Solo [KRI] Autopsy

[Valerius Nitrozian]

Fall 56, 513 AV

A scream rang through the Kelvic Research Institution, and then another one. The dark haired Kelvic who was currently in her human form was struggling against the shackles that bound her to the examination table. Sweat was beading on her forehead. Doctor Alzelin paid little attention to the creature’s plight, but glanced at the clock on the wall instead. „Fifteen chimes“, he informed Valerius Nitrozian, the head researcher’s nephew who stood next to him. The young man had been working with him for a few seasons now.

Valerius still didn’t find the sight of blood, of vomit and other things particularly appealing, and he was always worried about getting something on his clothes, but the research itself fascinated him. He had already learned so much! Doctor Alzelin had just tried out a new potion he had been working on on a live test subject for the first time. So far everything was going well. The Kelvic was already in a fair amount of pain. „How much longer do you think it will take until she’s dead, Doctor?“ he wanted to know.

„Another ten maybe“, the doctor replied and turned back to the test subject. She had temporarily stopped screaming and was caughing instead now. With each passing chime her cough became more severe. Her eyes started to bulge, and spasms began to wrack her body. „It won’t be long now“, Doctor Alzelin observed and turned to his assistant. „Valerius, get me two pair of gloves and two scalpels. Your aunt expects me to teach you, so we are going to perform an autopsy today. There is no point in wasting her corpse, and you should know what you are supposed to do when you are given a body and asked to examine it.“

Valerius frowned a little – he had never cut a dead animal open so far – but he obeyed and went to the cupboard on the other side of the room to retrieve the requested items. He had to admit, despite the fact that it would likely be messy, he was rather curious about what the creature looked like on the inside. „Here, the Doctor“, he said. Both men put on their gloves. They were already wearing white robes so as to not ruin their normal clothes.

The Kelvic on the operating table was lying still for a moment and whimpering softly before she started convulsing again. „Another chime or two“, Doctor Alzelin guessed. Just as he had predicted a final shudder went through the creature’s body, and then she lay still. „Check if she’s really dead“, he ordered Valerius, and the young man put two fingers on the side of her neck to feel her pulse. He furrowed his brow a little and checked again. „Definitely dead“, he observed, and the Doctor smiled a little. „We can begin now. I assume you have never performed an autopsy before, Valerius?“

[Valerius Nitrozian]

Valerius shook his head, and the doctor posed another question. „Do you know at all what a body looks like on the inside?“ „I have an idea“, Valerius replied as he didn’t want to admit his lack of knowledge. „I’ve seen pictures.“ The doctor arched an eyebrow. „In books? Reality is a little different from that.“ He gestured for Valerius to come closer. „Come here, Valerius. I want you to cut the body open. In a normal autopsy, if I were given a body and had to examine it to find out the cause of death, I would first examine it externally. If the body were wearing clothes, I would examine them and their position on the body – although the Kelvic we get here are rarely wearing clothes.“

„Afterwards I would check for any kinds of residue and take samples of their hair and the skin to examine them later on. Then I would examine the body for any kinds of external wounds. This needs to be done carefully. Don’t forget to also check the back, the soles or the parts of the head that are usually covered with hair. Finally I would clean the body, weigh and measure it. Again, these are steps that aren’t necessary here as I have already done that prior to giving her the poison.“

With that Doctor Alzelin shoved something that looked like a brick under the body’s back so that the chest was pushed upwards. „This will make it easier for us to cut the chest open“, he explained. „Or rather for you. This step is rather easy, so I don’t see why you can’t do it. There are a couple of different approaches as far as cutting a body open is concerned. We will go with the most simple one today. I want you to make one cut from the middle of the neck all the way down to the pubic one. You know where that is, I assume?“

