Chapter Text
Having just massacred a horde of zombies, Heathcliff stood alone in an abandoned building, wavering, waiting for something that would not come. Someone he imagined standing right before him, a beautiful woman in a flowing dress, stretching her arms out to him. When he tried to examine her face, he felt a sharp pain slicing through his head. His helmet, and the large chainsaw that it held in place, melted to the ground. He couldn’t be sure if the metal he tasted was what remained of it, or the blood of another wound on the side of his head, but he gulped it down. Within seconds, his headache subsided. The figure in front of him changed shape- no, it had always been this way- but Heathcliff still could not understand it. When his legs gave out from under him, he called to what was no longer there, “Hold me.”
He plunged forward into someone’s warm embrace. For a moment he felt comforted, until he realized he was not standing in a distant storm, but here, in front of three strange men in suits. The one who held onto him looked down at him with deep green eyes and blankly said, “You’re human.” Surprised by the unexpected savior, Heathcliff awkwardly pushed himself back, although his body was still too shaky to stand on its own, and the man still held tightly onto his forearms. In a few seconds of silence, Heathcliff analyzed this man’s features: lips shut into neither a smile nor a frown, thick eyebrows in a permanent look of unease, and an intense gaze that looked beyond Heathcliff’s own eyes and directly into his soul. And although their difference in height and muscle wasn’t too extreme, Heathcliff couldn’t help but feel small as he leaned against his body.
In the warm sunlight just a few feet away, the man’s subordinate asked, “Any chance it’s a devil possession?” Still holding Heathcliff, he averted his eyes. “None. You can see possession on their faces.” He lifted Heathcliff out of the shadows, but darkness returned as the man leaned in closely. “This bloodbath… was it your doing?” His stare intimidated Heathcliff, who could only nod his head like an ashamed child caught misbehaving. The man continued, “Just a moment ago, you had a critical head injury too. Not from where that chainsaw of yours came out. It was the deep gash of a blade; it couldn’t have been any of these zombies here. Tell me, what was the cause?”
Heathcliff turned his head away in silence, unable to answer. Despite the bold resistance, it was not an act of defiance; rather, when he tried to recall the events leading up to this moment, he could almost feel the pain of the injury that had already healed itself. The man’s gaze suddenly felt a bit harsher, and finding himself a bit flustered by the situation, Heathcliff felt compelled to remember. He began, “I don’t know. For a long time now, I’ve been doing whatever I can to pay debt collectors. A gang of criminals. Those bastards sent the Zombie Devil after me. But I...” He recalled the revving of the chainsaws, too loud to let him think, yet he got caught up in his thoughts anyway; he recalled how the blades agonizingly split down his arms, and how carelessly he waved them around, hoping to cut down anything in his path. Anything that opposed him, that left him feeling challenged… or scared. He continued, “If I’m being honest, it might’ve been myself.” One of the man’s subordinates asked, “Do you have a home?” Heathcliff thought about the terrible, run-down shed he lived in, one that he technically did not own, and hoped deep down that these people could kindly offer him something better. “No.” But as he thought deeper, there it was again: a mysterious figure calling out to him. A girl whose hair flowed in the tempest, obscuring her face. “As I cut them all down, I saw a strange woman. I think I had lived with her before all of this. I must’ve known her well! But I…”
Heathcliff’s voice slipped into a murmur, and he suddenly lost the memory. The last few bits of aching throughout his body waned, and his expression became empty. However, this explanation must’ve piqued the other man’s interest, because his furrowed brows relaxed slightly, as did his grip on Heathcliff’s arms. He turned away and began muttering, perhaps to the others behind him, but in a manner so quiet and distracted it seemed merely self-indulgent. “A human that is part devil, one that wields chainsaws. An injury to the head, most likely self-inflicted, and now a blurred memory. It’s possible that he’s ripped through his own brain, and even if he could heal it physically, the memories it once contained cannot be fully restored. It is akin to a self-induced lobotomy.” He glanced at his subordinates, who could not come up with any question or answer regarding this theory, and turned back to Heathcliff. “Unless you want to be killed as a devil, you’ll come with me and be imprisoned as a human.”
