Garden of Roses
Ch.4
Disclaimer: I do not own Ib or Hetalia.
The next room that they ended up in was almost completely empty the only thing in their was a single headless statue wearing a blue tie. The statue was standing in front of the door that would lead them deep into the gallery.
"This is a really inconvenient place for this thing." Garry said. "Here give me a second."
Ib and England watched as Garry carefully pushed the statue out of the way.
"Their now we can get though." Garry said.
"You're rather strong Garry." England said as he walked toward the door.
"I'm not that strong." Garry said.
"You're strong enough that I think you should handle all of the jobs that require moving heavy things." England said as he opened the door.
"Why do I have to do it?" Garry whined, obviously he wasn't happy about his new job.
England didn't answer that question he just started to look around the new room. In the new room where two paintings of a bride and a groom, and two sculptures of hands. Both the bride and the groom looked very sad, but why they where sad were anyone's guess.
"She doesn't have her wedding ring." Ib stated.
At first England was confused by what Ib meant by that, but when England looked at the sculpture of the hand that was in front of the bride he started to figure out what she meant. The card in front of the hand said that it was called the grieving bride's left hand, and sure enough England saw that it didn't have a ring on it.
"You think it had a ring on it originally?" Garry asked.
"Who knows?" England answered.
Since there wasn't much else that they could do in the room they went through the door into a new room. The room was huge, and their where a bunch of doors that they could try opening. England also noticed that across from the door that they just came though was a picture of a cake and a cup of coffee. Garry must have noticed the painting to because he started to look at it as well.
"That cake looks good." Garry said.
"It does, but I could do without the coffee." England said.
"Don't like coffee?" Garry asked.
"I would prefer a cup of tea." England said.
Garry just nodded and said "I like tea too. I really like drinking tea when I have macaroons to go with it."
"What are macaroons?" Ib asked.
"They're a hamburger shaped pastry. They taste really good." Garry explained.
"I want to try one…" Ib said.
"I know of a really good café that has really good tea and macaroons. When we get out of here why don't we go to the café together?" Garry said. Ib just smiled and nodded her head, and England started to smile as well. England wasn't sure if he was truly serious about going off to a cafe together once they got out of here or if he was just saying that to make Ib happy, but either way the idea of going out to getting macaroons seemed to cheer the girl up and that was all that mattered to England.
England just shook his head and said "That sounds lovely, but we need to get out of here first."
Garry just nodded before he said "Your right. Let's start exploring the area the door that leads us out of here has to be somewhere in this room."
With that said they started exploring the area. The first door that they tried just lead them to a room full of stools and easels. In the middle of the room was some kind of bottle, but when they shoved a couple of the stools out of the way and got to the bottle they only found out that it was a bottle of eye drops. Ib took the drops and put them in her pocket, and while England wasn't sure what they would do with the bottle he didn't stop her from grabbing it. The next room that they went into was a maze.
"You think we need to go though their?" Garry asked.
"Knowing this place there's probably a key to some door hidden in the maze." England answered.
"Let's go though it then." Garry said.
Turns out they weren't the only ones in the maze because as they wondered the winding maze they ran across a couple of headless statues wondering around the maze as well, and the statues where not friendly. After looking around the maze for who knows how long they finally found a switch, and after pushing it and hearing a strange sound somewhere off in the distance they finally left the maze. They left the maze room and started to look around the area some more only to come to a hallway that had small holes in the floor. England was about to ask his companions what they thought about it, but before he could even say a ward a bunch of eyeballs popped out of the holes.
"What in the world are these things?!" Garry yelled in disgust.
England just frowned a little, but Ib just went on ahead and walked around the eyeballs. She stopped walking when she eventually reached in eyeball that was in the middle of the hall. Garry and England quickly caught up with her and looked at the little girl. Ib was staring rather intently at an eyeball that seemed to have a serious case of congestion. The eyeball just started back at the girl, and England was starting to wonder if the small girl was trying to get into a staring contest with the giant eye.
"Ib, what are you doing?" Garry asked.
Ib didn't answer she just took the bottle of eye drops out of her pocket and used it on the eye. The congestion immediately disappeared and the eye looked as good as new. The eye disappeared only to reaper next to the wall. They made their way over to the eyeball only to see that it was staring rather intently at the wall next to it.
"Think it's trying to show us something?" Garry asked.
The eyeball disappeared back into the ground and England looked at the wall. The one section of the wall was a slightly different color then the rest of the wall. England applied some slight pressure to the wall only to have it crumble away and revel another hall.
"A secret passage?" Garry asked.
"I guess so…." England replied.
