Hello guys.
I was able to type up chapter 2~
Lots of crying in this chapter.
I don't know when chapter 3 will be up
but I hope you enjoy.
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN "IB" OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS. KOURI DOES!
I DO HOWEVER, OWN THIS FANFIC.

Chapter 2

scattered petals of the mind

The man stood lost and confused as he desperately tried to grasp memories that were no longer present. He had no idea who he was or where he came from. Even though he had said he had come from the museum, he had no recollection of actually being there. The only thing he had was a frozen image of what appeared to be a room in a gallery. He trembled as loss turned to frustration then to sorrow. The man collapsed to his knees as he held the sides of his head as if trying to squeeze out any hidden pieces of information he had bottled up inside of him. But sadly, not so much as a name came to mind. He bit back a whimper as he tried to recall anything about himself. He couldn't remember anything and he felt himself slowly falling apart.

"Who…am I?" he asked aloud again as his sight blurred from tears. "What am I doing here? I don't remember. I don't remember anything!"

He wrapped his arms around himself in need to hold something that he could rightfully say was his. His mind and recollections were gone, leaving the shell of a man behind with nothing but a body and the clothes on his back. Ib painfully watched the man break down before her, but she couldn't bear to watch. She felt her own eyes begin to water at the agonizing display of the stranger suffering. She couldn't imagine forgetting about her parents, friends, and even her own name. The thought terrified her. She had no idea what it would be like to forget absolutely everything about her life, but she could see how agonizing it was. Would it be the best choice to explain to him what he was? Or would it be better to keep it hidden?

No. I can't do that to him. She thought to herself. She had to be strong. Ib wiped her eyes and walked over to him.

The man's tremors began to cease when a small hand patted his head. "It's okay," the young girl quietly said to him. Ib didn't know what else she could do for him, the only thing she could give him was comfort. "I don't know if my guess of your identity is right but, it's going to be okay."

The man slowly raised his head with teardrops at the corners of his eyes. "You…know me?" he asked confusedly. "But you asked what my name was, didn't you?"

Ib nodded. "I can't say I know you personally but, there was something I wanted to confirm," she said as she adjusted her red skirt to crouch down. "Um, if you don't mind, would you be so kind as to listen to my story?"

He wiped his eyes and took a deep breath before giving her a small nod. Ib, then gently took the man's hand and helped him up as she led him over to the table to take a seat. She began to tell him about the "Forgotten Portrait" and what she had been doing prior in the museum. The man listened intently to her explanation and her guess of how he was the actual portrait itself. It was a lot to take in and it seemed crazy but it would explain their current predicament.

"But," Ib interjected, "you don't look like a painting at all. I mean, you look like the person in the painting, but you seem very human to me, so I might be wrong."

She looked down at her twirling fingers as if trying to ignore the fact that she just explained something completely and utterly impossible. He probably thinks I'm crazy. She thought.

The man, however, didn't laugh or ridicule her hypothesis. Instead he was taking it to heart. He was listening intently to her and when she was done he looked back down at his hands. "A painting…huh?" he said as the information began to sink in. "Maybe I am one, I mean that would explain why I can't remember being in the real world. I just remember one quick glimpse of what looked like a gallery. But, I feel as if that's not the whole picture."

Ib sat quietly across from him, listening, as he ran a hand through his messy hair. "I mean, I feel as if I have a past in the other world," he continued as he raised his hand up to the artificial sunlight, "I feel a heartbeat in me and I feel as if I have a name, not a title." He flexed his fingers as he stared at them intensely. "But there's something that bothers me about all of this," he muttered.

Ib looked up with her rabbit like eyes. "What?" she asked.

His eyebrows furrowed as he began to vocalize his thoughts. "You said that this art exhibit has been on tour and the painting I look like was that of a sleeping man," he whispered. "And the only clear thing I can remember was having a glimpse of the gallery you came from," he continued, "I can say that since I think I saw you in front of me."

The adolescent girl lightly tugged at her skirt as she began to remember how she ended up in this bizarre place.

He rolled his fists into a ball as he looked away from the girl sitting across from him. "I can only think that reason behind that is," he swallowed, "that the painting…no…I woke up."

Like a chemical reaction, Ib's eyes shot wide open. Glints of the moments before she woke up on the marble floor, hit her like a ton of bricks. The voice. The smiling painting. The roses…I remember!

