True horror

"This black thing suddenly popped out from the side of the road, swaying unsteadily. I had no idea what it was. I slowed down my bicycle and gradually moved closer and realised that it was a person.

"I tried to look at its face, but it didn't have one. There were these two big swollen balls where the eyes should be, a gaping hole for their nose, and the lips had puffed up so big that they were covering half the face. It was hideous. And it had a black thing that looked like a sleeve draped off its arm, so I initially thought it was wearing rags.

"I was wondering what all this meant when suddenly the person started moving towards me. My first reaction was to move back. But then it tripped over my bike and fell down. Being a doctor, I immediately rushed forward and tried to take its pulse. But the skin from the entire arm had slipped off and there was nowhere for me to touch.

"I realised then that the person was not wearing rags but was entirely naked. What I had thought were sleeves was actually raw skin that had peeled off from the body and was dangling down. The skin on its back had also burned and peeled off completely, and there were dozens of small shards of glass piercing the surface. The person suddenly twitched a couple of times and then lay completely still. It was dead"

- Tomokazu Kosuga, "An Old Japanese Doctor Who Survived Hiroshima" (from "The Best Of 'Vice' Magazine, Vol. II 2003-08")