A/N: Hey all! It's been a while, hasn't it? I forgot to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year /whoops uwu
Alright, well, how have I been? I have been up and down, dealing with a few personal things, which is why this chapter was so late. But for what I lack in time, I make up for in…*drum roll please*
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT~! :D Here in this chapter, we find out some of the deeper thoughts of our beloved purple haired man (ooooohhs and aahhhsss from the audience), and some of the reasons as to why Garry is the way that he is!
Now, I was wearing my Garry cosplay jacket to help me push for the final part of this chapter, to which I hope you all like ;w;
WARNING: Slight trigger warnings, implied however.
/also, please do not ask me to confirm whatever the hell 'Maufow' is. It's legitimately a very non important aspect of the story that really isn't needed but it kind of is to form the basis of Guertena? Ghhhhlk my history skills suck, so I literally bullshitted whatever the heck that was.
Okay, onto the story~! :D
Chapter Ten, A place out of Reach
Ib turned to look upwards.
And all she could see was lights.
Little balls of lights that dangled from the thin, wiry branches of trees hanging overhead. These branches intertwined around one another, grasping at each other with weakened limbs, so many of them that they blotted out the sky. They formed a cage-like structure, and all around she found herself fenced in by these new surroundings. There was no escape, and she simply stood on the leaf strewn floor, panic rising within her.
She was trapped, with no means of escaping. Trapped, alone, and scared.
She wanted to wail, she wanted to scream. She wanted to feel Garry's or Rebekah's or her parents' arms wrap around her, soothing, cooing that it would all be alright.
This was the one thing she could not stand.
Suddenly, one of the lights fell. It hit the ground behind her with a soft thud, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she turned to the sound. The light pulsed brightly for a moment and then slowed down, before going out completely, leaving behind a leather bound book in it's wake.
Curiosity and hope at this new finding sparked her interest, and she carefully made her way over. She could read the title, bold as it was in blood-red writing, and it said,
"Little Red Riding Hood."
She heard herself mouth these words, but her voice sounded far away. It echoed above and below and all around, resonating with the surrounding lights, and making them flicker.
Her voice created a breeze that was ferocious, shaking everything in a momentary torrent, and the pages of the book suddenly flew open, flapping in the wind.
She leaned forward, inspecting the new words before her as they wrote themselves on the page.
And they read,
"Little red riding hood,
Going for a stroll, lost in the woods.
With her eyes, crimson with despair
Her brown hair, long and fair.
The creatures await,
As the story awakes,
And all is left untold.
"Help me!" She screams.
"Save me!" She pleas,
All of this, for a little girl called Ib."
And then suddenly she is falling, faster and faster. The leaves dissolve around her, the words beginning to swirl in front of her eyes, into her ears, inside of her mind.
They pulse, they scratch at the delicate paint of the last line of defence she's put up inside. But then they suddenly break through, and now her gaze waters, overflowing with red. Her nostrils, her ears, her mouth, they all pool out with blood. All she can see is red, all she can do is scream.
When suddenly, she see's a hand reach towards her, clad in green. There's a flash of a familiar blue;
And then a smile.
"I've been waiting for you, Ib."
{(Ib)}
Ib awoke with a gurgled scream, she snapped her eyes open and clawed ferociously at the air, cuffing Garry under the chin. He fell back onto the ground, groaning in surprise, and she clutched at her head, scratching furiously.
It went on for a minute or two, until Ib came to her senses and she looked around. There were no lights, save for the stale ones of the gallery and their roses, and there were no trees, only pale blank walls and a hard wooden floor.
Garry was clutching his throat, blinking feverishly, and he sat up and looked at her with wide eyes. "M-My...Are you alright?" His voice was croaky, and it seemed she had accidentally knocked him where his adam's apple was.
"G-Garry! S-Sorry...!" She managed to utter, going to crawl over to where he was, but she felt something heavy on her legs. For a moment she panicked, until noticing the familiar blue, felt material, and she looked over at Garry once more.
Without his jacket, he looked quite vulnerable. All he had to cover his top half was a rather loose green singlet, and he had his skinny arms crossed over one another as if to try and capture warmth.
But in his position right now, he simply looked like a woman who had been discovered bathing by an unprecedented visitor, and the thought of how funny that was helped to calm her heart.
