IC - Day 6 - The Circle of Life

[Mephistophilis]

Laurent could do nothing but wait once Marise was wheeled off to the operating theatre. He didn't know what was happening but as the time dragged on from minutes into hours he knew that Dr Beliard must have relented and allowed Dr Clermont to try and deliver the foetus by caesarian section in an attempt to save Marise. He didn't know much about medicine but didn't think it could be a good sign that things were taking so long.

-----

Sitting in the chair in the corner of Marise's room he found himself getting progressively more tired, his eyelids drooping, waking up intermittently to find he'd snoozed fitfully for a few minutes. Then after who knows how long he found himself waking groggily, a trolley being wheeled into the room. And whatever was on the trolley was covered with a sheet, all the way up to the top. Glancing at him only for a second the orderlies back out of the room without saying anything.

Lifting himself from his seat in trepidation, Laurent walked over to the bed. Whatever was under the sheet was small - too small to be a person? He reached for the top of the sheet and pulled it down. Revealing the drawn, ashen-face of Marise Lavigne. Her previously glowing St Joe complexion now an almost colourless grey, every ounce of fat and contour gone, leaving only a sharp, thin face that Laurent hardly recognises. The expression strange, not the emotionless blankness from before, no. A look of satisfaction, of triumph? As though, despite all that had happened to her, Marise had come out on top and she knew it.

Sinking to his knees beside Marise's body, Laurent allows the tears to flow while no one is watching. Silent sobs wrack his chest.

-----

And then Dr Clermont pushes open the door. He's carrying something, it looks to be a large glass jar wrapped in a green surgeon's gown. He places it down on a bedside table. 'I know, I know, mon jeune ami, but we do not have time for that now.' The doctor removes the green cloth covering the jar. Inside it is filled with liquid and Laurent gets the whiff of a pungent odour, chemical, vinegary. 'Formaldehyde,' the doctor says in response to his involuntary expression of disgust.

Inside the jar there is something floating. At first look it seems like a baby, but this impression is soon dispelled. The small body is malformed, a mosaic of aquatic features and human-like appendages. Skin pallid and translucent, a network of thick veins bulging beneath the surface. Webbed hands and sharp claws curled into tiny fists. Glistening gills undulating gently in the fluid, either side of the oversized, misshapen head. The eyes are closed but the dark orbs convey a sense of primal instinct and ancient cunning. Despite being motionless inside the jar, Laurent still senses a palpable aura of malevolence.

As Laurent stands transfixed, Dr Clemont is babbling. 'It is disgusting but fascinating. Many anthropologists are proposing that humans may have lived in the sea at one stage of their development - during the Pliocene drought, keeping cool and finding food. That they went back into the sea after evolving on land, then swam back up the rivers and climbed back into the forests, leaving the ancestors of dolphins and whales behind - it explains certain aspects of the human form, the lack of hair the...but this, well, who's to say that some of the humanoids didn't stay behind? If...well, then that might explain how it could...mate with our own kind despite being so different morphologically...'

The longer the doctor talks about this creature, the more Laurent stares at it. Those bulbous eyes positioned on the sides of the head, no nose to speak of, gaping sharp toothed mouth, frilled gills on the squat neck, compact muscular body, webbed limbs...a hideous mixture of human baby and toad and fish. The longer he looks at it the greater the sense that he knows it. Knows these creatures, that they are familiar to him. And he to them. Prickling down the back his neck, cold sweat across his skin. A shiver running down his spine.

He remembers under the sea, in the cave at Dame Marie, on the road here to Cap Matelot. Those round unblinking eyes, the inhuman intelligence - the look of the predator as it sees its prey.

OOC:   Insight roll please

[Mr. Handy]

Had he not seen so much recently, Laurent probably would have broken down now. "I've seen big creatures like that before," he says. "I almost ran into one of them on the way here, when we stopped, but that wasn't the first time. That was at the cave in Anse Douce. And I also had a vision of them under the sea."

