Chapter Text
Charles Gears had a new job.
Clean up this old abandoned house and sell it, without wasting too much money. Seemed fairly simple, compared to other jobs and houses he had to deal with. Renovating one hundred year old houses is not the most fun thing when you have a money limit. This one was last inhabited around sixteen to seventeen years ago, and the owners had clearly already renovated it before leaving.
Just a few changes and it should be ready for sale.
“Oh, and Gears, one last thing.”
Charles looked over and hummed an acknowledgment to his boss.
“The last owner killed his wife.”
Charles knew it had been too good to be true.
So Charles had to 1: Renovate the house to make it attractive enough to buy and 2: Find a way to sell the thing even though the last person who lived in it was a murderer.
He pursed his lips. This was going to be difficult.
“Does anyone know about the events that occurred here?”
“Oh everyone who lived here when it happened knows,” His boss said, “It’s a huge thing in this town. No murder had happened there for years until he snapped! Something must’ve been wrong up there in his noggin’.”
“Mm.” Was all Charles could respond with, he turned his attention back to the house before him, “This will be… hard.”
His boss looked over at him as he lit a cigarette, “You still wanna take the job?”
“Yes, of course.” Charles replied.
“Ah, we finally got a brave one.” His boss said, taking a drag of his cigarette, “Not surprised though. You’ve always loved a challenge.”
Charles didn’t respond.
“Take a look around, why don’t ya? Then we can talk and get some designers and whip up a new look for this place!”
“Okay.”
His boss slapped him on the back, catching Charles a bit off guard, “Now that’s the spirit Charlie! I’ll be heading out soon, feel free to check the place out. It’s not like you’ll get in trouble.”
Charles grunted and his boss walked away, leaving him to stare at the house once again. Why did he always have to sign himself up for the hardest jobs? Was it just to feel something? To take a risk?
He sighed and started towards the building, pushing the door open gently. There was a thin layer of dust along the floor and the door creaked loudly. The outside had seemed much nicer, but the inside was where the worst was.
The bottom floor was an old shop, which seemed to have been nice long ago, which now smelled of mold and mildew. Okay, maybe it was going to be a bit harder, but Charles had dealt with worse. It wasn’t like he had basic tools either, he had some connections with renovators who dabbled in the art of magic as well, so if he paid them enough maybe they could rid the building of its rot and fungus with just a flick of their hands.
He crossed over to the counter, also covered in dust, where mold seemed to be growing heavily over the years. The floor creaked beneath his feet, wobbly. They would need to be replaced. In all honesty, Charles found his job odd. He always was sent into these dangerously old homes with no one else with him, but he always made it out alive and with money to keep his house, so he wasn’t too upset.
He blew the dust off of the table, wiped it away a bit, trying to see what the text underneath said, just to get an idea of what this old shop had been before abandonment. As he did so, something squeaked and scurried behind him and Charles looked back, just in time to see a mouse run into a hole in the wall. He pursed his lips and looked back at the counter. He would need to call up a rodent-catcher.
The cleared off dust revealed some faded text, from what he could just barely understand, he found that the shop used to be owned by a florist. It, however, appeared to have been flooded and in the process, all that was left was knocked over flower pots, nothing alive left behind. However, that made no sense. How could it have flooded if there wasn’t a large water source nearby?
Floods could only be caused by extremely powerful spells, especially large ones that seemed to have washed away all that had seemed special about this old, desolated place.
Charles shook away his thoughts and went to examine the rest of the shop before he heard some shuffling and then a large crash upstairs. He froze, staying still, silent. Some more shuffling was heard and he could have sworn he heard someone…. Cursing. After a few moments, he found the stairs and started up them. If there was someone inside the house, well then he would have to kick them out.
He was halfway up the stairs when the step just beneath his right foot creaked — loudly. All sound from the second floor ceased and Charles paused as well. Charles was an aloof person, he usually didn’t respond to anything, really, but in those few moments, his heart pounded loudly in his chest, in his ears, he was ready to turn around and run right out the door if need be. He had no clue who was hiding up there and what they would do to him if they made it to the staircase.
It was silent for a few more moments, which felt like hours for Charles. By then, he assumed that the person was likely gone, probably found a way out another way — or maybe the exploring old, rotting houses was starting to get to Charles’ head.
