Chapter III: Art Requires Sacrifice (POV) - Time

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

As one door closes, another door opens. This is just a short transitional one to introduce the new character and identify where they're going next. Also, to play around with our first big puzzle! Fun, huh? The people in the statements are all part of Jefferson's planned backstory, something this story is gonna go into throughout.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

We burst through the door, expecting something totally dramatic and terrifying, only to find... "Where's the Cat?"

Nothing. The wall the Cat had been on was, to put it politely, fucked. There were deep gouges in the wood, most of the pictures that made up the Cat's mosaic body were gone or ripped to pieces. Basically, it looks like someone had thrown an angry bear at it.

"Oh no! I think something happened to it, Chloe. Do you think there's something we could do?"

I look at the wall, and the fucking massive gouges in the wall. "Probably not, Max."

"Well, that's sad. I liked the Cat."

Weirdly, it kinda is. I spare a sec to remember Bongo, then get back to the biz of trying to escape this fucking madhouse alive. "Right, okay. So, we're healed, and there's no doors out anywhere else. That means there's gotta be something in here, right?

Max nods thoughtfully, considering my point, but I can still see a certain sadness in her eyes. Since her grandad, she never did deal well with losing people. "Right..."

"Split up and look for clues?" I suggest, in a probably vain attempt to distract her.

She doesn't grin like I hoped, but I do get a small smile of acknowledgement so I'm countin' it as a win. "Aye, Captain."

She goes left and I go right, and we start to poke around. The rest of the cat's room was still pretty barren, but I definitely picked up a whole lotta interesting things during my totally awesome and skilled investigation.

Okay, so maybe I didn't find shit, but I could've! The fact that neither of us found anything just meant there wasn't anything else to- "Hang on."

I walk over to the cat's wall and stand on my tiptoes. It's still a little high and difficult to see, but there's definitely a divot there. Pretty deep, though. Maybe it's even a duvet. That'd be cool. It's... about where the cat's head was. Somewhere on the lower side of it's face, I think. I wiggle my fingers in the gap and feel about to try get some idea of what it actually is.

It... seems to be shaped like a fish. Not even an interesting fish like a lionfish or a swordfish or a mola. Pretty sure this was a cod. Kinda disappointed, honestly. But I push in nonetheless. The fish duvet thing kind of... twisted? But like, inside itself?

Immediately, the room starts to shake. The last few pictures drop from the wall and the shitty hanging light shakes like a pendulum in a clocktower. In the middle of the previously smooth wall, a line suddenly appears, running all the way around the room. Then, to both of our surprise, the upper and lower parts of the room start to spin in opposite directions. The floor and ceiling both went with their parts of the wall and the spinning floor sent us both flying about like fucking ragdolls. I can feel the force of it pressing down on us, forcing us whatever fuckin' way it wants us to go. My cheeks start to smoosh and contort with the sheer pressure exerted on us by the wildly changing gravity in here.

We seemed to be floating fine though, like we were in space, and I laughed with the adrenaline of it all. This was uncomfortable as fuck, but it was kinda fun.

That was when Max suddenly screamed in pain as she slammed into one of the walls. I got the same experience, but managed to bite down on my screams. No need for both of us to deafen each other. We bounce off the walls we hit and start rocketing toward another. A lucky swing lets me grab onto Max and I wrap myself around her protectively. Every time we collided into something, I spun around so it'd hit me and not her. She keeps screaming, but at least it's not in pain anymore. I can live with that, even if - fuckin ow... - my ribs can't.

Eventually, after what feels like hours, the room stops spinning and we flop down onto the floor. I land with another crack that sends bolts of pain through my entire body. I wiggle, wincing slightly and feeling all of the bruises on my body. Nothing was broken, though. I pull myself up and scramble over to Max. "Heya Maxie. Fun, huh?"

