Skull Beneath The Skin Novels & Stories

Her mind screamed insanely. Yet even though her mind had suggested it, Carine knew it could not be the same thing as she had seen as a child, her father insisting it was a great film. This creature had four limbs, the arms longer than they had a right to be and the legs in a permanent half squat. Dark grey skin covered sinewy muscles stretched over its skeleton, the muscles looking stretched to the point they were painful. Long nails that looked like thick dog claws jutted from appendages that might have passed for fingers. The face was the worst. Its skull was slightly elongated, looking almost like a snout but short. Black lips peeled back from sharply pointed teeth in a mind warping grin

I kneel, my wet cloak spreading out behind me, and tentatively reach for it when I notice what’s lying beside it… and behind it. The helmet is only a few feet away. Bones of pure white lie scattered between the diadem and helmet. More than one person rests here eternally. Finger bones reach for each other, the digits in exactly the same position they were when the owners of the skulls died here, their hands intertwined. My heart caves in, sinking like a dead weight against my ribs, refusing to beat. I think of the mask, of how I figured the broken prong was that way because of a devastating, absolutely catastrophic blow to the face. It would have been deadly.

It turned out vampire bone was even more sensitive to light than vampire skin, so the professor only examined it by candlelight. Leesa still thought the skull was very cool, but it had lost its power to amaze her. “Sit down, sit down,” the professor invited. Leesa sat down carefully on an old wooden chair with a dark burgundy cushioned seat. Dr. Clerval lowered himself gingerly onto his desk chair. “Let me put this thing away,” he said, indicating the skull. “And then you can tell me what’s troubling you.”

A jaw, a brow, the deep architecture of a human skull, all of it gone wrong in the slow way that pressure and time and whatever they did to it have rewritten the surface. The skin pale and faintly luminous and stretched too tight, the eyes very large and very dark and lit from within by a banked silver I would know anywhere because I carry the same light under my own. It does not look angry. There are seams along the cheeks where the pressure has split and healed it wrong. The mouth is too wide now, or maybe the lips have shrunk back from the teeth. A strand of hair floats around its skull in the beam, white as thread, moving when nothing else does.

[Ezra] “And at last…” I mumbled, staring at the building that was structured like a giant skull with two hollow eyes acting like the only two windows and a wide open jaw as its entrance. Chiseled into the giant skull’s forehead were words that seemed to leer at passersby— Bone Voyage: Alive skeletons at your service since the first death in the wheel of time. Store open for purchase, rental and installments. Price negotiable for young aspiring healers. The store does not give any guarantee. The skeletons are subject to running away and other risks.

They pierced the ground with force, left deep holes and turned into crumbs. The bone monster abruptly sat down, its paws seemed to give way, unable to withstand the collapsing body. The skeleton, raising a cloud of ash, fell on its side, twitched, the vertebrae of the neck began to turn the skull in a circle, it became clear that a furious light continued to burn in the eye sockets.

But years underground had transformed it into something horrifying. Tall. Unnaturally thin. Its limbs stretched too long beneath torn hospital restraints hanging from gray skin. Bones pressed visibly beneath flesh like it had been starved for decades. Its face Dear God. Parts of its skull showed through scarred skin. Its mouth had been cut wider at the corners long ago, creating a permanent grotesque smile. And its eyes Completely pale. No pupils. No humanity. Only hunger. The creature tilted its head slowly toward Ava. Chains dragged softly behind it.

Human bones, weathered by time and the relentless flow of water, intertwine with the skulls, creating a haunting display of mortality. The ethereal glow from the waysticks casts shadows upon the skeletal structures, illuminating the intricate details of the bones. Delicate features of the skulls become visible, their curves and contours accentuated by the soft light. The translucent layer of calcium, formed from the presence of limestone fragments packed between bone and stone, overlays the skulls and bones, creating a patchwork effect. In some places, the layer appears frosted, obscuring certain details, while in other areas, it is more transparent, emphasizing the eerie beauty of the skele

And veins. God, he has so many veins, running just under his skin. One of them goes down his taut neck. It bumps over his collarbone and then disappears beneath his muscled pecs. His chest was massive and the curves of it make a tight valley that then changes into the ridges of his abdomen. I go to count those ridges and I was pretty sure that he’s got a six-pack. Could be eight too.

That's just the face. The body itself is even worse. Blood is pouring onto the ground in a giant puddle. It’s blackened and some of it has dried onto the ground. Not only is it in the puddle but it’s splattered all around the area in arcs. The chest has been skinned alive and the skin is completely missing. There is no sign of it. All we see is the muscle and bones that lay underneath it. The sternum and ribs are cracked open wide.