I present to you: Fountain Pens the lovechild of my procrastination from the thing I'm actually writing and Microsoft Word 2008


"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me." Arden spat, taking in her newest set of surroundings.

She became conscious moments ago, waking to an entirely white hallway across from a beautiful mural set in a gold frame. In all honesty, it took a second to recognize the painting, but as she got to her feet and read the plaque set in the wall below the artwork, the lights flickered, leaving no doubt of her whereabouts.

The latest place that Res decided to send her was a low budget RPG horror game, titled Ib.

Arden was slightly transfixed by 'A Fabricated World'. The aforementioned low budget game depicted it as some refined scribbles, but, true to the way of Res, the graphics of the world matched that of average human eyesight, maybe a little beyond.

Arden wandered to her right, reading the plaques beneath each painting: 'Enlightenment', 'Your Dark Figure'.

She trudged on through the upper floor, and descended the stairs. With only 4 steps left, the lights flickered off. Arden paused. Audible footsteps sounded behind her. She didn't turn. She walked to the reception desk, inspecting the guestbook that normally served as a save point.

It was blank.

Though she knew it was pointless she walked over to the door and experimentally pulled on the door handle.

"Locked, as expected." She said under her breath.

Arden then tried the window closest to the door. Also locked, though the locking mechanism at the top seemed more like a decoration than a functional piece.

She tugged at the window near to the desk next. It was the same as the other, but when she tried the lock at the top of the window frame, thick liquid spilled down from the other side of the glass, tinting the faint daylight red.

Whether it was paint or blood, she didn't want to know. She carefully backed away, and scaled the stairs again.

When she reached the top, a shadowy humanoid figure passed in front of the window directly opposite her. That's impossible' she thought. This is the second floor. She then came to the conclusion that there might be a few impossibilities in this newest adventure. And, well, every other adventure.

As she passed 'A Lady in Red', the fruit fell out of the next painting over, splattering onto the floor in front of her. The painted fruit somehow had been given a physical, 3D form, and, quite literally, fell out of the painting.

Shaking her head, Arden proceeded past the sculptures, lingering at 'Fusion'. She trudged on, starting down the hallway that contained 'A Fabricated World,' jumping nearly a foot in the air as 'Your Dark Figure' meowed.

Not having played for so long, she scarce recalled intricate details of the game, so she was helpless against the countless jumpscares.

"Damn, I hate horror games." Arden muttered

She returned to the spot where she'd awoken mere minutes ago, and saw blue liquid, presumably paint, leaking from behind 'A Fabricated World. She ran her finger through it, confirming it as paint.

Arden whipped around as she heard 6 consecutive bangs.

On the floor, in red paint, ' B' was spelled out.

This is strange. Have I... taken Ib's place? she thought. This hasn't happened before. No matter what world, the main character should still exist. She cursed Res. You can't just change rules. You can't just make people not exist. Arden thought bitterly.

She turned back to the blue paint on the wall, only to see that it now spelled out "come down below ib ill show you someplace secret".

"Maybe once you go back to elementary school and fix your grammar" she sassed. "Learn to capitalize."

Arden felt she knew where this was going. She continued on, giving the power-ranger-looking headless mannequins a sideways glance. She remembered "Death of the Individual" for what they were. Bloodthirsty- or rose-thirsty in this world- enemies who would chase you around 'til your rose wilts and you follow suit.

Deciding to test the window one more time, she stopped in front of it. It was now pitch black outside. Arden sprinted down the stairs when the same shadowy figure returned to bang on the darkened glass.

Arden leaned against the wall to catch her breath. Everything seemed in place with 'Abyss of the Deep' and 'A Well-Meaning Hell'. She wondered how she was meant to enter the haunted-gallery place.

She simply took a right turn and recognized 'Embodiment of Spirit', but there was something off about it. Rather than a red rose, the sculpture was a light grey, almost white. Perplexed by this, she stepped towards the inscription, and was shocked by yet another jumpscare: the 'Coughing Man' let out a hack. She shuddered, and moved to the other wall, away from the possessed painting.

She went down the hallway that held the 'Twinkling of Crystals and Stars' sculpture, and marveled at its beauty, something you couldn't see in the actual game. In between the pillars were cords of crystals, with mirrors pointed at them to reflect the light, making the clear stones appear to twinkle, as the name would imply.

Arden spotted a hole behind the crystal curtain with two blue footsteps leading towards it. Whoever left them has feet almost as big as me, She mused.

Knowing this must be her entrance to the 'Fabricated World', she parted the hanging crystals, which, strangely enough, made a harmonious tinkling sound. They reminded her of the wind chimes her Nana hung all about the kitchen.

