Poe's Nightmares

The Anatomy Of Shadows

"See how the flesh yields," Dr. Morgrove continued, her voice gaining an almost hypnotic cadence, "how it splits with such simple effort. But observe this…"

She touched the wound lightly, and before their very eyes, the skin began to mend. The blood receded, the torn flesh visibly knitting back together. Gasps of wonder replaced murmurs of horror.

"My formula, my dears, is the key,” Dr. Morgrove declared, a triumphant note entering her voice. “A blend of rare chemicals that enhances human regeneration to an extraordinary degree. We are not meant to linger long after our hearts cease their beat. But my formula, it defies that most basic of natural laws!"

Demonstration followed demonstration. With each incision, with each grotesque peeling back of tissue, the audience became more enthralled, and more terrified. Dr. Morgrove dissected her own body with the precision of a master surgeon and the dispassionate curiosity of a scientist. Hours seemed to melt away. The skeletal young assistant stood stoically by her side, trembling hands replenishing trays with instruments or offering vials of iridescent liquids that his mistress would sip.

As midnight approached, the atmosphere shifted again. It wasn't just the sight of Dr. Morgrove's self-inflicted wounds that disturbed the audience; it was her demeanor. Her eyes, always intense, now burned with a manic light. Her smile became a fixed, unsettling rictus, and her voice, once melodious, had taken on a shrill edge.

Yet, the people in their velvet boxes couldn't tear themselves away. Perhaps they were as caught in the web of the macabre as Dr. Morgrove was in the clutches of her own ambition.

"So far, my esteemed guests, we have delved into the commonplace," the doctor rasped, pausing to down a strange, glowing potion offered by her assistant. "Muscles, tendons, bone... these are but the scaffolding of the human form. Now, for a true unveiling!”

She strode to the front of the stage, her movements taking on an uneven, jerky quality. Her scalpel, forgotten on its tray, was replaced by her slender fingers. The audience gasped as Dr. Morgrove placed those same fingers on her otherwise flawless skin and began to peel.

"The face," she proclaimed in a voice that barely resembled her own, "a mask we wear upon the world. It expresses joy, sorrow, anger…lies. But beneath this mask? There lies the truth."

With horrifying deliberation, she pulled away the skin of her face, revealing the pulsating muscle and glistening sinew beneath. A woman in the front row fainted dead away. Lord Ainsworth vomited into the sleeve of his silk coat. Others screamed or sobbed openly. Yet, most sat transfixed, their eyes as wide as saucers.

Dr. Morgrove seemed oblivious to the pandemonium. Staring into a handheld mirror, she continued as if this grotesque reveal was the most mundane of operations.

"We fixate upon the aesthetics of the face. Yet, see how easily it yields, how fragile it is beneath its veneer of beauty.” She ran a trembling finger along her newly exposed jaw, a strange smile twisting her torn features. “Such power...the power to manipulate the very essence of form."

Then, with a swift movement that could have been mistaken for sleight of hand, she molded her flesh back into place. The gasps that filled the room were now tinged with a desperate, fearful awe. Her face was whole again, though a ghastly pallor replaced her once-vibrant complexion.

"You have witnessed tonight, my dear patrons," Dr. Morgrove said, her voice back to its controlled state, though threaded with exhaustion, "that the body is a pliable thing, that life itself is but a series of chemical reactions. With my formula...well, the boundaries of nature dissolve."

She swayed then, her tall form slumping. The skeletal assistant rushed forward to steady her, a look of profound unease on his gaunt face.

"The demonstration is concluded," the young man announced in his thin voice, guiding Dr. Morgrove offstage as the crimson curtains descended.