The time-travel/doing-it-over again genre of story seems to always exist in any category of fanfiction I come across, and really, I can see why. I mean, who wouldn't jump at a chance to right the wrongs of the past and correct long-committed mistakes? It's a sheer fact that life never turns out perfectly and that no person has existed to date who hasn't committed at least one wrong. The same holds true for fictional worlds, for these are created by humans, for humans, and thus they hold the same flaws that the real world in which humans live does. (Anything else tends to fall into Mary Sue category, which isn't worth mentioning anyways.)

This being the case, I was surprised to find that there was an almost nonexistent quantity of Ib time-travel stories out there—because really, no matter which ending you end up with, there's always something that went wrong, whether it was Garry dying or Mary getting burned up or Ib getting trapped in the Fabricated World forever. With this in mind, it seems like Ib would be a great setting for a time-travel piece, just so that the whole ordeal can be done again, and this time, done right. So why the deficit, then?

I'm afraid I personally have no idea, but that doesn't change my belief that, if done right, a time-travel variant of Ib's story has very high potential—especially if (despite all efforts to the contrary) things don't end up any better, or even actually somehow end up worse than before. After all, time isn't something to be taken lightly. And so… what would happen?

This story grew out of my attempt to find an answer to that question. It uses the ending of Forgotten Portrait as a base, and the time-traveler in question shall be (surprisingly) Garry. How, you ask? Didn't he die in the ending of Forgotten Portrait? Well, keep reading, and all shall be revealed… (By the way, if you want to get the full effect, I recommend actually paying attention to the details of the first few paragraphs about Guertena, and not just skimming it as I tend to do when reading a story. Jus' sayin'.)

(insert obligatory disclaimer here)

Chapter One

"It's said that spirits dwell in objects into which people put their feelings. I've always thought that, if that's true, then the same must be true of artwork. So today, I shall immerse myself in work, so as to impart my own spirit into my creations." -Weiss Guertena

The human soul is a curious thing. There is still fierce debate as to whether or not it even exists, but one thing remains certain: If the soul is real, then it must be a nebulous, ethereal thing—easily missed and easy to destroy altogether. How else could there be so little evidence for its existence, after all?

There are those who claim to be able to communicate with the spirits of the beyond. Most, if not all, are beyond a doubt, frauds. If it were true, then everyone would believe in an immortal soul existing after death, and as discussed above, not many do.

Of course, Weiss Guertena was one of the few who did believe in the soul, and what's more, he believed that it could be accessed, shaped and transformed by human emotions and feelings. Being an artist, he thought that, if the soul could be brought out into the open by intense feeling, then of course anything on which a human worked with passion should hold some semblance of that spirit—and for him, that "anything" had to be art—the one thing for which he held a passion above all else.

But for Guertena's theory to be proven true, it had to be tried first.

And try it he did. The results were unclear, although Guertena himself believed with an intense, almost religious fervor that he had indeed succeeded. Nevertheless, almost no self-respecting art historian today believes his spiel, although most will be quite willing to admit that Guertena's art does hold a strange, life-like semblance which does not seem to dwell in the art of other greats, such as Michelangelo, da Vinci, etc.

But what if it were true?

One of Guertena's later sculptures, Embodiment of Spirit, is quite telling about the late artist's beliefs. It takes the form of a large, beautiful red rose with thorns covering its stem. Guertena himself wrote about the piece: "Beautiful at a glance, but if you get too close, it will induce pain. It can only blossom in wholesome bodies." From this it is clear that Guertena believed that the soul bore some resemblance to a flower, more specifically, that of a rose; however, his own musings regarding the sculpture has led many experts to believe that he thought the soul to be thorny at its core, "once you get to close", perhaps symbolizing the faults inherent in any person.

If that is the case, then perhaps it may shed some light on Guertena's rather ambiguous spirituality; there has been much debate over whether the man was religious or indeed even believed in an afterlife. The entries within Guertena's diary and several of his works, including Embodiment of Spirit, imply that he did, although his beliefs do not appear to have conformed to any official religious doctrine of the artist's day.

