The wealth of information in the books was a welcomed surprise. The intimidating collection kept her up all night, every night, sleeping in the daytime when there was nothing to read. She jotted notes in a notebook she'd bought from Andy in exchange for a few double dollars, and read so eagerly by candlelight that she was near-done with the texts by Sunday. They covered areas of human anatomical science that she had read before and knew completely, and also areas that she had been thirsting for – namely neuroscience. Overhearing the doctor speak, through the walls of her room that perhaps a normal person could not hear through, she came to realize that he was a doctor who did not use most of the books he had in his work; he primarily worked to improve the look of people, not the function.

Vanessa found herself suddenly very nervous and anxious when the dawn of her surgery came. She'd stayed up all night reading, losing track of time, but once Dr. Moriko came to call her into surgery it all flooded forth. She felt nauseous and couldn't help but smile with her newly-neat new smile.

Again, she received only a local for the procedure, which was painful and she didn't tell them so. She used thoughts of the texts to distract her, as her flesh was sliced away in one large piece, and dunked into a big glass jar of preserving liquid. Like in the books, he'll use it to study and learn, she told herself, before closing her eyes on the lump she was now rid of, sinking back into thoughts of synapses and spinal fluid and endorphines.

She felt weak, and couldn't keep her eyes open. Time passed, slowly and quickly, needle diving into flesh to sew up the hole. Someone carried her to her room and lay her down, and left her there with the door shut and no light inside.

Dr. Moriko left her care in Andy's hands, and when he brought her meals as usual, he also checked her vitals and changed her bandage, explaining that she'd lost more blood than expected and needed to eat more.

After the doctor had gone for the day, for the two nights after surgery, Andy brought her books from the exam room, himself, as he said she shouldn't be up. He slipped them back into place when he came in for the morning.

OXO

Moriko's appointment for a club-footed child, on Wednesday, was cancelled and he took the opportunity to have Andy bring in the hump specimen. Closing himself into a little room he normally used for autopsies, when needed, Moriko took out the specimen, smelling of chemicals and blood, and a notebook. He began, slowly, to dissect the thing and note its contents, expecting a tumor of some sort. What he saw was not a tumor, and his dissection became feverishly fast. As his hands shook, he peeled back a layer of muscle, of all things, round the mound at all sides, and found the small, headless corpse of a baby, with wing-like protrusions on its back and another strange wing-thing beside it. There were a few fingers with jagged nails, and some random teeth and little bones. When a layer of inner skin was pulled aside to reveal a pale blue eye, he stifled a scream, staggered back from the table, and fell to his knees in fright.

OXO

Closing the last of the books Andy'd brought her, Vanessa found herself wide awake early in the night. She tottered a bit feebly out of her room, into the exam room, to take back the books and get some she had yet to see.

"What do you have there?" a tired voice asked from the waiting area.

Startled, Vanessa thought to hurry back to her room, but she recognized this as being the doctor, and felt she should be honest. "I was going to read these; I'll be very careful with-"

Backing up against a wall, she watched the shorter man step forward and grab the top book from her arms. It was about brain abnormalities in the minds of the insane; the one below it was titled 'Advanced Pharmacology.' Shuddering, he dropped it back into her arms, and took the entire stack from her, tossing it roughly into a nearby waiting chair. "What, are you looking at the pictures?"

"N-no, I study, um, I read about medicine, and I, I-"

"You can't understand these," he interrupted, because he knew he was a smart man, a learned man, of over 40 years experience in various fields of medicine, but even he could not understand all the books in his library.

"I-I do, sir, I, I've read about, your skin, you seem, I think you might have, have skin cancer, from sun damage, your forehead…I've read, the cure, um, you-"

"Be silent. Sit in this chair here."

Obeying, confused, she did so. "Doctor, it's awfully late, I thought you went home-"

"I will," Dr. Moriko announced, seating himself across from her, rubbing his eyelids with his hand. "I'm meeting someone here, then I'm going home. Now not another word from you."

Vanessa was quiet, but she became filled with fear, and her breath quickened and she could hardly be still. Something was terribly wrong. She could feel it, could hear it in his voice and breath, could almost smell and taste it. Through the thick blanket round her shoulders, she shivered, and as her throat tightened she gasped for breath.

"Stop it," he growled at her, in the dark."

She didn't know what to stop doing. Her head felt faint, like the blood loss from days before, and she felt dizzy, as though the room spun.

One hand knocked on the door, but she could hear more than one set of feet shuffling about just outside.

"I can't help you anymore," Dr. Moriko murmured as he stepped to open the door. "These people are going to help you."

Several people of various ages and sizes stepped inside and grabbed her arms and shoved her towards the door, though she fell twice, and the doctor did not meet her eyes as she was taken outside. Tossed roughly onto the cobblestones of the main road, she smelled the burn of torches and candles some of the crowd carried for light. Things became a blur.

Boots with angry feet inside plunged themselves into the sides of her body, spit landing on her, the air growing hot and stifling from the surrounding wall of bodies. She yelped, blows landing on her back, blinding her with pain. Vanessa didn't see how this was helpful.

The people's shouts included words like demon, witch, devil, Satan, whore, and things like that. They roared and laughed and women shrieked and a blow from a foot small enough to be a toddler landed her in the cheek. Passing in and out of consciousness, she was unaware for how long this lasted, nor where she was, as she felt dragged at a point.

Rough texture of something like a rope wound loose about her and it occurred to her that waiting for it to end was perhaps not an option. The ending of this would be violent, she guessed, and when she smelled chemicals poured onto a heap of garbage near her, chemicals she knew could both power trucks and set fires, she heard the chants, 'burn, witch, burn her,' and through the pain of blows that had stopped by then she knew she had to get away. Standing up abruptly, she felt rope slide away from her ankles and she broke into a run away from the crowd, leaping into and over the garbage pile, for that was the only direction with no people. There was a sudden whoosh-sound behind her, and the garbage pile began to burn about her, singing her feet as she fled. The hem of her night-dress caught fire.

A torch fell beside her, and another hit her in the lower back, felling her to her knees for the moment before she rose and dashed away, falling over the edge of the sand dune. She tumbled and paused to gather what wits she could find, and then raced as well as she could muster to into the desert, arms still tied. The sounds of the crowd stayed where they were, save a few feet running up to chuck things at her, and they softened and died away, yelling, some of them, as she disappeared over dunes.

"Don't come back!"