Valerius nodded. He put one gloved hand on the corpse to steady himself and used the other one to make the incision with his scalpel. As Doctor Alzelin had said, this step was not particularly complicated, and he didn’t need to use too much of his strength. He had thought that the body would bleed profoundly since it had been alive only a short while ago, but bleeding was minimal. He decided to ask the doctor about that. Doctor Alzein shook his head, most likely at his ignorance, before he replied, „Her heart isn’t beating anymore. There’s nothing left to pump blood. Her circulation has stopped completely. Now I do have seen bodies that were bleeding a lot, but they did in a different manner and one that should be of no concern to you right now.“ He bent over the body to inspect the incision Valerius had made and nodded approvingly. „Well done“, he remarked.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

„Now we are going to open the chest cavity“, he explained. „You should find a saw in the same place you found the scalpel.“ Once Valerius had retrieved the saw, the doctor continued, „Since you did the first part well, I have decided to let you continue the autopsy and maybe even finish it. You can see that the ribs and the breast bone are currently in the way. We don’t have access to her heart or her lungs, so we need to remove the bones. I want you to saw here …“ He pointed at the left side of the breastbone. „… and here …“ He pointed at the right side of the breastbone. „ … and lift the breast bone with the ribs that are still attached to it. I hope you are stronger than you look.“

He cast a glance at his assistant. Valerius was relatively tall, but he wasn’t exactly muscular, and he had never done physically demanding work in his life. He hoped that he wouldn’t just drop the saw and give up.

Valerius had no intention of doing that though. He hesitated for only a moment before he began to saw. He had never worked with a saw before – and he had definitely never tried to saw through bone before. He slipped once – at which Doctor Alzelin made a disapproving sound – but then he began to saw slowly, but steadily. It took him a while to saw through all of the ribs – probably much longer than it would have taken Doctor Alzelin.

When he finally put the saw aside and lifted the chest plate out of the body, his hands were slightly sore and trembling. He wondered if he should ask the doctor for a break, but then he decided against it. He would not admit any weakness to him as he didn’t want him to think less of him. Instead he asked, „What is the next step, Doctor Alzelin?“ „Now we will remove the organs“, the doctor replied. „Take a good look at how they are arranged now.“ He gave Valerius a few moments to do so. „We will start with the heart. Again there are several different approaches as far as removing the organs is concerned. Some prefer to remove them all at once and some in groups.“

[Valerius Nitrozian]

„For this autopsy I will remove them all at once. I will perform this step, but you will watch closely.“[/b] With that he made a series of cuts along the vertebral column, detached the organs and pulled them out in one piece. Once he had done that, he put them on a second, separate operating table. „In certain cases I will take each organ, weigh it and take a sample“, he explained. „Find me the heart, Valerius. As I’ve told you, we will examine the heart first.“Valerius looked at the mass of organs in front of him doubtfully and finally pointed at what he thought was the heart. Doctor Alzelin nodded. „That’s it. It is currently surrounded by what we call the pericardial sac. Use your scalpel to open it.“

Valerius did so, again only with a little hesitation. „Now cut the pulmonary artery open and take a look inside. Do you see any blood clots? Anything unusual?“ Valerius cut the artery open and narrowed his eyes. He hadn’t expected a lot of arteries yet, but he didn’t think there was anything out of ordinary. Noticing that his assistant was a little unsure, the doctor examined the artery as well. „Everything looks fine“, he decided. „Now cut the other blood vessels to remove the heart, and then put it away.“ Valerius did so. With a frown he noticed that his gloves had stains on them now. Since the body was fresh, it didn’t smell too bad though. He could manage. He would not be squeamish like Amolina Moletta who had almost been unable to stand the idea of experimenting on Nuit brains!

„Next are the lungs“, Doctor Alzelin informed him. „Every being has two, as I assume you are aware. You will remove the lungs by cutting the bronchus and the blood vessels at the hilum. The hilum is a triangular impression above and behind the cardiac impression where the aforementioned blood vessels and the bronchus enter or leave the lung. The bronchus is of course the passage that transports air into the lungs.“

[Valerius Nitrozian]

