Heathcliff hates his job very much.
It is not because the job is particularly difficult, nor do his earnings dissatisfy him at all.
Private Detectives get paid quite alot, if they know what they're doing, and Heathcliff would say he's pretty good at his job.
Thing is...being someone often involved in criminal cases, there are times when one just wants to...not do something.
"...Consarnit."
Heathcliff murmured the old-timey expression under his breath as he stared down at the bloodied living room...5 bodies of varying size and shape were mutilated beyond recognition, mouths and eyes sewn shut, ears cut off, and fingers broken in several areas.
Their bellies were cut open, guts spilling out, with one of the bodies still having the instrument of destruction impaled in their sternum.
It took all of Heathcliff's will not to barf...the potent stench of blood, paired with the revolting sight, made for quite a challenge, even to someone with extensive experience in handling murder cases.
A middle aged man of asian descent, a blonde middle aged woman seemingly European, two teenage boys, and a toddler...they were sat together in a disgusting mockery of 'family', with nails embedded into their hands and feet to pin them to the floor and couch.
They were slaughtered just yesterday, and fashioned into this overnight, before the neighbors caught the stench of decomposition and called the police.
There are no signs of struggle on the victims bodies...it was almost like they just dropped dead.
"...How did nobody notice this happening in the middle of an apartment complex?"
Heathcliff mused under his breath, dissasociating from the gruesome sight and ignoring his puking coworkers, as he observed the room.
Every other room, other than the living room, was practically spotless. No signs of resistance on the bodies, and no signs of a fight, either.
Then, something caught Heathcliff's eye...it was hard to see, but the way their fingers were broken...they seemed to be shaped into letters.
After observing closer, he confirmed his hypothesis. Reading from the oldest to the youngest, from below upwards.
"The soul begs for release, it tears the cage, it embraces freedom."
Heathcliff read it out loud, slightly puzzled and unnerved by the...poem? This killer was managing to disgust Heathcliff even more than they already have.
However, as soon as he spoke those words aloud, he heard a bell...a loud one, resembling church bells...it sounded far away, yet for some reason...
He turned around.
There was nothing behind him.
Not the barfing coworkers, not the bloodstains...nothing. Not even darkness, just an endless nothingness he couldn't comprehend.
Then, eyes appeared.
Everywhere, countless, he couldn't even begin to approximate their number. Before long, Heathcliff lost his ability to count altogether.
Seconds stretched towards eternity, the cold, unbending rules of time seemed to defer to the strangeness. All the while, those eyes looked at him, past him, through him, behind him.
They did not blink, they did not tremble or shift like human eyes do, they are not human.
Those aren't human eyes.
They are not human.
They are not human They are not human
They are not human They are not human
They are not human They are not human—
Suddenly, the voice that did not belong to him went silent, replaced instead with a soft, amorous whisper.
"The line between aberration and ascension is subjective, with our own belief as the core of it's direction...tell me, if so, why must we struggle?"
"...What?"
Before Heathcliff could even regain his bearings and answer the impoaed question, the echoing, soft voice spoke again.
Heathcliff could not discern whether the speaker was male or female.
"At this moment, the previous, and the next, all of the fundamental circles have intersected. Say, if so, what does our struggle amount to?"
"...You're not letting me answe-"
Once again, just as Heathcliff used his vocal cords, the voice interrupted him.
'If destiny is preordained, and all the world's worth has been rendered null, tell me, why not cast it all aside and wallow in despair?'
This time, he heard the voice directly in his head, and saw a pair of pale eyes looking down at him. It was unnatural, they had two pupils, rotating slowly in opposite directions, enchanting and haunting at the same time.
"..."
Heathcliff did not hear the voice again, surrounded by darkness and nothing more.
"...If you're waiting for an answer...then..."
Heathcliff paused, an unnerving calmness permeating his mind, burying the emotions that should have lashed out.
"If...the only thing we can do is struggle...then why not struggle? Meaningless or not, in my eyes the actions of the individual are worth as much as one believes they are worth, regardless of outsider perspective."
Only silence answered him, before suddenly, he felt a tug on the back of his head and suddenly, he fell onto...the ground?
His perspective shifted, his brain churning out impossible, useless signals as a pervasive sense of confusion overtook him, mixed with a faint, crushing sensation.
Almost as of he was melted wax being squeezed through a tube.
Upon looking around, his senses and memories came flooding back in like a tsunami, sending him into a brief daze.
The overload of impossible events and incomprehensible happenings boiled his brain for a solid three seconds, before he instinctively disassociated.
He no longer concerned himself with trying to comprehend what had happened, shifting his focus on more important topics...for example.
"Where in the actual fuck am I?"
What surrounded him was nothing short of an underground medieval torture chamber, darkness wherever he looked and a thick, permeating stench of blood, not much better than the murder site he was just at.
One of his hands was chained to the wall, and he was wearing nothing but a ragged old tunic that definitely did not match his usual fashion style.
