Simulation Reveals What Your Body Really Goes Through After Death

Turns out, it doesn’t take very long before only your bones are left behind

A chilling simulation has shown exactly what happens to the human body after a person dies, and it’s definitely not for the faint of heart.

If you’ve ever been curious about how a once-living body made of skin, organs, and blood slowly turns into nothing more than a skeleton, YouTuber and simulation creator @Zackdfilms has put together a pretty disturbing visual breakdown to explain it all.

According to him, the process starts right away after death. Within the first 24 hours, gravity pulls the blood toward the lowest parts of the body, causing discoloration where it settles.

Using a simulation of a body lying on its back inside a coffin, Zack shows how dark red and purple patches begin to appear on the skin. These marks show up in areas where the blood pools, such as the back of the head and other parts pressing against the casket.

After this initial stage, it’s the internal organs that start to break down first. Bacteria and enzymes go to work almost immediately, and the simulation shows this gruesome process taking place in the abdomen, where it begins from the inside out.

What’s especially interesting—and pretty unsettling—is that this internal breakdown creates gases that cause the body to puff up and bloat noticeably.

This phase doesn’t take long to set in. Within just a few weeks, the body’s organs begin to decompose rapidly. And when it comes to the eyes—well, the next part might make your stomach turn.

The video explains: “After a few weeks, all of the organs and soft tissue, including your eyes, liquify and your skin starts to fall off.”

The simulation gives a disturbing close-up of this process, showing the eyes basically turning into liquid and dissolving right in their sockets.

That being said, just because the organs and soft tissue go quickly doesn’t mean you’re all bone in a matter of months. Full decomposition, the YouTuber says, can actually take many years depending on various conditions.

“Over the course of several years, your remaining tissue continues to decay,” it continued. “And eventually, all that’s left is a skeleton.”

Daniel Wescott, who leads the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University, told Live Science that a body buried in a coffin usually starts breaking down within the first year. But it can take up to 10 years for the full skeleton to be all that remains.

On the other hand, Nicholas Passalacqua, an associate professor from the Forensic Osteology Research Station at Western Carolina University, added that if a body is buried without a coffin or is just placed in the ground, it might decompose into skeletal form in as little as five years.

According to the outlet, the process of decomposition starts right after death, kicking in as soon as blood circulation stops and oxygen stops flowing through the body.

The organs are especially vulnerable to the lack of oxygen, and this can lead to the body turning green about 18 hours after death. At the same time, bacteria inside the body are hard at work breaking things down, which leads to intense bloating and strong smells.

By around 24 to 48 hours after death, dark green or blackish veins become visible beneath the skin. These are blood vessels changing as decomposition progresses.

Heat can make all of this happen even faster. That’s why human remains are usually kept in cool storage until burial to help slow the process down.

When the bloating phase comes to an end, the body starts to soften even more. Insects, microbes, and other small organisms take over at this point, feeding on the remains until eventually, all that’s left is the skeleton.