A/N: The plot, characters, and original content of Ib do not belong to me.
No one was waiting for her on the other side of the door, but that was really nothing new. This was the way where it seemed the previous hall continued. It was simply decorated, with only one painting hung on the wall. When the path split, the right side ended in a vase on a table. Mary moved closer to it, feeling sad again. She missed the flowers, and the grass and trees. Most of all, she missed her home. She could sit in her mother's lap on sunny days, while her father was away.
The best times were when she could pick whole bunches of flowers, just to lie in the sun and play 'Love me, Love me not,' for boys that didn't even exist. If she could just get out of this cursed gallery and back there again… but that wouldn't happen if she just stood around! I have to finish playing, Mary reminded herself. It had worked for a time, pretending it was all just a game.
Maybe it would be better if she just forgot it wasn't one, and she believed all the scary things that tormented her were just normal, every day things. That would be quite a feat of her imagination! It wasn't as though she weren't already becoming used to the gallery's tricks. Maybe that wasn't as far away as she thought.
For now, there should be no more standing around dwelling on it. Mary turned around and continued down the remaining path. Ahead there were a few steps before the path split once again into two doors to choose from. 'Which one could it be?' she wondered, and made a note so the decision wouldn't surprise anyone.
This place had many splitting paths, so it shouldn't be a surprise. Mary was growing a bit tired of them. Anyway, she had more than enough paper to make notes, so why not? It's a bit fun leaving them through the gallery, she thought. A painting in the middle of the doors was called 'Flowers of Jealousy'.
She begged the painting not to remind her of flowers again. It made her homesick, so she quickly went past the painting and to the door on the left. The room was set up rather symmetrically, with two short bookshelves, two large tables accompanied by some stools, and two long shelves of blue dolls.
"Oh!" Mary shouted.
She paused in thought. The large painting of the doll in the back was the most unnerving of them all. The rest of them didn't concern her oddly enough. As a matter of fact, she felt herself laugh.
"Thank you for helping me before," she spoke. "I didn't know there were so many of you!"
These were the same as the doll that had been her friend. The one she had met before had been quite nice. With so many of them, that meant Mary had many friends, right? The happiness that thought brought her made her laugh sincerely. I have many, many friends in this room.
She approached the big painting of the doll. The only one that caused her heart trouble. 'Red Eyes' was the title it was given. Mary looked at it for a long time.
"They're lovely!" she finally told it. "Red is a wonderful color for you."
That much was true. Mary loved colors, and red was a good one. The deep dark blue of its fabric was beautiful too. She didn't leave time to stay and chat. Even with all these friends, she wanted to leave. Before she was out of the room however, one of the dolls got her attention.
She hurried to the fallen doll's side. On the floor beside it was a violet key. Mary looked at the doll. Was that the only reason it made this fuss?
"Were you lonely?" she asked it. "I'm sorry."
Mary gave the doll a hug, before putting it back on the shelf. She put on her best smile for the doll. She wouldn't come back, but… there must be something she could say.
"I might see you again," she assured it. "I don't think I'll find my way out yet."
It was sad, but it was true. Mary did not know when she would finally find the way out of this place. She hated it, and didn't want to think about it, but it was true. Nothing would tell Mary what was on the other side of the doors she opened, until she entered and saw for herself.
She was just crossing paths of the jealous flowers painting again to reach such a door, when a sound came to her ears. She stopped and looked at the painting again, where a red flower was now growing larger on the canvas. Vines were crawling their way up and around her. They were thick and ridden with thorns. She had to quickly move her way through them so not to be ensnared.
Her thoughts fled to her friends. With these vines in the way, Mary could not reach the dolls again. Finally when she found something good, even in this place…! Trying to tear the vines up was useless, revealing they were made of strong stone. At least she had escaped danger, but it was too bad about the dolls.
They were not normal, nothing in this gallery was, but Mary had come to like them. It just figured something would ruin her good mood. It had been so long since she felt happy. Jealous flowers they were called, well they had certainly acted jealously!
She had to continue, and used the key to open a door to a small room. It made her hold her breath seeing those knight statues again, but these seemed to be safe, for now. That left the numerous boxes to be investigated. There were lots of art supplies in the boxes, including colorful paper and crayons.
Mary decided to hold on to the crayons, but left the other things in their place. The last thing of interest was an unrecognizable sketch on another canvas. It became harder to see when the lights began to flicker. Her heart sped up, and she braced herself for a room full of moving statues. Once the lights stopped, only one red statue had moved to block the entrance.
She couldn't help wondering if it was the same statue as before, but decided not to push her luck. She supposed that meant she was to go forward out the other door. Another hall with many stairs paved the way in front of her. There were windows of some sort on one of the walls, which startled her when a shadow walked by.
