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Eldritch Horror? No, I'm A Doctor
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Ren stood naked in the grafting room, staring at the Symbol of the Skin God glowing faintly on the floor. The Eternal Flame hovered above it, shifting between blue, green, and purple.
"I can't use the Awakening Anesthesia for now," he said aloud. "I need my hands and tentacles functional to strip the skin. So I have to raw dog this."
He walked to the medical cabinet and pulled out a rolled gauze. He bit off a long strip, folded it several times, and placed it between his teeth. He bit down hard, testing it. The fabric compressed under the pressure.
It would have to do.
Ren took a deep breath and released his tentacles.
The familiar sensation of his back splitting open came first, but then something changed. The weight was different. Heavier.
Four tentacles burst from his back.
No, not four. Ten.
Ren's eyes widened as he felt them emerge. These weren't the familiar black appendages he'd grown accustomed to. These were blood-red, thick as his thighs, pulsing with visible veins that ran along their length.
"Huh? How? What the fuck?"
...
The System gave no response.
"Fuck it. Forget about it for now."
The ten red tentacles spread out around him, each one tipped with a mouth that opened to reveal teeth and tongue. They reached into his inventory and pulled out the Outer God Surgical Set, positioning scalpels, forceps, and clamps.
Ren bit down hard on the gauze.
And began.
The first incision was along his left forearm. The scalpel bit deep, cutting through epidermis and dermis in one smooth motion. Blood welled up immediately, running down his arm in warm rivulets.
Then came the separation.
One tentacle held the edge of the cut skin while another wielded forceps, gripping the tissue and pulling. Ren's right hand used a smaller scalpel to cut the connective tissue beneath, separating skin from muscle.
The pain was immediate and total.
Every nerve ending in his arm screamed in protest as the skin peeled away, exposing raw muscle and fat beneath. The air hit the exposed tissue and the burning sensation intensified a thousandfold.
Ren bit down harder on the gauze, his jaw clenching so tight he thought his teeth might crack. A muffled groan escaped through his nose.
The skin came off in one long strip, from wrist to shoulder. It hung from the tentacle's grip, pink and glistening with blood and yellow subcutaneous fat.
He moved to the right arm. Same process. Incision, separation, removal. The pain doubled. His vision swam, black spots dancing at the edges.
But he didn't stop.
The torso was worse. The skin here was tougher, more firmly attached to the underlying fascia. The tentacles had to work harder, pulling and cutting, pulling and cutting. Each strip that came away took chunks of fat with it, leaving raw red muscle exposed to the air.
Ren's muffled screams were constant now, contained only by the gauze between his teeth. Sweat poured from what remained of his skin, mixing with blood, creating a slick coating over his exposed muscles.
His hands shook as they guided the scalpel. Cut, separate, peel. Cut, separate, peel. The rhythm was mechanical, necessary to keep his mind from fracturing under the sheer magnitude of the agony.
The legs took an eternity. The skin on his thighs was thick, resistant. His tentacles had to use bone saws in places where the tissue wouldn't separate cleanly. The sound of serrated metal cutting through flesh filled the room, accompanied by Ren's increasingly desperate attempts not to scream.
Four hours passed. Maybe five. Time had lost all meaning in the red haze of pain.
Blood pooled on the floor beneath him, spreading outward in an ever-widening circle. He stood in the center of it, his feet slipping slightly in the warm liquid.
Then came his face.
Ren positioned a mirror in front of himself with trembling tentacles. He needed to see what he was doing. One mistake here could blind him permanently.
His reflection looked back. Still human. Still Ren Hector. For now.
He started with his scalp. The incision went from his forehead to the base of his skull, following the hairline. The tentacles gripped the edges and pulled.
His scalp came away with a wet tearing sound, taking his hair with it. Blood poured down over his exposed skull, running into his eyes, temporarily blinding him.
He blinked frantically, trying to clear his vision. The gauze in his mouth was soaked through with saliva and tears he didn't remember crying.
Then the eyelids.
This was it. The part he'd been dreading most.