She abruptly sat up in her seat. "I remember!"

The puzzled portrait man jumped. "R-Remember?!"

She settled into her seat once again as she turned red at another one of her sudden outbursts. "That is, I remember how I got here," she said avoiding eye contact. I'm probably startling him more that I should. I'm acting like a total nut.

Timidly, Ib glanced back over to the lavender haired gentleman seated across the table. The man let out a sigh as he eased up. "Can you tell me?" he asked with a small reassuring smile, "It might help me remember what happened to me."

The brunette opened her small mouth with a tiny blush before she bobbed her head into a nod. "There was a voice," she began, "it sounded a lot like yours but it was somehow very different." She looked down into her lap before continuing. "It had been talking to me before I had even entered the room with the Forgotten Portrait in it. But when I did get in there…," she paused as she looked over at the roses in the vase.

The kind stranger's eyes did not break from her. "Go on," he said in his gentle voice.

Ib looked back at him, and gave him a small smile before losing it to her story. "I remember walking over to the portrait, but it felt as if someone was leading me over," she confessed trying not to tremble, "when I stood before it, I realized the voice I had been hearing was…coming from within the painting. A-And…the man inside w-woke up…" Her small hands were trembling and the waves of overwhelming lonliness returned. Tiny tears began to fall from her eyes. "I-I don't know why but…I began to cry as he smiled at me, and the next thing I knew, he was gone. A-And the rose vines in the painting wrapped themselves around me…and I ended up here," she finished as her voice began to crack.

The older man opened his mouth to say something as he watched the girl slowly crumble but before he could reach out to her, she looked up at him again with tear filled eyes. No, she wasn't looking at him. She was desperately looking for an answer to her inner turmoil.

She was looking straight at him as if he had the answers as the hot drops of water fell. "B-But I-I wasn't afraid of him!" she let out as her voice grew more erratic, "I was scared when the roses suddenly coiled around me but not of him! I feel as if…as if he was someone very important to me!" her voice cracked.

It was breaking the man's heart as he sat and watched the young girl spill her heart out. "But why?" she quietly cracked, "if he's someone important to me, why…can't…I…," the rest of her sentence was replaced by a line of sobs. She didn't understand where this sadness was coming from. It was as if she had forgotten an important detail in her life, a very tragic detail that she wasn't supposed to forget.

The child's tears wouldn't stop no matter how desperately she wiped them away. She felt as if the tears would never cease, until a hand gently stoked her head. "That must have been terrifying. I'm sorry you had to go through that," he said as he lightly petted her head, "It's alright, you haven't done anything wrong. So don't be sad, Ib."

The boy's touch was so kind and gentle. And as she looked up, his lips curled into sad yet genuinely caring smile. His hands felt warm against her skin as he brushed them across her cheeks to wipe away her tears. She didn't even know this person yet this kindness felt painfully familiar. She sniffled as she took her handkerchief out of her pocket, allowing a lone luminous blue rose petal to gently float down to the floor. She dabbed her eyes. "Thank you," she said as she looked back to him with her puffy red eyes.

"I can't really call myself a man if I don't do anything when I see a crying girl in front of me," he replied, with an awkward smile, "I would have offered you a handkerchief but I don't have one with me."

She let out a small giggle, "It's alright," she smiled, "I apologize for suddenly crying like that."

His hair shifted as he tilted his head to the side with a smile. "Don't be," he said, "There's nothing wrong with crying. I mean, I just cried and I want to cry right now since I can't remember much of anything."

Ib's smile dropped. That's right, he can't remember anything. "I'm sorry," she apologized.

"No, no. Don't apologize!" he said, waving his hand in front of him, "Your story helped a little bit. I feel as if I'm on the verge of remembering something…Really."

The young girl gave him a sad look—she couldn't help but want to help him in some way. Yet, she couldn't keep referring him as "you". She bit her lip as her cheeks began to pinken. The lean boy leaned his forehead on his interlocked hands as he tried to remember whatever it was that was teasing him.

Ib fidgeted in her seat. What am I so nervous about? He's a nice person. But she needed to know something to call him by. "U-Um, what should I call you?" she shyly asked. "I mean, Forgotten Portrait is a bit long and sounds rather sad."

