Leech

1

September 20, 1895 | London

Leech

As I sat in my room on my final day, I remembered my childhood, all the things I longed for back then and the people I loved- of sorts. They were long gone by then, and I stood the blaring result of their own neglect.

With a pang of longing and lost love, I thought of my parents and found myself still wondering the reason they shut me off from themselves and the world. If it were for my own good, then it did no good.

My entire childhood, I watched people die. Consumption and cholera plagued my earliest memories. We lived away from the city, so my brother Edward and I only overheard the stories.

My father transformed his practice as a doctor, moving from his London practice to a country doctor, to a surgeon operating strictly from home.

Our groceries would be delivered to us by one man, whom my father insisted on examining and sanitising upon every visit. Everyone who lived on our estate was subjected to weekly medical checks by my father to ensure that no disease had trickled into our haven. Edward and I were taught by a live-in governess. It was almost as if we lived on an island.

I suppose I can’t him them for that. My father only wanted our family to live long lives—for as long as one could in a time like that. But even as a child, I knew that his fear would be his undoing. He had remarkable talent that could change the world. I saw him use it every day. He should have been a greater man than he was, but he shunned this talent and died because of that sin.

And despite his fear of disease, it wasn’t disease that killed him. Both of my parents and Edward died in their sleep in a fire when I was 17 leaving me an orphan with the inheritance of a handsome fortune and the responsibility of legacy I once thought I could shape with honour.

But in my room on my very last evening of life as the walls closed in and the residue of recent acts still clung to my hands, I wondered then if that boy would recognise the man he became. Or if he would simply turn away.

Shaking the distant thoughts of my family away, I left my room to attend to one final item. I entered the basement and was immediately repulsed by the stench and amazed by how quickly decomposition had taken its course.

The remains had only been in the basement for a few days. Bertram, my faithful servant, stood waiting for me beside a wooden table. On it were chunks of meat, painted in a mix of deep red, with blackish-purple blotches in parts where they had begun to go bad. The door to the furnace was ajar, and the heat mixed with the stench circulating around us.

“Is it finished?” I said to Bertram, who nodded nervously to confirm the important task that I had just entrusted to him. It was crucial that no evidence of what I had done be found after I was gone. The work was mine and mine alone to declare. I hoped that Bertram did well in his disposal.

Focused on Bertram, I nodded in approval then motioned over to the table of meat. He began scooping up masses of dripping, rotten meat with his bare hands and heading toward the kiln. The fire hissed as he threw the first pile in, and the flames cackled, chewing on the flesh while it flickered red with approval. I watched as Bertram repeated this task, expressionless. It was then I knew that his soul, like mine, was gone.

After a while, the smell of cooking flesh became like a familiar, almost bearable perfume. It was proof that even the most unpleasant of things, after a while, could be endured.

When he had fed the last bits to the fire, Bertram turned to me, bloody and shaken, awaiting my approval. I walked over to the furnace, with its door wide open and stared at the flames. They belong to the fire now and every last trace of the things I had done in this house burned with them. It was time for the next step.

"Come, Bertram," I said quietly. I could feel him standing beside me, looking into the fire as I was. I was entranced, amazed by the calm of the flames dancing in the earthy colours of autumn. So beautiful; so infinite was fire’s power. "Where do you think we go, Bertram?"

"Sir?" He said, his voice seemed far away.

"Where do you think we go—after death?"

There was a pause as Bertram, perhaps confused, struggled to provide an answer.

"Heaven, Sir? I suppose...?" He guessed clumsily.

I chuckled as my thoughts danced in rhythm with the flames. And suddenly, it felt maniacal. The world around me felt surreal. Bertram started at my reaction. I looked at him, laughing now.

"Life is so sinister," I said, remnants of my laughter decorating my words. "Life is so sinister, Bertram, that a reward for such a tragedy would be insane."

"I'm sorry, Sir," Bertram’s head lowered in shame. I reached out and placed my hand gently on his shoulder. He looked up into my face, and we took each other in, man to servant—the heat of the fire burning the sides of our faces.

"There is no fitting payment after life, Bertram," I said, my voice but a whisper as I looked into his fearsome, reverent eyes. "But absolute death..."

It happened in an instant, it seemed. I felt an overpowering rage. I moved swiftly, barely aware of what I had done. I heard Bertram’s screams, and in a flurry of movement, he was gone. There was a shadow in the flames, which were red and ferocious once more, and there was smoke; there were screams and wails of anguish.

There was desperate movement in the flames. Bertram was burning, tumbling amongst the flapping wings within the furnace. I closed the door slowly, unable to bear his last calls for me to save him.

I returned to the hall, feeling resigned for the things that were soon to come. It was almost finished, I thought to myself. The hungry crime chasers would be at my door in moment, but I would be long gone. This world could not handle my ambitions nor my dreams. Their minds could not bend beyond the science of the day.

They had mocked and shunned me. Yet, I swear it: I could see remnants of my ideas in their work. I took revenge when it was within my grasp, yet no amount of spite could appease my true longing.

What was worse, my father’s shadow still hovered over me long after his death. What a shame- the man who could not embrace his passions. Yet, here I stood, bold and willing, but no one would heed me.

So this world could no longer be where I rested my head.

I looked around the room. My windows were draped with heavy curtains made of the finest damask velvet. It was healthy food for a fire. I smiled—taking a candle from its wall stand-and walked toward the window.

