The girl gasped as she shot up, eyes wide and tears streaming down her face. Ah. . . It's that dream again. . . She sighed, running a hand through her messy auburn hair and wiping her tears with her sleeve. Her covers were partly on the floor, and twisted up as if she had been writhing during her sleep. She had been having the same dream for the longest time, but as time passed, it came to haunt her less frequently. The odd thing about this dream, if it's frequency wasn't strange enough, was that she only remembered tiny particles of slivers of what occurred after she woke up. After all these years of having the same dream, all she remembered was flashes of different colors, like red, green, yellow, and blue, and fire.
It had all started eight years ago, when she was just an innocent and naïve nine-year-old girl. She had been taken against her will to the gallery of an artist named Guertena. Although Ib herself didn't recall much from the trip, her parents remembered losing her after letting her wander free in the mazes of portraits, paintings, and sculptures, and Mary, her foster sister, finding her sobbing in front of a large painting of a purple-haired young man resting on a bed of blue roses. He had his eyes closed, with tears rolling down his cheeks and a vine with sharp thorns wrapped around his neck, leading up above the portrait like a noose. Ib was apparently clutching a blue rose tightly to her chest, and escorted home despite her screaming and kicking.
Although she had no recollection of this event and her trip to the gallery, that particular painting has had a large impression in her life. The nameless man in the painting had always consumed her dreams, and she often woke up in the middle of the night with eyes swollen from crying.
"Eve."
The said girl turned towards the voice. Mary's deep blue eyes met hers.
"That dream again?"
"Yeah…"
After a moment of silence, Mary let out a small sigh and smiled brightly.
"Well, hurry up, now. Don't wanna be late for school~"
Ib nodded and got out of bed, walking over to her closet to grab her school uniform. It was a typical Japanese uniform, a simple black with white lines, in the typical sailor-style design.
As she reached for it, her fingers brushed a piece of red material. It was the bow she had always worn when she was younger, and wrapped tenderly inside it was something that seemed to have been a rose. A blue petal was caught on one of the thorns, but she had never thought of taking it out. The former rose wasn't wilted or shrunken, oddly. It was simply petal-less.
"Eve! What are you doing? I told you we're going to be late!" Mary stood in the doorway, dressed in her uniform. When she saw what her foster sister was holding, her expression seemed to change. There was something different in her eyes as she walked over calmly and peered at the object in her sister's hand.
"What's that?" She asked casually. However, the curious, fun-loving tone in her voice was gone. Ib, sensing a change in the blonde, hurriedly put the rose away. Mary watched her, eyes seemingly cold and piercing.
"Just a moment…" The brunette said softly, a bit fidgety at Mary's change of behavior.
"Well, don't just stand there, hurry up~!" The playful tone returned, and she skipped out, blonde curls bouncing.
Ib dressed hurriedly and rushed out.
Mary had always acted strange whenever anything about the gallery or her dreams was brought up. Her attitude changed, and her eyes, which usually contained a mischievous glint, became cold and fierce. Her parents didn't notice, and Ib kept quiet about it, but she had always been curious and a bit fearful about why her sister acted this way.
"Let's go," The blonde grinned, taking Ib's hand and leading her out.