And I'm back! Here's chapter 2 of A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words! Sorry to disappoint, but this chapter is a bit slow, seeing as I don't have anyone to socialize with yet… YET. Teehee. Well, I hope you enjoy this chapter anyways, and as always, reviews mean the world to me! :D
I squeezed my eyes shut tight as I was engulfed in the mysterious blue liquid. I could feel it all around me, but from what I could tell my clothes and body were completely dry. It didn't necessarily feel as if I were falling, I just had this excruciating dizzy-feeling in my head reminding me of when I was a kid and my father had pushed the merry-go-round too fast, resulting in my mother scolding him on the way home for making me nauseas.
Once the dizziness had finally subsided, I cautiously raised my eyelids. I was sitting on the floor in a long, narrow hallway. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all painted blue, and to my right were two golden-framed paintings of cliffs and chunks of rocks serving as bridges over water. The water in the right painting was blue, as the left painting's was red.
I hadn't the slightest idea of how jumping into the painting was possible, or how it even helped my situation, but something told me it was… right, for lack of a better word. I stood up slowly and shook the rest of the dizziness out of my head. Ahead of me was a table with an open book and a quill next to it. I furrowed my brows in confusion, but decided it best to just leave it alone. On the right wall next to the table was a blue door. I jiggled the knob, only to find it locked. Huffing in frustration, I turned back around and quickly paced to the other end of the hallway.
As I got more towards the end of the hallway, faint letters began appearing on the wall. They read come… come… come… and the legibility increased as I proceeded down the dark corridor. At the end was another door with a table that had a beautiful red rose placed in an antique vase that appeared as if it had had dozens of owners before whoever claimed it then.
Upon looking closer at the flower, it seemed… familiar, as if we were connected in some way I had long ago forgotten. As I continued inspecting it, I felt the urge to grab it and obtain it as my own. One side of my brain was telling me to take it, that it was mine and I needed it, but the other part of me felt something suspicious about the rose, that I should just leave and get the heck out of here, even though I knew it was impossible as there was no way back up and out of the painting. But the more I battled with myself, the dizziness began to return. At first it was just a lingering feeling, but it slowly intensified and made me nauseas. Not knowing what else to do, I quickly snatched the rose out of its place in the vase and as my fingers clamped around the thornless stem, the feelings of sickness vanished, only leaving me a bit light-headed.
Keeping the rose in my hand, I pushed the table aside and opened the door. The room was entirely blue, just as the hallway was, and there was a painting of a woman with long blue hair that hung over and out of the frame on the back wall. There was only a single key laying on the floor, but I stepped over it to read the plaque under the large painting.
"When the rose wilts," it read. "So too will you wither away…"
"Well that's a bit disconcerting…" I whispered to no one in particular.
Seeing no other purpose of the room, I picked up the key and left, assuming it unlocked the door at the other end of the hallway.
When I reentered the corridor the first thing I noticed was the words 'come… come…' had been replaced by bright red letters that spelled out 'THEIF… THEIF… THEIF…' What was that about?
Ignoring the letters, I continued walking, pushing the mysterious happenings out of my mind. I just needed to get out of there as soon as possible. What if my parents were somewhere in there looking for me? They couldn't have just vanished into thin air, I was sure they were worried at the least.
The next room had completely gotten rid of the blue, and replaced it with green. There was a long corridor ahead, and another area to the right that showed paintings of various bugs: a ladybug, a bee, a butterfly, and a spider. Continuing forward, I noticed a pillar in the middle of the walkway reading 'Beware of edges.' As soon as I began walking I immediately knew why: as you proceeded down the hallway, different hands shot out at you on either side, each hand a dark black color with long sharp claws. There was another painting and another door at the end of the hallway, but the door was locked. I decided to check out the other way this time, so I turned around and avoided the hands once again.
Further down the room, past the paintings of the bugs, there were more paintings, these showing the four stages of a caterpillar's life. There was a door at the end of the room, but in between that door and the next was a wide hole in the floor, but not wide enough that it was uncrossable with my long legs. I carefully jumped over the gap and proceeded into the next room.
The first thing I noticed was the headless statue in the back of the room, with the tiny green key lying in front of it. For some reason, this whole scenario was foreboding to me. I felt as if the stone would magically come to life and start chasing me. But of course, I had been taught better than that and merely laughed at my childish thoughts. Looking back on it, I guess I should have seen it coming when the statue did exactly what I predicted.
I bent down to pick up the key and when I looked back up, the statue had moved closer to me. I slowly stood to my feet and took a few cautious steps back. At first nothing happened, and I figured I was imagining things, but after I had been standing still for a few seconds, the thing practically lunged for me with its arms outstretched.
I bolted out of there faster than I ever thought I could. When I reached the hole in the floor, I was already running so fast that when I jumped, I nearly face-planted into the wall in front of me. Before I was out of the door, the statue had followed me out of the room and tried to get to me, but fell through the gap before it could.
Breathless, I fumbled with the doorknob until it finally opened, trying desperately to piece together a logical explanation of what was going on. That was an inanimate object, it should not be moving! I stealthily made my way down the hand-hallway one last time, my head throbbing in fear and confusion, and I unlocked the green door.
In this room, the walls were a light brown color, while the floor was a mustard-yellow. There were two large, black circles on the back wall, with a fish-shaped hole in the middle of it. There were also two doors, one on the left and one on the right, and I decided to go left first.
In the left room, there were seven boxes on the floor, four on the bottom and three on the top. Where the eighth would have been placed, there lay a painting of a stick figure. When I approached it, words appeared under him reading 'Play hide and seek?' and then he disappeared.
Oh god. I was always horrible at this game as a child. Closing my eyes, I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself before I went looking for this thing. I didn't know what would happen if I looked in a box and didn't find the thing there, and, frankly, I didn't want to find out.
The first box I opened was the middle one to the right. What was in it wasn't at all a small stickman, but a naked woman who, with a feminine scream, slapped me right across the face. I clutched my cheek in pain; it'd hurt a lot more than I'd expected. Looking down, I noticed a rose petal on the ground. I picked it up and examined it, noticing that the rose in my shirt pocket had lost a petal. Subconsciously placing my hand back on my cheek, I tried to remember what I had read about this rose.
"When the rose wilts, so too will you wither away…"
My eyes widened, realizing that this rose was my potential life-support. The more I was hurt, the more petals I would lose, and when all the petals had fallen off…
I shuddered, pushing that thought out of my head. I only had two petals left; I would need to be very careful if I wanted to make it out alive.
Well, that wasn't so bad! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and I PROOOMMIISSSEEE the next chapter will be sooo much more eventful! So please review and tell me what you think so far! :D
