The Blind Tiger Speakeasy

V. II/EP. I

The Hospice Horror I

This letter, though lengthy, will give you some idea of what lies within the depths of that withering building that you have heard so much about, and that I dare say you are curious of its whereabouts despite this. I will tell you this once, and only once Ozma, stay away from it. You shall not know more about this accursed place and the things that went on inside of it. What I am detailing in this letter is one of my pain and anguish, that of Jonathan and his connection to The Great Fade, and the existence of beings far greater than the meager gods that created life on this planet, and maybe even the planet itself. Though, I have a sneaking suspicion that this world, formerly known as Earth, was not created by the Two Brothers… no, I believe that it was constructed by the cosmic entity that was being worshipped in Hospice Memorial.

My eyes were opened there, and I wish everyday that they had not, for with the invincibility that may seem to be my semblance is no more than a curse, a deadly reminder of when I used to be man, when I used to be faunus, when I used to be anything but a monster in cat's clothing.

I was young when I came to find myself in the Memorial, I had just been given away by my family, who were scared of my strange abilities and my propensity to attract Grimm to wherever I roamed, and the fleeting images of some sort of unspeakable monstrosity appearing within the dreams of those around me. To get away from me, they assumed that sending me to a place far away would do the trick. Word had spread around the small village I was from (I cannot remember its name) that I was some sort of demon, some sort of monster. That lead to the usual sort of thing, mistreatment, death threats, mobs attempting to run my family out of the area. You know, the standard thing sentient creatures do when they are faced with something they don't understand. That put pressure on my parents to get rid of me reached a point where even murder was on the list for ways I could be disposed of. Their silent prayers were answered by a woman in a lengthy hood grey robe, which was covered to its hood in strange inscriptions, as well as gold hemmed silk wrappings around the arms. She offered to take me somewhere, someplace. It was meant to house individuals like me with strange connections to things beyond that of mankind, with feet steeped in the blood of something ancient, something wicked. My parents cared little for this; and threw me to the wolves immediately. That was the last time I would see them alive, well, as far as alive goes anyway. I will get into that later. For now, I will get along with this little recounting of events.

I went with this strange woman, whom I traveled with for a few days, moving across what I believe to be the remains of some civilization in Anima, which will play into this little story, as everything else will. We trekked by foot, just her and I, for some reason not encountering a single Grimm, if my memory serves me as well as I think it does. The ruins we moved through seemed to have some sort of… effect about them, Grimm seemed to steer clear of it, even though it looked to be nothing more than old brick constructions and rotting wood foundations that most likely used for housing. I don't remember seeing anything that would end up being strange; symbols, markings, drawings of some sort of beast. Nothing. Everything that once was no longer was, and all that was left was rubble and ashes. But, the feeling of a greater event that had once occurred was still there, even though my young untrained mind could not pick up on it at the time. The woman remained unnervingly silent throughout our journey, not uttering a single word, even when I asked a question. She seemed to answer through gestures, like pointing to one thing then another to help me figure out how to explain their similarities through my own words without her help. She was a teacher of sorts and continued to be so until I left the Hospice. After our travel time reached its climax, which consisted of finding a caravan with other children like myself, and other robed figures with them. The woman spoke for the first time since I first saw her, telling the other figures that I was 'worthy of practice', which eluded me in its definition until the point where I decided to do more digging, which eventually, as you know, led to my departure from their 'care'.

The children around me were uninteresting to say the least, I don't remember any of them, nor do I care to. But one stood out, and that peculiar one was Jonathan. He was a strange boy, very shy, sitting in corners by himself and murmuring about the One Unbetroth, and other nonsense that not even I understand. His story is different from mine, vastly so, and I'd vouch he has much more of an interesting tale for you than I, but I'd doubt he'd share it. Did you know he used to be a brunette cat faunus? He changed because of me, for better or for worse. I still debate to this day if my actions in changing his life were worth it, if I should have just walked away instead of being a curious young lad.

The caravan I had arrived to was small, it consisted of a metal box being pulled by a sickly-looking horse, chains and other fixtures lining its body and the breeching dee connected to the breeching straps and girth. There were children walking around, each of them in clothing suitable to the climate and culture from whence they came, all their faces blending into some unimportant blob of importance, once that I simply shrugged off at the time. I feel as though I should have met my kin, the ones like me, but I decided not to. Maybe I was afraid of them? Meeting and talking to new beings after having been dealt what one could have considered a bad had terrified my young self, and in some cases, it still does.