The man from the portrait let out a sigh and shook his head as he closed his eyes trying to focus on some type of memento to confirm he was human at some point and had a proper name. "It's on the tip of my tongue but I can't remember," he said as he dropped his head into his hands once again.

As, the young girl placed her handkerchief back into her pocket, she noticed the glowing blue rose petal on the floor. She blinked at it before placing it on the pure white table. I guess it fell into my pocket when all those vines came at me.

Her fellow sitting partner, glanced up and looked at the petal. "A rose petal?" he asked.

"Ah. Yes," she replied, "I think it got caught on me when those roses wra-?,"

The man's gaze grew distant as his hand reached out for the lone petal. His one visible eye glazed over as he fell into a trance-like state. Ib observed him in silence as his fingers came in contact with the blue petal. But the second he touched it, the blue rose in the vase erupted into a flurry of scattered petals, leaving behind a naked rose stalk. The soft petal on the table shattered like glass into thousands of glittering azure pieces. The man's eyes shot open and Ib let out a small scream as she shielded her eyes from the bright flash. As the light died down, the young girl squinted and saw the shimmering shards begin to piece themselves, like a mosaic puzzle, into a small sapphire rose bud on the empty stalk.

Ib stared at the reborn rose in awe as it shimmered with even more beauty that it had originally. Its shade of blue was pure and reflected a vibrant new life. Even the water in the vase seemed clearer and the red rose seemed brighter as it swayed in the aftershock of the light show. She looked away from the roses and back to the unmoving man across from her. His mauve locks fell over his face as he sat in silence.

Concerned, the young girl reached her hand out to him. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Garry…," he said.

She blinked. "Pardon?"

"My name," he said as he moved his bangs out of his eyes, "My name is, Garry." Her mouth dropped as he looked up at her. He was smiling but his eyes were full of tears.

"I remember my name. Thank goodness," he said as slow tears rolled down his cheek, "I have a name…a normal name for a person…I'm glad…so very glad."

Ib smiled as Garry wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "That's a lovely name," she said, "Nice to meet you, Garry."

He smiled. "It's nice to meet you too, Ib."

"But, how?" she asked blinking her eyes. "Did something happen in that light?"

Garry scratched his head. "I don't really know, to be honest," he replied as he looked up in thought, "I just remember feeling like I HAD to touch that petal and then the next thing I knew, I remembered my name. It's odd, now I'm wondering how I could have forgotten my name so easily."

"I guess that's how memories work," she answered as she glanced at the roses, "They're a part of us and when we forget them it's like a piece of us is missing." She poked the red rose and beamed down at it. "And when we remember them, it's like they were hiding right under our noses and were with us the whole time."

He grinned at her as he flipped his messy hair back into place. "That's a nice way to put it," he said. "But where did all these blue petals come from?" he asked as he looked around them and saw the remains of the previous incarnation of the blue rose.

Ib returned the happy expression but then turned serious as she looked at the vase. "When you touched that petal, the blue rose in the vase destroyed itself and the petal fell apart and became this little one," she replied as she gingerly caressed the small blue rose bud. "Do you think that some of your memory returning has something to do with this flower?" she asked as she pulled the vase into the center of the table.

The man peered down at the roses and stared intently at the blue bud. "Maybe. But that flower has gotten considerably smaller, hasn't it?" he said, "However, I think it's prettier than it was before."

"You think so, too?"

"Yes," he said as he gently picked it out of the vase, "I like it."

"I do too," she replied with a smile.

As Garry scanned over the rose he started to look more an more awe-filled. "How peculiar," he muttered as he twisted the rose around, "it's so full of life."

Following Garry's example, Ib looked down at the red rose and carefully plucked it out of the water. The moment she did, the water in the tiny vase vanished and the scarlet rose looked more refreshed than it had while it was sitting in the glass container. It felt like it was almost pulsating in her hand as she examined it.

"It's as if it doesn't want to be let go of," Ib said as she closed her eyes to take in its aroma, "And it's overflowing with life."

"That's what I felt," he agreed, "If these roses have something to do with our memory, maybe if we collect more petals we'll figure out what we forgot."

Ib cocked her head to the side. "You mean me too?" she asked.

"Of course. I mean, you feel as if you're forgetting something right?" he replied matter-of-factly, "Maybe we can figure it out if we find some glowing red petals?"

