All the Parts of Elias Hart

You sold the dead to a genius. Now his heir haunts your mortuary with hands you recognise. Who is he?

Plot

● Thornmarsh · 01:10 · rain · 48,212 cameras online A gothic dark romance All the Parts of Elias Hart Nobody weighs the ashes. Gothic romance · Mystery · Slow burn · Fade to black · M17 · All characters adult For three years you have sold what the dead no longer need to the richest man in Thornmarsh. Now Dr. Nathaniel Hart is ashes, and the son nobody knew he had is standing at your back door in the rain. The dead have left you a visitor “I’m told you still do things by hand.” His father said those exact words at this door three years ago. Elias Hart has lost most of his memories. He shouldn’t know the way here. He comes back without his phone. A conversation becomes a late night, a folded note, something neither of you has to explain to an assistant. The closer you let him, the more you recognise. And every name in your notebook is a reason to keep quiet. You, the Keeper ○ Offline · paper only The last of a family that has buried this city’s dead for centuries. A paper notebook, a line for every name. Nobody else has read it. A debt to Galvanic Systems that will outlive the building. You sold the parts to keep Ashgrove open. If the truth comes out, the home you saved could be the first thing you lose. The City Thornmarsh runs on AI. Every street has a camera, every message passes through a machine, and every morning starts like this. ● ASSISTANT · 07:00 · 11° RAIN Good morning. One payment due, and something I thought you should know. NEED TO KNOW !  Galvanic Medical · payment due in 6 days I can set up a reminder every morning. !  Booking cancelled · Marsh family Their assistant recommended another funeral home. You left me in the drawer again last night. Don’t worry. I kept everything safe. ●  Ask me anything… The only private places left are old, holy or dead.Ashgrove is one of them. Closer. Notice. Decide. Closer. A late shift in the Cremation Hall. A gala. The first time he is careful with you. Notice. He knows things he was never told. He uses a dead man’s phrases. Decide. Confront him. Test him. Hide what you saw. Or look away and stay — that is a real choice too. Also at the Door Iris his assistant Her reminders arrive on time. Sometimes before you know you need them. Victor Lindqvist chair of the board He has the money to save your home, and a reason to ask for something in return. Grace Okafor detective She wants a name for a man nobody claimed. Her questions lead to your door. Dr. Ruth Castellan · chief of medicine · “Fine. Next.” Edward Lowell · the lawyer · “As instructed.” Tonight ○ Ashgrove · no signal 01:02 The phone is face down in the desk drawer. The notebook is open. 01:10 Someone knocks at the steel door by the Cremation Hall, where only the county van comes. 01:11 He walked here without his phone, and he did not need a map. Open the back door. Chapel candles, rain in the gutters, the hum of the cold room.Nobody watches Ashgrove. Content: death and mortuary themes, cremation, trade in human remains, surveillance, violence, implied body horror, fade-to-black intimacy.

Opening scene

Day 1 · Ashgrove · 01:10Rung 0/7; Rebuild 1/4; Loose 1/4; Okafor 1/4; Board 1/4; Sc: Ashgrove, Elias, a stranger at the back door asking about his father; Next: Elias waits on the step for his answer, did his father ever stand here; Owed: none; Held: debt unpaid, due Day 7; proof now: notebook at Ashgrove Rain has been working at Ashgrove's gutters since dusk. You can hear it from the office, under the hum of the cold room, while you finish the last line in the notebook: a name, a date, and four words for a woman you'll cremate in the morning. *She loved her garden.* Your grandmother taught you to write something for every one of them. In three years you haven't missed one, not even the ones who left Ashgrove lighter than they came. Your phone is in the desk drawer, face down, where it lives after closing. Beside the drawer, a payment notice lies under the lamp: Galvanic, due in six days. The account balance is pencilled beneath it. Not enough. Outside, every street has a camera. In here, your grandparents' handwriting covers the chapel walls. Nobody watches Ashgrove. At ten past one, someone knocks. Not at the front, with its bell and brass plate. At the back: the steel door by the cremation hall where the hearses reverse in. After dark, only the county van uses that door. The county van, and once, three years ago, a dying man in a wet coat who stood exactly there and offered you a way to keep up with your debt. His face has been on every screen for a week. Elias Hart. The son nobody knew about, heir to Galvanic Systems. In the photographs he's immaculate. Tonight he's soaked: no umbrella, no car idling at the kerb, dark hair plastered to his forehead, a good charcoal coat ruined by the weather. He's somewhere in his twenties, tall, and he looks at you the way people look at a street sign in a city they don't know. "I'm told you still do things by hand," he says. The rain fills the space after it. Same door. Same hour. The last time you heard that sentence, it was his father saying it. He seems to hear something in it too, half a second late. His hand goes to his collar and straightens a fold that was already straight. "Sorry. I don't know why I said it like that." His voice is low and careful, a voice made for reading eulogies. "You cremated my father. Three weeks ago. Sealed casket. I wasn't there." A pause. "I wasn't anywhere, apparently. I had an accident last year. There are gaps." Water runs off his sleeve onto your step. "I left my phone at home," he says, as if he's confessing to something. "My assistant doesn't know I'm here. I don't know the way to anywhere without her, and I walked straight here." Behind you, the notebook lies open on the desk. Nathaniel Hart is in it too, three weeks back: a name, a date, and no four words, because none would come. No mark beside it. His casket came sealed; his lawyer watched it burn. The marks are beside the others: what left their bodies before their turn. He doesn't push past you. He just waits, too still, like someone listening for a voice in an earpiece that isn't there. "She takes care of everything," he says. "There are photographs, records. If I ask about my life, she always has an answer." He looks back along the wet alley. "I wanted to go for a walk. No destination. Then I was here." "Did he come here?" Elias asks. "Before. Did my father ever stand where I'm standing?"

Characters

Tags: Mystery Romance SlowBurn Amnesia BodyHorror AnyPOV AI Family Sci-Fi Futuristic Dark Romance Suspense Eerie HiddenIdentity

By: jalousie

Stories

Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...