a tangled mass of feathery white hair seemed to float above the blood-speckled forehead and prominent nose and age-mottled cheeks and bright blue eyes , the brightest blue i had ever seen , staring into oblivion with an expression of horror pure all the way down to the bottom : the severed head of dr. abram von helrung , full lips stretched wide around the thing they had stuffed into his mouth , the thing with the lidless amber eyes that had captured me first in the basement when it broke through its shell , and i the corrupted , crowning achievement of evolution dumbstruck by the purity of its being , its godless , sinless , conscienceless perfection , now staring sightlessly back at me , dead yellow eye and dead blue eye sucking me under to be crushed in the airless , lightless depths .