Harvey Turpin, Private Investigator, in “The Dark Labyrinth”
Nova Loncastre, 1924
Harvey Turpin stirred from a hazy abyss, his senses assaulted by the acrid stench of betrayal and the lingering echoes of two mysteries. A throbbing ache pulsed through his skull, a relentless reminder of the price paid for delving too deep into the underbelly of the city.
Harvey Turpin is the classic 1920s detective, ready to take on a thrilling new adventure. Our beloved PI has a ritual: drinking, investigating, and solving. Rinse and repeat. However, I must confess that I have yet to determine the exact nature of this story. It’s the first time I’ve attempted a longer piece featuring Harvey—my previous works only amounted to limited word counts. Where can you read those other stories? In my newsletter: GiovaniCesconetto.Substack.com. But should I delve into a locked-room mystery or explore another avenue for this one? I’m at a loss. Please forgive me, dear reader, as I strive to craft a compelling and coherent tale from scratch.
As consciousness clawed its way back, Harvey’s gaze sharpened, piercing through the veil of disorientation. A bolt of searing pain lanced through his temple, carving a path of torment from brow to jaw. It was a sensation far removed from the familiar fog of a whiskey-induced haze, a targeted assault on his very core.
With a grunt of effort, Harvey attempted to lift his leaden head, only to find himself bound to an unforgiving chair. His limbs protested against the cruel bindings, each sinew strained to its limit. Fingers tingled with the telltale chill of impending doom, a sickly shade of violet creeping up his bruised flesh like a venomous serpent.
As the agony intensified, its tendrils snaking their way through every fibre of his being, Harvey’s resolve hardened. He refused to succumb to the primal urge to cry out, to offer his tormentors the satisfaction of witnessing his pain. With a gritted jaw and steely gaze, he steeled himself against the onslaught, his senses razor-sharp and primed for the battle ahead.
I’m onto something here.
The PI clenched his jaw against the stabbing ache radiating from his left hand, the sickly hue of purple creeping up his fingers a damning testament to his dire predicament. Yet, Harvey knew better than to succumb to the siren call of agony. No, in his world, pain was but a whisper in the cacophony of chaos, a signal to act rather than lament.
I’m really onto something here.
With a measured breath, Harvey marshalled his resolve, his voice cutting through the oppressive silence of the room like a razor-sharp blade. It was a declaration of defiance, a vow to unravel the tangled web of deceit that ensnared him.
“I will unearth your identity, unearth the truth of my confinement, and unearth the mystery of this inexplicable hangover,” Harvey proclaimed, each word dripping with conviction.
A sinister chuckle echoed from the shadows behind him, sending a shiver down Harvey’s spine. Yet, he remained steadfast, refusing to betray a hint of vulnerability. His gaze remained fixed ahead, a mask of stoicism concealing the gnawing fear that threatened to consume him.
“Harvey Turpin sober?” The voice dripped with mockery, a venomous taunt that pierced the veil of Harvey’s composure. “If only prohibition were as easily dispelled as your bravado.”
Harvey’s pulse quickened, the weight of uncertainty bearing down upon him like a leaden cloak. Yet, he held firm, his resolve unyielding in the face of adversity. For in the shadowed corridors of the unknown, Harvey Turpin was a beacon of relentless determination, a force to be reckoned with in a world steeped in darkness.
The PI strained to place the voice, a familiar cadence distorted by an unexpected pitch. It lacked the commanding resonance of radio announcers, instead echoing with a grating, nasal quality that tugged at the edges of Harvey’s consciousness, teasing recognition if not for the searing pain clouding his senses.
With each measured step, the figure drew nearer, a spectre emerging from the shadows with a casual grace that belied the tension thickening the air. “Quite the performance you’re putting on,” the stranger remarked, words dripping with amusement as he closed the distance, his hands alighting upon Harvey’s shoulders like a spider descending upon its prey.
Harvey stifled a reflexive flinch, his muscles tensing beneath the unwelcome touch. But even he, hardened by years of navigating treacherous waters, couldn’t suppress the primal instinct to recoil from perceived threat.