She coughs, and shakes her head as emphatically and forcefully as I've ever seen her. She opens her mouth, probably to say something quippy, but gives up on it as a bad job - never argue against a badass bitch like me - and just groans. I try to be sympathetic, but something in the groan just makes me giggle. I couldn't help it. It felt like that one time we'd gone white-water rafting and the rapids had taken control. Whatever I wanted to do, it had control and the best I could do was just let it flow and follow along while trying not to drown in it. I flopped back to the ground - ow again - and just let myself laugh.

Max just stares at me like I'm insane - and maybe I am. Kinda weird to laugh after getting the shit beat out of you by a room.

Max's sober look kills my laughter pretty quick. "Do you think we killed the cat? Or made it so the cat can't come back?"

"I don't know, Max. This place is weird as fuck, I have no idea what we can do to it. I think whatever put those scratches in the wall killed it first, though."

"Oh." She pauses thoughtfully. "Good."

I pull myself up and stick out a hand to help her. When we're both on our feet, I walk toward the new door that seems to have appeared in the Cat's former wall. The other door was gone. "We should probably get moving. No point waitin' around here for something else to pop out of a picture and try to kill us, huh?"

Max giggles as she trails me over to the door. I ease it open and poke my head out. Another new room with pictures in. Oh, cool. That one's totally a moving face. The eyes were flicking about, staring hungrily around the room, and the tongue lolled out like it was a hyena. Fucking weird. Looks clear though, and I say so.

"Looks clear. Let's go."

Max nods, and we walk out into the new room. Forward was another corridor that lead to another t-turn, left was the face picture (ugly red colours on a black background, the thing looked like a monster a kid might see in the dark) and a few more frames I couldn't see, the right lead off into an empty corridor. Max skittered off to the right, ignoring the gross face and peering up into the next frame. She grins in fascination, so I follow her over. Upon seeing it, I tilt my head in confusion. "It's just a white picture. Dude, isn't that, like, boring? Why is it just white?"

Max flashes me a shit-eating grin, before mock-admonishing me with a sing-song "Chloe, you can't just ask a photo why it's white."

I scowl. I really hate that fucking movie. Max just smirks before turning back to the photo.

I leave her to it and go to poke around. The other photos on this row weren't anything remarkable. Just a few landscapes, some vaguely abstract crap, shit like that. So, I creep over to the forward corridor. Unfortunately, my chosen path takes me too close to the mouth and the tongue suddenly stretches out of the canvas toward me. I catch it just before it touches me and I dart back out of its reach. The face just laughs at me before going back to its search of the room.

So, I go around the face and look into the corridor. It looks clear, so I yell back to Max. "Come on, let's go check out the next bit."

Max nods and we both go through the corridor, stepping as carefully and as quietly as we can until...

"Oh dog..."

There were people, hanging from the ceiling. Max stares up at them in horror, both her hands going up to her mouth as her eyes go wide. "Chloe, they're... they're..."

I walk over and rest a hand on her shoulder, turning her into me with a tight hug. "It's okay, Max. There's nothing we can do for them. We just gotta keep doing, okay? The door is right over there, then we don't have to look at it anymore, I promise."

"You- you promise?"

"I promise, Max. Now, you think you can make it?"

She looks up at me, big, round, watery eyes, and nods hurriedly. I wipe a few of the tears off with my thumb and turn her around. "Okay, then. Let's go."

We hurry through: Max keeps her eyes low and on the ground while I guide her. We reach the door and- "Shit!" It's locked. There's some kind of combination thing on the door. Three rings, with weird symbols scrawled over them in that same icky development fluid. For a second, I'm tempted to try get it at random - I always was pretty lucky - but Max's little cries of distress broke my heart. God, I'm a fuckin' sap. I drag her across the corridor to the other direction and face her away from the bodies. She buries her head into me again and we go for another tight-as-fuck hug. When she stops crying, I let go and kneel a bit so we're at eye level. "You okay to keep going?"

