyze the remains when there’s nothing more than piles of meat and blood, or the bodies mutate and transform in monstrosities like that one. The reward was worth it. Reward that, he hoped, he’d share with him one day.

And he was confident of being close to get one now that he’d started talking with the voice.

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It was very peculiar: a whisper mixed with the sound of breathing that came from an unknown place. It was rough like the rustle of the leaves in autumn, and cold like the mist after a stormy day. He’d have liked for his superiors to also listen to it to receive a raise for having discovered it, but the voice refused, advising that it was best to talk between themselves first.

And he loved to talk with the voice. It was fascinating. His researcher spirit shined through in their daily give and take sessions.

“What are you?” he asked to the voice.

“Nothing that exists in this world,” it answered.

“Does another exist?”

“As many as ways to die.”

With his white gloves he stained his lab coat with black by extracting an organ from the girl’s body. He put it over a tray of cold silver, moved it away and continued.

“Why did you come here?”

“You guys brought me here. Have you forgotten?”

He took the scalpel and cut the throat, starting in the sternum and following a straight line towards the jaw. He put inside a pair of tweezers in the cut and opened the meat, which moved with a wet sound to let a black mucus spill to the table of operations where the body rested.

“You did this?”

“I did this.”

“Why?”

The voice laughed with a sound similar to static.

“It’s the same I do everywhere else.”

With the tranquility of an artisan, he took several samples of the mucus in jars, labelled them and put them aside. Then, he approached a light and examined the neck bones.

“Why did you decided to talk to me? Why didn’t you talk before?”

“Talking in this world is hard. But I learned fast. It’s interesting.”

Nothing inside that corpse could be called human. It was hard to believe that it once was. Whatever was the identity of the voice, it could turn humans in something like this…

He needed to know more. If he could control that force, he’d get something more than a simple raise.

“What is your name?” he asked. The voice let out a hypnotizing giggle.

“You can call me The Penumbra.”