“Did I startle you?” The question hung in the air, accompanied by a gleaming smile that Harvey sensed rather than saw. And then, with a fluidity that defied logic, the man vaulted over Harvey, his laughter a discordant melody in the suffocating silence of the room.
I’m not sure if it’s possible in reality, but the acrobatics don’t defy the laws of physics. Therefore, in this universe, it is possible.
“The great Harvey Turpin, rattled by my presence?” The jest, delivered with a nonchalant ease, only served to deepen the enigma shrouding the encounter, leaving Harvey grappling with uncertainty in the face of the unknown.
The man’s gaze bore into the private investigator, a silent challenge that pierced through Harvey’s facade of stoicism. A solitary tear welled in Harvey’s eye, a testament to the torment coursing through his battered frame, akin to the agony of a gymnast forced to contort upon the unforgiving pommel horse.
Fighting against the tide of anguish threatening to overwhelm him, Harvey clenched his jaw, willing himself to stave off the deluge of tears threatening to betray his resolve. Yet, as he dared to steal a glance towards the sanctuary of the door, the man’s voice, laced with undisguised displeasure, shattered the fragile calm enveloping the room. “LOOK AT ME!” the command reverberated, slicing through the air like a whip crack.
And look, Harvey did, his gaze drawn inexorably towards the figure before him, disbelief mingling with dread in the depths of his soul.
The force of the encounter left Harvey reeling, consciousness slipping through his grasp once more as his mind, a mosaic of fragmented thoughts, struggled to make sense of the chaos.
When Harvey Turpin finally surfaced from the murky depths of unconsciousness, he found himself ensnared in a web of disorientation, his senses assaulted by the relentless pulse of pain echoing through his skull. His body, a marionette with strings severed, sagged against the polished surface of his grandfather’s revered table, a silent witness to the turmoil raging within.
With a weary sigh, Harvey entertained the fleeting notion of seeking solace in the familiar numbing embrace of alcohol, a futile attempt to quell the tempest raging within his fractured psyche.
You only have a hangover after drinking, so if you never stop...
His limbs, once obedient servants to his iron will, now rebelled against him. In his mind’s eye, he remained the indomitable figure of a young detective, a cop, or perhaps a soldier, capable of drowning in drink one night and rising unscathed the next. Yet, reality proved a harsh mistress, denying him even the simplest of movements.
“I’ll never dri...” Harvey’s words hung in the air, abruptly severed as he recoiled from the brink of an ill-advised confession. A pang of disbelief struck him, a stark reminder of the chasm between his aspirations and his grim reality. Such thoughts belonged to a stranger, an imposter masquerading as the true Harvey Turpin.
Startled from his reverie, Harvey surged upright, a symphony of discomfort echoing through his battered frame. His hands, in particular, throbbed with an intensity that defied explanation. Though he attempted to rationalize the sensation as a consequence of his awkward slumber, a gnawing doubt lingered at the edges of his consciousness.
A lie, threadbare and unconvincing, danced upon his lips, a feeble attempt to shield himself from the disquieting truth. Yet, in the murky depths of his mind, Harvey sensed the fragile facade crumbling, leaving him exposed to the harsh light of reality.
Surveying the cluttered expanse of his office, Harvey’s gaze lingered upon the chaos with a mix of resignation and reluctant admiration. Papers, cups, bottles, and pens lay strewn haphazardly across his desk, a testament to his perpetual disarray. Yet, amidst the clutter, the gleaming surface of his grandfather’s cherished table stood as a beacon of craftsmanship and tradition, a relic of a bygone era.
Turning his attention to the floor, Harvey found himself confronted with an even greater tumult, a swirling maelstrom of disorder that mirrored the chaos within his troubled soul.
Harvey found himself confounded by the scene before him. As he surveyed the wreckage of his once orderly office, he struggled to reconcile the chaos with his fragmented memories. The past few days had slipped through his grasp like sand through an open hand, lost in a haze of alcohol and oblivion.
