The Still Heart Dr. Elise Qiu was properly stumped. This autopsy was nothing like the others even though it had started out that way. Her notes regarding the body’s physical appearance were simple enough. The body, Nicholas Price Newman, was exactly six feet and 176 pounds upon his sudden death. His eyes were green, his hair was Auburn brown and about 1.8 inches long with short tapered sides, and he had a faded, jagged scar longways across his neck. He was Caucasian and exactly 23 years old, as he had inexplicably dropped dead on his birthday in the middle of a parking lot just two days prior. He wore a plain grey sweater with blue jeans and black sneakers with no socks. The body had been received at the medical examiner’s officer two days ago shortly after the death had taken place and had been refrigerated in the morgue until Elise could begin the examination. The seals of the body bag were broken, the body photographed inside, and notes had been recorded on the positions of the clothing the body wore. After closely examining the body’s clothes, Elise removed them, keeping a watchful eye for any abnormalities as she looked over the body itself. No paint flakes. No gunpowder residue. No bullets. No drugs. No blood. One black pentagram tattoo on the right hipbone. After gathering hair, nail, blood, and skin samples, Elise made the appropriate notations on her body diagram before reaching for her recorder. “Throughout the external examination, the body has exhibited no abnormalities nor external traumas,” Elise stole a glance at the body as she spoke. “The pupils have dilated and the skin is pallid and cold to the touch, and though there is nothing else of note, the body is beginning the process of Rigor Mortis | McKenna Baxter 36
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late at exactly two days, two hours and thirtythree minutes after death. Additionally, there is no lividity whatsoever on the body despite the lack of a heartbeat for two days now.” Elise carefully placed a body block under the patient’s back, stabilizing it as best she could. Steeling herself, she steadied her hands and carefully made the first incision running from each shoulder joint to the sternum, then down to the pubic region. As she prepared to peel back the tissue with her scalpel, Elise felt herself freeze in place as her skin suddenly went cold. A heavy weight hung in the air, a weight that emanated agony, loss, and bereavement. She shivered as the fleshy sensation of an unseen hand scraped down her neck, unable to shake the insurmountable feeling that somehow, despite being alive and well, someone had just maliciously stepped over her grave. Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs, Elise pushed the enigmatic imagery from her head as she moved the skin and tissue back. She pulled the chest flap up to expose the ribcage before making two quick, precise cuts on each side. Slowly, she incised the tissue behind the ribcage before removing the bony structure from the body altogether. A bitterness hung in the air, tasting of anguish, torment, and sorrow as Elise set about detaching various organs. She pushed through the unwavering memories that bubbled up in her subconscious, though she absentmindedly noted that they did not feel like her own. An unexplainable onslaught of images assaulted her mind, her very being, as she worked on the body. She saw herself lying on the body block completely nude, throat slit, unseeing, terrified eyes wide open as they misted over in death. The scrape of