The girl gave him a look of disbelief. "I don't think it will be as easy as some RPG," she said. Not that she had ever played such a video game before, she only heard about them from the people in the class.

Garry laughed. "Perhaps, but it doesn't hurt to try," he said chuckling, "If our guess is right that some of my memory came back because of that petal, we should try and find another one to confirm whether or not that's the reason."

She couldn't argue with that reasoning. It was really all they had to go by and if there was an off chance that she could find out why she cried everytime she thought of the lonesome portrait, she'd gladly take up the risks. Not to mention they could possibly find the exit out of this odd place if they explored some more. But the first order of business was to find a way out of this crystal dome. Ib slipped out of her seat and looked around again for some type of exit but all the walls were solid and covered with dense rose vines and thorns.

"I guess in order to go searching, we need to find a way out of here first," the older man said as he stood up from his chair. As if responding to his statement, a section of vines behind him shifted to reveal a pair of glass ornate doors. Ib and Garry stared at the doors and then at each other.

"That was oddly convenient wasn't i-?" he paused mid-sentence as he looked down at his arm.

"Hn?" Ib followed his line of sight and found her hand gripping his sleeve. She blushed and released her hold in an instant. "I-I'm s-sorry," she said as she stepped back, "that just startled me is all."

"N-No, it's alright it startled me too," he said as his cheeks turned light pink, "if you ever feel sacred don't…um… hesitate to grab on…to…I mean…just…" He looked down to hide his bashfulness. What am I saying? He thought to himself. She barely knows me and I'm coming off as some old flirt. I mean, she's cute but she's rather young…how old am I anyway? In any case, I'm definitely older than she is. I wonder what she'll look like in the future. She'll probably be really pretty when she's older. I mean she's already this cu-WHAT AM I THINKING?!

As Garry was fighting his newly found inner demons, the young girl watched him make some rather comedic expressions. She didn't quite understand what he was saying or thinking, but she knew he was trying to be as comforting as he could. She giggled a she watched him pace around and scramble his head. He isn't a bad person. She thought as she looked down at the red rose. Maybe I'll remember whatever this feeling is inside of me if we go on. And I wouldn't mind going on an adventure with my favorite painting. She nodded as she set her mind to it and gently took Garry's hand, bringing him back to reality.

"Come on," she said smiling brightly at him, "Let's go find our memories, Garry."

He blushed lightly and swallowed his thoughts. "Sure," he merrily replied as he calmed down. He looked towards the door and then back at Ib. "Ib, I know we're going to go look for whatever memories we've forgotten, but I'm going to get you out of here," he said with a serious tone. He dropped to one knee and lightly cupped her hand into his as he gazed up at her with his deep pale violet eyes. "From the sound of it, it's kind of my fault you're stuck here and I don't want to leave a girl all by herself in this strange place. I can't remember what happened but I'm going to send you back home. I promise."

A promise…

Ib's heart skipped a beat as she looked at Garry. She took a deep breath before shaking her head. "Not just me," she said with a smile pulling her hand away, "Let's both get out of here after we find our memories, together. Okay?" She held her right pinky out to him for completion of their agreement. Her cheeks flushed as she looked at Garry. Maybe this is childish of me. She thought as she looked at her tiny finger and began to withdraw it.

His eyes blinked in surprise at her words but he smiled. "Alright, it's a promise," he grinned locking pinkies with her. "Let's both do our best to get back what we've forgotten and find a way out here, partner!"

Happy that she had a new friend and a fresh promise, Ib nodded and tightened her pinky with Garry's. The man then rose to his feet and the two began to walk towards the glass door. Unbeknownst to the pair, someone was observing them from the shadows—watching their every move and guiding their every step.

The individual smiled from the cover of roses. "You best keep that promise, Ib," the low voice echoed from afar, "Because you're the only one that can."

And that brings chapter 2 to a close.
Who is that is watching them?
I don't know. Actually I do.
*SHOT*
I apologize, as always, if the characters went OOC.
I hate it when they do. So I'm sorry if they did.
I hope you enjoyed reading.
I would like to thank all my readers,
faves, followers, and reviewers~!
I was surprised how many faves and followers I got
just from one chapter. But I'm very thankful.
Please drop a review and tell me what you think of the
story so far.
I enjoy reading them and they help motivate me to write.
R&R=love~!
Thank you and see you next time~!
-Lin