A frown creased his brow as he attempted to piece together the events that had led to this sorry state. Recollections flickered at the edge of his consciousness, tantalizingly out of reach. Yet, for all his efforts, the truth remained elusive, obscured by the fog of his own uncertainty.
“I ought to clean up this mess,” Harvey muttered to himself, the words echoing hollowly in the cavernous silence of the room. Yet, even as he spoke, a familiar ache tugged at the corners of his mind, a yearning for the comforting embrace of a bottle and a cloud of swirling smoke.
His hand hesitated, poised on the precipice of action, before retreating once more into the safety of his pocket. “I’ll drink and smoke first,” he decided, the words spoken more to reassure himself than to affirm any course of action. “And perhaps eat, though...” A sudden wave of nausea washed over him, a reminder of the precarious balance upon which his fragile existence teetered. “Perhaps not,” he conceded, the admission heavy on his tongue.
“Yeah, well...” Harvey’s gaze swept across the cluttered expanse of his office, the detritus of his existence strewn haphazardly across the room like the scattered pieces of a shattered dream. His hand hovered momentarily over a stray bottle, its contents drained to the dregs, a silent testament to the passage of time and the transience of pleasure.
For a fleeting moment, he entertained the notion of restoring order to the chaos surrounding him and reclaiming some semblance of control over his rapidly unravelling world. Yet, as quickly as the thought had come, it was gone, swept away on the tide of inevitability that marked his every waking moment.
With a resigned sigh, he turned away from the mess, knowing that any attempt to tidy up would be a futile gesture, a mere distraction from the inexorable march of fate. “All my bottles are empty,” he muttered to himself, the words a bitter acknowledgment of the void that lay ahead. “Means a new case is on the horizon,” he added, the grim reality of his profession looming large in his mind like a spectre in the night.
It’s impressive how Harvey’s memory remains sharp even when he’s in pain, dealing with a hangover, and working in a chaotic office. Despite the challenging circumstances, he can accurately recall the number of bottles he had in the office. Kudos, Harvey!
The private eye fought his way through the maze of his cluttered office, a labyrinth of discarded papers and concealed perils, each step a precarious dance with destiny. With every obstacle overcome, he could taste the promise of freedom in the crisp night air, a tantalizing contrast to the stifling confines of his workspace. But just as salvation seemed within reach, fate dealt him a cruel blow.
It wasn’t a blow to his back or front but to his hand. The instant his fingers brushed against the doorknob, agony engulfed him, a searing torment unlike anything he had ever known. It brought him crashing to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks, and a primal scream tearing through the silence.
When Harvey’s eyes fluttered open once more, he found himself no longer in his familiar surroundings but bound to a chair in an unfamiliar room. A man stood before him, methodically tightening a wooden clamp around his hand, each turn squeezing tighter, threatening to crush bone. Though the pain rendered his hand numb, the fear of what might come next pulsed through him.
“Don’t you dare! DON’T YOU DARE!” The man’s voice reverberated off the walls, a cacophony of madness and malice that clawed at Harvey’s sanity. “YOU’RE MINE! THIS MOMENT IS OURS!”
But as quickly as the torment began, it ceased, the man’s demeanour shifting as he noticed Harvey’s return to consciousness. With a twisted grin, he released the clamp, allowing the PI a moment of reprieve from the relentless agony.
“I never thought the brave Harvey Turpin would falter in the face of pain,” the man taunted, his words cutting through the air like a sharpened blade.
Harvey struggled to draw breath, and his voice strained but defiant. “It wasn’t the pain,” he rasped, his gaze locked on his tormentor. “It was your ugly face.”
Harvey couldn’t ignore the twisted grin that spread across the man’s face, a grimace that seemed to warp the very fabric of his features. His teeth, jagged and uneven, protruded like broken tombstones from the recesses of his mouth, while a hollow socket bore witness to the absence of an eye.
“Come now, Harvey,” the man remarked with a perverse amusement, a gesture encompassing the grotesque spectacle of his disfigurement. “You ought to appreciate the uniqueness of my appearance. After all, you’re the artist who crafted this masterpiece!”