England went into the hall and came right back out with a red stone in his hand.
"A red gemstone?" Garry said.
"Don't get excited I'm pretty sure it's fake." England said.
"Was their anything else in their?" Garry asked.
England just shook his head and Garry sighed before he said "Well, I guess we should keep looking around."
They eventually ended up in another hallway that was filled with paintings. One of the paintings was that of a white snake, but located where the eye should be was a small hole where someone could put a round object.
"You know that stone you picked up would probably fit there." Garry said.
"It's worth a shot anyway." England said.
England carefully put the stone into the slot, and surprisingly enough the stone was a perfect fit. Once the stone was locked in place a painting next to the snake painting fell to the ground.
Ib walked over to the painting only to say "There is something written on the back."
"What's it say?" England asked.
"Behind the big tree..."Ib read out loud.
"I wonder what that means." Garry said.
"We will probably find out eventually." England said.
The small group made their way back to the painting of the cake and coffee, but when they got their England quickly noticed that there was a door next to it.
"Has that door always been there?" England asked.
Garry just shook his head before he said "No, it wasn't there before."
"How odd." England said.
He opened the door only to see that it was a lone hallway that was filled with artworks. The group walked in and started looking at each artwork. The first piece of art was a giant wine glass with a huge pink cushion in it.
"I don't think that would be very comfortable to sit in it." Garry said.
The next piece of art was bust of a very depressed looking man. The title card said that it was called 'Melancholy' Garry just shook his head at the title and said "Well, who wouldn't be in this place?" England couldn't help but mentally agree with Garry. This place wasn't pleasant in any way. The next sculpture was that of a skeleton, and each of its bones was colored a different color. The last piece of artwork was some tree thing that had the vague shape of some sort of round monster.
"It is supposed to be a person?" Garry asked.
"If it is the person who made this has obviously never seen a real person before." England said.
Ib just tugged on England's shirt, and when England looked at her she asked "Is this the tree that we have to check?"
"That's a good question…" England said.
England checked the back of the tree only to see something shiny had been put on one of the branches. England took the shiny thing off of the branch only to see that it was a ring. It was a simple silver ring, but even with it's simple design it still looked very elegant.
"I think we found the bride's ring." England said as he showed the ring to his two companions.
"Think we need to give it to her?" Garry asked.
"I guess we do. I don't know what else we could do with it." England said.
They made their way out of the room and quickly returned back to the bride and groom picture. Once they where their England carefully slipped the ring onto the left hand's ring finger. The bride and the groom started to smile and England watched in amazement as the bride tossed her bouquet out of her portrait. The bouquet landed on the ground and when England picked it up he saw that it was filled to the brim with bright pink roses.
"I guess this means that you're going to get married soon." Garry joked.
England just glared at him before he said "Very funny."
Garry just smiled and England rolled his eyes before he asked "What do you think we do with it?"
"Well, it has to be used somewhere. Let's go back and see if there is anywhere that we can use this." Gary said.
England nodded and they went back to the picture of the cake and coffee. There was only one hall that they had yet to explore and at the end of that hall was a creepy painting of the face. The face just looked at them and chuckled before it said "Your flower…. Give me your flower…"
'Yeah, it's probably not a good idea to hand my rose over to that thing.' England thought.
England looked down at the bouquet that he was holding before he shrugged his shoulders and held the bouquet out toward the painting. "Here, take this." England said.
He didn't know if he was really supposed to be giving the painting the bouquet or not, but he didn't know what else to do with it and their was no way that England was going to give that thing his rose.
The painting just chuckled before it said "Chow time."
The painting grabbed the bouquet with its mouth and quickly ripped the bouquet out of England's hands. England quickly stumbled back and bumped into Garry. Garry quickly put his hand on England's shoulder and looked at him in concern.
"Are you alright?" Garry asked.
"The bloody thing could have bit my hand off." England muttered.
England just shook his head and looked over at Garry.
"I'm fine thank you for your concern." The English nation said.
Garry smiled at him and England smiled back, but they quickly snapped out of it when they heard the painting laugh.
"That was good. I'll let you through now." The painting said.
The painting face disappeared only to reveal a door.
"This place is really weird…" Garry murmured.
"Tell me about it…" England muttered as he opened the door.
The door lead them through a couple of hallways, and one hallway was filled with mannequin heads. Eventually they made it to a huge room that was set up a little bit like a maze. Luckily, it was easy to navigate, but much to their discomfort they quickly found out that their where a few things set about the room that could be very dangerous.
