After a long while, after all the twitching had stopped, I opened the window. Like the nameless falling into the Pauper Vault, I dropped him out and refastened its locks. Walking down the stairs, I kept hearing Somyellia: “My beast, look at what you have done.” Over and over, finally trailing off with that haunting laugh that could blot out life or breathe it in.

There was one more stop to make, and I needed to get the body prepared. The blanket, now wrapping Father, wasn’t the only thing I had packed away. Once my preferred cove was found, I parked the cart and unpacked my cleavers.

In almost complete darkness, I dismantled Father and collected his parts into jars that I’d already labeled.

The scraps were stuffed down a drainage culvert, a feast for the rats I could hear gathering. In less than an hour, I had all the valuables packaged and ready.

Deep into the tiny-eyed hours of night I arrived at one of the reception doors at the Institute of Human Sciences. The groomed gentlemen peering out the viewing port refused to open the door. Holding up a freshly plucked liver, however, turned them around. I had pocketed a few coins this way before, but withered organs and mummified limbs were no longer in demand. Here I had fresh materials. The cart emptied as my purse filled. I called it justified compensation.

By early morning I was back at the Pauper Morgue. After the follow-on tasks were finished, I sprawled out on the floor to finger through the enrollment application the query-eyed doorman had handed me upon request.

At some point I fell asleep. There I dreamed of many things. When I finally woke, all I could recall was a thunderous storm, met with the charge of some unnamable legion.

Soon after, I applied to the Institute. With a successful attempt at their elect entry exam, much to the chagrin of my bosses, I resigned from my position at the morgue.

I signed up for the monastic dormitories and made its space home as best I could. It was strange I was told that I couldn’t decorate the walls and shelves with my old tastes, considering where I was, and how it had always served as such esteemed motivation.

The scholarly swarm was quite younger than me, and during orientation I caught the ample look-aways from pubescent faces. Days at the Institute were long and tedious, overflowing with assignments and sapped inkwells far into the night.

Vast does not describe the vaults and exhibits that made the interior. Libraries towered up to ceilings so high their elaborate mosaics were but mere smudges of light and dark when viewed from the ground. There were the fabled viewing cages too. And, if you wanted to venture from the main arteries, you could easily lose yourself in the dungeon-like bleakness, where polished stairs became old wood and peculiar echoes.