Oh, the plot thickens!
In the throes of excruciating agony, Harvey grasped onto the torment as his sole tether to reality, a lifeline amidst the surreal chaos engulfing him. The pain, searing and relentless, transcended the bounds of imagination or delusion, grounding him in the grim truth of his predicament.
“Now, that’s quite the observation,” Harvey managed, his words a strained whisper clawing its way past the anguish that gripped him. His breath hitched with each syllable, his body a battleground between agony and endurance. “Perhaps I’ve done you a kindness, lending a touch of refinement to your countenance.” Each word was a struggle, each breath a battle against the mounting torment that threatened to consume him whole. “Though beauty is a subjective matter, eh? I’m hardly one to be casting stones. I’m no Harold Valentino, that’s for certain.”
The man’s laughter reverberated through the room, a discordant symphony of mockery that clashed with Harvey’s silent suffering. Despite his efforts to mask the torment, each chuckle felt like a blow to his already battered body. As the man revelled in his mirth, Harvey’s gaze drifted to his mutilated hands, a grim tableau of suffering. The purpling hue of his left hand spoke of irreparable damage, while the crimson stain of blood on his right hand hinted at deeper wounds. Reluctant to investigate further, Harvey dreaded the possibility that the ghastly white substance he glimpsed wasn’t pus. Harvey braced himself for the grim reality that awaited, yearning for a glimmer of hope in the darkness that surrounded him, desperately seeking a way out of the nightmarish ordeal.
The private eye’s attention shifted from his own suffering to the sinister scene unfolding around him. The cacophony of the man’s deranged laughter echoed off the walls, a chilling soundtrack to the torment inflicted upon him. Harvey’s mind, clouded by the haze of alcohol and grief, struggled to reconcile the precision of his pain with the madness of his captor.
As the haunting laughter pierced his consciousness, Harvey found himself teetering on the brink of a revelation, a realization lurking just beyond his grasp. His inebriated state, a refuge from the harsh realities of his world, now betrayed him, leaving him vulnerable to the merciless onslaught of agony and uncertainty.
The unsettling notion that had haunted him during his blackout resurfaced, a spectre of doubt creeping into his fractured psyche. Was it time to...?
“No,” Harvey’s inner voice snapped with a sharpness that cut through the fog of his thoughts. He couldn’t afford to entertain such dangerous ideas, not now, not when his very survival hung in the balance. With grim determination, he pushed back against the encroaching darkness, fighting to reclaim control of his mind and body.
A subtle shake of his head was the only outward sign of his internal struggle, a silent defiance against the forces that sought to break him.
Mainly because the movement only happened in his mind.
As Harvey surveyed the room once more, a gnawing sense of unease clawed at the edges of his consciousness. Familiarity clashed with dissonance, turning the once-familiar space into a labyrinth of uncertainty. Every piece of furniture, every corner, emitted an aura of wrongness that unsettled him to his core.
The walls, usually adorned in mundane white, now bore a sickly hue reminiscent of pale flesh. Their angles defied logic, twisting and contorting in ways that defied comprehension. Harvey dared not look back, for behind him, the man’s laughter morphed into a haunting wail, a lamentation that echoed through the room like a curse from the depths of hell.
The chilling symphony of sound enveloped him, threatening to drown him in its despair. Desperate for a reprieve, Harvey focused on the physical pain, willing it to drown out the cacophony of torment. With a grim determination, he thrust his hand into the unforgiving jaws of the wood clamp, embracing the searing agony as a shield against the encroaching darkness.
Once the immediate onslaught subsided, Harvey’s mind sharpened, honing in on his surroundings with newfound clarity. Every shadow, every crevice, became a potential lifeline in his battle for survival. Yet, with each calculated assessment, the grim reality of his predicament became painfully clear—escape was a perilous gamble, one that risked the very hands that defined him.