She carefully pulled the jacket aside, and shakily stood. Garry stood also, and when their eyes met, Garry simply gave a flustered and embarrassed wave of his hand and cleared his throat. "H-How are you feeling...? Do you know where we are?"
Ib blinked, and looked around. She had remembered that they had been running...and then everything had gone dark.
Blank. She couldn't remember anything in-between, save for that rather creepy nightmare.
"You passed out. I brought you here and you've been resting for a few hours now. Don't worry, I've checked around. This place seems safe."
It took a minute for Ib to commute, and her eyes widened. "Y-You carried me here!?"
Garry, surprised that that was the first thing she had picked up on, felt his cheeks go red and he shook his head in defence. "Y-You're not that heavy, I swear! A-And I didn't know what else to do...!"
While it certainly didn't look as if Garry was even strong enough to carry a girl like her, there was something else persisting in the back of her mind. It was a familiar sensation, trying it's very hardest to protrude from the depths of her brain and to flood out into the open.
What was-...
Ah, nostalgia.
But why...?
"Garry..." She began, but the older man had wondered off, examining one of the three bookcases in the different corners of the room. In the middle stood a single vase, filled to the brim with clear, sparkling water. Curious, she dipped her rose inside, and almost gasped in shock as a few petals that she had lost grew back quickly, and the rose's glow became a little stronger. She felt her gut pool with warmth, and she cradled the flower fondly, feeling a little better about the entire situation.
She began to explore around.
While Garry stood there, inquisitively reading a book that had small writing on it's pages, she went to the shelf opposite on the other side of the room, and pulled out a curious looking one with red, leather binding.
She flicked it open, and upon reading the first few sentences, her face immediately flushed. Was this...!?
But she found she couldn't stop reading, and she held the book close to her face to hide her shaky scowl, and scanned the pages quickly.
Her lips were soft as they brazed against the tip of my sensitive membrane. I shuddered in delight as she brought her tongue down to take me, my whole self, inside. And with each hot gasp and every horny moan, I felt myself getting wetter and closer to combustion. It was fierce, erratic, and as it spurted-
She heard Garry give a gurgled shriek, and the book was yanked out of her hands. For a moment, she considered fighting him for it, but considering it's content, she simply stood there, embarrassed and digging her toes into the ground.
Garry's speech was garbled as he almost threw the book back onto the shelf as if it was some sort of diseased rodent, and she felt herself being pedalled over to another shelf instead.
"S-stay...away from there!" Garry's face was hot and flustered, and with his fists shaking, he turned back to his own shelf, muttering feverishly under his breath. "S-Stupid...s-should've kept a better eye...on her..."
Ib stood rather awkwardly, rubbing her arm, her rose clutched in hand. Her rose glimmered brightly for a moment as she held back a laugh at Garry's earlier reaction, and instead decided to go and join him.
Before going over, however, she picked up the jacket that she had just left on the ground, then came by his side, handing it out to him. Garry's flustered features changed into one of surprise, before settling upon a warm smile, and he pulled it around his shoulders.
"Thanks, Ib."
Feeling something weird prickle in the bottom of her stomach, she pushed it out of her mind and looked up at him. "So...what're you reading?"
Garry blinked, huffing a little, before holding up the book. "It's kind of like a diary of Guertena's. Certainly not like the crude material you were reading before..."
"I-It was just there!"
"Perverted little girl."
She crossed her arms stubbornly, feeling heat rise to her cheeks, before tapping her foot and yanking the book out of his hands. "Lemme see."
"Hey...! I...I was reading that!"
"How do I know this hasn't got dirty material in it either?"
Garry scowled. "It's just...just a diary. Nothing pornographic in it whatsoever."
She snorted, before balancing the rather large book in her hands and scanning the pages.
The writing within the book, she was surprised to find, was curly and neat, not at all like the type texts that were found in modern day books. This really WAS a diary, and maybe even the only one of it's kind. A rare find, perhaps?
September 13th/x/x
Twere' revenant collapses in the industry today. Tolls and rolls and findings of yore. Strange phenomenon, you know? How humans can become so ghastly and grisly and futile in the face of coin.
She squinted her eyes, scrunching up her nose and peering up at Garry. "W...what the hell is he going on about?"