There where a few headless statues set up around the room, but the statues didn't move when they walked by them. There were also paintings of the Ladies that lined a few of the walls that they passed by. England quickly noticed that two new ladies to go along with the Lady in Red and the Lady in Blue. Much like the other two ladies these ladies also had brown hair and they were wearing a dress as well. However, one lady had green eyes and a green dress while another lady had yellowish gold eyes and a bright yellow dress.
"Just what we need more ladies to run from." Garry said as they walked down a hall filled with lady paintings.
England said nothing to this he just looked over at Ib and started to frown.
"Ib don't walk so close to the lady paintings." England called out.
Ib looked away from the Lady in Yellow painting that she had been staring at and looked over at England. She nodded her head and walked over to him before she grabbed his hand. The three of them continued to walk down the hall in silence, but they stopped when they noticed a painting of a man hanging from his foot.
"This was one of the paintings that was in the gallery." Gary said.
"He has some numbers on his shirt." Ib pointed out.
England looked at his shirt and sure enough their where some numbers there. The numbers where upside down, but after thinking about it for a few seconds he figured what the numbers were.
"The numbers are 6295." England said.
"It must be a code for something." Garry said.
"It might unlock a door." England said. "Ib and I ran across a door where we had to enter a number in order to unlock it."
"Well, let's look for a door then." Garry said.
It didn't take long for them to discover two doors that needed a number code. Funnily enough, both doors were right next to each other as well. The first door asked how many lady paintings their where which of course they didn't know the answer to. The second door however asked for a pass code, and after entering the code that was on the hanged man's shirt the door unlocked. They walked in only to see that it was a very tiny room. There was an easel with a rough sketch of a vase on it, and across from the easel was a lone table with a single gray vase sitting on it. England took a step towards the table, but he quickly stopped walking when he heard a loud crash from outside.
"What was that?" Ib asked.
"I don't know, but it's probably not anything good." England answered.
"Make me more freaked out why don't you." Garry muttered as he walked over to the table.
"Did you want me to lie?" England asked.
"Yeah, I kind of did." Gary said.
England just rolled his eyes before he looked around the room. As England looked around he quickly notice four square indentions that where on the floor.
"Hey, there is no water in this vase." Garry called out as he looked into the vase.
"We can't heal our roses then." Ib said.
England just looked over at Garry only to see that he was still standing in front of the table.
"Garry push the table over here." England said.
Garry just looked up at him in confusion, and England quickly started to explain.
"There are these square indents in the floor and the legs of the table would fit perfectly."
Garry shrugged before he shoved the table over to the indents in the floor. Once the table was in place there was a loud clicking sound that could be heard.
"What was that?" Garry asked.
"Hopefully it's something good." England said.
They left the room, but once they were back in the larger room they quickly noticed something weird. Sitting on the ground in between the two doors that had number locks on them was a mannequin head.
"Was this here before?" Garry asked.
"I don't think it was…" England answered.
Garry looked away from the mannequin head, and looked down one of the halls.
"Uh, guys we have a problem."
England and Ib looked over at what Garry was staring at only to see a Lady in Red. She hadn't noticed them yet, and they watched as she dragged herself down one of the halls. Once she was gone England just sighed and said "I guess that crashing noise must have come from her."
"I guess so…" Garry said slowly.
England shook his head and looked over at his two companions.
"You two stay here. I'm going to go and count up the Lady paintings." England said.
"Are you sure you want to go alone?" Garry asked.
"I'll be fine it won't take me too long to count up the paintings."
"Be careful…" Ib said quietly.
England just smiled and ruffled Ib's hair before he said "I will be careful."
England then left his two companions and went down the halls so that he could count up the paintings. It took him awhile and he had to be careful and make sure that the Lady in Red didn't spot him, but soon enough he had finally counted up the paintings. When he returned back to the two doors he saw that Garry and Ib where waiting their patiently for him.
"There are 14 paintings." England said as he ran up to his companions.
Garry quickly walked over to the other door, and after entering the code the door unlocked. They quickly made their way into the room only to see that there wasn't much in there. There was one bookcase located in one corner of the room, and in another corner there was a poster hanging on the wall. In the middle of the room was a table with a gray vase, and luckily the vase had water in it. A quick look through the book case reveled nothing interesting, so they looked at the poster instead.
Please do not touch the displays. If by any chance you damage any of the displays you will be….
"It looks like some of the words are missing." England said.
"What was the point of coming in here?" Garry asked.
"My guess is that the point of the room is so that you can get access to the vase with water." England answered.
"Well, it's nice to have it I suppose…." Garry said.