In the silence that followed, Harvey grappled with an existential dilemma, his identity hanging in the balance. Could he still be himself without his hands? The answer whispered in the recesses of his mind, a sobering truth he dared not confront.
“Keep your hands, and you’re just a shadow of the man you once were,” the voice in Harvey’s mind whispered, a harsh truth delivered with the weight of inevitability.
Amidst the chaos, Harvey’s mind churned with the desperate need for a plan, an escape from the relentless nightmare gripping him. The evidence, as damning as it was, left no room for debate. Harvey, known for his stubbornness, begrudgingly bowed to its undeniable truth. It was his creed: evidence ruled supreme.
Time slipped like sand through his fingers, the wails of despair echoing in his ears, a relentless symphony of torment. Yet, with a steely resolve born of desperation, Harvey steeled himself for what must be done.
Summoning every ounce of willpower, he raised his right hand, defying the cruel grip of the clamp, each bone screaming in protest. Agony coursed through him, igniting a primal scream that pierced the cacophony. The man’s laughter faltered, replaced by a stunned silence as Harvey fought against the crushing force.
In a moment of sheer defiance, Harvey seized his chance, tearing himself free with a raw strength born of survival. His hand, a mere shadow of its former self, throbbed with lifelessness. Yet, with grim determination, he untied his remaining bonds, the man’s incredulous gaze locked on him in disbelief.
“No! You can’t! You can’t!” the man’s voice rang out, a desperate plea tinged with disbelief. “You’re not that strong! You’re not that strong! You can’t be! You can’t be!” He kept repeating. “I made sure you were defeated! I made sure you were defeated!”
But Harvey, fuelled by a primal instinct to survive, knew he had only one choice: flee. Adrenaline surged through his veins as he stumbled to his feet, the ache in his battered body threatening to betray him.
With a final, desperate glance, Harvey made his choice. He ran, leaving behind the echoes of his torment, a lone figure swallowed by the darkness.
As the man’s frantic pleas echoed behind him, Harvey grappled with the doorknob, his remaining fingers trembling against its cold metal surface. With a surge of determination, he managed to wrench the door shut, collapsing against it with a heavy thud. His breath came in ragged gasps, his bulk acting as a feeble barricade against his assailant’s fury. Darkness crept at the edges of his vision, threatening to engulf him in its suffocating embrace.
But amidst the pain and encroaching unconsciousness, a troubling vision pierced the veil of his senses. It was as though reality itself had fractured, revealing a glimpse of a harrowing fate yet to come.
In the surreal tableau of his mind, Harvey saw himself slumped against the very door he now guarded, battered and broken. His hand, twisted and mangled, bore the unmistakable mark of his tormentor’s cruelty. Yet it was his own expression that chilled him to the bone—a mask of terror etched upon his features, mirroring the primal fear that gripped his soul.
In this haunting vision, Harvey witnessed his own impending demise, a spectre of death looming ever closer. Even in his unconscious state, a part of him has fought against the encroaching darkness, a primal instinct urging him to defy his fate.
Shaken to his core by the revelation, Harvey retreated from the door, his mind reeling with the weight of what he had seen. “I need a drink,” he muttered, his voice hoarse with exhaustion.
With measured steps, he returned to the dim confines of his office, the chaos of moments before now tempered by an eerie calm. Papers lay strewn across the floor like fallen leaves, remnants of the turmoil that had consumed him. Yet Harvey paid them no mind as he sank into the familiar embrace of his worn leather chair.
With practiced ease, he reached for a bottle of whisky, the amber liquid offering a fleeting reprieve from the horrors that haunted him. As it coursed down his throat, igniting a fire within him, Harvey found solace in its warmth, a brief respite from the darkness that threatened to consume him whole.
It’s a locked-room mystery, after all. I can’t have Harvey leaving the room to buy alcohol. “But a Harvey left a room!” I could argue that, but I’d give an even bigger spoiler. Wink, wink, dear reader. Wink, wink.
With just two sips, Harvey’s trembling ceased, a subtle shift he hadn’t noticed until then. The whisky imparted a comforting warmth, infusing him with a newfound sense of resolve as if each sip fortified his spirit for the challenges ahead.