Garry blinked in surprise, scanned the words she had been reading, and then clicked his tongue. "I believe this was during the Maufow era. They called it that because one of the high ministers of the Church struck gold in the middle of a building assignment somewhere in...Germany, it was. That minister was called Maufow, and it was a turning point in businesses because apparently there was just so much of this raw gold to go around that it could feed two cities over for 30 odd years. This was back in the late 1890's, early 1900's, where technology become more advanced. The turning of a century brought about heaps of promises. This was around the time that the artist Guertena flourished as well, and where he was becoming world famous for his interesting style and take on abstraction."
Ib was simply staring, dumbfounded at the older man, and she almost had every urge to just slam the book shut and shove it back onto the shelf if she was going to get a history lesson from Garry every time.
"Nerd." She muttered, handing him back the book, and he simply went a little google-eyed, stumbling in surprise. "H-How can you not find history interesting, Ib?!"
Ib tightened her scarf, and pulled her schoolbag over her shoulder, flicking her hair and turning back to him. "I just never really found the past all that noteworthy. It's always been the future I've been looking forward to."
She turned to walk, but stopped when she noticed Garry simply standing there, with his gaze downcast and a small frown set on his face. His fingers were shaking slightly, and it looked like he was about to cry.
...Was he really that passionate about history?
"T-Then again..." She began, but stopped when Garry walked up beside her, simply tapping her head with the corner of the book before shoving it down into her bag.
"We're going to be taking this. It might help out, you know?" His face was back to normal, but something in his voice spoke otherwise, and they simply pressed out of the room and forward, deeper into the gallery.
{(Ib)}
"You know, having a diary is a really helpful thing." Garry chimed as they climbed a few stairs. His voice was filled with an air of freedom and he seemed to be enjoying himself for the first time since arriving here. To be honest, for Ib, it seemed a little forced, and a little scary.
But shoving that thought aside, she decided to play along. They had begun to explore more into the Gallery, the nerves still having not worn off but subsided for the time being. She took comfort in Garry's odd presence, and walked dubiously alongside him.
They took turns holding the schoolbag, and even though she felt a trifle hot, Ib refused to remove either her jacket or her scarf. For some reason, it helped her to feel more secure in spite of everything.
She had been pondering this entire situation for a while, wondering why it was so that she was feeling immense nostalgia from everything all around. It's not like she couldn't have been here before, right?
She remembered feeling the same sort of nostalgia when she had met Garry, however the feeling she felt was more warm and ticklish than the cold, burning sensation that fired up her every nerves when confronted.
There was something even more frightening intact inside as well. The nightmares she had suffered as a child...
There had been many involving strange lights, paintings that talked and moved, and a voice. A voice that sung.
It would echo...And it was sad. Very sad.
"Welcome to my world, that's painted with sadness..."
It would always be an incomplete song, an overshadowed face, a foggy respite. Something that she would reach out so far to try and touch, only for it to be whisked away at the last second and replaced with another, agonizingly confusing thought.
Why...Why couldn't she remember?
What was there to remember?
Would it be worth remembering in the first place...?
On instinct, and failing to answer Garry's jubilant topic, she found herself linking her fingers through his and gripping tightly until her knuckles shone white.
"...Ib?"
When she heard her name being spoken, she felt herself being pulled back to reality. Garry's clasp was warm, if a little frigid, and he had stopped in the path, his cheeks flushed and staring at her with a widened gaze.
"...Sorry." Was all she managed to utter, before going to let go. But for some reason, Garry tightened his grip, and she felt as if she was a little kid, looking for warmth and comfort in such a strange way.
"It's okay." He replied, a soft smile coming to his lips, and he patiently waited until they began walking again, their hands still linked.
For a girl her age, such a thing would be seen as trivial to onlookers, perhaps even dirty. After all, Garry was an older man. Perhaps he even had a partner himself?
Now Ib said 'partner', because she couldn't rule out any possibilities. After all, he was a tad off the mark, exquisitely feminine and even his posture was better than hers. He strode with a rather elegant air, despite his lanky appearance, and his use of softness in his action and words made Ib doubt that he was entirely all 'straight'.
That aside, it was something she admired about him, the way he seemed so comfortable with his awkward self. He was open and honest with his emotions, while her stubbornness and reserved nature held her own back. While she felt more secure, she found herself strangely longing to be more like him, who, despite her seemingly cold nature, still treated her with a sort of respect she had failed to find in anybody else.
All except Rebekah, of course.
Her mind dwindled to her disappeared friend, and she felt her stomach churn with guilt. In all of this, she had almost forgotten about the blonde with the bubbly attitude, those glimmering blue eyes, and that childish little smile.
