Chapter Text
The night was dark and still on a cold autumn night. Nocturnal animals could be heard scuttering around if one knew how to listen for them. On the earth next to a large yew tree lay Detective Sergeant Edgar Sullivan. He was not listening to the sounds of the night. Nor was he making any attempts to get up to go home. Both of these actions are quite hard when one's head is not attached to one's body and DS Sullivan’s head was several feet away from his. His face was partially hidden by the leaves and the dirt, but if one were to look at the features that were visible they would see a look of surprise. The detective had clearly not expected for his head and body to become separated when he entered the forest. However, how unexpected decapitation may be on a forest stroll, the events that followed were even less possible to predict.
Detective Sergeant Edgar Sullivan did not remain alone on the forest floor. It was not his murderer, returning to bury the body, or a fox scavenging his corpse for food. The being that did approach did not have a name that DS Sullivan could have known were he still alive. Its body plan refused to remain consistent. Walking appendages would appear and disappear as needed and eyes would move down its form to remain focused on whatever it had been looking at. Its colour was hard to discern in the darkness, but it seemed to only have one, excluding the eyes. The being stilled as it came across the corpse of DS Sullivan. It grew gripping appendages to feel across his body and clothes and more eyes formed to look at him. The appendages went everywhere until some of them discovered the stump at the end of his neck. A larger protrusion rose from the main body of the being and quickly formed many eyes. Once it had spotted Sullivan’s head the protrusion moved towards it and formed more gripping appendages to pick it up and hold it for closer inspection. Eventually the being’s movements slowed down and its appendages were pulled back into its body. The being moved back a little from the body before it started to morph again. This time it did not just gain and lose eyes and appendages. It grew in size and its colour and textures changed. It did not take long before an exact, but naked and whole, copy of Detective Sergeant Edgar Sullivan was laying next to him.
The copy’s chest was gently rising and falling, clearly alive where the original was not. It seemed to take its time clenching and unclenching its new muscles. Quite some time passed before it made its first attempt to sit up. The second attempt was more successful as it used its arms to help with the process. As it sat it looked at its hands and moved every digit with a slight frown on its face. Once it seemed to be satisfied it repeated the process with other parts of its body. Slowly, but surely, it seemed to come to grips with the way its new body functioned. This was when it returned its attention to the original body besides it. It took a moment to discover what the most comfortable position was to face the original body. Eventually it ended up sitting on its knees. Its hands moved to the body and started removing DS Sullivan’s clothes. It was not a quick process. The copy clearly struggled with the fine motor skills required to undo buttons, but eventually it managed. The undressing had taken a while, but the copy seemed to struggle even more if redressing itself in the stolen clothing. Even though the buttons ended up being done uneven, it did manage to make itself somewhat presentable in polite society. The copy moved again into a standing position. It grunted while doing so. The sound made it still immediately. Half standing it made another couple of throaty sounds, followed by a sniff and a smile. Then it continued until it was fully standing. The corpse of Detective Sergeant Edgar Sullivan now lay at its feet. Its head tilted to the side as it stared down at the body. A minute passed before it moved again. It crouched down as its hands morphed to become more shovel-like. The changed hands made quick work of digging a hole. Once the hole was finished the copy rolled the body of DS Sullivan into it. Then it stepped to pick up the head with hands that had become normal again. The head was held aloft until the copy could look into his eyes. Surprise was still present on his features. For a moment the copy made an attempt of showing the same look on its own face. Before it crouched down. With a gentleness it had not shown before it placed the head in the detective’s arms. In the blink of an eye the hands had become shovel-like again and the copy refilled the hole with the dirt it had dug up. Leaves were added on top of the dirt to hide the recently disturbed soil.
The copy wiped his hands on the stolen trousers he was wearing and with one last look at the now hidden grave, he walked away.