They left the room, and started to look around for another door. Eventually they found one, and the room was unlocked too. However, the room was complete empty, and the only thing in there was a mirror. They walked up to the mirror, but once they were standing in front of the mirror they heard a loud crash come from outside the room.
"I guess another Lady is running around now." Garry said.
England just sighed as he looked at the mirror. Just one look in the mirror showed how tired he and his companions where. England was getting tired of running so much, and it was really starting to show. Judging by the fact that Ib was now yawning and rubbing her eyes it was easy to see that she was tired too. Garry had a grim look on his face, and England knew that everything was starting to take its toll on the young man.
"The faster we get out of here the better…" England muttered.
England turned away from the mirror and looked over at the door only to see something surprising. Sitting there in front of the door was a mannequin head.
"That defiantly was not here before." Garry said, and England could easily tell that he was getting a little freaked out.
"You don't think it's the same one from the hall do you." England asked.
Garry just cringed at the idea and said "That thing is freaking me out just by existing. Don't make it any freakier for me by suggesting that it's actually following us around."
Ib looked away from the mannequin head and back over at the mirror. Garry and England looked back at the mirror too, but nothing looked different. England yawned and started to rub his, but once he was done he opened his eyes he saw a strange sight. Right behind Garry seemingly floating in the air was the mannequin head. England could see Garry's eyes widen in shook and Ib looked a little freaked out.
They all quickly turned around only to see the mannequin head was sitting there on the floor right behind them. Garry let out a loud yelp before he stumbled away from it and England just stared at the thing. How in the hell did it get all the way over here? Garry got over his shock rather quickly, and his fear was quickly replaced with anger.
"Why you little…" Garry muttered out as he walked over to the mannequin head.
Ib just covered her eyes, but England quickly walked over to Garry and stopped him from doing anything.
"Garry stop kicking it won't solve anything." England said.
Garry looked at him and sighed before he said "Your right. Sorry, that was really immature of me."
England just sighed before he said "It's alright I think it's obvious that this place is starting to take its toll on us."
"I guess you're right." Garry said as he shook his head. "Shall we keep moving?"
England just nodded before he took Ib's hand and lead her out of the room with Garry following right behind them. As they walked down yet another hallway that was filled with painting ladies Ib started to look at them all. However, when they reached one painting lady Ib stopped walking.
"Arthur look…" Ib called out as she pointed at one of the ladies.
England looked at the Lady that Ib was pointing at only to see that it was a Lady in Green. Unlike, the other Lady paintings who were looking straight ahead this lady was looking right at England. The Lady titled her head slightly to the side as a gentle smile appeared on her face.
"Your eyes…." The Lady said slowly in a soft gentle tone.
"What the heck?!" Garry called out as he took a few steps away from the Lady.
The Lady ignored Garry and kept her attention on England.
"Your eyes are green just like mine." She said in a soft tone, her gentle smile never leaving her face.
England had never really heard any of the Lady Paintings talk before. So far the only sounds that they ever seemed to make where loud shirking noses or quite growls and grumbles. England was starting to wonder if maybe this painting was actually friendly. However, the thought of her being friendly was tossed out the window when her pretty smile turned into an insane grin.
"Stay with me!" The woman shouted at England.
Her painting fell to the ground and she instantly started to drag herself over toward England. England noticed that a key had fallen down to the ground along with the woman, but there was no way that he would be able to get it.
"Garry!" England called out.
"I'm on it!" Garry called back.
Garry quickly grabbed the key while Ib and England slowly backed away from the Lady that was slowly making her way over to them. Once Garry got a hold of the key he quickly raced past the lady and grabbed England's hand. As Garry dragged England away Ib kept a tight grip on England's other hand and tried her best to keep up with them. They quickly ran over to a door only to find out that it was locked.
"Try the key!" England shouted out.
Garry quickly shoved the key into the lock and sighed in relief when he found out that the key fit. Once the door was unlocked they quickly raced into the room and slammed the door shut behind them. England let out a small sigh of relief and Garry just cracked a week looking smile.
"I think we lost her." Garry said.
"I hope so." England replied.
England looked around the small room, and noticed that their where quite a few things in the room. In the middle of the room was a large couch wrapped up in a silk red ribbon, and after looking at it for a few seconds England recognized the couch as being one of the artworks that was in the real gallery. Ib walked over to the couch and sat down on it before she smiled a little.
"It's comfy." Ib said.
England just smiled a little at her before he looked over at the bookcases that where in the left corner of the room. There was a window near one of the bookcases, and that made England a little uneasy.
"Hey Garry can you move one of the bookcases in front of the window?" England asked. "The Ladies can break windows so if there was something blocking it that would make this room a bit safer."