She had never changed, not once. Rebekah's image was all the same, the one familiar standing point she had clung onto her for the past six or so years. She knew if she could, she would call Rebekah back, apologize for leaving her alone and scared, and hold her until the night's end.
It was, after all, a promise they had made. A promise to be together forever.
She couldn't even remember when, how or why it was those particular words. But they were the most prominent, the most advert in her mind's eye. She had to abide, just had too.
She felt so scared, so alone and so very...disappointed in herself if she didn't.
"You know, I keep one myself."
"...Huh?"
Garry's gaze darted to her momentarily, before continuing to look ahead. "A diary. I've got it with me right now, actually."
"...A...diary?" Ib's voice was distant, and she blinked as if coming back from another world. Garry blinked also, and felt his throat tighten, his rose's glow dulling only slightly, but he continued to push on the forced image of happiness.
"Y-Yeah. It's...a recording of everything for the past few years, actually. I needed it because-..." He went silent, which piqued a curious tilt of the head from Ib.
"Did...something happen?"
Garry felt himself go a little pale, and he felt the familiar concrete sensation of grey pooling into his stomach. "...I lost somebody close to me, is all."
Ib's eyes fluttered in apparent understanding, and she turned her head to the side slightly, curling her free hand into a fist. "What were they like...?" She felt it impolite to ask, but even more rude not to.
Garry's steps faltered slightly, and he felt his heart skip a beat. He took a long while to reply, all while they continued to walk, until he finally cleared his throat and looked down at her.
"She...was beautiful, Ib. She was...young, innocent, but something corrupted her. I don't know why, and I tried all I could but...It took her away from me. I've spent the last...f-few years trying to look for answers...for a way...but, it really...it's kind of been one tough journey, is all."
The way his voice broke midway through that sentence caused her to stop in her tracks, and she felt her chest heave. For a moment, she thought she was going to cry, until she looked up and their eyes met.
She would never forget the look on Garry's face. And neither would he ever forget the words that came next.
"...Did you love her...?"
{(Ib)}
As they walked, it was in silence. Their footsteps created resonating echoes as they searched through room after room, but to no avail. If they hadn't made mental landmarks, they would have thought they were going in circles.
All of these storerooms and little open areas looked so similar...It was almost like they had gotten lost in the back alleys of curator offices in the Gallery.
Garry had left the question hanging as he questioned his own slip-up. He had gotten too close to scraping the surface with this girl, and instead of relief at having finally spoken of her, to her, after all this time, he felt heavy with guilt and remorse. He felt a little disgusted at himself actually, as the question that she had asked had struck all sorts of cords with him.
With whatever answer he would have given, be it a lie or the truth, in this moment while they were touching, it was morally wrong. It was a tangible discord of underlying emotion, something that should never be looked upon.
He had to smother it, for both of their sakes. He had to smother everything when it came to her, because in the end she had absolutely no given take for him or his memories together with her.
He hadn't lied. She was beautiful. Stunning. A true work of art.
She was fantastic, even if not as innocent as she once was.
He truly adored her, and given everything that had happened, he needed her. She was his key to getting out of his own personal fabricated world.
It was poor on him and unfair on her that he had made this decision. But from the point forward from knowing her, even as a young girl, he knew that nothing could be better. Nothing and nobody else could have pulled him from that dark pit, he knew.
He shuddered at the thought of the Hanging Man, that painting that had seemed so fascinatingly precise with his outlook, that it seemed to formulate his plan for a never-ending slumber.
But then she had come along. So what if it was fate, or unjustified, or if he was unworthy of having such a person step into his life?
She was the first, and only person who had ever given him a look of hope and dependence. During those moments, he needed her just as much as she needed him.
It hurt now to know, now that she was older, that independence was now stamped in his place, but in here, where the past was resurfacing and all kinds of nightmares threatened their survival, the only choice he had now was to defend and protect her, just as much as he had done so once before.
She was his light in the dark, and here, he would be hers.
{(Ib)}
They had skirted many hallways, so many that Ib had lost count. Her feet were getting weary, her resolve weak, however she trudged on, her grip on Garry's hand never faltering.
The older man had only taken his eyes from the road ahead to scout behind them (or to sneak the occasional look at Ib, to which luckily went unnoticed), and kept a vigilant stance, however she could feel his hands shaking, his knuckles white as he clung to her own hand.