The fire devoured the curtains in a flash of scorching flame, rampaging up to the roof like running water. It was a dangerous beauty. I stopped and stared as it painted the wooden roof in radiant flames of blue and yellow. Then came the heat and the smoke; it wouldn’t take long for the house to be gutted. In a sweeping motion, I left the room, gliding up the stairs as thick black clouds of smoke began to choke the air. The smell of wood and smoke drifted quickly through the house, trailing me as I headed toward my room.

The room sat at the end of the hall, along with the servants’ rooms. They had long left me, save for Bertram- the rest were too fearful of their maniacal master and his sordid deeds.

In my room, I beheld myself in the mirror: a man who had failed despite all attempts to succeed. My face was gaunt. My handsomeness had stayed with me for most of my days, but as I stared in my reflection, I could see the ugliness creeping steadily in. The darkness began to wilt my face before my eyes. It was a visage that Wilde himself would have been proud of—a real-life Dorian Gray.

The noise became distracting: the explosions of falling wood ringing all around me. Smoke began to squeeze through the creases of the door. In mere seconds, my eyes and throat began to cry out. Coughing and gagging, I lost sight of the room, but the increasing heat reminded me of what was to come.

Then I was blind and deaf to everything else but the crashing of wood and the cackling of the flames. Time seemed like a mush of melting seconds, minutes, moments, and hours, all swirling in a state of finality.

My home was disappearing. With it burned my secret triumphs and my pains, my enemies, my family my childhood and my dreams. I glanced up as the ceiling disintegrated in a shower of hot, sharp wood that fell on me. And in that final moment, as I kicked and screamed my way into death, I wondered: if I had allowed myself a future, could I have found a place that would have enabled me to truly be great?

2

March 3, 2023 | New York

Leech

Suddenly, I was present once more. I remember that moment with unsettling clarity. One instant, I was burnt away, travelling from pain into darkness and the next, I was thrust back into the physical world. The void was a place where time could not be measured, and now, the contrast was gut-wrenching.

It felt like being torn from death’s silence and plunged back into the chaotic loudness of life.

Immediately, I knew it was a different world. But was this England? I could not find the cobbled streets or the centuries-old stone buildings. Instead, towering steel and glass reached for the heavens as their shiny facades reflected the urban jungle below. In my time, buildings of such magnitude were inconceivable, yet here they stood, testaments to human ingenuity and ambition.

Gone were the quaint lamp-lit alleys where horse-drawn carriages clattered over uneven stones. In their place, asphalt roads teemed with a flood of fast and loud automobiles. These machines were sleek and metallic and they zipped through the city with a speed and efficiency that left me in awe.

The air, once tinged with the smell of coal fires and damp earth, now carried the sharp tang of gasoline and the acrid scent of urban living.

I drifted lower and the ground rushed up to meet me. People moved swiftly, heads down, lost in their own worlds, tethered to small, glowing objects in their hands. Their attire was a far cry from the tailored coats and top hats of my time. It was a mélange of styles and fabrics I could scarcely comprehend.

Neon lights blared from every corner, advertising goods and services with an overwhelming garishness. The sounds, too, were different. The gentle clopping of hooves had been replaced by the constant hum of engines, the distant wail of sirens, and the murmur of conversations overlapping and vibrating through the very pavement.

No. This was not the England I knew. And the more I absorbed the loud drawl of these new people’s voices, I deduced that this was not England at all. This was a new place altogether, where the sluggish past had been swallowed whole by the march of progress.

I felt disoriented. In that moment, I was a relic adrift in a time that had moved on without me.

I noticed, too, that my senses worked differently now. I was no longer human, but I was here. Was I alive? If living men could fly, I supposed. Then again, I had only been in this world a few moments- time had not yet permitted me to see the extent of what these new people could do. One thing was certain: the universe had summoned me once more, and I felt the familiar pull of fate guiding my next steps.

Where had I been all this time? In truth, I had existed in a minimal space, a purgatory of sorts, where time held no meaning and existence was a blur. There were no sights or sounds, no sense of self. In that void, I was left to marinate in my own thoughts. Like who is it that directs my existence, and when would it end?

I had hoped for oblivion while there, an end to my tormented self. Had I not been tortured enough by failure when alive? Let me pass on, I begged. But even death would not grant me that mercy. Instead, I lingered, a prisoner of my own consciousness, until the unseen forces that govern my fate decided to unleash me once more upon the world.

I could not determine why I had returned but I immediately sought to determine what my abilities were in my unformed state. If I willed myself enough, I could be seen but not touched. But if I really pushed my boundaries, I could manipulate and I could control. I could slip into minds, bundle them up and set them side while I borrowed their bodies. What new potential was this? I played with my abilities for some time, slipping in and out of random bodies, grasping at their memories then tossing them aside only to venture on my own endeavours. It served my fancy for a a moment, until the question of purpose began to torment me again. I knew I couldn’t go on like that. Spirit alone was unsustainable. If I were to determine my purpose, then I needed more than windows into this world for permanence.”

One evening as I drifted slowly over the strange, beautiful New York City- a place I had come to enjoy- I came to hover above the buildings of a quaint, quiet neighbourhood, where my gaze locked onto an immediately woman.

She was the only patron of a small shop where the scent of freshly ground beans mingled with the frost of the air. She was hunched over, her fingers tapping against the worn wooden table.

Her aura spoke of turmoil and untapped potential, a perfect storm of creative energy and existential dread. And yet, there was a flicker of... memory? Not quite. Familiarity. I felt a surge of anticipation, knowing that this encounter would set the stage for my new beginning.

With a final, deliberate descent, I approached her. As I drew closer, I could almost taste the bitter coffee on her lips and feel the frantic beat of her heart.

A rush filled me as I waited to connect with her and be the conductor of what I knew was wont to become the most memorable chapter of her life.