She nods. "Yep. I'm okay. I can do this." She looks up at me. "We can do this, right?"

"We can totally do this."

We go through the other door and enter a eight-sided room. There's another door opposite us and each of the other six has a photo of a different person on. Three dudes, three chicks. Max points each of them out: "The one in the blue leotard is Nina, she's a ballet dancer that Jefferson patronised. Um. The woman in the white dress is Miranda, she was Jefferson's first wife. She disappeared one day. The woman with the tattoos and the neon blue hair in the red cheongsam-"

I interrupt "You know fashion stuff?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, Chloe. I know fashion stuff. It's basically just a word for a Chinese dress, anyway. The woman wearing it is one of his first models in New York. Her name is Yui Anantasu, I think. I might be pronouncing her surname wrong." She continues with the list. "The man in the yellow shirt and orange pants is Jack Cameron. He's a reporter friend of Jefferson's. The man in the green was Jefferson's boyfriend after his wife went missing, he was a cop called... something Wilson? Edward, I think. The last guy in the tuxedo is called Morgan. I can't remember who he is. Maybe a student? They're all people in Jefferson's life who died."

We walk forward into the middle of the room and as our foot lands in the middle, the lights suddenly flicker and a bunch more scrawled development fluid messages appear. Max reads Nina's message first. "The one in yellow is an honest man. Times Square is the place to look! What does that mean?"

I take a quick look over them and groan. They're all a bunch of statements, some telling answers, the others telling whether the answers are right or not. A puzzle? Really? Fucking shit damn piece of jesus goddamned crap on a- I sigh. "It means we gotta work this shit out to get through the other door."

"Oh. Okay. How do we do that?"

I shrug. "It's one of those weird I knew that she knew that I knew that he knew things. Total bullshit, I know, but I think we gotta find out which one's telling the truth to solve a puzzle."

(AN1 for full statements)

"Okay, so. Yellow is honest. What's yellow say?"

"Jack. He's the reporter. He says that the woman in white, Miranda, is hiding something in Times Square."

"Times Square? What's in Times Square?"

"She taught at the technology institute somewhere near there, I think." Max shrugs. "You know I failed maps."

"Geography, Maxie. Geography. Not Maps." A thought pops into my head. "Does anyone else say anything about wossname in the white?"

"Miranda. She says she's hiding in Soho." She wafts a hand at the police dude, Wilson. "And Green says the wife is honest."

I pause. "So, we've got two who say the wife is hiding something in Times Square, and two who says she's honestly off in Soho, right?"

"Right." Max nods emphatically. "But we've got six portraits. And the other two don't talk about Miranda at all!"

"Okay..." Shit. I have no idea what to do now. "So, what do they say?"

"Um, Yui says Green is honest. That's Officer Wilson again. Morgan, the guy in the tux who's maybe be a student, says that she's resting in the East River."

Shit, um... I don't think that...

"Hmm. Well, more people agree that the wife is in Soho, right? Miranda, Yui, and Wilson all say that. Jack and Nina are the Times Square peeps, but nobody says anything about Morgan and he says she's in the East River." I share a puzzled fuck-it look with Max. "Odd one out?" She just nods. "Cool. So, Morgan's the right one."

Max walks over and starts to reach out to the photo. Considering what a shit run we've had touching photos, that action sends my heart up into my mouth and my stomach to my boots. I dash over, trying to stop her, but I get there too late and end up touching the picture just as she does. There's a flash out of nowhere and the room freezes, then explodes in blinding white.

As we blink the glare out of our eyes and start to be able to see again, everything has changed. It's night-time, and we're on a wooden jetty jutting out from an unfinished building. Weirdly, I'm also taller. There's a man next to me, I recognise him from one of the pictures. He's the cop, Wilson. He's not in uniform, though. He has hold of one end of a rug, I've got the other. The middle of the rug is soaked through with red. He looks up at me and grumbles. "You couldn'ta done it somewhere closer, could'ya?"

