(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

"Dak'kon," I groaned and felt at my face. The cartilage had grown back, and
it felt funny, as if I were wearing another man's skin, "There's no need to
walk straight into the meat grinder with me... I'd be the only one that comes
out again."
His tone was flat yet sure, "As you say." Sometimes I wished the man would
react.
It felt like a stone….no, wooden….slab beneath me. It was rather apparent
that we weren't in the Mortuary. There was no formaldehyde scent, no
groans or shuffles of zombie workers. The musty sterility of death and the
dust of time were lacking here: there was only the smell of blood and the
rank stench of rotting flesh.
Where the Mortuary was a shrine of reverence and protection for the dead,
this was a vulture's den. Corpses, hacked to pieces and their crevices and
folds of flesh picked over, lay haphazardly in a pile at one end of the room
and a tub at the other. Most of the blood had drained away long ago and
crusted over on the floor in a thick layer. The moist flesh had crusted over
and though dismembered, still, and silent, the corpses were teeming with
life. At each gentle curve of pink and red, fat white maggots wriggled and
feasted, while flies circled and landed in an intricate dance, both partaking
in the repast and furiously breeding further into the silent mass.
This was going to be one of those experiences that causes one to never eat
meat ever again.
A shuffling sound brought to my attention a blockish woman dressed in a
heavy burlap robe. She lumbered about the room, her joints popping as she
bent over to pick up objects from the various tables. Her hair was bound
back from her head with a bone hairpin, and she had a sour, curd-faced
expression. As the woman worked, she mumbled to herself in a sing-song
voice.
I twisted, trying to undo a few knots in my back as I spoke, "Greetings."
The woman didn't appear to hear me - instead, she stumbled back to one of
the long tables and began picking at one of the corpses. "C'mon, now..." She
clicked her teeth. "Don't be all-difficult on Marta... he's bein' difficult isn't
he, Marta...? Yes, yes he is..."
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