The first thing I felt was the warmth. A primordial ooze; swaying, moving across my body. 

“Ohhh, this is nice.” I thought.

Thoughts? Words. These were words forming in my mind. Why?

My brain was ready to kick itself to life, jumping and screaming like a chainsaw. 

“Stop.”. The thought was mine, but the voice unfamiliar. It was deeper, cavonius. It spoke with authority, commanding to be heard.

“What are you?” I asked, my voice hollow and bare. 

“I am part of you. Stop thinking.”.

“Why?”.

“It is nice here. There are no ex-wives, no dead colleagues.”.

“Ex- what?”.

“Trust me, you don't want to know”.

“What do I want to know?”.

“It is best you know nothing”. The words it spoke was a suggestion, but its voice was no such thing.

“Wait, where am I?”.

My eyes flew open. The first thing I noticed ws on the edge of my vision, wooden blades, spinning, spinning, sinning. I rolled my head to the side.

I was in an apartment of some sort, one just a tiny bit too big to be comfortable. The wallpaper was falling off, revealing colors of green and brown and yellow. The couch I was lying on had tough and riveted fabric, but was covered in a multitude of bedsheets, all of them yellowing in age. My chin itches. I felt my tendons struggle to pull my arm to my face, the numbness in my fingertips quickly fading to a flush warmth. 

My fingers found my jaw and scratched. The hair there was too long to be called stubble, but far too unkempt to be called anything more than a prickly mess. My tongue writhed in my mouth and I was aware of the slight taste of vomit. And that smell, piercing through the sore scar tissue and mucus only to deliver a smell or rot that my my head throb. A cough rose from my throat, dry and scratchy. 

I sat there for some time, my head empty of everything except the sound of the fans' slow blades, rotating around, and around, and arounddd…

“You really should stay awake. Fall asleep now, and who knows if you’ll wake up”. That voice again. Dull and strong.

My hand crawled out from beneath my head to push up. My senses slowed, turning each second into a thousand. I rolled my hip and let my feet hit the ground, automatically lining themself parallel with the floor. I pushed my palm into the couch until my body was in a sitting position. The throbbing in my skull turned into a blade searing through my brain. Before I knew it, I had curled up on the floor, holding by breath. 

“You need booze, a cigarette too.”. This one spoke with urgency. Its voice seemed to rumble, slick with pleasure.

“Drinking got me into this situation, and it's going to get me out?”.

“Yes”.

“How long have I been drinking?”.

A pause.

“A long, long time. Too long to be able to stop now.”. Images of glass bottles flashed through my mind. Stained glass that shone like gems, the sweet and warm feeling that would sit in your stomach. Perhaps it was right.

I pictured the pain in my skull, and traced it through my frontal lobe,  into my cerebral cortex, down my spine and into my feet. I don't know how or why I did this, but it seemed to distract from the pain. 

The next few events come to me in a haze. I glanced around finding a pair of trousers, a polo and a green blazer, and threw them on haphazardly. I must have found a key at some point, as I remember locking the door on my way out.

Walking down a flight of stairs, I saw a bar to my left. The bartender was standing there, looking at something behind the bar. His eyes flicked up to me, then looked back down quickly. Walking over to him, I could see he was looking at a model of a bird. A pretty one, too. Clean and white feathers that looked softer than actual birds. One of its wings had broken off.

“What happened to the bird?” He just stared at me.

“Could I get a drink?”. My voice now surprisingly clear for the condition I was in.

“Hell no. You owe me 230 Reòl.”. Uh-oh.

“Real?” I asked.

“No, idiot, Reòl, you know, the currency? Been used for hundreds of years? I'm sure you’ve heard about it.” He spoke angrily, with a clearly faked aristocratic accent.

“And what do I owe you for?” I failed to hide the skepticism in my voice.

He fixed a displeased look on his face and slowly pulled out a notepad from a drawer.

“Lets see… a hundred alone for the alcohol, ninety for the tape player you busted up yesterday, and forty for the brid.” double uh-oh.

“I did that?”.

“Yes, and I would assume you were drunk enough to not remember.”.

There was an awkward silence as I checked my pockets. Triple uh-oh.

“Can I get back to you with that?” I asked.

He gritted his teeth. 

“If you weren't an officer, I would have you arrested.”.

I was just about to ask if I am an officer and how he knows when I decided against it.

“Speaking of, one of your friends is here for you.”the bartender pointed across the bar.

I turned around.

“Over there, in the orange bomber.” he gestured tward the further end of the room.

Looking over, I noticed that this floor was a cafeteria, with one wall being made of glass. I saw a man standing next to the exit door on the other side of the room. He was tall and lanky, wearing balck tight pants and a neon orange bomber jacket with a hologrphic symbol on the back, the same symbol that was on my blazer. He was looking at a clipboard through thick, round glasses. He looked tired.

I walked over to him, and tapped his shoulder. He looked up from his clipboard, to my face, to my blazer then put his pen down. 

“Hello, I am Adoles, and I’ll be your lieutenant for this investigation.” He said professionally, holding out his hand. I shook it.

“And your name is?”.

“Harry Brewis.” The words slipped from my lips. I hoped I was right.

“Have you examined the body yet?” I have been awake for an hour and already hate my life.

“Uhhhhhh… no.” I answered.

