Dressed in a black wetsuit the man crossed the dimly lit corridor. The wet suit was a necessity, death was a messy business, his business. He approached the large metal door with a kind of glee. His heart was racing, and he could already feel his palms begin to sweat and itch. This was the best part of it all. The weeks spent searching for the perfect pair, the hunt, the thrill, all of it leading to one moment of perfect extasy. He lived for that one moment, that one brief minute in time when he could transcend this world and glimpse the next. The moment when he could move forward leaving his mortal vessel behind for a mere moment in time. Eventually he would be able o do more than take a moments peek at the beyond, soon he would be able to piece the veil.

                He opened the door, the metal moved smoothly on its well-oiled hinges. The man seated across the room never even heard him enter. This gave him a moment to relish his work. The room was almost clinical, it had a surgical atmosphere without the harsh lighting.  The walls with their stainless-steel cabinets and counters with his various tools lined up for quick use were all gleaming in the pale light of the room. There in the center of the room sat his prized possession, his table. He had designed it with precision and care. All its working parts designed to bend and break any body placed upon it.  It could drain the blood into special tanks or a thousand other things. It uses were determined by the body upon it.  It had large racks used to pull the flesh and separate it from bone. There were places to twist different limbs a full three hundred sixty degrees or perform a complete autopsy if that was what he desired. Its gears operating as smoothly as any well-oiled, well-loved machine.

 Right now, it held a small blonde girl, her back broken and twisted by the table. First, he had raised the center of the table gradually until she was bent completely in half severing her spine her head separated from her feat only by the two sections of bent table. He had then twisted the lower half of the table until her lower half twisted 180 degrees. She was a living breathing piece of art. When he had first placed her upon the table he had started slowly. It was a twist of an arm or a leg but never enough to break bone, only enough to cause her short bursts of agony. Then he had worked his way up to leaving her twisted just slightly, enough to pull her muscles taught and cause them to burn. It was only then that he had begun his other work. Using an electrified scalpel to cauterize as he sliced flesh from bone. Small pieces at first no bigger than a slice of bacon, he saved cutting into her abdomen for last. Her heart, liver, and kidneys were to be saved for one last meal.   

                The man seated cross from the table had watched in horror as he had broken the doll. He was sure the man had been sickened by the ritual of rending flesh from bone. The disgust had been evident in his eyes. He had resisted the bits of flesh at first but having learned that refusal to eat only meant more pain for the girl he began to eat the morsels he was offered. He had not liked the girl being hurt but, yet he had helped to commit the atrocities before him. He had understood quickly that by doing as he was told he might get to live another day. He had been a good soldier and did everything commanded of him in hopes of his own survival. The man still held hope in his eyes, after tonight, his hope would be as extinguished as the girl’s life. Tonight, he would take the girl’s soul and feed it to the man and being the good soldier, the man would swallow it down as if it was his mothers’ milk.

                He cleared is throat as he entered just to let them know he had returned. The man looked up, but the girl didn’t even move. She was resigned to her death. She knew it was coming, he could see it in the shallow breathes she managed to pump into her lungs. As small as she was she had lasted longer than some of the others. She had been strong of will and heart and it had been so wonderous, the breaking of such spirit. He stepped further into the room and heard the distinct gasp that always accompanied his entrance in this outfit. The sight of it told them things were about to get messy, that it was finally almost over.

                He stepped to the left and turned on the radio, Bodies by Drowning Pool began to fill the room. He picked up the scalpel next to it and moved toward the girl. It was time, he knew to show the girl how transcendent her death would be. She shook as he neared, and tears began to drip down her cheeks, she was beseeching him to end her pain, and he would, in time. His table was still bent and twisted so he took a moment to release a small lever that was mounted to the large center piston. The table slowly untwisted the doll, straightening out and flattening. Her skin was still stretched from the bending. She looked like an old wrinkled lady from the waist down, her skin contorted and stretched out laying in large folds at her hips. The bruising tinged her once milk white skin the blue-black color of blood pooled just beneath the surface. Early lividity marks, he had seen them a time or two before. The music changed and as Ashes of Eden played, he began his work as her muffled sobs became the last screams of her life.

He slowly ran his blade in the classic y incision so often used in autopsies, across the collar bones, the y meeting between small pale breasts, and then a straight cut to the navel. Pulling her skin to the sides he exposed her ribs and almost lost her. Most never survived this long but she had somehow held on, however her body was going into shock and that meant she was at deaths door. He had many tools for his use and on the table behind, him was a syringe filled with adrenaline. It was often used to bring back cardiac patients, but he only needed to bring her back long enough to complete this one last task. She would be the first to survive to see her own death.  He grabbed it and injected it straight into her open chest, right into the heart. He had to keep it beating for just a few minutes longer. Her heart beats picked up in an uneven staccato, but it was enough. He quickly grabbed his saw and used it to cut through her sternum, he then used large garden shears to clip through her ribs. When he finished he pulled her chest apart revealing the organs within.  Using his right hand, he reached up and moved her hair from her brow and looked into her eyes. As she looked on in fear and resignation he used his left hand to reach down and pull out her still beating heart and hold it up for her to see as she exhaled her last breath and one final tear escaped her eyes.

                The moment the heart no longer beat, he experienced a kind of euphoria, it was almost sexual in its nature, yet he had not hardened or ejaculated. This had been so much more, it always was. Her death was an awakening, a heightening of his senses. Moving away from her body was a kind of pain. He didn’t want to let her go yet she was already gone, and he had clean up to do. Never more than one body to be found. It was a rule. If you left more than one body for them to find it doubled the chances of being caught, not that they could ever catch him. He had unique abilities that aided him in his business. He crossed the room to a large door built into the wall. The incinerator was so handy it would be a shame to have to leave it behind when he moved on. The disposal of a human body was a difficult thing if you didn’t ever intend on it being found. The incinerator was a sure-fire way of keeping anyone from ever finding DNA or anything else that might link murderer to victim.

                He didn’t consider himself a murderer though, he had always thought of himself s a reaper of the dammed.  The souls left wondering here long after they should have moved on.

“Moving souls, passing on, around the veil we go.” He sang it quietly to himself as he started the incinerator. “White moons, bright stars, and a suns glow. Knowledge and power from blood and toil. Suffering fools a plan to foil.”

The old nursery rhyme always brightened his mood his mother had often sang it to him to put him to sleep. He turned back to the girl her heart still in his hand. He walked to the long metal counter and placed it into a blender that was often used for the victims had to swallow parts. There were always hard to swallow parts. With her heart safe and sound he began his other ministrations on her body. He removed liver and kidneys, part of the small intestine, and lastly her pancreas. These all went into the blender. His last removal however wasn’t to be eaten they served a very special purpose. Her eyes were the most important. He took his time carefully cutting away her eyelids, then using a small spoon shaped device he slid in behind the eye popping it out of socket. Once they eye was free from the socket he quickly clipped the nerves anchoring to the body including the large optic nerve, freeing the eye. Once he had both loose he placed them in a small tray of ice. He had to work quickly now. Once they eyes were done he only had about eight hours to have his next work of art on display.

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