• My head swimming and drenched in a cold sweat, I awoke to the soft static and crackling sounds of a record spinning under the steady massage of a gramophone's needle. Dull at first as I broke the haze of grogginess and confusion, as it came better into my mind's focus, I recognized it as a voice humming the simple tune of "Au Clair de la Lune".

    I had been brought around at the tail end of the song, so it began to repeat before I managed to sit up from the hard padding of the bed I found myself on. The room was dimly lit by an oil lamp on the bed stand to my right, bringing into the light a tall dresser and a wardrobe, as well as the charred wood in a dead fireplace. Above which perched what appeared to be the stuffed carcass of a Northern Spotted Owl.

    The back of my skull throbbed in a trail leading up to my forehead and wrapping around my temples, my back ached from laying on this hard bed for who knows how long, and I became grimly aware I was chilled to the point of freezing. The cotton of my shirt had been wet through with what I believed was sweat, but found there was far too much of it to have come from my body. I had either fallen in some kind of water or been doused in the stuff. Either way, it made the cold of this room all the worse. My bones were stiff as I slipped my leg off the edge of the bed, and for the first time since I was a child, I was genuinely frightened something would grab my ankles the second I laid my toes against the hard wood floor. I slumped over to ease my headache.

    Where was I? What had happened to wind me up in this strange place? The last thing I remember was going to sleep the day before. Wait, was it the day before? There was no telling how long I'd been asleep, I could have been comatose. Come to think of it, had I ever made it home?

    Damn it, I had to keep myself in line. Make sure that I hadn't forgotten too much. My name... Come on, a name...Sam...something... Sam Kellen. That's it. I live, or rather, lived, in New York. In Five Points, a little place in Five Points with broken furniture. It was probably a quarter as big as this house, if the size of this one room was any indication.

    I was a detective, there we go. And...damn, that's all I can think of now...Well, it will have to do.

    Pensively, I pressed the ball of my toes against the floor and raised myself up, with some difficulty, I managed to stand up straight. My first instinct would have been to stay quiet, but overcome with the immeasurable cold, I ignored my instincts that were tucked away in the warm reassesses of my mind and did not share my body temperature. I sprang to a closet, my steps resonating loudly in the mostly quieted room as I threw open the doors and snatched up the first thing in my reach. A dark ebony coat lined on the inside with brown and black dotted fur that spilled out onto the collar and down the lapels. I hurriedly draped it around my shoulders and wormed as far into it as I could, it being a size or two too big for me. I brought the fur of the collar to my mouth and breathed in to it to warm the tip of my nose. I decided to forgive the musky scent of dust for a comfort in a foreign place.

    I gripped tightly to the lapels and carefully stepped back to the night stand, swiping up the lamp without second thought, raising it above my head to illuminate the dark corners it had previously left untouched. With a soft rustling on my new coat, I shuffled to the dresser on the other side of the bed I had found myself on, peeking into the top drawer. A few clothes, folded neatly and placed in order from what seemed to be lightest hue to darkest. The second drawer was mostly empty, but the third was so weighed down with it's contents, I scarcely had the strength to pull it from it's frame. I managed to open it enough to see inside, and found hundreds of pieces of parchment stacked in three piles, from what I could see, the top layers were inked with a delicate handwriting. Although a few were a harsh and much stronger calligraphy.

    I set the lamp down once more on top of the drawer and bent down to pick up one of the sheets written in the more careful script.

    Dear Frederick,

    I hope some day you can forgive me for this. Know that I still love you dearly, as dearly as the first day we met. You remember don't you? When we were only children, you a tanner and I a perfumer. You came to deliver skins my Master Chanticlair had ordered. You had that softness in your coal black eyes, I fell in love with them at an instant and hoped that they were a sight I could see every morning upon my waking. But I can no longer stand being alone. Your late nights in the cellar, those awful stenches you come to bed with. I can't handle it Frederick, I just can't! This house is too large to wander about it alone all hours of the day and night. You're obsessed with those damn bodies and for every hour you spend toiling away with those skins and potions is an hour closer to starvation. I've found someone new, someone who listens to me. Provides for me.

    Please understand, this isn't easy for me. But it's necessary if I'm ever to find happiness, the kind of happiness you once gave me. I pray you can do the same.

    I'll always love you.

    Farewell,

    Elise


    …

    Elise? Wasn't that the name of the woman who lived down the way from me? Or was that Egrid?

    I shook my head, in such a state of befuddlement, my more in-depth memories were beginning to mix until they were nothing but a mass of misinformation and unreliability, they couldn't be trusted at this point. Stick to the basics. Sam, Five Points, detective.

    I folded up the note and tucked it away against my chest, when I heard the sharp creaking of the floor boards, presumably outside the door. Though for a short second I thought this could have been my imagination, I swept the lamp off the drawer and flew to the closet once more. I climbed inside and brought the doors back in on me, fumbling with the lamp until I managed to dim it.

    Au Clair de la Lune still buzzed numbly in the background, the only sound in the room as I forced myself not to take a breath.

    One step closer came the creaking, then another, then a... third? A much heavier and harder footstep. No, no, that was a cane. Something wooden, but weighted... The steps were each prominent and proud, not weak or with any sign of weary shambling, so it couldn't have been an elderly person, no, it was someone young with a recent injury. The cane's tapping was uneven, they weren't used to using it yet. More, concentrate more on it so you don't panic.

    I closed my eyes, even if it made no difference in the cramped space I had tucked myself in to.

    They were at my back, this closet was pressed up as far as it could go against the wall, so they were in the hall outside. I furrowed my brow. The door, I caught a glance of it earlier, it was only a few steps away from the cupboard... Seven. In seven steps they'd be at the door. One...two...three...four...five...six...Hm... No seventh.

    Instead there was the loud of metal clicking, a tumbler? s**t, that was the door knob! I had miscalculated, they were at the door, damn it all...

    I let out a puff of breath then quickly inhaled to my lungs' fill as I heard the door swing open on it's hinges. I hesitantly opened my eyes again, and through the slightest crack in the closet doors, I caught light filtering through. It was dimmer than a kerosine lamp, or a candelabra. It must have been the lone flame of a single candle.

    I pressed myself hard against the back of the wardrobe.

    "********!" I heard a man's voice spit, muffled by the planks of wood separating us, "SAM! Where are ya', ya' rotten b*****d! I'll find ya', I'll find ya'...!"

    His clearly irritated voice faded after the final warning, and his angry steps slammed against the floor, out the door once more.