Heathcliff stepped back and opened his mouth, but found himself stuck between protesting and asking why. Before he could collect his thoughts, the man must’ve noticed his hesitation and proceeded to explain himself. “As a member of Public Safety, I cannot allow such a violent devil like you to run freely. However, do not consider this your capture; I believe that, intentionally or not, you’ve erased the memory of someone very important to you. Since your body no longer functions like that of a normal human, I cannot imagine anyone could help you besides our group, which specializes in many things related to devils. So, if you agree to work for me, I may help you seek the truth behind your lost memories.” Despite his offer of… hospitality? his expression darkened, and his gaze seemed more harsh than a moment ago. Before Heathcliff could even consider saying no, the man continued, “It’s not like you have any other choice, anyhow. I imagine any other devil hunter would kill you in a heartbeat, and no human employer would want you. Besides, you cannot remember where you belong, can you?”
This realization seemed to frighten Heathcliff, but only for a moment. Perhaps, in a memory nestled within the freshly-mended parts of his brain, he had somewhere he belonged. But since then, his life had been under the control of that crime syndicate. His days before this moment were nothing short of mediocre, and he could feel shame and frustration beginning to replace any sense left in him. He gritted his words through his teeth as if they were fangs, a defensive “So what? I can carve out a decent life on my own. I wasn’t free before, but now I can do whatever I want, yeah?” Perhaps this response disappointed his audience, who glanced at each other with uncertainty. But the man looming just in front of Heathcliff softened his stare and said, “Do you think we wish to simply arrest you? It’s true that I will legally own you, and your very life will be mine. But this offer is not one made out of pity; rather, I think your abilities could prove useful to us if you became a devil hunter. I’ll send you on missions to seek out and destroy the devils that haunt this world, and in return, you’ll receive a decent salary, food, housing, and even my company.”
In his broken mind, Heathcliff considered the harshness of the word “destroy.” Just how brutally must he kill these assigned devils? But rather than question that particular choice of words, he instead asked about “Company?” With a blank stare still frozen on his face, the man nodded and said, “Of course. A boss and his employees must have a steady relationship to improve the workflow. Additionally, it would be best to keep you in a favorable mental state for the sake of our missions. As you are now, you seem a bit lonely.” That not-so-subtle jab, or in the man’s mind, “astute observation,” seemed to annoy Heathcliff a bit. Out of habit, his mind struggled to come up with a counterattack to the perceived offense, but only for a moment. His reasoning took over, and taking into account what little money he had, and that he may never get an opportunity like this again, he couldn’t bring himself to refuse. After all, this charming man in front of him seemed to captivate, or perhaps control, Heathcliff in such a way that rejecting his “selfless” offer felt like a waste. Perhaps becoming a devil hunter truly was the best option in the moment, although in hindsight, Heathcliff’s smarts had overlapped with his good-hearted gullibility.
“I’ll do it,” he finally said. “I’ll become a devil hunter. But you better keep all your promises! I won’t bust my ass working for nothing.” The corners of the man’s mouth upturned slightly, although he was still just as difficult to read. “Then you’re our property now, though not as a prisoner or slave, but more like a pet that’ll be well taken care of. You should consider yourself very lucky to have an opportunity most devils don’t; now, do you have a name, or shall I give you one myself?”
After some hesitation, perhaps a last-minute spike of regret in his mind over trading away his freedom again, he carefully responded. “Heathcliff.” The other man didn’t wait much, almost as if he had no reason to bother committing the name to memory, before introducing himself as well. “I am Meursault. It’s a privilege to be working together.” Despite being a common formality, those last few words didn’t seem like Meursault’s own feelings, but rather a command on how Heathcliff should perceive their relationship. He continued, “Now, for your first mission, I’ll be taking you to a restaurant. You may no longer experience hunger in the traditional sense, but your body is still overall human, and it's important for you to maintain a balanced diet. You do seem a bit malnourished. I’ll order the first few items for you, and you can pick whatever you’d like for dessert, and I will be watching to make sure you eat all of what’s necessary.”
The sudden rambling came as a surprise, but perhaps health and dieting was something Meursault took very seriously. Not only was it an oddly charming trait, but it made Heathcliff feel comforted in his idea of the future. In those shaky memories, where he had nothing to his name and no real experience with normality, food had been scarce and unimpressive, sometimes even disgusting or poisonous. To have such an opportunity delighted him! Perhaps this Meursault guy was a good man, one that could give Heathcliff everything he had been craving from life. After all, there’s nothing wrong with needing to work hard in return for the luxuries of food and shelter he had been promised. And even if he was nothing more than a pet, it's a much better fate than that of a stray.