Bliss the Nightmare cat slunk toward me. She looked different to any feline species I’d heard of.

  A mane of pitch blade hair surrounded her neck and trailed all the way down her back and following her tail. Which was absurdly long and had a smooth tuft at the end like a lion's, but larger, resembling a paint brush as it swayed hypnotically behind her. Her flanks had shorter dark grey hair with moving black dots that swirled like whirlpools. Her paws trailed smoke and had a second set of claws poking up between her digits.

  Most notably however was her large, almost white, moustache. It would have been comical, but she was huge, and I was frozen in place.

  Bright green eyes blazed like a boric acid flame, staring at me.

  I glanced at Professor Pure, but he only watched with mildly interested eyes.

  Steeling myself I let the Nightmare approach me. Her nose twitched, and I caught a gleam of white teeth below her moustache. Bliss sniffed my chest lightly, then stepped around me, its body shoving me back a step as it did its best to wrap its body around my own.

  Her head lifted my arm and it used me as a self petting machine, my fingers leaving grooves in its extremely soft fur.

  “Beautfiul isn’t she?” Professor Pure asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I agreed.

  Breathtaking, her every move was silent and flowing, but the power of the muscles I had felt as my fingers trailed down her fur could have shattered stone.

  “Bliss was the third Nightmare I made a contract with, and is one of the most open to being around other species. Consider her the leader of the Nightmare’s that live in this forest.”

  “Does that mean she is the most powerful Nightmare of your companions?” I asked quietly, so as not to anger the Nightmare.

  Nightmare… it felt like a disservice to call her that.

  Bliss, apparently able to discern the nature of our conversation, preened with her nose in the air like an empress before her subjects.

  “No.”

  Bliss glared at Professor Pure. The professor just gave her a smirk.

  “Don’t get me wrong, she can kill just about any Nightmare in this forest, but calling her the most powerful gives a very narrow minded view on the word power. Power is not how strong your muscles are or how fast you can kill something. Power is being able to maximize what you have to the greatest effect. For animals, that means living, eating and breeding.”

  Bliss did not like our lack of attention and growled suddenly. It was deep, rumbling the bones in my chest.

  “Quiet you. Go back to napping.”

  Bliss made a not quite a meow sound and prowled back to the professor, shouldering him before walking behind him and disappearing as simply as she appeared.

  “Now that the bother is gone follow me inside.”

  In the wake of Bliss the cat’s passing I had nearly forgotten that I was in the forest for a reason.

  Professor Pure opened the large barn doors and I froze at the sight before me.

  In the center of the large barn Professor Pure had put a table with a white sheet hiding the prize on top of it. The folds and ridges were familiar to me, familiar to every person. A human body was beneath the sheet.

  “Professor?” I asked, eyes glued to the table. “What is this?”

  Lying on top of the body was what looked to be a field surgeons kit, equipt with fine scalpels, scissors, grasping tools, forceps needle holders and clamps.

  “You Monty Gao, are utterly fascinated in finding out how things work, and based on what I saw on your notebook the day Brax attacked you in the forest; you wish to make your own complex creations one day.”

  Professor Pure gestured to the corpse on the table.

  “Imagination and inferences will never match experience. You want to know how a watch functions? Don’t just read a book about it, take it apart and put it back together, isn’t that right Mister Gao?”

  “Yes it is professor…”

  “Well then, here is your opportunity to do so. I made a deal with the city’s coroner's office to get unclaimed dead bodies, mostly homeless like the one on the table, so feel free to go at it.”

  The professor said no more, waiting patiently.

  “… Will you not be disgusted?”

  “Perhaps, but I am your professor, not your moral guide. A teacher that judges instead of instructing is undeserving of the name.”

  It might not be what I wanted to hear, but it reassured me more than if he had said he would not be disgusted. After all, I could not imagine anyone besides myself being fascinated by what lied beneath the sheet.

  “Thank you professor. What will you be doing while I…” I gestured to the table.

  “I’ll assist you, I am used to seeing viscera and such, though not so much on humans,” Professor Pure said.

  “But you have seen human corpses?”

  “Yes, I was born in one of the Creature Tribes from the Second Layer. I discovered my own fathers corpse in the teeth of a Turf Tigress. One of these days I can show you her pelt,” he mentioned offhandedly while retrieving a notebook that sat next to the surgeon's tools. “You will dictate your notes to me and I will hand you tools as you need them.”

  The Creature Tribes? They were scarcely mentioned in texts, usually only in reference to the founders of The Wandering City. I originally thought that the Professor was born in the Sun State to Bronze Islander parents, as he had a similar skin tone but no number on his forehead. But he also had vivid blue eyes, which were more reminiscent of a Glassive native.

  Professor Pure handed me gloves, goggles and a face mask, which I gratefully put on.

