I swore I would never do it again.
I couldn't do that to another person, another living, breathing person. Even the painting girl had a soul, and the thought of repeating my past actions made me sick.
I had them leave me. I wanted them to. Otherwise one of them would be trapped, forever. It was better for me to stay.
I stare at the ceiling now, twirling the long dead rose between my fingers. The room, painted a dark red, would be silent but for the constant ticking of a clock. A clock that I cannot find, one that is probably just in my imagination.
Perhaps after a certain amount of time in silence your mind starts to trick you. I wouldn't be surprised.
My fingers instinctively spin the spiked stem in time with the noise. I close my eyes and frown. The habit is starting to get irritating.
Then get rid of the rose…
Blinking slowly, feeling tired even though I cannot sleep, I glance at the no longer red flower I'm holding. It's incredibly fragile. All of the petals have fallen off, and it hangs limply in my hand, less of a green now and more of a sickly brown in colour.
I sigh and listen to the phantom ticking for a moment, before lifting myself off of the dirty, slightly crusty carpet. It would have disgusted me if not for the fact that the only other place to lie down being a bed currently soaked in red paint.
The room that I'm in, one of the few rooms that is free of all paintings and mannequins, is small, and square. The walls are burgundy and ridden with mould, and the carpet, as I have mentioned before, has been doused in something that I can only guess to be blood, and dried there so that it crunches beneath my feet. A small desk resides in one corner of the room, on which is a single vase where the five dead petals from my rose are collected.
The room is unpleasant. The smell is musty and damp, with faint traces of rust, and the air is eerily cool. Why I stay in such a disgusting, depressing room when I have an entire world to myself is because I do not have an entire world to myself. One step outside and there are the dolls and paintings and sculptures and mannequins, all asking for me, to play with them, to hug them and paint for them, to let in the humans so that they can eat.
The dolls will sing inside of my head, latching onto my feet as I try to move around, the ladies in all of their colours crawling after me and digging their sharp nails into my legs, sliding through the flesh but causing me no pain.
It drives me mad.
I may be able to manipulate this world, but only to an extent. I cannot stop the other creatures of this hell from being lonely.
Gently, I place the lifeless rose in my hand in the blue vase, feeling fear when letting go of the stem. Old habits die hard. Slowly, I turn to one wall of the room.
There is one thing about this room that I forgot to mention. A large mirror in equal height to me is hung on the wall, and although it is dirty and chipped, it's one of the most beautiful things in my artificial life.
I approach it, as I have many times, and look into my own eyes. They're hollow eyes, now, after so long. I place my fingers lightly against the glass, feeling the imperfect surface under my skin.
I close my eyes. "Show me the gallery," I murmur. My voice never reaches a level much louder than that, because anything too loud almost invites the mannequin heads to come crashing in. "Please," I whisper.
The imperfect surface grows warmer under my fingertips, reminding me of what real air used to feel like. Not sharp and cool, like it's gliding over your arms and trying to stab you on the way by, but something warmer. Not quite warm, but something safe, and comfortable.
I open my eyes, and watch.
Instead of my reflection, the mirror now shows a view of a busy gallery, with normal, good people walking around. The floor is smooth and white, without a speck of dirt, and the walls, where paintings are not hung, are much the same. And the paintings are normal as well. Normal, inanimate paintings simply for people to enjoy. I watch a young blonde boy try to touch the Lady in Red, and his mother with similar shinning blonde curls picks him up. She pokes his nose and waves a finger.
The little boy pouts.
Watching the two, I smile. Golden blonde curls, blue eyes, and a childlike attitude all remind me of someone I knew long ago.
I lean my forehead against the glass and sigh, looking out of what is to me a window, but to them is a painting. To them, in fact, I am the painting.
A painting, once human, trapped inside of a painting world. It makes sense, in a way. I watch all of these people go about their lives every day, detached from the city I used to live in. Sometimes I feel relieved and happy when I see this light in a disastrous reality, but sometimes the sadness returns, reminding me that the light is a faraway dream never to be reached.
It's not as if I did not make this decision myself; there were three of us, and one had to stay.
I close my red eyes, and knew, I was dreadfully bored.
"Mary, get out of the shower! You've been in there for half an hour!"
The blonde teenager rolled her eyes. "Just a minute, moron!" She quickly rinsed the suds out of her hair and shut off the stream of warm water, goose bumps covering her arms instantly.
Annoyed, Mary grabbed a towel off of the rack nearby and stepped out. Boys would never understand.
"And I'll never understand why my hair needs to be so damn frustrating!" She muttered, quite viciously yanking her purple brush through her damp mess of hair. "I curse the day God decided to give me curls."
"Are you complaining about your hair again?"
"Shut up and go away, Garry!" She shouted back to her brother. Well, adoptive brother. She loved not being related to that idiot.
She listened to him sighing and walking back to his bedroom, and then went back to her grumbling. Hey, she was a teenager, what did he expect from her?
Wrapping her bathrobe around herself, Mary stretched. Some things like showers she savoured for as long as possible. Most things, though, she had no patience for.