Garry quickly walked over to the bookcase and with great ease he was able to push it in front of the window. Garry looked over at England and smiled and England just smiled back. England then walked over to the easel that was next to the couch and started to read the writing that was on it.
If you're tired why don't you rest here? Your never be hurt again…
England frowned a little at that. He looked away from the easel and instead looked at the painting that was on the wall behind the couch. England walked over to the large painting and looked at it. The painting was titled 'couple', and just as the title suggested there was a couple being pictured. The woman in the picture was absolutely beautiful. She had dark brown hair and lovely red eyes, and she was wearing a rather fancy dress.
Standing next to her was a man with brown hair and dark blue eyes. The man was wearing a fancy suit, and he had a kind smile on his face. While England didn't know who the woman was he actually knew who the man was. The man worked for his government, but England couldn't really remember what his job was. Although, that wasn't all that strange considering England was pretty sure that he only talked to the guy once in a blue moon.
'I can't even remember the bloke's name.' England thought.
England heard some shuffling noises from the couch which means Ib must have gotten off of it. He also heard Garry walking over to him from his spot over by the bookcases. Garry just looked at the painting in curiosity, but when Ib saw the painting her eyes widened in shock.
"I wonder who they are?" Garry asked.
"They are my parents." Ib said.
England and Garry both looked at Ib in surprise, but Ib didn't look back at them. She just continued to look at the painting with sad worried eyes.
"You do look like the spitting image of your mother." England said as he looked back at the painting.
"Why do you think this painting is here?" Garry asked.
No one answered him, but that was mostly because no one really had an answer for him.
"Where do you think my parents are?" Ib asked.
England frowned a little at this, but he quickly started to smile as he looked over at Ib.
"Your parents are back in our world safe and sound. Once we get out of here you'll be reunited with them in no time." England said.
"You think so?" Ib asked.
"I know so." England replied.
Ib started to smile and England was happy to know that he was able to make her feel better. Granted he didn't know if her parents where in the real world or not, but since they hadn't run into them yet he was going to assume that they were safe. England looked over at Garry only to see that he was also smiling at him.
"Shall we move on?" Garry asked.
England just nodded before he walked over to the door. However, when he tried to open it he was surprised to see that the door was locked. He tried to open it a few more times, but it's now locked statues did not change.
England just looked over at his two companions and said "It's locked."
Garry looked like he was about to say something, but he quickly fell silent when they heard something banging on the door. England stumbled away from the door and over to where Garry was standing, but once he was there he jumped when he heard what sounded like glass shattering. They quickly looked over to the bookcase and when they looked at it they could see that the bookcase was shaking a little.
Whatever was out there had obviously broken the window, but the bookcase was keeping them from getting in. England wasn't sure if things could get much worse, but he ended up finding out that things could get worse when Garry pointed at the wall. England looked at the wall only to see that a small crack had formed there. However, the loud sounds of someone banging on a wall could be heard and each time the banging noise sounded out the crack on the wall grew bigger. Eventually, the wall collapsed and England watched in horror as the Lady in Green pulled herself into the room trough the now gigantic hole in the wall. The Lady looked around the room, but when her eyes fell on England she quickly gained a crazed look in her eye and a sadistic smile appeared on her face.
"Stay with me!" She screamed out as she slowly dragged herself toward England.
England was frozen in place, but luckily for him Garry was ready to get the hell out of there. Garry quickly grabbed England and Ib's hand and once he had a good grip on them he quickly pulled around the Lady in Green and yanked them right out of the room. Once they were out of the room England was horrified to see that all of the statues where moving now, and that all of the Lady paintings had pulled themselves off of the wall and they were now dragging themselves around.
It took a bit of dodging, but Garry was able to pull England and Ib over to a door that they hadn't been to yet. The second Garry opened the door Ib and England quickly rushed in. They only waited for Garry to follow them in and close the door, but once Garry had closed the door they quickly started to run like the devil was at their heels.
Once they thought they were far enough away they finally stopped running so that they could catch their breath.
"That was too close." Garry panted out.
England was about to agree with him, but before he could say a word Ib collapsed.
"Ib!" England and Garry yelled out.
They quickly ran over to the girl only to see that she was out like a light.
"She passed out." England said.
"Can't say I blame her." Garry answered.
England carefully picked Ib up, and once Ib was in his arms he looked over at Garry.
"Come on there has to be somewhere where we can rest for awhile." England said.
Garry just nodded his head and followed England as he led them deeper into the gallery….
I'll try and get the next chapter out as soon as possible so please review and don't flame.