She became on edge when the sound of steps reached her as well, pushing Mary to keep going. She became relaxed again when she saw it was only a red ball falling down the steps. That was the sound that had scared her. It broke at the end, and splattered into a red stain. At the top of the stairs was a painting titled 'Clown.'
It had two eyes, and even a star and a teardrop painted beneath them, but was suspiciously missing a bright red nose. Regrettably, she could guess what had happened to it. Quite a shame… Mary moved on, and entered the door located not far after that.
The inside room was strange, small, but with a hole in the center that blocked the path. There were several switches, and a moving painting of eyes on the wall. Like the box on the other side, it was all out of reach. At least, until the blinking painting complied. She couldn't say what did it. It slid down on the wall, and over the hole in the floor to create a bridge.
"Thank you," she said, to the painting or whoever was responsible.
This time she had been careful not to step on it's eyes, but the painting closed them as she crossed so there was no chance of injury. The box moved a bit once Mary was close, prompting her not to look inside. She was confused by the triangle shaped object on the floor, but eventually settled on pushing it down the hole.
It didn't look like it would accomplish anything else. She just hoped that was the right thing to do. It had been a bit of rash thinking, which she hoped not to regret. After all, she certainly wouldn't go down that hole after it.
Moving right along, she left the small room and entered another very thin hall lined with lights. It was incredibly narrow, so she hoped to reach the end quickly. Was she becoming claustrophobic, or was it just the distrust she had for this whole gallery? Fortunately it was only one more turn before she could see the end.
The room she entered seemed rather large. Immediately she noticed the unhealthy looking red smoke coming out from the floor, and made a note not to get close. Another small table was closest to the entrance, and both her right and left stood doors. Ahead of her the room opened up even further. It was certainly a nice change from the narrow hall.
Mary approached the painting next to the top door, titled 'Fisherman'. It depicted a pleasant place for a fisherman to sit, but the actual person seemed to be missing. Typical of this gallery, she thought bitterly. Despite having put her in this mess, Mary realized she really did wish to meet Guertena. She decided to start with the door at the bottom, closest to the entrance.
The new room was small, and those manikin heads were waiting on tables. She refrained from frowning at them all, and looked at the painting of a woman first. 'Lady Without her Umbrella' As long as it was not a Lady in some color painting, she didn't think it would attack her. In the bottom right corner she cautiously took the 'tree key' she caught sight of located next to a manikin. The manikin heads were still getting on her nerves, although they did nothing.
She hadn't paid them back for scaring her before. She had told herself to keep calm, and stay forgiving to them, but that didn't mean she couldn't play a little prank on them now. It was all in good 'fun,' wasn't it? She pushed it until it leaned and tilted and gravity took effect, pulling it to the ground.
She jumped back in surprise. Not only had the manikin fallen over, but red lines formed beneath the eyes as though it were crying blood. After a moment more of this, she had recovered, and moved on to the next, in the bottom left corner. What did she care if they were upset? They had upset her before.
It leaned and fell just like the first, but this time a hole had formed in the floor where it first hit causing more of that red gas to pool up. She wanted to quickly leave and get away from it, but that didn't stop Mary from addressing the last one on her way out.
"I'm sorry," she had grown concerned. "I didn't mean to do that!"
With that Mary rushed out of the room. Her brain told her to be afraid. The manikins had reason to take revenge on her. Her heart said otherwise. She couldn't make herself afraid of them. Surely, if it hadn't even broken… Maybe it had got its feelings hurt, but she had apologized! It was nothing, she decided, and moved on.
The door across from that one was locked. She explored the rest of the room, finding a vase atop a table in the middle section, and another section on the left side. This section had another door at the top next to a painting. It was unlocked, so she entered the room. It was downright monochrome, as though all the color had been somehow sapped from the room. Mary looked at herself and saw that at least she still had her color.
There seemed to be a key on the other side of the room, but there was another very large gap in the middle preventing her from reaching it. All she had access to now was an eerie floating pallet and brush, and a canvas to be painted upon. Mary really hoped she wouldn't start seeing ghosts now. She would have to come back to it later, but for now she ventured to the door below it and found it was sadly locked.
She was about to leave, but noticed there seemed to be some place to put a name. First she tried 'Selfless guard,' which was the name of the painting beside it, but that was no good. It took a lot of searching around the room before Mary found something. "Marvelous Night," had been conspicuously scribbled on the wall, but it was in the same fashion as her doll friends from before. Hopefully she could trust it.
The access she was granted affirmed her hope. It seemed to lead to a little library. There were a few small shelves lining the back wall, and the whole room had been divided into two sections for some reason. Not like Mary was an architect or anything, so she hardly minded. The stories Mary found didn't interest her much, and one or two she did not like. The one that did finally draw her interest was 'Collected Works of Guertena'.
