A deep breath in. A deep breath out.

I sat on the edge of a cobblestone wall, looking upon a crowd of passersby. From my seat, I could see the suffocating funnels of large buildings and tight alleys surrounding me.

I imagined grassy plains. Open waters. Anything different from the claustrophobic rat maze that I lived in. Yet, no matter how deeply I wished, I remained where I was.

The rain had reduced itself to a light mist as the sun lowered deep into the burning orange horizon. Once Emilia and I were done with our work, I went out to breathe, and for hours I sat in the same spot. It was about to turn to nightfall, which meant whatever next that was in store for me was soon to occur. From my perch I could see my apartment door, so I was unbothered over the chance at missing whoever needed me next.

Eventually, the sun plummeted deep into the horizon, and the gas streetlamps began to burn. In the distance I saw a familiar carriage turn from the main road and stop at my front door. It seemed as though Hughes was next.

I stood from my seat and jogged to the carriage. The driver nodded as I went to the door. Opening it brought me face to face with Hughes, as expected. He wore a fine tuxedo, accompanied with a monocle and golden pocket watch. Whatever hair he hadn’t tore out in his fits of lunacy was slicked back with pomade, and his thin mustache was neatly kept. In his hands he held a large, thin, rectangle shroud in paper wrappings.

Climbing into the vehicle, I questioned the old man. “Where are we going?”

Hughes dug into a bag sitting on the floor as he answered. “We’re meeting an old… well, used to be… friend of mine. He has access to one of the key ingredients.” After a bit of rummaging, Hughes found what he had been searching for, a fine bristle brush. “He is a man of very refined taste. Comb that rat’s nest of yours.”

I obliged, only to have the brush cling to the many knots in my messy hair immediately. I was not one for pampering, and as such my chin-length hair usually stayed as a messy brown tangle. With some effort and a considerable amount of pulled hair, though, the brush began to move. I spoke as I continued with my painstaking work. "Go on."

Hughes explained the situation further. “His name is René Paquet, although he is most recently known as Le Rongeur by his buyers. I lived within France in my youth to study the arts, and Paquet was a fellow student in the university I attended. We had great ambitions together, and I promised him we would start a business as artists once I moved back to London.”

Continuing to brush, I asked him. “And what happened?”

Hughes moved his hand idly to his other, beginning to scratch and pick at his nails. “The symptoms came… I could not hold a brush, nor a thought. I abandoned my ambition, along with my friend, and inherited the claim I had in my father’s business…” He swallowed, thinking about what he had said. “But why am I telling you this? The important thing to remember is that he is a very influential narcotics dealer now, one of the only people who might be able to help us procure the compound we need.”

I simply nodded and continued to brush my hair. We were already nearing the north side of the city, where most men of higher stature resided.

My hair was as presentable as I could hope it to be by the time the carriage came to a halt. From his eyes, I could tell Hughes wished I would take off my broken glasses, but he seemed to sense that was not a request that would be accepted.

Hughes clutched to his paper-wrapped rectangle and got out of the carriage, with me following soon after.

As I rounded the transport, I beheld a manor of magnificent proportions. It had a courtyard, dozens of rooms, and an expertly tended garden, all in the very center of London. I could barely fathom the amount of money it would cost to upkeep the entire property, let alone buy it.

Hughes urged me to come with him, and so I did. We crossed the courtyard on our way to the front door, viewing the many perfectly sheered shrubberies. Passing two large columns, we came to the enormous front door. It opened without the need for us to so much as knock.

A butler in a grey suit closed the doors behind us, silently leading us up a large set of stairs and towards an oval room. In this room were two large, cushioned chairs, a large ebony desk, and a very overweight gentleman sitting at said ebony desk.

Le Rongeur spoke, and for a man of his immense size, I was completely unprepared to hear him speak in an artificially high-pitched tone. “Monsieur Hughes… and… ehhh…” He said, looking upon me.

“Chatwood.” I mumbled out, biting my lip to keep a smile from forming. If I had to guess, due to an overuse of drugs that passed through the throat, he had gained some sort of disease or disfunction that damaged his vocal cords. In any case, the symptoms of his drug use were near-comical in nature.

Hughes and I sat in our chairs as Le Rongeur waved away his butler. “Apportez-nous la marchandise de haute qualité.” The fat criminal looked over both of us for a long while. I had resorted to resting part of my face on my hand to shroud my mouth. The overtly pompous and intimidating atmosphere of this man’s estate was bar to none. His renown as a city-feared narcotics distributer shadowed over us both… until… he was simply a fat man with a child’s voice and an overbearing accent. He then spoke in a mix of frustration and expectation, adding more humor to his persona. “Alfred, why is that waif so pale?”

Similarly frustrated, Hughes responded. “He is… always like that… he is of poor health…” I realized that although the moments where I found humor were few, I would have to swallow the chuckle I stifled. Le Rongeur may have been a comedic man, but our situation was more serious than ever. Hughes used his explanation as a segue. “We are both of poor health. Worse than you know…”

Le Rongeur shifted in his seat with pursed lips. “And why should I care? You have been ‘of poor health’ for a very long time. The only reason I accepted your company was because you wanted to make a purchase, and I was promised a significant purchase at that.”

