The Bone

Lore & Background

The Ancient Greek word for bone is ὀστέον ("osteon"). In anatomical terminology, the word for a bone is os. Bone tissue is made up of different types of bone cells: osteoblasts and osteocytes, osteoclasts, and modified or flattened osteoblasts. The mineralised matrix of bone tissue has an organic component of mainly ossein and an inorganic component of bone mineral.

In Their Own Story

The wind here does not blow; it grinds. Daniel Dax felt it in his teeth before he heard it—a dry, rasping exhalation that carried the smell of old calcium and something sweeter, something that had been alive not so long ago. He raised his shotgun and kicked a rib the size of a shipping container. It shattered at the joint, sending a cascade of smaller bones tumbling into the grey dust below.

Somewhere ahead, a brute was screaming. Not in pain. In boredom. The sound rolled across the flat expanse of what had once been a ribcage, now a plateau, and the smaller things in the shadows shifted, clicked their mandibles, and waited for him to come closer.

He did not come closer. He walked. The Bone did not care either way.

Reader's Guide

Five types of bones are found in the human body: long, short, flat, irregular, and sesamoid. Long bones are characterized by a shaft (diaphysis) longer than its width and an epiphysis at each end. Short bones are roughly cube-shaped. Flat bones are thin and curved. Sesamoid bones are embedded in tendons. Irregular bones do not fit into the above categories.

Did You Know?

• In the human body at birth, approximately 300 bones are present, but many fuse during development, leaving 206 separate bones in the adult.
• The largest bone in the body is the femur, and the smallest is the stapes in the middle ear.
• Bones serve mechanical functions including protection of internal organs, support, and hearing via the ossicles.
• Bone marrow produces blood cells in a process called hematopoiesis.