  I then put the medical tools on a tall wooden stool, inspecting them one by one. I checked the weight of them, the sharpness of the blades, the grip of the clamps, and once I was satisfied I gave a final glance to the professor, then fully turned my attention to the corpse on the table, took a deep breath, and began.

  “First impressions, the subject is male based on lack of breasts and slight 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 the cause of death of the 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 continued.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Subject is an Empyrean male between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five. The subject is supposed to be a homeless man, but has no facial hair or evident dirt on body. The morticians likely 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 conduct a thorough inspection of the body to look for any possible wounds I may have missed.”

  With months of physical training and Intent suffusing my body I could move the dead weight of the body easier than I thought.

  “Small of back on subjects left side shows a scar approximately three inches in length. Based on the shape of the scar, location and the ragged look it was not from a past surgery. Outside of bruises on feet, fingers and backside of the corpse 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, it didn’t. I moved the eyeball around, noting that they didn’t look off in the same direction and how the cornea was cloudy. I pinched the nail beds of his fingers almost skipping with joy when there was no capillary refill. I knew there wouldn’t be, but it was still fun to see it. 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 man’s chest, in the hollow where the shoulder met the torso just beneath the clavicle. A dozen images 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 thrown in my room, Diagrams upon diagrams of the human body.

  “The blade has sunk into the flesh with more ease than I was expecting. I am using my other hand to hold the skin in place to help have cleaner cuts… The square cut is complete and will now peel away the skin with the scalpel… My cuts are choppy instead of clean, and require a bit of tugging in some places. More practice will be needed… I can see a lot of branching veins, the vasculature is mesmerizing.”

  Once the window of skin was peeled away I could see the next layer of the body. Fatty deposits and connective tissue created a tapestry that the veins were painted upon. There were ragged chunks and slices in the body similar to the strokes of an amature painter.

  “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 played with the muscles with my blade. I cut with the grain, feeling the muscle fibers part rather easily, then against, the tug and resistance distinctly different. Once my curiosity had been temporarily sated I moved forward.

  “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 tighter fascia 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 flapped the pectoral muscles like a bird does their wings. Only remembering a few moments later that Professor Pure was still standing next to me taking notes.

  “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. Despite that, books will show that they are either white or yellow in diagrams, likely to distinguish from other tissues and because most people are used to seeing bones long after death. 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.”

  The abdominal muscles were deceivingly thick. I was so used to being able to push and suck in my belly that I often thought of the muscles as skin deep, but they were the core muscles of the entire body and supported most movements. Because there were no rigid bones to support the muscles it was more unwieldy to cut through, and I had to use forceps to hold the skin taught.

  “I can see the many layers of abdominal muscle and how their fibers overlap and run in different directions… The intestines are now in sight, both large and small, as well as the stomach and just a bit of the liver. At a glance I can tell that the liver does not look healthy. It has a mottled color and has an overall dullness to it. 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 and nerves 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 and secure.”

  The dichotomy of how difficult it was to cut away some segments while also being far to simple to take apart a living person was captivating. Some skin peeled away with simple tugs while others were stuck together like with glue, all while being flexible and malleable in a way that my watchmaker fingers were not used to. The give of the stomach, the spring-like flexibility of the ribs. My fingers and tools probed through the well placed organs to find the pancreas, gallbladder, and kidneys.

  “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. The lining connecting the intestines to the rest of the body, the mesentery never seems to be properly pointed out in texts, which makes people think their intestines could fall out as though it were rope… 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 I will 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 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, but not one I would narrate for Professor Pure.

  “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, its pink with a much smoother form. I can feel a mass within the stomach, and opening it I can see chunks of food- of what kind I do not know, confirming that this man did not die of starvation.”

  I was oddly disappointed that the pancreas didn’t look like a cob of corn.

  “Kidneys are next, and I can see now that they too do not look healthy. Similar to the liver they are 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, or perhaps they are from the decaying process. 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. It may be assuming because of circumstance but I believe there is a good chance the liver damage was caused by alcohol. The gallbladder does not look green as it does in diagrams, instead is a blue grey sack.”

  I placed each organ out of the way, and now the subject looked odd. A man's face, a square of skin cut away, pectoral muscles pulled off to the side like spread 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 ripe and acidic, 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 the wooden adjustable toy, and wondered what organs I could put in this cavity and still have it function.

  “Removal of diaphragm next.”

  As I cut out the diaphragm I felt… good. I didn’t feel evil or broken. How was this any different than a doctor performing an autopsy? Professor Pure said to tell people that my Dream was something that they could accept.

  Would my parents be okay with me if I told them my Dream was to be a doctor? Or a researcher? A Nightmare specialist similar to Professor Pure? As long as I told them what they wanted to hear, then I could be loved by them, and pursue my own Dream at the same time. I could do it, find the balance.

  “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 heart 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. I felt more at peace here than anywhere else I could remember.

  “Moving on…”