Valerius did as he was told, removed the lungs, examined them briefly and then put them next to the heart. Doctor Alzelin nodded approvingly. „And now, my dear Valerius, we are going to examine the stomach, the intestines and their contents. By examining the contents of the stomach, you can find out approximately when somebody died as it takes a certain amount of time for the food to be digested. The emptier it is, the longer the deceased has gone without a meal. You can also often find out how somebody died.“ He paused for a moment, and then he asked, „Which one of those things do you think the stomach is?“

He gestured towards the mass of organs and intestines that were lying on the table. Valerius pointed. „A little more towards the center. You just showed me the liver“, Doctor Alzelin told him and made a face. After Valerius had correctly identified the stomach, he nodded. „I hope you aren’t squeamish, Valerius. This might be a little messy.“ Valerius gulped, but he shook his head. He would not show any sign of weakness! He would not! Being squeamish, getting sick because he cut a dead body’s stomach open didn’t fit into the picture he had of himself! He tried to look indifferent as he grasped the scalpel a little tighter and followed Doctor Alzelin’s instructions on how to cut the stomach open.

„Take a look at these areas“, Doctor Alzelin said to him. „This was the poison.“ He used his own scalpel to scratch something away. „She ate some kind of grain before she was brought here. Now cut the intestines open. Let’s see what we can find there.“ As Valerius made an incision on the intestine he came to the decision that he would not eat anything when he returned to the Nitrozian Estate in the evening. Somehow the sight in front of him had made his appetite disappear completely.

[Valerius Nitrozian]

Once they had examined both the stomach and the intestines, Doctor Alzelin removed the block he had put under the body. „The last step is to examine the brain“, he told Valerius. „Come here, to the head. I want you to make an incision from behind one ear over the crown to the other ear.“ Valerius made the incision and then pulled the scalp away. Once he had done that Doctor Alzelin gestured for him to step aside. He removed the top of the skull himself and put it on the table where the internal organs were lying. „The brain“, he told Valerius. „Sever the nerves and the spinal cord and then lift it out of the skull please. We will burn the rest of the body when we are done with the autopsy, but I want to preserve the brain. This is done with something called formalin.“

„Now then …“ he murmurred as he took another look at the organs they had removed so far. „I think we are done here.“ „But what about the arms and the legs?“ Valerius wanted to know. „We usually don’t examine the arms and the legs internally“, the doctor replied. „Help me put the organs back into the body and close it.“ Valerius did as he was told, and together they put the heart, the lungs, the stomach, the intestines and everything else into the body. Then they put the body into a small cart. It would be burned in another area of the Kelvic Research Institution. „And now clean the operating table“, Doctor Alzelin ordered. „Make sure that they are completely clean for the next experiment.“ Valerius didn’t move. What was he? Some kind of slave? „This is part of the procedure. You can’t perform an autopsy and then leave the operating room in such a state. Now do as you are told. Or do you want me to tell your aunt that you are an inadequate assistant and should go back to shoveling Kelvic excrements?“ Valerius didn’t say anything. He just looked at the Doctor coldly, pulled his gloves off and started cleaning the operating tables. „Good“, the doctor remarked when he was done. „Let’s take our robes off now and take a break. Tomorrow I’m going to continue with another experiment. Your aunt wants me to research the Kelvic’s ability to shapeshift further.“

Valerius nodded and took his robe off. „I will go home then“, he told the doctor, but Doctor Alzelin shook his head. „Did I say anything about going home? We will take a break now, and then you will go to the cages. Some of the creatures haven’t been fed yet, and we are a little short on staff today. Feeding the creatures is part of your job as well.“ He hesitated for a moment, and then he remarked, „You did well today, Valerius. When your aunt brought you here I had my doubts. You looked like a spoiled young man that would pass out at the first sight of blood, but you have a certain amount of composure. Continue like that, and there may yet be a place for you among the researchers here.“

[Vanari]

Valerius

Medicine	+3 XP
Observation	+3 XP
Composure	+3 XP

Lores :

• First Time Performing an Autopsy
• Dead Bodies Don't Bleed as Much
• Sawing a Body
• Examining Organs
• Cleaning Up After an Autopsy

Notes :

Oh god that gave me chills to read. Excellent job grossing out all current and future readers

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