The Exam

It was just after dawn when Ramoos walked into the morgue. The attendant was just finishing up his exam of the now separated bundle of hearts. "Human...?" asked Ramoos. "Yeah..." he replied with a kind of guttural drawl. "How long were they there?", asked Ramoos. "Well, we're still looking at that, there seems to be some chemical preservative in these...parts." "Formalin?" "No, we're looking into that as well as we can..." "Any indication of how long these have been in the ground?" "Again, we're still looking at that. The preservative or preservatives appear to have slowed down the decay and aging of these remains. Could be weeks, could be months." "Years?" "Up to a year, I'd say." "You don't have much for me, do you? How about race, age, gender?" "That's a mix. There's definitely a child present and four adults. Two male, two female. Race, we don't know...yet."

Ramoos responded "Child..." under his breath. "Yeah, a kid." "Bastards..." "How was this...this...atrocity done?" "Well, a couple look like they were removed after death. Come over and look at these." Ramoos followed the attendant over to the exam table. "These three - you see the cut marks - were probably removed from an already deceased person, including the kid." The attendant continued, "Now see these two here, the arteries and aortas appear to be ripped. They appear to have been removed while the victims were still living..."

Ramoos just looked at the last two hearts and whispered "How...? Why...?" The attendant just stood - frozen - looking down.