Insight roll (current level 5) for seeing the baby:
1d6

[Mephistophilis]

The doctor looks at him strangely, 'Oui, the crocodile you saw looked like this?' He throws the gown back over the jar. 'And you are not the only one talking about strange fishmen under the sea, Monsieur Henninger was telling me something similar, but I did not listen.' He starts pacing, 'And the dreams, and the wandering, and the swimming, Henninger, Benson, whatever is going on at the Azagon. But what does it mean?'

[Mr. Handy]

"I spoke to Auxian Ramses about it before," says Laurent. "I know you may find it hard to believe the things he says, but I think your mind is more open to it now." He tells him about their discussions and his strange encounters. "Unfortunately, he seems to have disappeared. I haven't been able to find him, and I fear something may have happened to him."

[Mephistophilis]

Clermont looks pale. 'I don't claim to know much about Vodou, but I have seen some things...If this Auxian Ramses is right then the loa are restless - Agoué is unhappy in his kingdom whatever that is supposed to mean. But the question remains, what does this have to do with this...?'' He taps the jar, which makes an unsettling swishing sound as the liquid within moves about. 'What does it have to do with whatever happened to poor Marise?' The old doctor's face sinks at his own mention of the girl's name. His shoulders sag and he half collapses into a chair. He looks every bit his age, the usual vitality that animates him draining away. 'I lost my Dame Marie once, I don't think I could face losing it again.'

[Mr. Handy]

"Those creatures were under the sea in my vision," says Laurent. "I think the vision was meant to instruct me as to how to satisfy Agoué, but I'm not sure how. I don't want to lose Dame Marie either. I've never known anywhere else. We'll have to work together to prevent that."

[Mephistophilis]

The old doctor leans back in his chair and takes a deep breath. 'I do not know what to do either. But if the vision was supposed to help you, perhaps talking to others who have experienced these dreams and visions would uncover something more?'

[Mr. Handy]

"That's a good idea," says Laurent. "There's Monsieur Henninger at the Azagon, and Benson, that I could ask. Do you know of any others?"

[Mephistophilis]

'They do not talk to me much at the Azagon - they probably think I am just some silly provincial doctor - but I trained in Paris you know...' Shaking his head he continues, 'But from what Monsieur Henninger tells me they may have similar problems there.'

[Mr. Handy]

"I've spoken to him earlier, when I was there," says Laurent, filling him in on what happened. "What about that?" He points at the abomination in the jar. "We might be able to learn something from it, but I have an urge to destroy it."

[Mephistophilis]

Clermont removes the sheet and looks into the murky fluid where the grotesque creature floats. 'I am not sure. There is much we could learn from it...from, studying it. But...' He turns away, 'It disgusts me, it...unsettles me. I do not want to have it around, and I know Edouard wants nothing to do with it...'

OOC:   Destroying it could reduce your Insight score

[Mr. Handy]

"I want to destroy it," says Laurent. "Does the hospital have an incinerator?"

Exactly what I was thinking.

[Mephistophilis]

'Of course...but I am not sure. The scientific value alone...'

OOC:   Want to roll to persuade the doctor

[Mr. Handy]

"I realize that," says Laurent, "but something like this should not exist. It is unnatural."

Roll to persuade the doctor (human die only):
1d6

[Mephistophilis]

The old doctor takes up the glass jar and raises his arms almost to the level of his head, as if he's going to smash it. Then stops, and places it back down. 'Non, non. We cannot. Think what we could learn about these creatures.' He throws the gown back over the jar. 'I will dissect this myself.'

OOC:   Opposing roll: 1d6 5

[Mr. Handy]

"Then let's learn what we can from it," says Laurent. "Maybe we can destroy it when we're done."

[Mephistophilis]

Looking at Laurent quizzically, the doctor asks him, 'Do you want to help me?'

[Mr. Handy]

"I do," says Laurent.

[Mephistophilis]

The doctor takes Laurent through to another part of the hospital, somewhere he's not been before. All the while carrying the glass jar under the green surgical gown. He changes into another one of the green gowns and has Laurent do the same, before pulling on a pair of rubber boots and thick rubber gloves. He takes Laurent through from the changing room into a large, brightly lit adjoining room. It has a large, long metal table in the centre and around the room are many cupboards and worktops covered with what look like surgical implements, specimen jars, and other equipment. There is a strong smell of disinfectant mixed in that pungent vinegary smell the doctor labelled as formaldehyde, along with something more unpleasant beneath that. Although the table and floor have been scrubbed clean there are still stains and marks that Laurent does not like the look of.