Only reading would tell her if it held any useful information. It contained Guertena's works in alphabetical order, much like it had promised. The details about the paintings she found were interesting, but didn't look like much help. At some point she began to read aloud. Mary shook her head, realizing she knew so little about Guertena. The farther she ventured, the more his mystery seemed only to grow.
She put the book back in it's place, and wondered about why there was a space missing a shelf, when the rest of the wall had been covered. A keyhole served as her answer. The tree key looked to be a perfect fit, although Mary couldn't say what it had done. When she went back into the main room again, the fisherman had appeared in his painting.
"There you are," Mary spoke to him. "Where were you all this time?"
The fisherman wasn't the only thing that had appeared. Somehow he had managed to catch an umbrella in that painting of his. The lady without the umbrella, Mary remembered.
"May I?" she ventured.
It complied, and shifted until it had let the umbrella loose to land beside her. She said her thank you to the kind fisherman, and took the umbrella to the room full of manikins. Talking to the paintings like this was a sure sign she was not right in the head! It was, however, a comfort to her, keeping her loneliness at bay. Besides, she should be glad not all of them were wishing her ill.
The Lady must have been happy to have her umbrella, just in time for the rain in her painting too! Unfortunately for Mary, it began to rain outside of the picture as well. She covered her head with her hands, and fled the room again. It appeared the rain did not fall in the main room, thankfully.
It was as though the rain had cleared away that gas. That meant she would be able to progress again. Although it had been a bit confusing, she was glad to be back on track. Still the monochrome room remained. Mary had already explored it, but nothing special had happened there. She couldn't help but wonder how it could have served no purpose. She couldn't think of a room like that yet.
Returning to the room without color seemed the thing to do. She sincerely hoped she wouldn't need to do anything more, not as much because she was tired as because she could not think of anything left to do. I was tired though, she thought pointedly, but now I'm not. For once her prayers were answered, and the room looked completely solved.
It's color shone through, and there was a lovely rainbow leading across the gap in the room. On the other side was a key just daring Mary to cross, but she didn't know if she could trust it. No, she decided that as long as she moved quickly she would be safe. Even if the floor fell out from under her, she would leap to the other side. Whatever it took, she was not stopping now.
Her resolved was unneeded, for the bridge made no attempt to disappear. Once she had the key, she left the room a joyous giggling mess. The end of this journey was near, Mary could feel it. It had her outright skipping to her next door. It turned out to be one near the beginning, which had been locked for some time now. The last one unavailable to her besides the one formerly surrounded by gas.
It had a funny picture of a face or head or something at the top, but Mary spent hardly any time looking at it before she trotted down the steps. A quick notice of the companion panting was all she noticed at the bottom of the steps, before purposely slamming into the door a bit and turning the knob.
Huh, she noticed something amiss. It was stuck, and would not turn. No, more than that, it didn't feel locked per say. It felt more like someone was…
"Hello!" she screamed at the door. "Who's there? Let me in… Won't you let me in?"
Her shouting yielded no results.
"Open the door! Open the door!" she cried more desperately than before, letting go of the knob to pound her fists on the door. It wasn't like she could bang it open, but she was beating it hard enough the effort was certainly there. Her breath came in large gasps for a second, needing a recovery.
There was no one in this gallery. No one could hold the door open. It was merely stuck. There's still the path where the gas was, she concluded. Mary tore up the stairs without another word, and let the door slam behind her. A quick stride brought her to the stairs revealed by the newest path. Mary jumped, letting out a little shriek in the process, having seen another knight, but this one was immobile as the last. At least it was for now.
"You scared me," her words came out as sharp laughter. It was not blocking her path, but Mary's suspicion prevailed. She charged past the statue before it could block her path. Just to prove her point, she stuck out her tongue and pulled her lower eyelid down, making a teasing face in it's direction.
I'm really enjoying this now, she realized, racing down the steps. Such a funny thought to strike her. She suddenly told herself it wasn't. Of course I am. This place was made to be fun! She recalled. It became startlingly dreamlike soon after.
Mary almost thought she must have slipped unconscious. She had fainted from exhaustion, or that knight had got her after all… That didn't seem to fit her memory though, and it had only been a moment ago she was in the regular gallery. To strengthen her perception, she prepared to go back to the stairs.
Instead her eyes locked on a figure not far in front of her.
"G… Gue…" The name caught in her mouth.
How she longed for it to escape, but alas the sound would not come. There was no sign the other had heard Mary. While she remained utterly paralyzed and statuesque, it became farther away. Her body unfroze seeing the other was escaping her, and she silently gave desperate chase. Oh how her heart was pounding now, much more than it had before.