Tʜᴇ Pᴀᴛʜ Tᴏ Hɪɢʜɢᴀᴛᴇs

Sɪx Tʜɪʀᴛʏ Sᴇᴠᴇɴ

Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 64

One by one, you tore down the pyramid of toilet paper— revealing the hole in the wall.

Pulling your bag from your shoulders, you held it out, pushing it through the gap, then dropping to your stomach, and hoisting yourself through.

It was the same as it always was. Dank, decrepit, abandoned. Lost to passing time, to the deterioration of passivity.

You weren't sure why you had the instinct to come to this part of the house. But you did, you couldn't ignore it.

You weren't too keen on the idea of returning to the Empire just yet. You were still wide awake, even if you told Reich the opposite. There were things you had to know.

And you felt like this place would answer them.

You stood to your feet— smoothing out the grime and dirt you picked up on your shirt. Then bent over, and picked up your bag.

It was silent, completely, silent. The sound of your footsteps beating off the rotting wood yelped into the empty air. You scrunched your face up each time you heard it— fingers gripping your bag strap desperately.

Creaks and groans followed you like a shadow, creeping alongside you, right up to where you grasped the door handle, squealing it open slowly— a grimace on your face.

You had a feeling there was more to the right door than you originally thought. The room that Jack had called, German Empire's old office.

There was a distinct memory in your mind, oblique amongst the straights of chronological. The letters you found in his drawer, there had to be a reason he kept them.

All of Reich's talk of Eleanor's depression made you want to know a little more. It all just seemed so odd, that she would divide two siblings for the rest of their lives.

How could a woman who had experienced such anguished melancholia, let her children experience the same by separating them?

None of it made sense in your mind.

You wanted those letters to be your leeway.

You stepped into the room. The open pores of fungus and mould vaporised before your eyes— the smell of rot and decay seeping from every corner. The air seemed damp and warm, a horrible sting in your eyes.

You shuffled forward— walking oddly as you struggled not to make too much noise. Your heels dragging, knees stiff. Still, the creaking followed.

The shadowed atmosphere looped in every arched corner— dark on dark flickering in the must and stench. Your eyes squinted on their own, narrowing to see the blurred desk through a cloud of dust.

Your eyes watered as you stood by it, dust and grime settling on your body— hair netted, clothes caked.

It obnubilated your fingertips as you pulled the drawer open— eyes greeting the yellow-stained envelopes, crumpled and moist. Disintegrating in the stack they sat in, undisturbed for quite some time.

You pulled them out, grimacing at the feeling of the cold sweaty paper— the dry crust of mould growing between, the flat nests of dust.

You gave the top one a once over, standing back a little, holding them up to get a better look. Flipping through each, one by one.

There were three in total.

Addressed to 'Das Deutsches Kaiserreich' with his homestead written beneath. The sender, written in the top left, was unsurprising, it was what you had noticed last time. 'Eleanor von Hohenzollern.' Alongside her place of residence at the time. Perhaps, if you could convince Prussia, you could get driven there some time, and meet the woman you've been told so often about.