One particular work to support this theory is Guertena's last painting, simply entitled, Mary, painted during the last few years of the man's life; Guertena had fallen ill with a then incurable disease, and it was only when it became clear that he would die that he began work on his final painting. There has been much conjecture as to the purpose of this painting; as with most of his other works, the girl depicted in the art does not appear to be based on any real person; however, the girl appears to be rather young, on the order of ten or so years, which is a major deviation from Guertena's usual works, most of which feature either non-human subjects or adults. Because of this, some believe that Guertena intended the girl to be a depiction of what he believed to be his own ideal daughter.

Throughout the majority of his lifetime, Guertena's was plagued by the condition known as sterility, causing him to be unable to bear children; in addition, the late artist showed little interest in marriage or in women in general, and it was these two factors that caused him to never bear a child. Nevertheless, many of Guertena's journal entries strongly imply that he desired a daughter, and Mary may have been painted as a result of this wish by the man when it became clear that he was close to death. This may imply that even though Guertena was unable to conceive a real child, he believed that he could give life to his painting and perhaps birth a child that way. This theory is augmented by the fact that diary entries from the young Guertena strongly suggest that he wanted to have a daughter named Mary.

Because of Guertena's illness when painting Mary, his brush strokes when composing the work were rather unsteady and haphazard and generally not up to the artist's usual standards when creating a work; this has caused many historians to dismiss the work as inferior. However, Guertena's imprecise stroke-work has caused several ambiguities in the painting, the most prominent of which is the fact that the girl appears to be holding a greyish-blue object in her right hand; most people inspecting the painting have reported a strong impression of the object being a palette knife, despite the fact that the supposed "knife" appears in the painting as little more than a grey blur. In fact, the blur is much more likely to have been caused by Guertena's unsteady brushwork, perhaps accidentally combining the blue from the background with the white of the girl's sleeve, creating the greyish color. In spite of this, however, nearly anyone who has viewed the painting apparently receives a strong impression of the stroke as being a palette knife.

Given this discrepancy, this lends some credence to the theory that Guertena may have imbued his works with his own spirit, in the process causing viewer's to interpret his works the way that he originally intended, rather than as they actually appear. This effect is also apparent to a lesser extent with some of his other works, including The Lady in Red as well as Juggling, both of which possess slightly ambiguous elements which are nevertheless perceived almost flawlessly by most viewers. However, if this is true, it raises the question of why Guertena intended his daughter to possess a knife, a question which has no clear answer.

Despite the mystery surrounding much of Guertena's life and his work, however, some digging by historians has unearthed this much: Guertena almost certainly believed in a spirit, which he depicted in his work as a rose, and he also believed that his paintings had received part of his spirit when he worked on them. Whether this is true is highly questionable, but it is true that much of Guertena's work does hold a slightly surreal quality which cannot be easily replicated; interestingly enough, photos of Guertena's paintings as well as stroke-by-stroke replicas do not possess the original effect. One study showed that 93% of viewers interpreted the greyish-blue stroke in the original Mary as a palette knife; however, only 28% of corresponding viewers looking at a digitized of the painting though the same, implying that there is indeed something separating Guertena's work from cheap replications. Due to this, almost no frauds are attempted of Guertena's work, as any past attempts at deception have always failed due to some sort of "intuition" on the part of the would-be buyer.

Mary is widely considered one of Guertena's most mysterious paintings; however, regarded as equally confusing is another one of his works, titled Forgotten Portrait. The origins of the painting are unclear and shrouded in mystery; despite numerous attempts to trace the origins of the portrait, there is no clear indication as to when it was painted or even how it came into being; indeed, there is even some speculation regarding whether the painting even belongs to Guertena, the only indication that it does being the style and the similar ambiguities.

Equally intriguing is the content of the work. The painting depicts a slumped over man with light lavender hair punctuated by thin streaks of black near the center of the whorl. What is interesting about this is that Guertena lived in a period where hair was styled nearly constantly, when messy hair was considered a sign of lower class and un-education. Indeed, much attention has been drawn to the fact that the hairstyle of the man appears almost modern, and his clothes display a similar incongruency: The man wears what appears to be a yellowish-white T-shirt under a frayed blue jacket, both of which are clearly modern in style; it is unknown what Guertena used as a reference for this painting.

Our story begins with this painting, The Forgotten Portrait…

During his last moments, Garry wondered idly what would happen after death. He had never considered himself a very religious person, preferring instead to muse about things more immediately relevant to his life at hand. After all, not many sane people liked to wonder about death, and although Garry found his thoughts occasionally straying to the topic of what would happen after he died, he never really thought of a definitive answer. After all, he'd never thought he'd be finding out anytime soon.

