Chapter Text
STATEMENT OF MATHEW HEATHEN, REGARDING THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO RAPHAEL MIRTH'S DEATH
STATEMENT BEGINS
I know you've at least heard of Raphael Mirth's death. It was all over the news. He was my friend, or I was at least an... Ego stroker for him. I know that's horrible to say that about the dead but it was true, I realize.
Raphael, we, uh, we slept once, together. Actually, a couple of times. He's like, very closeted. I've tried to get him out, but he refuses. I think he has some internalized stuff going on.
Sorry, uhm, let me start from the beginning. He wasn't himself those days when he first changed. He'd been detached, more obsessive. Like cult like? He was attached to this thing that I don't know. It's not a normal obsession. I knew that. I though he was like that because of that island. Raphael has been studying some Russian island. It's nicknamed the phantom island. He only mentioned the name once. But he found out about it and has been trying to figure it out.
He got like that when we were younger- Did I mention we were childhood friends? He stayed at my house a lot since his mother... didn't notice. She didn't really notice a lot. Maybe that's why Raphael got like that way. That needing to cling on and find out everything about this subject. Yet with people, he needed reassurance. He needed to know that they wouldn't leave, that they understood his accomplishments. He needed a pet. I guess I understood since his mother kinda just... lazed around high on something.
When we teenage years, he found another artist, a sculptor named Gabriel... something. I don't even know his last name. He could, like, make some super realistic art that bent in weird ways. Raphael always liked the surrealist movement. God, he could go on about Salvador Dali's art. He was obsessed. It could get annoying. He loved the way those paintings made you overanalyze the meaning. I think that's why he liked Gabriel's work. He knew you guys had stuff of his. He did... have someone on the inside to take them. He never mentioned a name; he was too caught up in what he got away with.
He did show me those things- sculptures. The sculptures. He explained the history, I think.. I didn't really focus then. Maybe I should have. I was too caught up in those...faces.
Those sculptures- those faces, I- ... I don't know how to describe them other than they were realistic. They looked like real life things if they weren't things. One of them was like ... handles? Like it was a humanoid head whose features were composed of handles with wood around them?
I'm sorry that I can't convey the imagery, but you have to understand that I couldn't possibly describe them correctly. They were too real for something that couldn't be real. No one could have sculpted that. It was wrong. It looked wrong.
Anyways. He- uh- He took a major in Entomology when he was in college. He liked beetles a lot. He would draw them while we would watch some bad movie. Those were one of his obsessions. I don't like beetles, really. Never did. I don't like bugs either. Too gross for me. I usually just gave a smile when he showed me a new beetle he found. If I didn't, he'd be all pissy the next day. That was a pattern with him, getting annoyed with people when he doesn't get attention.
He moved out of his mom's house.She really didn't care. He looked for a place that allowed those bugs. He landed on that one place, with the brick walls. I don't remember the street. But they didn't care what he did. I think they were after it for the money, which whatever. I guess it was a good deal for him.
I guess that's all the background stuff about him before he found out about that... Island.
Raphael was reading about something that had that island. The deep irony that I've found is that it wasn't even real. It was some russian myth. A myth! A stupid myth killed my...
He got attached as he normally does with these things, and went to tell me about it. He swore it could be real, and he'd be the first man who could say that in the 20th century. I gave my whole 'nice,' or 'cool' thing. I was getting tired of it by the time.
He did become distant later on. He became more reserved and more... attached? It seemed like someone else was babying him other than me. It did feel nice.
Weeks Raphael scoured anything he could find about that place. Any articles, any mentions, hell, I think he looked in your institute for information. But he was hooked. I think three weeks in is where it started to fall downhill. Before he- well. He was going insane.
We were at the pub. Raphael looked very... Very bad. He didn't look like he had shaved in weeks, and his hair had grown out. He turned to me and said that there was a beetle infestation, that the pest services wouldn't come until next week. I was shocked by this because that brick walled place rarely got infestations. I asked how, and he said that he accidentally let the beetles out. He loved those beetles. I doubted that he did that. I really did. Apparently, the infestation was pretty bad, yet he stayed.