Small, blonde haired and blue eyed, she could be easily mistaken for a child. Which she didn't always mind, with the way she acted. It annoyed some people, but most found that it was rather charming.
Mary snuck into her bedroom without drawing Garry's attention, trying to avoid another one of his college talks. Mission successful, she thought, cheering mentally when she shut her door firmly.
She flopped into her chair and grabbed her hair dryer. She had no time to wait for it to dry naturally, she had things to do and people to see. In the process of picking it up, though, the wire knocked several things off of her desk, such as four bottles of nail polish, a hair clip, and her packet of blue hair dye. The two things she seemed to have in common with her brother seemed to be lack of organization and a liking for artificial hair colouring.
Mary turned up her music as loud as was allowed for their apartment before beginning the strenuous task of drying her thick hair. The pop music that Garry hated bounced within the green walls of her small bedroom, part of the reason why he decided on switching his bedroom with the office, which was as far away from the noise as possible.
She always listened to music while doing… well, almost everything, even though it usually distracted her. She grinned as her favourite song came through her stereo, temporarily forgetting what she'd been doing and making the honest mistake of flipping around her hair. Droplets of water sprayed across the room, ruining several perfectly good essays and art projects.
"God dammit!" She shouted, clawing at her curls.
"Mary, quit shouting, I'm trying to get some work done!"
"Shut up Garry!"
Mary, sensing that she should probably leave the house before another argument broke out, quickly finished her task and changing into her usual jeans and yellow T-Shirt. Screw skirts, they could die in a hole if they wanted to.
Regarding herself in the mirror, she frowned. "I need a change," she said to herself, flicking the blue streaks in her hair. Green this time, she thought, straightening her scarf.
Scarves were cool.
"Bye Garry, I'm going to the mall," she called out, although she was pretty sure he couldn't hear her. Oh well, his fault.
The skip in her step quickened in the cool air. It was November, which was not the most wonderful time of the years. It was cold, wet, and even a little bit depressing for Mary.
Mary preferred the spring, with life starting all over again everywhere. Garry on the other hand liked the fall, for some reason. Sighing, she pulled the scarf closer around her neck, thinking, Why am I out here again?
She glanced at the fading blue in her hair. Oh, right, going to get hair dye. She glanced around, and then scowled. She had conveniently turned right instead of left and was now heading toward a tanning salon by mistake. Why can't I ever pay attention to stuff?
"Store, green dye, buy, home," she muttered to herself as she turned around and headed in the right direction this time.
Although Mary had dyed her hair green before, she was surprised by how many shades there were now. Not many people dyed their hair green, especially not her preferred forest green. She strode purposefully past the lavender dye her brother seemed to enjoy using and picked up a bottle. Funky Forest it was called. She smiled. Mary really did love those things.
The cashier gave her an odd look when paying, probably because she looked so young and no little girl would buy dye on their own, but luckily, no questions were asked.
"How should I do it this time?" She said to herself while walking home. "Streaks, tips, roots, all over dyed, streak in the side bang…" Looking at the package, she grinned. "Ooh, I like that one."
Suddenly, her pocket buzzed. Funny, she could have sworn that her phone had been on her desk when she left. But in a very Mary-like way, she decided not to question it. She answered. "Hello?"
Well, she didn't actually get to say hello, because as soon as she answered a stream of shouting and swearing flooded her ear. Mary, who harboured a strong dislike of swear words, pulled the device away from her head in annoyance.
"You're totally missing out! Seriously, stop being so stiff and get the fuck back here!" This was followed by more crude descriptions of a resident female, at which point Mary, horrified and disgusted, ended the call. She spent a moment standing on the side walk staring at the phone with extremely wide eyes.
When she recovered from the shock and had erased as many of those words from her memory as possible, which wasn't quite enough for her taste, she continued her way home. Unfortunately, the same number called her several times and she had to ignore the rapid fire texts appearing on the screen. Why would someone be getting up to that kind of stuff in the middle of the afternoon?
More importantly, why were they calling her?
The phone buzzed again. She scowled and looked at the screen, which had a different background than what she remembered. But this time it was her home number. Mary was glad that the pervert from before was no longer calling.
"Yup?"
"Mary? Mary, why the hell do you have my phone? And where are you?"
Widening her eyes, Mary's mouth formed an "O". "I get it; this is your phone! That makes sense."
"Mary!"
Laughing, she rolled onto the balls of her feet with a cheeky grin. "Oops."
She heard the grumbled curse words on the other side of the call. "Get back to the apartment now."
"Aw." Mary pouted like a displeased child, which, in her eyes, she was. Then she remembered something and she perked up. "Oh, one of your rude friends called."
"Which one?"
She bit her bottom lip, thinking deeply. "I don't know. He called about nine times."
A number of expletives could be heard on the other side. Mary, already having heard too many for one day, scowled. "Garry!"
"Just get back here and give me my phone."
Mary pouted, but did as she was told. Giving the nearby tanning salon, that had previously tried to trick her, a harsh glare, she climbed the steps to the door. There were far too many stairs to get to her apartment, the unlucky fourth floor curse that plagued them. Fortunately, it compensated for the two of them never getting any exercise outside.