When I first saw Jonathan, as I wrote a sentence or two prior, he was murmuring strange things, and huddling in the corner, alone. He was afraid, afraid of what he had seen, and the things being whispered to him by beings of untold influence, who's power most likely stretches across our small galaxy. I recall the intrigue I felt for the boy, the interest in his existence growing exponentially as I walked towards him, his figure curled up in the corner of that dank metal box, attempting to stay away from the light that came from outside. I don't exactly understand why I was in it, but I was, nonetheless. Jonathan, the sweet boy, was in rags, dirty rags. His body thin, and his eyes sunken, his black hair seemingly falling out, his body looking as if it we prematurely dying. This state he was in, the life and death of things, left a haunting image burned in my mind that still roams my dreams.

He said nothing to me when he looked at me, with his pale green eyes, he seemed to scream, to cry out for understanding. Crouching down, I look at him, my eyes meeting his. Through this, I feel as though I made a connection with him that he hadn't experienced before, or for a long while at least. I smile at him and tell him my name; Quinton Baxter. He smiles back, his wide eyes examining me with a fierce intellect I had yet to be made mature of at that moment in time, and I looked up to it. He understood more than I, and thus he became my teacher. It seems strange, doesn't it? That the one I seem to look down upon everyday is the one who taught me to read and write better than I could have ever hoped to while I stayed with my parents, that the one that seems like such a buffoon is the one that taught me the meaning of things beyond me… life sometimes gives you the most absurd answers for the most simplistic of questions after all.

Jonathan and I became close friends soon after we met, the cloaked figures seeming to fade away, the children around with us disappearing and being replaced with white noise. At this moment in time, while the caravan carriage moved forward, whilst we were surrounded by strangers, nothing else really mattered. We had somehow become brothers in that instant, and that was all that was needed to get us both through the trying times ahead.

Hospice Memorial has never been a place that has looked brand new or in it's prime. The tall wood and brick fixtures it boasted were always faded by age, its stone arches covered in moss, and its dark interior shrouded in web and dust. The building was from a different time, Ozma, a different place far away from that of Remnant, its structure seemingly not abiding by the laws of time, space, or even physics at points. Yet somehow, to the untrained and untainted eye, it seemed nothing more than an abandoned manor; old and decrepit, not worth anything more than a simple glance before one kept walking to find an object more interesting to waste time looking at. The cold marble floors, filled with strange designs akin to brilliant paintings made my eyes go wide when I first saw them, though. I took great interest in the Manor, though I have never found any history on it. That's mainly because the Memorial simply does not exist.

The first few days and nights at the Memorial seemed normal enough, we ate and played around while the hooded figures remained in the background, doing whatever mysterious thing they did. We didn't care, we had found a place to live, a place where we could exist without the constant danger of someone threatening to kill us simply for breathing. The children surrounding Jonathan and I didn't matter though, it was just us that mattered to each other. We often sat and talked, read whatever books we could find, and climbed around the outside of the manor, seeing how far we could scale up its wooden fixtures and brick arches, not caring if we were hurt in the process. It was a magical time where I learned more about myself and the things around me than I did anything else; I was happy with life I suppose, and it was happy with me.

All good things need to come to an end however, and I am sure you don't want to read about me learning the written word or studying dictionaries.

There was a peculiar night that I remember vividly. Jonathan and I were in our rooms, (which were quite large for us, by the way. Two beds with comfortable linen coverings, a chandelier dangling beautifully from the center of the ceiling, a roomy closet filled with our clothing, a mahogany dresser, a book stand, a single arched window… It was a sight to see, especially since we were not used to such luxury.) and suddenly we heard a knocking on our door. We were both older then; Jonathan being around 17, and I 15. (Yes, he's older than me.), so we were at liberty to do things on our own, including locking our doors. Before that, we could not, as the robed figures, who we had come to name Ghosts by our own volition, mainly due to the fact that they randomly appeared everywhere we went, regardless of if it was possible for them to be in the immediate vicinity, would come in and do daily inspections of not only our rooms, but our bodies and aura as well. Now, there was none of that, and we had near freedom, within strict reason.

