...
Ib had just had her 17th birthday party last week. It was amazing, all of her family had visited to wish her a happy birthday. And she had even gotten a new painting set, much better and obviously more expensive than the worn out supplies she had been using. Her parents just loved to see her nice art. They claimed that she had always been good at drawing as a kid, but it wasn't until a visit to a certain art gallery that she'd taken a special liking to art herself. Ib was always painting pictures of beautiful roses. Sometimes they were red, and blue and yellow, intertwined together. But most of them were blue. She was constantly doing blue roses in many shapes and styles. But they had made her feel down every time she painted them, so sometimes she would paint from her nightmares. She didn't really remember many of her dreams at all, really. But once in a while she'd wake up with a detailed memory of a ragged smiling doll, or dark hallways. Her mother thought she was so imaginative to come up with such ideas, Ib just thought it was downright depressing. But she couldn't get it out of her mind until it was on paper. Though, lately she had been running dry on inspiration. Her father called it drawing block. So she thought that maybe taking a trip to the wellspring of her inspiration would fill it back to the brim with ideas. "It would be a change of pace.", her mother agreed, "It would do you some good to get out a bit more.".
Sullenly, she picks her lucky handkerchief up and carefully sticks it into her pocket. Sure, she didn't really go out as often as some other people, but honestly, how could she be expected to if she had no friends to hang out with.
"Well, miss have a good time looking around.", the man behind the desk said as he handed her a pamphlet. "Of course.", Ib replied distractedly. Already, memories of the gallery were starting to come back. Next thing she knew, her legs were taking her around the bottom floor halls.
There were drawings of still art, a cat and some odd sea exhibit. But there was one sculpture she found herself stopping at as she finally made it around the last corner.
- Embodiment of Spirit
It was so...beautiful. The style was almost like hers when she drew her roses. Though the petals littering the ground around the rose sculpture made her want to water it...
She decided to go ahead to the other floor and, with one last look at the blooming red rose, she passes the Abyss of the Deep and walks upstairs. She found a slightly disturbing piece with headless mannequins and was studying it until she heard a hushed conversation near the wall. "Oh, yeah! He sure does look handsome!". Ib turned slightly to see a small group of girls from her class giggling and talking about the painting they were looking at. "Well, he's just a painting, so don't get your hopes up Haruka!", one of the group says jokingly to the dreamy looking girl. "I don't know, Naomi. If he was alive, I sure would ask him out!", the third one says quietly in disagreement. Naomi turns and smirks at the quieter one, "Of course you would, Aika. You're just as wishful thinking as Haruka. Come on you guys, I want to go look at the bottom floors art.". And with that, the three girls start for the stairs. Ib thought about calling out to them, just to say hello. But she stopped herself at the last minute. She had tried to befriend the group of girls once, but she never could seem to fit in. She was just more of the loner type. No longer able to hold her curiosity in, Ib wanders over to get a peek at what the others were going on about. This one looked pretty familiar...
Oh, yeah. Ib remembered. That one was...the...the... She leans over and takes a closer look... Right! The Forgotten Portrait. Sure, the teenager in the picture looked...unable to think of a better word, she went with handsome. Pretty handsome. The name kind of triggered a sadness she couldn't quite explain. She stares at it for a while and suddenly she feels tears welling up. Surprised, Ib reaches up to wipe them away. Why was she crying? Of course, it was a sad painting. It seemed as if the boy should open his eyes and wake up any second as if to say, "Here I am, don't forget about me!". She tilts her head, finished with her inspection of the piece and finally turns away from it, so she can look at some more art. Walking around the corner, there are several sculptures and odd pictures of interest but they don't take up much time to look at before she gets tired and moves on to the next one...until she turns another corner and ends up in an empty and quiet hall. It almost seemed separate from the rest of the gallery and there wasn't but one long painting hanging on the wall.
... Fabricated World said the name plate. Hmm...it sure was an odd one. A bit different from the others, it kind of made her think of that sad painting she had just seen. In her state of distraction, she leans too close to the painting and ends up bumping it. Turning to make sure no one was around to see her accidental violation, she takes a few steps away from it. Suddenly a scream pierces the air...her vision starts to go dark, and she looses balance, falling, on a collision course with the floor. What? What was happening? Ib braces herself to hit the ground, but it never comes. Instead, there is a slight sensation of falling into a dark pool of water. It gets darker than pitch and as she starts to lose breath, a huge fish swims out of the dark and she passes out... Crying. She could hear someone crying loudly. Almost wailing. Why was she so upset? It was obviously a female girl. Just what was going on? Ib tried to think of what she had been doing...She remembered looking at paintings and...and... ? Hm? Oh, she fell. Surely she hadn't bumped into a poor kid... Slowly she opens her eyes and pushes into a sitting position. No, there was no crying. Had that been a dream? Looking around, she notices that the gallery hall had gotten sort of dark. Oh, man. Had she been lying on the floor that long? Not many people must walk through here she guessed as she stood with the help of the wall. "I better not have been locked inside.", Ib mumbles under her breath. The last thing she needed was to spend the night in a creepy old dark gallery. Ib silently tiptoes back around the corner to the sculptures and then to the area where the stairs were. She stops a few times on the way, distracted by some of the works. They seemed to watch her as she passed by, and they were starting to transcend a new level of creepy. Not to mention the noises she heard through the dark. Like coughing in the distance, or a cat meowing somewhere downstairs. She wished she could see further than just three feet. Passing the portrait of the guy in the blue coat, she takes another look at it for some reason before she heads back to the bottom floor. In the dark it would almost certainly seem as if his eyes were halfway opened. But that must've been a trick of her mind, she reasons as she descends the stairway. There's no way a painting could move or change on it's own accord...
As soon as she gets to the bottom floor, she realizes that something is really wrong. She rushes to check the doors of the gallery, and her heart plummets when she finds that they were locked. "Hey! Is anyone there?", she yells out, stumbling through the room to the other side of the floor and passing the Abyss of the Deep again. "Hello!?". Something catches her eye and she turns back to look at the Abyss of the Deep. One of the ropes that were keeping visitors back seemed to have been knocked down and there were footsteps marked next to it as if someone had just been there.