Experiment Eighteen

Eighteenth Undressed 14th March, Name - Jean of Lyon The man, seized near the ridge from his family, was kept for an Experiment on De Molay’s command. The task was given to me and Surgeon Leroux, who undertook to keep the man breathing throughout. We commenced at dawn. He was secured to an oaken frame, wrists and ankles bound with hempen cord, pulled tight to limit motion. A rag was placed in his mouth to stifle noise, though he strained against it, his jaw working to push it free. Leroux took a knife from his kit, sharp and narrow, and began at the shoulder, cutting a line beneath the skin. The subject’s eyes widened then, and his body jerked once, hard, afore settling still. Leroux lifted it with a hook, peeling it in strips, keeping the blade shallow to avoid the veins below. The skin came away steadily, like hide from a dressed beast. At each strip’s removal, the man’s fingers clenched and unclenched, and a low sound came from his throat, muffled by the rag. To preserve his life, brandy was poured down his throat to steady the heart. He choked on it, his head thrashing side to side, till it was forced down. Salted water was applied to the exposed flesh to check bleeding; his frame shuddered at the touch, and his legs kicked briefly afore going slack. When his breath weakened, a bellows was used, air forced through a reed into his windpipe, as Leroux had seen done in foreign parts. His chest heaved sudden-like at this, eyes rolling back, then fixing forward again. This kept him alive. The process lasted two hours. The skin was removed from shoulders, chest, and belly, then the legs, using forceps where it held fast. Blood flowed but was contained by the cuts’ precision. Through it, he twitched now and then, his breath coming in sharp gasps, and once his head lolled as if to faint, but the bellows roused him. When finished, the skin was entire, taken in one piece. The prisoner remained alive, bound to the frame, his breath continued, though ragged. His eyes stared ahead, unblinking, and his hands hung loose. The Captain directed the skin be fixed to the stockade. The man was left there, and at one hour past midnight he started to exhibit the babbling and laughing of the transitory state. By morning the subject was entirely within it’s grip. The main question still remains - if the subject bears a pain that usually leads to death, do they die or is this some kind of sustenance in place of it?