Arden found herself enshrouded in almost total darkness, and she got to find out about the 'star' part of the title. Dim stars twinkled in the fabricated sky every way she turned, slightly illuminating her passage. At the end of the short hallway, she came upon a spiral staircase, and was able to see properly again as it was lighted with real fluorescent lights.

The staircase seemed to go on forever, and while Arden did enjoy the way the sound of her combat boots thudding against the stone steps echoed throughout, it got old though after a few minutes of heading downward. So unfair. Arden thought. Ib's passage down was just a short flight. At least I get a sweet calf workout. My butt better be fantastic after this.

She took the time to speculate on Ib's presence. The writings were directed towards Ib, but Arden had yet to see a sign of the young girl. 'Abyss of the Deep', usually the entrance into the screwed up world of the fabricated gallery, had nothing wrong with it.

Had Res made her the protagonist? Well, I always have loved attention. And, of course, the universe does revolve around me, the great and powerful Arden… who can barely tie her own shoes without dying. One must wonder how she'd survived all these years.

Finally, she reached the end of the staircase and took a seat on the bottom step, taking a moment to catch her breath, for the second time today. The stairs opened out into a relatively small room, in which she saw two bookcases, a painting on the wall to the right of her, and a small desk with what was intended to be a save station, but was now just a glorified ream of paper. The pen might be useful though, she thought, and snatched it. She'd always had a thing for fountain pens, though she was no calligrapher.

Arden walked to the bookcases in the center, betwixt them was a dark red table, a vase in the center, with a grey rose placed delicately inside. She daintily beheld the stem between her thumb and forefinger, and plucked it out of the vase, which was depleted of water.

"I'm holding my life." she said aloud, feeling the weight of the flower in her palm.

She experimentally tugged at one of the petals, not hard enough for it to come off, and felt a twinge of pain deep in her belly. God… let's not do that again, she thought and winced.

Stroking the velvety petals, she counted them, and was surprised to find that the rose she held was composed of 25 petals. I'm pretty sure that's at least twice what Garry had... she remembered. Aw, is Res giving me special treatment? So sweet. Arden was sarcastic, even in her own head. Especially in her own head. I guess this makes up for the fact that they took away all the damned save stations.

"I've got to safeguard this with my life. Well, I suppose it is my life." she contemplated out loud.

After pausing a moment to think, she tucked the rose into a convenient loop on the inside of her billowing black cloak. She couldn't really justify having the cloak, it just made her feel all mysterious.

She browsed the bookcases next to her, and found a book with an interesting sounding title. True to her rule of always bringing a book in case she needed to ignore stupid people, she tucked it into one of the many compartments of her cloak. Like cargo pants, but more badass, she thought, fingering the silver clasp at her throat.

"First things first, I guess I have to find Garry."

She stepped out into the hallway. Along the wall to her right were portraits of a bald man with extremely pale skin who was depicted crying tears of blood in each painting. Arden quickly rushed along, unnerved. Did Guertena really have to paint such creepy stuff? I mean, I get that he's an evil mastermind and all, but is this shit really necessary?

She exited through the door at the end of the hall, and came into a narrower, shorter hallway with four mannequins positioned at the end. Three of them were the power ranger things from 'Death of the Individual', and another was a simple headless mannequin with a blue tie. The male form, she supposed.

Arden faintly recalled this being the room with the portraits of ladies in various color, based on 'A Lady in Red.' She counted the paintings as she passed (as a memory of it being relevant later), coming up with 14 total.

Arden smirked, and pulled the pen out of her cloak. On the inside of her wrist, she wrote "14 LRP". Well, the would-be save stations do have some use, I suppose. Sweet pens.

She quickly went down the hall, past the headless mannequins. Despite occasionally painting creepy-ass stuff and being an evil mastermind, Guertena was kinda deep. I mean, I assume he meant with the mannequins being headless and all, that without our outward appearance, which we really only maintain for social reasons, we would lose all individuality. That, or he was too cheap to make the heads. She took a turn, and finally came to another door. She fumbled open the door, not wasting anytime in that room.

Pulling the door tightly shut behind her, she observed the next room, which was another rather long hallway. She felt an immediate disquiet when she noted the long line of glass mannequin heads along either side of the hallway. Instead of rushing (like usual), though, she carefully walked down the hallway, her footsteps light. Above the dismembered mannequin heads on her righthand side, there were more paintings of the pale bald man, though he wasn't crying here.

Eerily, it seemed as though its eyes were following her every move.

When she finally reached the end of the hallway, she found yet another useless save station, the fountain pen mocking her. She took that one as well, tucking it in her cloak alongside the other.