And yet, as his chest was wracked with yet another spurt of pain, as Mary's cheerful and yet simultaneously chilling voice echoed back to him: "Loves me… loves me not…", Garry found himself wondering what would happen, and hoping, desperately, that there was an afterlife.

Because although he didn't regret his trade for Ib's rose for a second, he would have been lying hugely if he said that he was fine with dying—because he wasn't. It was simple: Garry didn't want to die.

But it was more than that: It wasn't that Garry didn't want to die, it was that he didn't want to stop existing. He sometimes wondered, like other people, what it was like when you slept. You didn't remember what happened in your sleep unless you were dreaming, and when you weren't, it was just a blank emptiness in your memory. Sleep couldn't even be described as black, or white, or in terms of hours or seconds, because you simply didn't remember what happened. Sleep was quite simply sheer oblivion—unconsciousness.

And although Garry was as fine with sleep as the next person, he really didn't enjoy the thought of being unconscious—his very personality—his soul itself—ceasing to exist for all eternity. Garry didn't really believe in an afterlife. He didn't consider himself very religious. And one thing was for certain: He didn't want to die.

But he was willing to undergo death for Ib, partly because she was so much younger than he was, and partly because he had grown to care for her over the course of their ordeal, but mostly because Garry couldn't bear the thought of handing over the girl's rose to a psychopath. Only a monster would do something like that, and Garry wasn't a monster. So Garry was willing to brave death in order that Ib could be saved, because that was just the kind of person he was.

But that didn't mean he had to enjoy it.

Loves me…

Another burst of pain, a gasp.

Loves me not…

Garry coughed, blood spurting out of his mouth. Dredging up energy from his deepest wells that he didn't even know he had, he raised a hand and wiped the red fluid away. If Ib came back—and she would, because she was too innocent to know that he had died, and would try to wake him—he didn't want her last sight of him to be covered with blood.

Loves me…

More blood.

Loves me not…

Garry wondered, idly, how much longer it would be before his consciousness gave out and he gave in to the welcoming grasp of sleep, and eventually, death.

Loves me…

As another tremor racked his body, Garry thought of the real world, of what he was leaving behind for a nine-year-old girl he barely even knew—and he came to this conclusion: Whatever it was he was leaving behind, it would be far worse if Ib was killed. He lived by himself, he wasn't on good terms with his family, and he was far from stable financially. Really, he could barely dredge up the funds to attend college right now, and it wasn't like he was going to a great school or anything… he doubted that he would even be able to get a decent job with his credentials.

In the end, compared with the life of an innocent nine-year-old child, Garry's sacrifice was almost nothing.

Loves me!

Mary's voice rang out one last time, filled with childish enthusiasm, and Garry finally lost consciousness, slipping gratefully into unconsciousness, a place within the confines of his mind where—for the first time in a long time—there was no pain.

And then—darkness.

A rather short and depressing first chapter, I know, but don't worry: It'll get better. After all, I didn't write this story just to depress the hell out of myself (and my readers); the game does a good enough job of that already without my help. And as for the length… I'll admit that this chapter is not really up to my usual standards, length-wise, but seeing as its meant more as a sort of prologue, I think it's appropriate to end with Garry's "death". Rest assured; the following chapters will get longer.

Not really much else to say, other than if you enjoyed, drop a review, please. I'm not really looking forward to any flames, mind you, but if you do, not really much I can do about it, other than report you—and I'm too much of a laid-back person to go to that much effort just for a simple flame, really, so if you wanna flame—go for it, I guess. I'll probably just ignore you if you do, though, so yeah—constructive criticism or no, at least it adds to my review count, right?

Anyways, that's all for this chapter, so… see you next chapter, I guess! But don't expect something anytime soon; I'm known for being a huge procrastinator, so the average expected wait time will probably depend on my enthusiasm for the story—but I swear, I will not drop the story, and that's a promise. And we all know how seriously Ib and Mary take promises…

And finally, that really is all I have to say. See you next chapter,

JohnWarnerSmith (in case you're really stupid and also didn't bother to visit my profile, no that is not my real name you dummy)