A tentacle brought a scalpel to his left eye. The blade positioned itself at the outer corner, where the delicate skin of the eyelid met the eyeball.
Ren took a shuddering breath through his nose.
And cut.
The pain exploded through his skull. The eyelid is thin but incredibly sensitive, densely packed with nerve endings. The scalpel sliced through it, and every single nerve fired simultaneously.
Ren's scream tore through the gauze. The fabric slipped from between his teeth as his jaw opened involuntarily. In his thrashing, his teeth came down hard on his own tongue.
He bit clean through the side of it.
Blood filled his mouth, hot and metallic, pouring down his chin and mixing with the blood already coating his body.
"FUCKKKK! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The tentacles didn't stop. They couldn't. This was the ritual. This was the price.
The left eyelid peeled away in one piece, a tiny crescent of flesh that seemed far too small to have caused such tremendous pain. Then the right. His eyes were now permanently open, exposed to the air, unable to blink or close.
Dust particles in the air felt like glass shards scraping across his corneas.
Lips next. The scalpel traced the border, separating lip from face. The skin came away in strips, revealing muscle and teeth beneath. Ren's mouth was now a permanent grimace.
Ears. Nose. The skin of his cheeks. Every piece had to go.
By the time the last piece of facial skin was removed, Ren was barely conscious. He swayed on his feet, vision tunneling, the world reduced to a pinpoint of light surrounded by encroaching darkness.
But it was done.
He was nothing but raw muscle and exposed tissue now. A walking anatomical diagram. No skin remained anywhere on his body.
Ren looked down at the pile of skin that his tentacles had collected. It was disturbingly large, all of it heaped together in a grotesque mound.
Step Four.
Ren's tentacles picked up the mound of his own skin and carried it to the Eternal Flame. They dropped it in.
The skin didn't catch fire immediately. Human skin is surprisingly resistant to burning. It's wet, dense, and doesn't ignite easily. Burning a body takes hours, requires sustained high temperatures.
Ren watched as his skin began to blacken and curl at the edges. Smoke rose from it, carrying the smell of burning meat. His stomach tried to heave.
The pain of being skinless was constant, unending. Every breath of air across his exposed muscle felt like being scoured with sandpaper. The blood loss was severe. He could feel his consciousness slipping.
Need to stay awake. Can't pass out. Have to watch it burn.
His hand reached for the Awakening Anesthesia in his inventory. The syringe materialized, and he brought it to his neck.
The needle touched his exposed muscle.
And bounced off.
Some invisible force rejected it, pushing the needle away no matter how hard he pressed.
"So it's the ritual, huh?" Ren's voice was a rasp, his damaged tongue making speech difficult. "I can't take a shortcut."
He dropped the syringe and stood there, watching his skin burn.
Hours passed.
The skin curled and blackened, fat rendering out and feeding the flames. The smell was overwhelming, nauseating, inescapable. Ren's vision blurred. His legs trembled. The pool of blood beneath him had grown enormous, spreading across half the room.
This was the most pain he had ever felt in his entire life. More than the chainsaw surgery. More than the transformation. More than anything.
And still the skin burned.
Six hours.
Eight hours.
Ten hours.
Ren swayed on his feet, barely conscious. His exposed muscles had begun to dry out, cracking in places. Without skin to protect them, they were degrading, dying.
I'm dying. I'm going to die here.
No.
No, I won't.
Twelve hours.
The last piece of skin finally crumbled to ash. The fire consumed it completely, leaving nothing but grey powder that drifted on thermal currents.
Step Four was complete.
Ren stood in a pool of his own blood, his body nothing but raw meat barely clinging to bone, his mind fracturing under the weight of agony that no human was meant to endure.
But he was still standing.
"I won't give up," he whispered through his ruined mouth. "I will stay sane."
His voice grew stronger.
"That is my perseverance!"
Louder still.
"MY CONVICTION!"
Step Five.
Ren Hector looked at the Eternal Flame burning in the center of the Symbol of the Skin God.
And jumped into the fire.