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Magic Song
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She crawls forward and slips her hand between the bars, letting me examine it. The injury is… obvious, to say the least. A long, deep incision across the back of the hand, and eight shorter ones – but just as deep – across the top and bottom of the base of each digit. I would require a second examination in more favorable lighting conditions to confirm the hypothesis, but I believe these incisions to reach all the way to the bone, resulting in extensive damage to the muscle and tendons. This explains the lack of mobility the patient complained of.
The digits are the correct temperature and respond to stimuli – the patient confirms she can feel when I jab the tips of her fingers with a claw. This indicates no loss of blood circulation and lowers the risk of the patient developing gangrene – at least for the time being.
The wounds have been disinfected – there is a distinct smell of alcohol clinging to the hand – but otherwise left untreated; given their extent, stitches are highly recommended, with bandages being the absolute minimum. Scabbing has occurred and there is no further bleeding, but without bandaging the wounds can easily reopen due to movement, or chance contact with the environment, and remain susceptible to infection.
Final observation. The edges of the wounds are straight and clean, indicating a sharp object, most likely some form of blade, as the source of the injury, rather than an animal attack, or environmental damage, which would have resulted in a jagged, torn appearance. Furthermore, the incisions across the digits, while roughly parallel to one another, do not quite line up in a way that a single wound would. This leads me to believe that, barring the patient getting her hand caught in a complex piece of machinery – which should’ve resulted in visible crushing damage, in addition to the aforementioned injuries – each incision has been created individually.
Lastly, there is evidence of extensive scarring across the top of the patient’s forearm, with dozens of parallel cuts so close to one another, that there may be in fact be no unbroken skin left. However, these injuries are years, or perhaps decades old, and bear no relevance on the diagnosis.
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