'It's super filthy.'
Heathcliff did not appreciate being dirty or cold, his body wasn't well adjusted to temperature changes, so the sudden chill was quite uncomfortable.
He was already missing his thick, soft, heavy coat.
Unfortunately, there was no sign of it anywhere, and therefore...he refocused on his situation.
"...Chains?"
Almost unconsciously, he murmured out loud,his voice hoarse and unfamiliar to even himself, looking at the rusty, dangling chain connected to the cuff on his right wrist...his arms were utterly bare, with unnaturaly pale skin, barely any muscle and a visible lack of Vitamin D.
Almost like a corpse, he could clearly see the veins. If not for the blood he saw flowing inside, he'd have assumed the arm wasn't even alive anymore.
'The wall seems to be crumbling...maybe I can pull the chain out?'
And so he did...or, tried. Only to realize how utterly weak his body is. He didn't remember ever being this out of shape.
He couldn't even lif his hand all the way up, nor could he tug on the chain without his bones creaking.
It was like trying to move a mountain with the arm strength of a sheltered sickly child. The motion caused his hair to fall over his face, causing him to pause at it's color.
'...Blonde?'
Heathcliff was absolutely certain his hair wasn't blonde, but he also couldn't remember what it was supposed to be?
'...Black?Brown?Ginger?White?Turquoise?...can hair be turquoise? No...none of them.'
Then, Heathcliff paused.
'N-no way...'
Was he bald?!?!
Actually, sceatch that, he doesn't remember being bald...but he also doesn't remember what type of hair he had.
'What the hell am I even thinking about?'
For some reason, Heathcliff felt like he was going off his rocker. His thoughts were random and all over the place, taking only a moment to get distracted.
'So...I'm trapped in some salacious dungeon, terribly out of shape and starved, aswell as severely dehydrated, unsure whether I'm alone, in danger, or soon to be saved...and most likely, his body wasn't even his own.'
Heathcliff paused, his brain finally managing to hold his focus for a while, as he reflexively vocalized his frustrations in a hoarse, grating voice.
"...Consarnit."
He had picked up the habit of saying this from his father, who he mysteriously could not remember at all. Was he even a man? Maybe he was born to two women.
'Focus.'
He snapped out of his distracted state and began swaying slightly...as weak and stick-like as he may be, his body still had some weight, although negligible. He would just move around and try to shift the chain using physics.
The chain dangled, making a loud noise with every movement, the nail holding it to the wall, already loose from the years, slowly began to make it's way out.aq
It wasn't a pleasant process, every movement weighing on Heathcliff's thin limbs, creating a prevalent ache and soreness that usually comes with strenuous activity, but he didn't care.
Stubbornly, he used his meager weight to pull the nail until it seemed on the verge of falling out, before stopping.
'If i pull it out like this, it might hit me'
Heathcliff wasn't in a state where he could tank any damage, even if blunt, the solid metal nail would undoubdtedly hurt the current him quite abit.
So, he paused, and tooka step forward to stretch the chain, his weak legs trembling as he held himself.
'This fucking body...'
A light gust could probably blow him away, that's how scrawny his current body is.
A sensation of weakness that was once unfamiliar to him, now pervades through ever inch of his new body.
Thankfully, however, after pulling with all of the meager strength his body had to offer, he managed to finally extricate the accursed nail from it's stony prison.
It fell down on the stony ground, the already structurally compromised material cracking slightly under the solid metal nail.
Heathcliff exhaled slightly, before looking at the cuff on his wrist.
'How do I get it off?'
After a brief moment of musing, Heathcliff began looking around the area...it was a pretty wide room, with dozens of husks, formerly alive, now mere decorations, strewn around the walls like grotesque masterpieces.
'...Definitely a torture chamber.'
With that thought, Heathcliff slowly shuffled along the room, dragging the chain and nail with him. He rummaged wherever he thought he could find something useful, before finally reaching what appeared to be a cabinet.
After opening it, Heathcliff found an array of keys, they were rusty and covered in dried blood, as if used as instruments of torture instead of saws and knives.
There were exactly 39.
He picked one up and attempted to put it inside the cuff on his wrist.
It didn't fit.
He tried another one.
It didn't fit.
He began trying them all on the cuff, one after the other.
'This one...nope...this one? No...This...nah...oh, there we go.'
On his 37th attempt, he finally got the one he needed to free himself...tossing the key aside as he removed the cuff on his wrist.
He looked at the bail and chain on the ground, and then at his hands.
'I could have used it as a weapon, if it wasn't so damn heavy...'
He meant the nail, ofcourse. Normally, Heathcliff would have brought it with him as a rudimentary self defense weapon, but with his current body, it would only encumber him.
He judt needed a way out the less mishaps om the way, the better. He hoped he wouldn't need a weapon.
Then, he began walking towards the far right, where he could see an open double door...and a dark corridor behind it.
'This is the only way out...'