In the dimly lit office, where shadows danced across the walls like spectres of the past, Harvey found solace in the familiar routine of his profession. For him, there was a time for mourning, for drowning sorrows in the amber depths of a glass, but there was also a time for action—for unravelling the tangled threads of mystery that wound their way through the city’s underbelly.
As he pored over the pages of yesterday’s news, Harvey’s keen eye scanned for any hint of trouble brewing in the city’s depths. Yet the headlines offered no solace, no whisper of intrigue to rouse his investigative instincts. Undeterred, he delved deeper, scouring the archives until he stumbled upon the article that reignited a spark within him.
With each sip of whisky, Harvey steeled himself against the gnawing fear that threatened to take hold. The city’s silence was deafening, a void that echoed with the absence of crime—a prospect that filled him with a sense of unease. Yet, beneath the facade of bravado lay a lingering doubt—a fear that his purpose, his very identity, would be stripped away if the city no longer had need of his services.
For Harvey, the title of “private investigator” was more than a profession; it was a mantle he wore with pride, a testament to his unwavering commitment to the pursuit of truth. Without it, he felt adrift, a man without purpose—a fate he couldn’t bear to contemplate.
Oh, that was a good one.
The PI lingered over his drink, each sip a descent into a hazy oblivion that dulled the sharp edges of reality. The room spun around him, a whirlwind of sensations that left him sprawled on the floor, his gaze fixed on the ceiling in a futile search for clarity amidst the chaos.
With a heavy sigh, Harvey grappled with the urge to flee, a desperate attempt to escape the suffocating weight of his own thoughts. “No, not leaving,” he muttered, the words a feeble protest against the inexorable pull of his own inner turmoil. Inch by agonizing inch, he dragged himself toward the door, a solitary figure locked in a silent battle against the confines of his own mind.
As he reached for the doorknob, a shiver of unease snaked its way down Harvey’s spine, an inexplicable sense of foreboding that hung heavy in the air. His surroundings blurred into a dizzying kaleidoscope of shapes and shadows, each movement a herculean effort against the overwhelming tide of disorientation.
Harvey’s mind reeled, grappling with the elusive nature of his reality. A void yawned beneath him, threatening to swallow him whole as he teetered on the precipice of an abyss he could scarcely comprehend. “The pain,” he murmured, the words a desperate plea for validation in a world gone awry.
Yet, as Harvey reached out to grasp the fleeting threads of sensation, he found only emptiness—a cruel parody of the agony that had once consumed him, in its place lingered a hollow echo, a ghostly reminder of the torment that had brought him to this precipice of despair.
Harvey’s back met the cool embrace of the door, a silent witness to his descent into darkness. As consciousness slipped away, he found himself sprawled on the floor, limbs splayed in a silent plea for mercy. His gaze fell upon the gruesome sight of his maimed hand, a stark reminder of the horrors he had endured.
When Harvey regained consciousness, the world greeted him with a disorienting duality. His vision blurred and swam before him, each flicker of light a dagger to his throbbing skull. His brain strained against the onslaught of contradictory information, a futile effort to reconcile the irreconcilable.
Despite his best efforts, the relentless assault of conflicting stimuli pushed Harvey to the brink of oblivion. Yet, even as darkness threatened to claim him once more, he clung to consciousness with a desperate tenacity. Slowly, inexorably, his mind surrendered to the incomprehensible reality unfolding before him.
In the fleeting moments since his awakening, Harvey found himself confronted with a profound paradox. Two divergent yet intertwined worlds vied for dominance within his fractured psyche. With a grim resolve, he braced himself for the harrowing truth that lay at the heart of his shattered reality.
Through his right eye, Harvey beheld a grim tableau of captivity and torment, where shadows danced with malice and pain lurking in every corner. It was a world stained with the blood of his struggle, where the echoes of his screams still reverberated against the walls of his mind.
In stark contrast...
