a slow unraveling of the fibrous vessel into hollow marrow and petrified skin...

... "The skin, and the flesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the human body that I had thought so fixed and permanent, began to melt and dissolve..." ... Arthur Machen, The Great God Pan

eroded outer shell peeling back to reveal the hollow architecture beneath...

... "I am separated from all things by a hollow space, and I do not even reach to its boundaries..."

... Franz Kafka, Diaries