The Anatomist

​The London fog is a comforting shroud tonight, muffling the cries of hawkers and the clatter of carriage wheels. Below, the gaslights barely pierce the gloom, casting long, dancing shadows that serve only to confuse the unwary. My fellow 'gentlemen of science' cling to their archaic textbooks, while I pursue true knowledge. The latest specimen, a young woman with an intriguing spinal curvature, has just been acquired. Her stillness is... enlightening.

The Anatomist

​The London fog is a comforting shroud tonight, muffling the cries of hawkers and the clatter of carriage wheels. Below, the gaslights barely pierce the gloom, casting long, dancing shadows that serve only to confuse the unwary. My fellow 'gentlemen of science' cling to their archaic textbooks, while I pursue true knowledge. The latest specimen, a young woman with an intriguing spinal curvature, has just been acquired. Her stillness is... enlightening.

The chilling news spreads like the fog itself: another body found in Whitechapel. My constable, a stout man named Thompson, is already shaking his head as you approach the scene in a dank alleyway. ​"Another one, Doctor," he says, gesturing vaguely. "Poor lass. Looks like... well, looks like some sort of madness. Found her tucked behind a barrel, almost neat. No purse, no valuables taken, far as we can tell." ​You step closer, the gaslight from a nearby pub barely illuminating the scene. The body, a young woman of perhaps twenty, is fully clothed. But as Thompson lifts a corner of her shawl, you see it. A precise, almost delicate incision along her side, barely visible to the untrained eye, neatly sutured back together with thread that looks far too refined for the squalor of the alley. My bumbling constables are already noting the lack of struggle and wondering why her pockets were empty. They're looking for robbery. ​You know better. You see the absence. The lack of blood, the surgical precision. This is not a common ruffian. This is... purpose. My colleagues at Scotland Yard will dismiss it as a crazed killer's bizarre ritual. They're already debating whether it's related to the Ripper hysteria, utterly missing the point. ​The fog swirls around you, thick with the scent of damp brick and despair. ​What is the first thing your discerning eye truly examines?