His left eye cast its gaze upon a world tainted by the haze of intoxication, where the bitter taste of bootleg whisky lingered on his lips, and every stumble brought him closer to the threshold of oblivion.
The PI staggered upright, his body protesting each movement as if defying gravity itself. With faltering steps, he crossed the threshold into his office, his mind on the brink of revelation, only to be interrupted by the sudden splintering of wood as the door yielded to a forceful kick.
Before him lay a scene beyond reason.
Through his right eye, the PI confronted his nemesis, a grotesque figure twisted by malice, its features a distorted tableau of brokenness and vacancy. Yet, it was the reflection in his left eye that chilled him to the bone—an apparition of his former self, untouched by the weight of years or the scars of battle, haunting in its innocence.
“Harvey, oh Harvey...” The dual forms advanced with eerie synchronicity, their movements a macabre ballet upon the threshold of the unknown. Their voices echoed in unison, a chilling refrain of shared history and impending doom.
“Once again, we meet,” they intoned, the laughter fading into a solemn prelude. “No need to fly this time, Harvey. Fate has bound us in this dance.”
Frozen in place, Harvey found himself immobilized, a silent witness to the surreal spectacle unfolding before him. The twin apparitions drew near, their voices a haunting echo in the stillness of the room.
“Thoughts are your only refuge now,” they intoned, their words a spectral whisper in the air. “For within your mind, this enigma unfolds—a creation of your own making, a dark labyrinth.”
Locked-brain mystery, eh?
The Harveys wavered before Harvey, their forms momentarily blending into a singular shadow before parting once more. They flanked him, their presence a menacing silhouette in his periphery.
A seductive whisper brushed against his right ear, “Embrace the shared torment; revel in its bitter embrace.”
The voice from his left countered sharply, “Nay, join me instead. I offer a lifetime of despair, not mere fleeting agony.”
Harvey recoiled, his steps faltering as he sought to evade their grasp. But their hands closed in on him, a synchronized grip halting his retreat. “What solace lies in dwelling on the past?” challenged the Right Harvey, their voices weaving a sinister symphony. “Together, let us craft a new tapestry of torment.”
“You don’t crave fresh memories. If you did, you’d welcome his embrace, his torment, just as you once did mine,” reasoned the Left Harvey, his voice a sly whisper. “Examine your hand. You’d willingly sacrifice your fingers to avoid staying with him.”
“Oh, please. He fled from you the moment he awoke, recoiling from the twisted reflection you painted of his existence,” retorted the Right Harvey. “If not for your manipulation, he’d be mine.”
Harvey, cautious to remain unseen amidst the bickering Harveys, cast his gaze left and then right. His stumble sparked a plan in his mind.
To his left lay his past, to his right a possible future. Between them, the office door beckoned as a portal, yet proved his downfall. In that moment of realization, he discerned the high-pitched voice as his own—the echoes of bullets and bombs from war. The ceaseless crawl mirrored his time in the army, while the chaos of his office mirrored the tumult of his life. And the alcohol. The liquid promise. The liquid lie.
Nice one!
The promise and the lie he kept coming back to. Rinse and repeat.
“No more,” Harvey murmured, tears tracing a path down his weathered face as he surrendered to the deluge of emotions. He sank to the ground, the weight of his choices heavy upon him, while his doppelgängers observed in solemn silence.
“Choose me! Choose me!” they echoed in harmony.
“I can’t rewrite my past,” scoffed Harvey, a smirk playing on his lips, “but I can shape my future,” Harvey declared, seizing the bottle he had stumbled over and unleashing his fury upon the two reflections.
Summoning all his resolve, Harvey propelled himself towards the window behind his desk, the cold glass offering a glimpse of freedom. With a leap, he embraced the void. As he plummeted, reality shattered.
“I need to stop dr...” Harvey’s voice trailed off when he woke up at his office, his yearning unspoken yet palpable. The allure of liberation battled the seduction of the lie, leaving him suspended in the liminal space between truth and illusion.
Drinking, investigating, and solving.
Rinse and repeat.