I asked if he wanted to stay at my place like old times. I don't remember what old times I was talking about but he declined either way. He said that he had more important things to do. It hurt but I understood.
Week four, we hadn't seen each other in a hot moment. I was caught up in my own work, and he was... doing whatever. When I saw Raphael that week, he seemed slightly manic. He was going on and on how he might of made a discovery about that island, and he planned a trip on a boat owned by some guy named Peter Luke? Luka? Maybe it was Lucy; I didn't remember the guy's actual last name. I gave the equivalent of a thumbs up in words. At least he was going out and seemed happy, I thought.
The weeks we spent apart grew after that interaction. In those quiet moments, I'll admit, I missed him. I missed his touch. I missed... A lot of the bad things he did. As this wave of loneliness was running over me, I think the realization settled in. About him being toxic- I mean.
I needed to separate from him. I really did. He was a narcissist. He was making me depend on him for simple things like affection.
So I waited until he was back from that trip.
It took- ah, what was it? Two weeks? Maybe three weeks until he gets back. When we met, he was even more distant. He stared at his drink, barely enjoying it. I remember asking what was wrong, and he replied with;
"It doesn't make sense anymore."
At the time, I assumed that he didn't find that island, but he- It wasn't a disappointed tone. It was confused.
I asked what he meant, and he started saying that it was there. The place was there, he made that point clear, but then he goes out with 'but it wasn't real.' I was getting tired with this- That... That cryptic shit he was pulling- Excuse me for my language. But I was going to end it.
The ending of that interaction was bad. I did get what I wished for, though.
It felt like Raphael stopped going outside. I thought I would pass by him once or twice in the time we were apart. He never said anything to me. People that he kinda knew and was friendly with also didn't even see him. I didn't want him to be hurt, or worse. So I decided to head over to his flat.
It was a warm night that night. It was one of those heat waves that passes through, you know. It was hell trudging through it. Yet I had to know. Luckily, I knew the shortest path to his flat, so it cut down on the time. When I did reach there, I heard him through the door.
The door was thinner than the rest of the walls since it wasn't brick. Though it was stupidly flimsy. It shook if the wind blew at it too hard.
I could hear him talking about... things. It was like- about a close pal? How he- or- or it was beautiful? I can't remember if it was a he or it. But Raphael was sounding like some pastor talking about a God. It didn't sound like him... Normally? He sounded manic. He sounded insane.
I broke through the door.
Dead beetles, or injured ones? They were in the corners of the room. Some are still twitching somehow. The place was a mess of papers and string, with pictures of fractals closing in on each other. The other paintings were melting together, and the scenery kept shifting. Raphael stood near a board with pins and pictures, holding up a palette knife. I didn't even know what the pictures were. There were some shapes. I didn't care enough since Raphael looked like he was about to kill himself with an art supply. It's a sand and stupid way to kill yourself. I mean- with a palette? They can't even stab things. They couldn't stab things. Or they could since...
I yelled at Raphael, screaming What was he doing. He didn't notice me until that moment. His body shifted, not. Not turned. It did not turn. It shifted to look at me. He- he is he. Raphael spoke, a smile on his face, and said;
"I don't like the music."
His face dripped with paint. It was like his skin was melting paint. His body was painted. Even his clothes. They seemed to stick together or- or... That doesn't matter.
Before I could ask what the hell he meant, he.. You know. He stabbed himself in the neck with that palette knife. I watched him kill himself. It was only mentioned because of how he did so. A stupid palette knife.
The rest of the night was a blurry memory. Cops asked what happened, and I told them that he was mentally unwell and had killed himself. They understood that. They wouldn't understand that he wasn't... Raphael wasn't himself after that point. He wasn't-
I- I don't know what to tell you, but I figured that this place would be a good place to tell the truth. I'm sorry if there aren't many more details. I'm... sorry for him and...this.
STATEMENT ENDS