It was a dark and stormy night. It was almost pitch black, aside from the grey clouds that adorned just a small portion of the black sky, the silver rain that dripped from those grey clouds (the rain was dripping from the sky the way Edgar's blood was dripping from the crevice in his body where his heart once lay), and the golden-yellow moon which peaked out from the edge of one of the clouds (the way the ring of Edgar's attacker peaked out from the edge of the blade that was used to cut the aorta and vein severing wounds into Edgar's chest). This, the ring of the attacker, was the very last thing Edgar had lay eyes upon before his heart was ripped away from his chest by his attacker and his soul was ripped away from his body by the Grim Reaper. Actually, technically, the very last thing he had lay eyes upon before his death was the reflection of the crow's eye glaring off the attacker's ring.
The crow's eye was a vibrant chartreuse The silver slit of a pupil just screamed, "Caution! This bird is diseased. It is infectious and contagious!" Edgar seemed to be hypnotized by the reflection of the crow's eye in the attacker's ring during the few moments just before his passing, but what good would it have done a bird to hypnotize a dead man (or nearly dead man)? Maybe he was just mesmerized.
So, here lied a mesmerized dead man in the very top of the inside of the "Belle Tower". No, the "Belle Tower" wasn't a giant tower which contained a giant bell. In fact, it wasn't even a tower. It was a rather large hotel building that had a small facility on the floor just underneath the penthouse suite. This facility on the floor directly under the penthouse contained a brothel, a casino, a bar, and other forms of adult amusement and entertainment. Technically the "Belle Tower" was just the name used for the small brothel located directly under the master bedroom of the penthouse suite, but because the whores from the brothel decided they'd rather run freely throughout the whole hotel, rather than keeping confined to the actual brothel, eventually the whole hotel became to be known as the "Belle Tower".
One of the big reasons why pretty much the whole hotel was flooded with half-naked hussies at pretty much any given time was that there was a "no smoking in the adult entertainment facility portion of the hotel" policy put in place by the owner of the hotel, and most of the whores liked to go take many cigarette breaks throughout their shifts.
So, it was in this brothel that Edgar had been brutally murdered and had had his aorta and veins severed and his heart ripped from his chest, his soul ripped from his body. It was in this brothel that he had seen the reflection of the crow's eye in the attacker's ring and became hypnotized. It was in this brothel that he had heard the one foreign whore in the whole Belle Tower ask her fellow whores, "Cigarettenpausen?" Wait... Did he really just hear her ask that? He was dead! His ears weren't supposed to be working, he wasn't supposed to be hearing. Despite being dead Edgar could in fact hear the German whore ask her fellow whores if they wanted to go out with her for a cigarette break. Not only could he hear the ladies' discussion about rather or not they wanted to go take a break from sucking penises and having their tits squeezed to have a cigarette, he could also hear laughter and faint screams of the standers-by who witnessed his death, he could hear the distinct sound of ballroom music. Why was there both, laughter and screams, coming from the witnesses? Why was there classical, romantic music playing in the background? Why could Edgar hear voices, both whispered and not, coming from the people surrounding his dead body? Why could dead, little Edgar even hear anything at all?
Why was the laughter from the witnesses much louder and more abundant than the gasps, sighs, and screams? Why was there more laughter than screaming and crying? Why were the witnesses even laughing at him, anyhow? Were they really that careless and unsympathetic? That cynical? Evil, maybe?! No. They cant all possibly be that evil! Or could they? Were they even aware of what had just happened, what, outside of their little party, was really going on?
One of the prostitutes had noticed something peculiar about the dead man's face, actually a few things. The first thing that she noticed was there appeared to be three slashes across the side of his face. No. Not slashes. Scratches. But, from what? And why? They were rather large and rather deep scratches. Portions of the scratches looked fresh, like they couldn't have possibly been there for more than a few hours, in those same scratches there were parts that looked like they had occurred and healed long ago, much like a scar. How could this be? Parts of a wound be fresh and just recently opened, but parts of that same wound be opened, healed and scarred over long ago, or at least appear to have been that way? How? Was it a new set of wounds placed over old wounds? Or was it old wounds that have been reopened in some spots? Or something else entirely? Maybe. The second peculiarity the whore noticed was the expression on Edgar's face.
"Look," she said to her fellow whores, "Do you see how his eyes are shining like that?"
"So."
"What's with that? Its strange!"
"Yeah, he seems to be mesmerized or hypnotized or something!"
"But, how could he be? Hes dead!"
Edgar heard the voices of at least three whores discussing the expression on his dead face.
"Well, I don't even believe in that hypnotism and mesmerism bullshit!"
"Still. His eyes. Just. There's something about the glow in his eyes and the look on his face that's a bit strange."
"Whatever. Who cares. Hes dead."
The three whores walked away from Edgar's dead body, walked out the door of the brothel, and went out for a cigarette break.
"Its amazing how a once-was serious pill-popper and hypochondriac can eventually become disgusted with taking meds and no longer want to do it! "Ugh, its so effing disgusting! If I have to take another pill, I'm gonna just die!" she said to me today, giving a sour face," said Elisha, the best known and most commonly asked for whore of the brothel.
"Who are you talking about," asked Brunhilda, the German whore.
"Oh, no one," said Elisha.
"Liar!"
"No, seriously. It was just something I had read somewhere!"
"Why are you two always bickering?" screeched Adelaide, the least requested, yet prettiest of the whores, "Just stop!"
They were soon joined by the remaining two whores of the brothel, Tallulah and London.
"How could you three be so careless like that?" shouted Tallulah from afar. Tallulah was probably the most kindhearted of the five whores.
"What do you mean?" asked Elisha, the snarky, shady, backstabbing whore.
"I mean how could you three bitches care more about lighting up and smoking a pack of cigarettes then about a death that just recently happened?" Ok, so Tallulah wasn't always lighthearted, but she was most definitely the kindest of the five.
"So, I don't know who the fuck he is!" retorted Elisha.
"Well, think about it," said London, the dumbest whore out of the bunch. London was more focused on making money and making guys' pants pop than anything. She didn't even care if she'd be stuck stripping and sucking cock for a living, even if she had to do it her whole life, as long as she was making some money and getting the pleasure of teasing guys and giving them boners. "If we don't get this murder investi- what's the word?"
"Investigated!" shouted Elisha as she damn near backhanded her in the face.
"Yeah, investigated. And cleaned up..." She sort of began to ramble a little. Could it possibly have been from all those damned medications she had been taking? Or maybe it was just because she had both a short vocabulary and a short attention span.
"What is it, London?! Cut to the chase, you dumb ass! What the Hell is your point?!" shouted Elisha.
"I kind of, sort of lost track and forgot what I was talking about."
"Something about the murder in the brothel."
"Oh, yeah. If we don't get this mess sorted out and get the dead body cleaned up from the brothel, we may just all be out of work."
"Out of work? What the Hell are you talking about, you dumb ass?!"
"I mean we may all loose our jobs. The Belle Tower may go out of business."
"Well, you dumb," said Brunhilda as she took another puff of her cigarette, "You dummies. Has anyone," another puff, "Has anyone even thought to call the police?"
"No," retorted Elisha.
"And just why the Hell not?" screeched Brunhilda.
"I guess no one has thought of it yet," replied Elisha in a snarky tone, "Or maybe just nobody cares!"