Jonathan opened the door, and I, being a younger and less confident version of myself hid behind him. The robed figure was the woman who had originally found me, a book in her left hand and a red candle in her right. She of course remained silent but used arm motions to beckon us out of the room. We followed, and entered the hallway, which was pitch black, the only light available being the light from our room and the Mysterious Woman's red candle. It was unbelievably eerie, as everything in the hallway seemed to fall into some sort of Void, as if it existed somewhere entirely different than the room we were in. It was cold, so cold I could see my breath, in fact. It was mid-summer, so this obvious raised alarms for both Jonathan and I. Grabbing his hand, I walked cautiously next to him as we followed the woman. The dim orange glow from the candle lit up the old cushioned chairs and faded wallpaper surrounding us, the occasional painting coming into view after an indeterminable amount of time. It was worrying, to say the least, how the light eventually began to fade out into nothingness, rather than spreading and making things brighter. It began to get darker and darker as we progressed, eventually reaching what seemed to be complete darkness, save for one strange thing; A glowing rectangular shape at the end of the hall, which looked as if it were a doorway, beckoning us from the darkness and into the light. We followed the Mysterious Woman into the light, and thus begins my tale of the Horrors within the Hospice Memorial.

{***}

Garrold looked over the sleeping figure of Quinton Baxter, a man he had always considered to be nigh invincible, worry etched over his features. The cat faunus had taken quite the beating, if the gashes across his face that hadn't been healed by his aura could be taken into account. His black suit, which was normally tailored to perfection, was ripped to shreds, and blood leaked from various wounds across the unfortunate man's body. It was a sight that had brought a great unease to Garrold, who leaned back in his old leather chair, cigarette smoke leaving his nostrils and thoughts of worrisome things began to cloud his mind. Alone he sat in the medical room of the Black Lamb, alone with his thoughts, surrounded by syringes, tweezers, small incision knives, and bloody scraps of cloth; controlled chaos at its finest. The taste of tobacco drifting down his gullet and the satisfying burn of his lungs absorbing the accursed fumes set his mind into a more peaceful state, allowing him to focus on the task at hand; making sure Baxter lived to see the end of his journey.

Groaning, Garrold gets up from his chair, walking over to a peculiar dark oak desk with gold engravings across its edges, looking at what lay atop it; his scroll, a bottle of Whiskey Jack, A curved needle, and a spool of string. With a heavy sigh, Garrold grabs the bottle of alcohol, drinking straight from it, not bothering to find a glass to drink from. He would be a liar if he said he wasn't at least a LITTLE worried about the strange faunus, because he was. Quinton had been his close partner and even friend for years now, it would be a loss to Remnant if he had died, regardless of what people thought about his dealings and his nefarious actions. He had a cold demeanor for sure, but there was more to the cat than the naked eye could see. Garrold, along with a few others knew Quinton was an upstanding person, (though he worked on the wrong side of the law) not a heartless monster that he so desperately tried to be; a demon, an eldritch beast of untold power and infinite malice. He was sweet as a kitten once you got to know him, in spite of his propensity to act haughty and above things like simple emotion.

"Garrold?" A small voice squeaked from behind him. Garrold turned his head to acknowledge the familiar sound.

"He is doing slightly better than the last time you saw him. Ve need to call Hannah, she knows how to help further."

"Right. Right... It's just... this is bringing up some memories I'd rather keep buried." Garrold turns around, bottle still in hand, his backside resting against the table behind him.

"I know, Jonathan, I know. Go, get rest. You vill need it." Jonathan nods, gripping his disheveled dress shirt before turning to leave the small room. Before he leaves, he turns and gives Garrold a weary smile. "When he wakes up, call him an idiot for me." With that, Jonathan leaves the burly man alone with his thoughts and his alcohol.

Garrold runs a hand through his deep brown hair, then scratches his unkempt beard. He takes a look towards his sleeping patient, wondering what he would do to help him further without the assistance of Hannah.

"Old friend..." Garrold raises an eyebrow, not expecting Quinton to say anything for the entire night. He had figured he was sleep, but alas, he wasn't, he simply had his eyes closed.

"Yes?"

"Could you tell Jonathan that I'm going to maim him later on today?" Garrold smiles.

"He vould destroy you." Quinton laughs. The sound is full of mirth and life, two qualities that were very unusual for the man. He sits up with a pained grunt, turning himself towards Garrold.

"I know, the fool would always beat me in our little fatuous tussles. It's funny, really." The black-haired cat faunus looks down at his lap, letting a breath he didn't realize he was holding in at the time.

"Are you alright?" Garrold asks, a rare instance of emotion plastered across his features.

"Yes, I am quite good. I'm just thinking about how I haven't written a letter for a while."

HS/19

Chapter 2 begins, another gateway opens, more eyes peak through the glistening veil of the grey planet. It waits, and it wants... what it wants is unknown, but we know that it will take everything.