Placing the jar in the centre of the metal table, the doctor removes the lid and takes a pair of large forceps to lift the creature out and lay it on the table. The vinegary smell becomes overpowering and Laurent struggles to hold down whatever is left in his stomach. The doctor splays the body out on the table, on its back, revealing a pale, round abdomen, and more well defined around the torso, connecting to long, muscular limbs that are oddly articulated. Some kind of thin, elastic membrane webs the space between the upper limbs and the chest. Up close, Laurent can see that its skin is scale-like. The fingers and toes are also webbed. The face is a bizarre mix between human, toad, and fish - bulbous eyes mounted on the sides of the head. There's no real nose or ears to speak of but great soggy gills dominate either side of the neck.

Taking a sharp scalpel Doctor Clermont makes a long incision down the abdomen which spills open with a disgusting slopping noise, internal organs bursting out from the opening. As the doctor pokes around with various implements, Laurent recognises organs he thinks are probably
the stomach, intestines, and kidneys - not dissimilar to the insides of other animals he has seen being prepared for the cooking pot. The doctor extends the incision to what might be considered the pelvis in any other animal. Poking various pieces of viscera with a sort of long, metal probe, the doctor finally starts speaking - almost to himself rather than Laurent. 'We can see here the creature has some kind of cloaca rather than fully differentiated genitourinary and digestive tracts.' He begins digging about with the probe and pulls out a pair of large, egg-shaped lumps connected to a more central organ that is long and on further prodding from the doctor seems to be quite rigid. After failing to cut this organ with the scalpel he attacks it with a rather vicious looking sawblade to reveal it to be a cylindrical piece of bone, hollow in the middle.

Laurent finds himself holding back strips of flesh to better expose the cavities, fetching various instruments and finding containers to hold the many samples and organs the doctor removes from the creature.

Extending his incision up into the chest, the doctor uses the saw to separate the ribs and open up the thoracic cavity. There's a large, multilobed liver, three chambered heart and small lungs. 'In many ways the internal organs most resemble those of amphibians than fish or mammals.' After some more poling about in the area between the chest and the abdomen the doctor announces, 'And no thoracic diaphragm - respiration must be accomplished by means of the thoracic muscles when on land.' And then opening up an area around the neck he dissects out one of the gills and isolates the blood vessels connecting to it, 'But the gills seem to provide the main method of respiration suggesting a primarily aquatic lifestyle.'

Cutting into one of the arms, the doctor strips off the flesh and muscle to reveal the bone beneath. 'Not fully ossified, suggesting this creature has plenty more scope to grow and enlarge.'

Finally the doctor retrieves an even larger saw from a drawer, it has jagged looking teeth and he begins sawing through the top of the skull. The doctor is starting to wheeze with the exertion and beckons Laurent over the finish the job. He's disgusted to see that as he slices through the top of the skull to open up the cranial cavity, he inadvertently slices through the top of the brain which slides onto the floor with a plop just after the skull itself crashes to the ground.

The brain itself is just an amorphous pink mass as far as Laurent can make out but the doctor gently prises it from the skull and lies it next to the rest of the body. He uses a large, flat knife to make slices of the jelly-like pink substance. 'So many echoes of our own cerebral cortex yet also so different!' he exclaims. 'Both the limbic and paralimbic structures are much larger than in humans, as well as the parietal and occipital lobes. Yet the frontal cortex is much smaller than I would expect.'.

The dissection has taken the best part of two hours and Laurent is beginning to feel lightheaded at standing for so long. That and the persistent vinegary smell. And the sound of the bone saw as it scratches through the tough tissue and bone, the slopping wet feel of the pieces of flesh he takes from the doctor...

OOC:   Another Insight roll I think for witnessing the autopsy of an inhuman creature