They had been walking in silence now, but it had given them time to reflect on everything that had happened so far, and to predict the outcome of what could happen later on as they continued to pursue a way to escape.
Ib's eyes were drooped, as was her rose, and she felt something dark prickling at the back of her mind. The same, red carpet that she was seeing beneath her feet continued to drag on, and she was afraid she would die like this, seeing the same dark hues that her vision strained to make sense of.
The grainy visuals in the air made the pounding in her head louder, and she began to struggle to take the next few steps. However, before Garry could see her change in behaviour, she suddenly saw a change in lighting. The floor's red hues suddenly got brighter, and she snapped her head up, noticing a patch of light around the corner.
Garry seemed to notice it too, and in unison their roses retained their trademark glows, and they began to quicken their pace, disregarding any form of cautiousness that usually lingered on the edges of their minds
Even Garry, who knew he should have known better, unconsciously clung onto this newfound change, however the small spark of hope that they found was smothered in an instant as they turned the corner.
Leading to another narrow corridor, the bright glow was coming from various paintings that had been lined up on the walls, placed equally apart. The dread that Garry had been fighting off pooled into his stomach, and he began to shake fitfully.
"W-What...what do we do now...?" Ib's voice was quiet, and he blinked rapidly, looking down at her and then back at the corridor.
"I don't k-know." The crack in his own voice was loud enough to cause a nervous shuffle from the teenage girl standing beside him, and if it weren't for the fright holding her in place, she would have found the will to cling to his side and let the tears flow.
There was suddenly a loud sound like glass smashing behind them, and they heard an eerily familiar snarl. Turning on their heels, a Lady in Blue had dropped from seemingly nowhere, trapping them in between the painting hallway and the way they had come.
They barely had the time to react as the painting lashed out at them, and it would have wounded Ib had not Garry pulled her out of the way at the last second.
Without a second thought, and relying on impulse, they ran down the hallway. At their movement, everything seemed to come to life.
Various of the Ladies series dropped and took up the hunt also, while paintings of eyes blinked and stared, pupils dilating, mouths shrieking and monstrous looking faces laughing mockingly.
Ib screamed, and Garry's heart stuck in his throat as they came to a stop. Ahead of them, various Lady's in reds, blues and greens were blocking the path, hungrily waiting for their kin to herd the prey their way.
The Ladies were approaching fast, the paintings beckoning them on. They had to act fast...!
|[What will Ib do?]|
[Use the lighter]
[Jump for it]
(Use the lighter):
"THE LIGHTER!" Ib cried out suddenly, shaking Garry's arm with wide eyes. Garry was dumbstruck for a second, before he blinked and nodded, rummaging through his pockets madly for the small item.
In his attempts to pull it out, Ib noticed a black, leather bound notebook that fell to the ground also, and without a second thought, she snatched it up and yanked the lighter out of his hands. Before Garry could protest, she managed to luckily flick the lighter on in one go, and she set the book alight, throwing it in the direction of the small swarm in front of them.
"NO-" Garry yelled, but it was already too late. The journal hit its target, and in an instant the swarm caught alight, and they all let out a deadly, ear-splitting scream. The smell of burning oil, pastel and wood reached their nostrils, and through the large blaze, a path opened up. Ib grabbed Garry's wrist and pulled him along.
They jumped through the gap in between the burning portraits, but as they expected to land, they continued to fall. There was no floor, only a wide hole. Something rippled around them, and then suddenly all was blank.
(Jump for it):
Suddenly with a newfound confidence, or perhaps just the will to survive, Ib pulled Garry along with her, and leapt with all of her might. She had intended to jump over the cluster of portraits and reach the other side in one piece, but she miscalculated the length, and landed on top of the gabble.
She felt a searing pain shift through her right leg, and she let out a small whimper, almost falling amongst the thrashing arms of the paintings. However, Garry retained his grip and pulled her alongside him, away from the portrait backings that she had landed on.
However, instead of the red carpet on the other side of the hallway, they were suddenly falling, faster and faster.
Something rippled beneath all around them, as if they had fallen into formless water, and then there was nothing. All was blank, pale, white.
YESSS another choice thingy towards the end of the story. Once again, please note one thing down (although you CAN read the other choice) and wait until the end of this fanfic to see what ending you will get :D It's more fun that way!
R&R? No flames please, or you'll burn like Mary did :'D