A deep, melodic voice responds "No, Wilson. I couldn't've. She didn't give me an option."

The officer scowls. "Well, thanks to your impatience, I gotta go spend the rest of the evenin' scrubbin' surveillance footage so your ass doesn't get caught."

The same voice quips, a smirk evident in it "It's not like you're going unrewarded, officer. You're getting a lot out of this too."

We stop right at the edge and with a one, two, three of exertion, we hurl the rug into the water. The cop turns to me and leans in for a kiss. I don't feel it, though. He pulls back with a smile. "I know, babe. I know."

The melodic voice says something vaguely sappy, but my attention was entirely grabbed by the sign on the building. It's three symbols in a row under a blue ink scrawled message that just says 'escape!'.

I blink as there's another blinding flash, and then I find myself back in the picture room. Max is stood next to me and our eyes meet. "What the hell was that?"

Max is almost bouncing in excitement. "Did you see it too? Jefferson was there! We were doing some kind of interior modelling. And I... I..."

Oh god. I think I was Jefferson. "You kissed him, huh?"

She lights up like a red Christmas tree. "H-how did you know?"

"Because I just got kissed by Wilson."

Her blush only gets worse as her eyes go wide. "You were Jefferson! Did you see the rug, too?"

"Yep."

"Wow." She blinks up at me. "So, what do you think that was?"

I shake my head. "I dunno, Max. But I got the code for the other door. We should probably get outta here."

We turn around and Max gasps in shock. The five pictures we didn't believe were all now armed and Morgan's picture is empty, but it's dripping with blood and had innumerable scratches and stab wounds in it. Even the messages changed. Now, they all said the same: 'Liar!'.

Max's terrified little whimpers as she shakes makes me determined and back on task again. Get out, and find somewhere safe. "Come on, Maxie. Let's get back out there. We can get through now."

I take her by the hand and gently drag her toward the other door. Just as we reach it, the other one slams open and a body flies in, shoving the door closed and pushing itself up against it to hold it shut.

It's a boy. Blonde, thin, maybe our age? He's wearing a blue jumper and a white collared shirt. Looks kinda preppy rich kid, honestly. Either way, he seems about as scared as Max. I stick up a hand. "Uh, hi!"

He jumps, then pushes back up against the door and eyes us nervously. There's something else there though. Excitement, maybe? Dunno. Either way, he's not trying to kill us yet. "You from the gallery too?"

He nods. "Y-yes. I am. Nathan."

"Chloe." I thumb to Max. "This is Max."

Max, getting over her anxiety, chirps "We're trying to get out of here. Do you want to come along?"

I think for a moment about maybe rewarning Max about the whole stranger-danger shit, but eh. "It's pretty fucked up here, dude. Totally dangerous shit around here. If you wanna come with, I guess that's okay."

Nathan nods and scurries over to us. "Do you have a rose too?"

He nods back, tapping his side. "Yeah. A yellow one."

"Cool. Uh, so don't drop it, okay?"

"Okay..?" He looks puzzled.

"It really fucking hurts if you do." I make sure to look him in the eye and to be as sincere as I can fucking manage. "It really, really hurts."

"Oh. Okay." He looks worried.

I clap a hand on his shoulder. "It'll be fine, dude. Just stick with us and we'll getcha out. Now, back to the room with all the hanging people in it!" I shout, pointing gallantly at the door.

Max squeaks in terror.

Shit.

[END OF ACT I]

AN1 - The statements are here.

Student Morgan (Tuxedo) - She's resting in the East River.

Wife Miranda (White) - I ran away to Soho.

Model Yui (Red) - Green is the only one who tells the truth.

Officer Wilson (Green) - The wife was an honest woman.

Reporter Jack (Yellow) - The woman in white is hiding something in Times Square.

Dancer Nina (Blue) - The one in yellow is an honest man. Times Square is the place to look!