“I know… I know…” Hughes said as he moved the rectangular object from his hands to beside his seat. “And it will be a worthwhile trade, on my honor… It is just…”

Le Rongeur leaned in. “What?”

As Hughes uncomfortably began to speak, the butler reemerged, a saucer in hand. On the silver plate was a bizarre smoking pipe filled with a steamy liquid. It looked as if it were a glass vase with a rubber hose connected to it, along with an ornate brass mouthpiece to breath in from.

The butler offered it first to Hughes, who hesitantly took the mouthpiece and inhaled what I guessed to be opium. After he had his fill, the butler turned to me, but I simply held my hand out. Before my mother was institutionalized and I began treatment with Dr. Prescott, I had tried to stay the visions with every manner of drug I could acquire. Yet every single time I took such things, my visions would become immensely worse. Ever since I moved past that dark age in my teens, I had kept myself to alcohol and nicotine, aside from the cocktail of ingredients Dr. Prescott manufactured.

The butler moved from me to Le Rongeur, who gladly accepted the drugs. After that, as would be expected of any fabulously wealthy host, came another butler with another saucer, this time with three glasses of deep red wine.

Hughes accepted his, I accepted mine, and Le Rongeur accepted his. A few sips of the undoubtedly expensive drink and the formalities were over. Hughes could finally continue with his plea.

“As for earlier…” Hughes began, scratching at his wrist. “I have a very fair trade in store… it is just… we are not looking to purchase a product, but rather a compound… Papaver somniferum.”

Le Rongeur shifted in his seat. “That is a very potent thing you ask for mon ami…”

“I know… I know…” Hughes started, yet he took a brief pause to sit his wine on the floor, completely consuming his hands within themselves. Scratching. Tearing. I could see in his bloodshot eyes and fidgeting legs that the drugs he took had done him no favors. I was surprised he could even string together a sentence with how bloody his hands were quickly becoming. “I just… We… Trust me…”

Standing in fury, Le Rongeur shouted. He spoke in a loud and dramatic voice, as if he had planned his words long before he spoke them. “Trust you!? I left my home because of your promises of opportunity in London. Yet once I get here, you disappear. You take your inheritance and leave me with no wealth nor way home for decades, enfoiré…” He then waved his hands across the room. “I made this. I built it from nothing! No thanks to you!”

Hughes had completely regressed. He had broken out in a sweat, and his hand was clutching the other. “T-Trust me…” He pleaded again as his hand drifted to the other’s fingernails. He began to pick at the sides and pull at them as Le Rongeur shouted out.

“Trust you!? You have broken my trust once, and do not think I will be fooled again! All I must do to have you killed is scream, do you understand!” As he said that, I felt multiple sets of footsteps begin to clamber up the stairs behind us. Things were beginning to hit a boiling point.

I looked to Hughes to say something, anything, but instead he pulled more. I could see his long and yellowish fingernail slowly begin to rip from the flesh. Blood soon began to spout as skin tore and the nail was bent completely backward. Once it was ripped backward, Hughes did not stop. In his stress he twisted the nail, causing it to revoltingly release from the matrix of skin beneath.

Hughes was of no help. If we wanted to live, I had to take hold of the situation. “Look!” I said, gaining the fat man’s attention. “If we do not have that ingredient, we shall all die! Before you do anything, at least see what we have brought to offer you!” The footsteps behind us were getting closer, causing me to rush towards the paper-wrapped rectangle. I tore the brown covering from the object and revealed what Hughes had brought as payment.

It was a painting, one with a gold encrusted frame. The painting was of a person, or at least I believed it was. It was not a horrifying portrait, but one made in complete and utter distaste. It looked as though it was misshapen old woman, covered in wrinkles and warts, veiled in a gaudy dress with a terrifying abundance of cleavage. It was like some sort of horrible homunculus made from a man and an orangutan ape. It burnt the eyes to merely behold. ‘We’re dead’ I thought to myself.

Surprisingly, Le Rongeur staired in amazement at the disgusting painting. Quietly, he whispered. “la duchesse laide…” The guards arrived at the door, only for Le Rongeur to scream unintelligibly at them whilst shooing them. Le Rongeur did not like the painting… For some God forsaken reason, he loved it. “I will provide you with what you want… just… bring her here…”

I cautiously moved forward and sat the painting on his desk. He looked upon it, inspecting every brushstroke. Taking a few strides backward, I began to finalize the deal. “Take the ingredient to St. Dymphna’s mental hospital. The back entrance. Bring as much as you can bear without getting caught…” The obese art collector nodded, leaving me to turn to Hughes. He was in a bad state, needing my assistance to so much as stand.

Le Rongeur spoke as we began to leave. “Alfred…” Hughes looked up at him as he continued. “Never show your face here again.”

Hughes could barely sputter out an “O-Ok…” as we began to rush out the doors.

Mere inches away from being shot in the back of the head, but for some reason we had made it out in the end. There was never a time where I was more grateful not to be a rich man, nor deal with them on a regular basis.

Though done by unsure, unwise, and completely unsteady footing, we had gotten one step closer to our goal.