He stayed there at the step for a moment or two still, then started up them again, this time no creaking coming from the old wooden steps. His legs shook a little bit beneath him, a natural response to hearing someone or something, inside of an abandoned house. Of course, Charles was likely overthinking, it was probably just a homeless person who had made a place to stay out of the home.
Charles reached the top, opened the door at the end of the staircase, and looked around the place. It appeared to be a living room, which also smelled of mold, just like the bottom floor. It was dark, the only light coming in through windows with heavy curtains, slivers of light from the corners that weren’t covered. The room was trashed, it looked like it really had been through a flood, which once again didn’t make sense. How could flood water reach up to the second floor if there wasn’t a large source of water nearby?
Charles closed the door behind him, walking silently into the living room, looking around. A few other doors and hallways branched off from the main living area; there was a bathroom, a kitchen, a main bedroom, and two other rooms, from what Charles could see from down the hallway.
He was just about to check out all that he had listed in his head and see if he had missed any rooms when a sudden chill came over the room. It wasn’t the same chill as before, the cool air of a house long gone in the fall weather, it was colder, almost wintery. It was so sudden, so strange. His nose was beginning to run from the sudden weather change.
And that’s when they spoke.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Charles whipped around, finding a person leaning against the wall beside the door that led into the living room. In the dark, it was hard to see their features, their face only being able to be seen from a bit of light shining past the curtains.
They had short white hair, pale skin, and dark eyes. Their lips were pulled into a scowl, they were obviously angry, but there was also a feeling of fear radiating off of them. Charles stepped forward a bit and they clenched their fists, their scowl turning into a sneer.
“Come closer and I swear I’ll fucking smite you!”
“I am not going to hurt you.” Charles stated calmly despite just being threatened.
The person laughed humorlessly, “As if you could. I mean. You probably could if you’re- fuck! You can’t fucking kill me, I’m stronger than I look!”
“I am not going to kill you.” Charles said, standing his ground. “I am here to check this place out, it needs to be renovated… if the water damage is able to be fixed. I’m sorry sir, but you’re going to have to leave.”
“Like hell I will!” The man spat at Charles, “Fuck. This place was so safe for the longest time!”
Charles was beginning to get annoyed, “Sir, this is not a suggestion. You will have to leave this building right now.”
“Do you even know who I am!?” The man yelled, pointing at himself, “Funny that you think you can boss me around.”
“I do not know your identity, however it would be ideal to know your name.”
The man paused, looking like he was putting Charles’ words through Google just to figure out what he had just said, then asked:
“You have no weapons?”
“None.” Charles replied, showing his empty hands, “You are acting quite strangely. I do not understand why you would assume I’d have weapons.”
The man seemed to calm a bit, then quickly rushed to the window, checking around outside, “And there’s…. No one else out there?”
Charles raised an eyebrow, the first sign of emotion he had found himself physically showing in a week, “No. No one else. My boss is off elsewhere. It is just me.”
The man looked back at Charles and studied him a bit, like he was trying to understand every aspect of Charles’ being in one gaze. Finally, he closed the curtain, leaving the room in mostly darkness.
“You seem… trustable. But just so you know,” He approached Charles and jabbed his finger at his chest, causing a freezing sensation to grow over his skin, it almost burnt from cold, “if you try to hurt me, I swear on the elder ones I’ll….”
The man didn’t finish his sentence, Charles didn’t need him to.
He was, admittedly, scared, but at the same time curious about this strange man. Maybe it was his urge to actually feel something that was egging him on, maybe it was something else entirely, but Charles was ready to figure out who this guy was, even if his life was on the line.
“What is your name?” Charles asked.
The man froze just in front of a set of stairs across the room that Charles hadn’t previously noticed before, which he found… odd, “Julian.”
“My name is Charles. Charles Gears.”
“Heh,” Julian said, “Weird last name you’ve got there, man.”
“And what is yours?”
Julian was silent for a moment before responding with, “Iceberg,” and starting up the stairs. Charles followed suit, running his hand along the walls. He found they resembled the stairs he had just walked up.
No, they didn’t just resemble, they looked exactly the same.
A shiver went up Charles’ spine, this time not just from the sudden temperature drop in the house. It was one of excitement and of anxiousness, a fear and interest of the unknown.
“Where are we going, Julian?” He questioned.
“We’re going to where I’ve been living for about thirteen years,” Julian said, “And to aftermath of a murder.”