if i die tomorrow - permanent hiatus

inspection

A/N: Okay, okay, you guys win. You held on for longer than I did. Granted, you don't know what I have in store, and I do. But the itch is getting unbearable. 

Enjoy the autopsy!

     A glaringly white florescent light shone down on the table, cold in its brilliance. My eyes glinted sharply over the edge of my white surgeon's mask.

     You were standing a little behind me, your face uncovered and paler than snow. You looked ready to throw up, scream, or run away, or all three at the same time. I knew I should smile at you, reassure you, speak just to break the deathly silence, but the body called to me, entranced me in a way I had never been entranced before.

     This was a treasure chest. It held a trove of secrets to be uncovered by the right people.

     Carefully, almost gently, I uncovered the spotlessly white blanket shielding the body's message to the world from view. 

     The first thing I noticed was her ravaged face. It looked as though someone had taken a crudely made knife to her features, tearing it beyond recognition. I winced and looked away.

     She was bloated from the river waters, pummeled by the currents. Her skin was bruised by the endless onslaught of rough rocks at the river bed. How many of her unspoken words were lost to time, to the waters?

     I ran my gloved fingers over her skin, my eyes darting all over the milk-white of her body. She was vulnerably exposed underneath the harsh light. I almost felt guilty for disturbing her peace, placing my inexperienced hands on her. 

     Then again, she probably had endured much worse at the hands of those nobles.

     I took a deep breath, tasting the familiar scent of death, decay. You cringed away from it even as I stepped closer.

     "Female. From the looks of it, around forty to fifty years old." I said aloud, my brain racing far ahead of my words. "Fatal wound is an arrow piercing on the left chest. Probably did not immediately kill her, because there are some noticeable signs of healing before she died. So it didn't pierce her heart."

     I walked around the table, my fingers grazing her death wound. "Infection killed her. The flesh bears obvious signs of untreated infection, which means that she didn't get help before she died. Probably either because she was an outcast, or she was nowhere near a village. Perhaps both."

     Your voice was trembling. "H-Her face--"

     "I know." I swallowed the bile in my throat, looking anywhere but there. 

     You shook your head, your eyes misty, lost. "That's not what I meant. Did it happen before she died?"

     I forced myself to examine the slash marks, flashes of bone shining out from under the ripped flesh. "...Yes. I think so. Who would do such a thing to a dead body anyway?"

     You looked as though you were fighting an invisible force pushing against you as you stepped closer, revulsion and fear written all over your face. 

     "It looks to me," You said slowly. "Like it was done on purpose to hide her identity." You pointed to the rest of her body, pockmarked with scars and barely healed wounds. "None of the marks besides her fatal wound were as long or as deliberate as these."

     I nodded, my intrigue flaring. "The others look like just shallow scratches and results of small brawls with the stray bokoblin. But these -- these were done by another human being." My voice trailed off, my eyes darkening.