Mary scrolled through the contacts on Garry's phone, occasionally switching a name or two around for fun as she climbed up, and up. Breathless as she may have been when she reached her floor, she couldn't help her lips from turning up in a childish grin when she saw Garry standing impatiently in the doorway.
His right eye, the other hidden behind his lavender hair mop of hair, narrowed when he caught sight of her. "You messed with my phone, didn't you?"
He didn't even give her a hello.
"Whadya think, Gare-bear?" She snapped back, knowing how he hated the nickname.
With obvious annoyance, he snatched the phone from her hands with his long fingers and returned inside, already scrolling through his personal information. Mary giggled gleefully and skipped in behind him, closing the door gently with her foot.
She found him next sitting at the table, still staring at the screen of his mobile. Suddenly bored, she leaned against the wall and sighed. "I'm bored. Is there anything to do around here?"
Without looking up, he muttered, "You could throw those things out if you don't mind."
"Huh?" Her attention snapped to his words. Something good was going on. "What things?"
Garry gave her a droll look with those black eyes of his, but stood nonetheless and stepped past her. She turned to see him pointing to a bulk underneath an old newspaper lying on top of the hall table. "These," he repeated, lifting the paper to let her see. "Someone put them in front of our door."
Curious, Mary hopped over and bent down to get a better look. This presented her with the view of three rotting flowers. "Ew!" She stepped back and wrinkled her nose instinctively.
"They're just roses, Mary. Red ones, actually."
Frowning, she picked up a pencil and poked one of the mouldy petals. "Were they dead before?" She questioned, poking again.
Garry shook his head, dropping the newspaper back on top of the flowers and receiving a pout from Mary for doing so. "They got here dead. Probably a prank," he muttered. And then one corner of his lips turned up. "If you're bored, you can go put these in the communal compost, Mary."
Mary's nose wrinkled even more in disgust, thinking of the awful stench of rotting foods that hovered around the local bin. "No way."
"I thought so." Garry sighed and ran a hand through his shaggy hair. "I'll do it tomorrow when I go out for food. Just do your homework now," he told her absently before dropping back down into a chair and picking up his phone.
Mary scowled, but obliged. But before going off into her room, she picked up the newspaper again to see the roses once more. Something about them was eerily… familiar. Mary had always preferred other flowers to roses, but something about red roses was compelling in her eyes. Hypnotic, really.
Something bright yellow caught her eyes beside the roses. She shifted the brown stems with her pencil slightly and then saw what looked to be a brochure. Her interest piquing once again, Mary read the title. "The Guertena Exhibit, November 12th – 19th. Explore the mystical and haunting world of Gilbert Guertena."
Guertena… The name ringed a bell for her. "Hey Garry!" She called out.
She heard him put away his device with a sigh. "What?"
She blinked. "What's this Guertena thing doing here?"
Suddenly right behind her, he pulled the brochure from her grasp. "If you remember," he began, unfolding the paper and flipping it around, "it's where we went right after Mom and Dad adopted you. Our first family outing."
Mary squinted at the paper he presented her, looking at the place where he was pointing. In the picture was a family looking eight year old girl with curly blonde hair and blue eyes, staring up at a large statue of a red rose. "Hey, that's me!" She squealed. "Oh, I was so cute in that green dress!" She paused and blinked like an owl, realizing something. "But, why is this in the brochure?"
"The manager took the picture and sent it in. They've had it in the brochure every year now."
"Oh," she said thoughtfully, tapping her chin. "But, why did we get the brochure? The gallery isn't on our mailing list."
Garry shrugged and began to fold up the page again, tossing it back on to the table without a care in the world. "I don't know. Probably a mix-up with the mailing." Suddenly, his phone buzzed in his back pocket.
Mary's lips twisted in a scowl. "I bet it's that weird guy again," she told him, watching him as he checked the screen.
His expression became one of exasperation. "Goddammit, Camden," he muttered. Mary knew from the look in his eyes that she was right. She grinned in triumph, but unfortunately, Gary did not get to see it. He walked straight into his bedroom and shut the door firmly.
"I knew it," she laughed. "I knew it. Poor Gare-bear." Mary twirled once, watching her scarf fly around her, and then stopped.
The Guertena Exhibit was something that she did in fact remember. She remembered wanting to put the petals back on that rose sculpture. Garry had gotten her into trouble for that. They really did start off on the wrong foot.
She remembered a painting that had interested her longer than the rose, though. The actual image refused to surface in her memory, but the name was unnerving. She glanced at Garry's door to see if it was still firmly shut, and when that was confirmed, she silently picked up the brochure. On the back was a list of every painting in the gallery.
She scanned the names until one found her gaze. One that haunted her for a reason unknown.
"The Painting Girl."
Mary knew this painting. She had spent an hour staring at it as a child, and she didn't know why.
"Guertena…" She murmured, feeling the name on her tongue. She grinned. "What an unlucky name." And with that, she placed the paper next to the three rotten roses and strode off, firmly shutting her bedroom door, just like her twenty-five year old adopted brother who hated her oh so much.