She pulled open the door, and came into a small room with two paintings. 'Heart in Custody' and 'Unbalanced Box'. After admiring Guertena's work for a minute or two, she continued onward.

She exited through a painting/door creature -like Harry Potter, no?, who asked for her flower, a request which she promptly denied, and continued on her not-so-merry way.

She opened the first door she saw, and entered to find that it was filled with stools and easels with all the same picture on them; that picture being what appeared to be a bottle of eyedrops. In the back of the room, she spotted those eyedrops on a table. Deciding to save that for later, she filed it in her memory, exited, and moved on.

Another save station (which she joyfully seized the pen from) sat at the end of a short hallway along with a painting that depicted a mug of coffee and a slice of cake. She stared in wonder at the small detail of the cake crumbs sitting next to the cake on the nicked plate. The steam floating up from the mug was amazingly realistic.

She shook her head and moved down a narrow hallway (which barely had enough room for her and made her self conscious about her girth) and came to a room with two portraits. They were of a bride and groom, both appeared devastated and were titled as 'Grieving Bride' and, respectively, 'Grieving Groom'.

In front of each painting was a sculpture of a blackened hand, the caption explaining that they, apparently, belonged to the bride. Arden moved on, resolving to fix their poor grieving faces after she found Garry. Sure, some of the paintings were total dicks, but that didn't mean they had no feelings.

She pulled open the door ahead and, lo and behold, blocking her path was a headless mannequin. Arden took a deep breath and pushed it, hard.

It shifted slightly forward.

"Ugh, dammit." She gasped out, breathing hard.

"Hmm," she considered. "Maybe…."

"Heave, ho" she said, this time pushing with all her might.

It loudly scraped across the stone floor. She chuckled. The 'heave, ho', probably didn't change anything, but it made it more fun, to be certain.

There wasn't much to sight-see, so she moved on.

In the hallway she came out to, there was a painting of a red smiley face with its tongue sticking out.

She stepped up to the painting curiously.

Nothing happened.

Strange, she thought.

She took a step back, and the painting spat at her. No joke, a blue liquid shot out from where the painting hung on the wall, falling at her feet. A petal fell off her rose, and with its departure came that dull pain in her belly, a constant ache that didn't fade, making her wince.

She bent down, and picked it up. Rather than the soft, velvety feel it once carried, it was dry and crinkled. It crumbled in her hand, and she let its remnants fall to the ground. She glanced back up at the painting to find that its tongue now wiggled at her tauntingly.

Taking care to avoid the "saliva", she wandered down the hall. It's the hall where Ib would usually find Garry, laid down face down on the floor, moaning in pain and missing his rose, She realized suddenly. The hallway was empty though, besides her and the mocking painting.

Perhaps I'm here ...before them? I spent forever on that staircase though, not to mention taking my sweet time getting here. Time must be warped here, She guessed, Garry does mention his watch no longer working once he got to the fabricated world..

She proceeded down the hallway, and came out into a room with a would-be save station (of course, she took the pen, happily adding it to her collection), and a blue vase, along with a painting of the aforementioned blue vase. The caption read 'Eternal Blessing'. Arden recalled the blue vase being one that never ran out of water, able to be used again and again.

Still feeling the dull ache deep in her belly, she approached the vase and gently tugged the rose out of her cloak-loop. She placed the rose in the shimmery vase, and immediately felt the pain stop, becoming nothing but a memory.

She went on down the next hallway, and saw another vase, this one grey, and empty. Its table was on an elevated platform, with posters on either side. They held the same message about the rose representing your lifeblood and such.

Arden recognized this as the room where Ib would normally discover blue petals on the ground, and a spot of blood in front of a blank space on the wall with a caption that read "Lady in Blue."

However, the petals were not there, the red carpet was unstained, and the Lady in Blue remained regally depicted within her frame, hung on the wall with the glass unbroken.

Arden approached the red door she'd bypassed earlier and found it unlocked. The room had a sculpture, and a stool next to a window that let her see the room from which she just came.

Humming, she pulled the stool back to the wall opposite the window and took a seat. Leaning against the wall, she pulled out the book from her and read.


Well, that's chapter one, done. It was briefly edited by my sister, but if you see any mistakes, hit me up.

I know some people might find asking for reviews to be annoying, but personally, I like it because it reminds me to comment? I don't know if that's how it works for other people, but I'd love it if you'd like to comment. Say whatever, really. Criticism is appreciated, but if you don't have anything, questions or comments are great too! Reviews sort of let me know how I'm doing as an author, and they're just super cool to get.