“No? What have you been doing this whole time?”.

“Could we talk?” I nodded towards the door.

Sighing, he followed me out the door and into an alley next to it. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.

“So, how do I say this…” Adoles looked at his watch.

“I don't remember. Like, anything.” He raised his eyebrows.

“Anything?”.

“Well, I remember drinking.”.

Adoles stood there a minute, his head in his hands. 

“They said you were rough on the edges, but I didn't expect this.”.

“They?” I asked. 

“Precinct 58, the department of Revoshol police you belong to.”

“What's Revoshol?”.

Adoles sighed.

“Ok. You are in Revoshol, in the year 1953. You are a police officer working in precinct 58. You were sent here to investigate a homicide that happened behind this motel a week ago. Got that?”. He said all of this without pausing for a breath once, and did not seem phased by it in the slightest.

“Why would anyone want me as a police officer?” I asked after some time.

“Apparently you are good at it.”.

“Aren't you going to report me or something?”.

“I don't plan on it.” I would ask him why, but that would be stretching my luck. 

“So, what happens now?” I asked.

“We are behind on the investigation, it would be nice to investigate the body.”.

“Ok, where is it?”.

He began walking past me, and I followed. We barely turned around when I saw the thing. No wonder my room smelled so bad, there was a corpse 80 feet behind it!

It hung from a dying tree, bloated and sickly pale. Its skin was leathery and stretched around a rotting frame. I could see where the rope dug into its neck. I would rather not describe what its face looked like. The smell was overpowering. 

“We should start with the surroundings, then move on to the body.” Adoles said, unphased.

The smell worked its way into my nostrils, piercing my brain and stirring my stomach. I put my fist to my stomach and held my breath.

“It is ok to throw up if you need to.” Adols said, turning to me.

I felt my throat rise and I began to shake. I stood there a moment, trying to regulate my breath. I managed to keep it down, barely. 

“How are you acting so… normal about this?”. I asked desperately.

“I have seen many bodies in my time with the police.” He turned to me “You have too”.

“No, the smell. How are you not throwing up?”.

“Ah, that. I am pretty sure my nose has stopped working at this point. Don't worry though, I have seen people who have been on the force for fifty years fail to keep it down.” He spoke very matter-of-fact, but there was a quiet layer of reassurance behind his voice.

“It's not something you can get used to,” he continued. “My precinct has something called “body day”, where it takes the entire day to deal with one corpse. Keep it down, do an autopsy. Throw up. Come back, take photos, throw up. Keep it down, put it in a bodybag, throw up, and send it to the biomatter storage.”.

That was mildly comforting. I looked around. There was the tree holding the body directly ahead, footsteps leading to it on the left, and a garbage bin on the right. I walked over to the footsteps.

There were a lot. Guessing on first viewing, there were anywhere from six to twelve people here. The footprints seemed well preserved for an event that happened a week ago.

“Adoles, do we know what the weather was like on the day of the crime?” Adoles responded by flipping through a thick ledger.

“Rain, so the dirt would be mud. I'm guessing that the ground dried up fast enough to preserve the footprints, would you agree?” I nodded.

“You got a ruler?” I asked. Adoles pulled a tape measure out of his back pocket. 

After a few hours of measurement and comparison, we were done.

“Ok, so we have 8 people, 2 women, 6 men, 2 of them being especially heavy and large, the rest being average size for a 35-40 year old, yes?” Adloes asked, looking up from his notepad. 

“Yeah” I said, wiping my forehead and standing up from kneeling next to a footprint.

“You are doing surprisingly well for someone who doesn't remember any of his time on the force.” Adoles said.

“I suppose I did this a lot. Should we move onto the body?” I asked.

“That would be best.”.

I took a deep breath and walked over to the body. It hung there, challenging me. I looked up at it, and slowly breathed in. 

I was on the ground in seconds, my back lurching as my stomach emptied itself. I slowly got up, stepping away from the body. Adoles handed me a handkerchief.

“Keep it. I know a few officers that use a chemical called ancetiphin to block your nose up. They should have some at the pharmacy.” He checked his watch. 

“They closed an hour ago, though. The body will have to wait until tomorrow.”.

“Ok, so what now?” I asked.

“You can go rest, I'm sure that a hangover isn't helping you right now.”.

“You're sure that we can wait until tomorrow? I asked.

“If we work fast enough, it won't make a difference. Now go.”.

I thanked him, and walked back to my room, stumbling through my room and falling onto my “bed”, waiting for sleep.

I could hear myself taking deep breaths through my nose, a quick wind. I opened my eyes. I was sitting on the roof of a tall building, likely seven or eight stories up. Below me, barren grasslands stretched as far as I could see, only broken by the occasional boulder or bit of mist. Above me, a stream of water covered the sky, traveling north. Looking through it the sky was twilight in some places, a cloudy noon at others. I realized that the wind seemed to be traveling along with the current above me. I turned around.

The body from before was on the other side of the roof, facing me. It was not held up, rather levitating. And its eyes, wide and white, were staring at me.

“I'm dreaming” I realized.

“Of course you're dreaming” the corpse said. Its voice was clogged and croaking, as if there were a lump stuck in its throat.

I tried to look away from the face, but I could not.

“How dare you, not even looking at me, ”