Chapter 11 – Creepy Dolls and Balls of Paint
AN:
Oni: Wow! My first chapter on my own, I hope you like it!
Harry: To cover up some confusion, the flashback I had with Voldemort back with the snake painting came from the first year, not fourth year.
Oni: Hope that helped! *ahem* ABYSS!
*Abyss of the Deep rises out from bottom of the sea*
Abyss of the Deep: ONI DOES NOT OWN HARRY POTTER OR IB. SHE ALSO DOES NOT OWN THIS STORY FOR THE FIRST TEN CHAPTERS, ONLY A FEW DETAIL FLOATING ABOUT IN THIS OCEAN OF A TAIL.
Oni: Thank you Abyss for that disclaimer riddled with fish puns :) .
'How on Earth am I supposed to get that door open? It just doesn't make sense! Where's Harry and Ma-'
THUNK
Garry was snapped out of his reverie by an object that fell from the floor above him. His head snapped up, and he was on his feet in seconds.
Quickly spinning on his heel, Garry walked towards the strange, blue object.
It was a block around half his height, with a royal blue pyramid on top. Garry bent over to get a better look at it, noticing that the base was the exact size and shape as the triangular hole in the ground. Deducing quickly, he tried to push the block, maneuvering it to what he hoped was the key to the door.
A sudden chill ran down his spine as he pushed the block towards the hole, and the sound of whispering filled his mind. Garry felt dizzy started to stumble a bit.
On your way back home from your family trip to the Art Gallery, you pass an orphanage who's iron gates were shut tight. However, a figure was huddled by the gate, who by size you could only guess was a child. Your father walks slowly to get a closer look while you tailed behind him, and both of you were surprised when a pair of obsidian colored eyes looked up at you. His long, scraggily mope of black hair and thin, skeletal frame made you shiver. The child on the doorstep could not have been any older than three years old, contrary to your own five years. He was bruised all over, and you couldn't just leave him there to die…
"I'm fine Pict… don't worry, it only hurts a little now." Father tries to give you a smile, but it ends up as a grimace. He's clutching his left arm, and writhing on the floor. You always knew that odd tattoo your father had was bad, it felt wrong. It made father hurt a lot. And now you can only watch helplessly, writhing in pain on the floor of your living room, worried that he just might die this time…
There was something oddly disturbing about the paintings in the Gallery you inherited on your 16th birthday. Even as you walked through the decently crowded building, you couldn't shake the feeling that all of the art pieces were watching your every move…
She was right behind you. Crawling, growling screeching. Sapphire blue eyes locked one to your own, hungry for something you did not understand. You tried talking to her, but she had been faster, lunging at your rose. You felt a burning pain immediately after The Lady in Blue snatched the royal blue rose out of your hands, making you stumble back. With a shriek you are sure your 'brother' would have laughed at, you grabbed the key on the ground and ran out the door, forgetting the rose before slamming the door shut behind you. Running turned to stumbling turned to crawling until you realized your mistake. You turn back and fall to the ground in pain. 'Is this what the Cruciatus Curse feels like?' you think to yourself.
The purple haired teen gasped and looked up just in time to catch a glimpse of something peering at him over the wall, where the purple door was. A flash of black, blue, and red. Red that stared at him hungrily, before it had disappeared.
'Great, so this place has Dementor equivalents now? 'Garry thought to himself.
"Wonderful, just wonderful." He muttered to himself, and then went back to his original task before he was interrupted by, whatever it was.
With a final push, the slab slid in to its new domain, and Garry heard a click from behind him.
Turning around, he found that the previously shut and locked tight door was now open ajar. Shrugging, he walked through it.
The passageway he found himself in had a bend, but in front of him, a couple of feet away, was one of those disturbing dolls dressed in a small pink dress. Above it on the left was message scrawled out in purple paint.
"Hello there, Garry…
I don't like being alone…
Take me with you…!"
"…Oh no… nonononono I am NOT taking one of these things with me!" And with that, Garry spun on his heel and walked down the hall, intending to get a far as possible from the blue skinned, creepy, smiling humanoid plush toy.
Only to find another one, propped up against the wall.
Just to be sure nobody was playing tricks, Garry walked back to where the doll was.
Only to find that it, along with the purple paint, had disappeared.
'So it's moving with me huh? This is getting a little creepy for my liking, and I have seen too much as it is today…' He thought darkly to himself.
Walking up to the doll's new place, he read the message that it had written for him in the same blasted paint.
"Hey, why aren't you talking to me?"
'Should I be?' Garry mused in his head. A part of him, the Slytherin side as his father would say, wanted to talk to the doll to see if it had any information on how to leave the gallery. The teen squashed that thought right away. No way in heaven or hell or in this gallery is he ever going to talk to one of those things willingly.
"If I do, I must be mad and anyone finding me in such a state should slap me." He said out loud, just to make that statement final. 'Besides,' he mused, 'it's not like that could actually happen…'
Garry strode on, turning another bend to find… the doll again.
"Why are you ignoring me?
Do you hate me?"
'No I can't say that I do, but I must admit that with you following me, my opinion on you is dropping. And trust me, they weren't high to begin with.'
"Hey, play with me!
I know lots of fun things we can do…"
'No, I draw the line at playing.'
"Go away!" Garry shouts at it before sprinting forward, only to find the doll again when he turned the corner.
"I've got lots of friends, too…
I'll introduce you!"
"Please don't…" Holding his head in his hands, he sprints off once more. This doll was really creeping him out now!
"Be here forever…"
"NonononononoNONONONONO! Go away! Stop stalking me!" Garry shouted at the dolls, not realizing in his terror that his eyes were starting to shift from his calm blue to a vibrant pink.
The purple haired teen rounded the final bend and sighed in relief. Finally the door! His joy was short lived however, when he realized that the doll was blocking the door.
"…How long are you going to follow me?" He asked it, a hint of defeat in his voice. Then his exhaustion turned to anger when he remembered why he had started out in the first place.
He had to help Harry and Mary.
"Enough of this! I'm busy here, and I'm not going to be your buddy!" He growled at it.
"These stupid DOLLS!"
His anger getting the best of him, and without Harry to stop him, Garry lifted his leg behind him.
"Out of my way!" The teen kicked the small doll, sending it flying towards the wall, where it hit with a 'squelch' and splattered blood on itself as well as the wall itself.
"Hmph…"
Garry turned to the door, turning the knob but was only rewarded with that insufferable 'click'
"It's locked…"
He hears the sound of paint spattering on his left, and turns to see that a message in purple paint has been scrawled on the wall next to the door.
"Oh no…" he mumbled as he read what it said.
" S
S"
After reading the message, he heard a click that signified that the door was unlocked.
Garry sighed. He should have known that it was a horrible idea to kick one of these things, and now he had a REALLY bad feeling about going through the door.
'Oh well,' he thought, 'let's see what they throw at me…' and tentatively walked through.
Stepping out into the new room, Garry let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Nothing jumped out at him, and the room was spacious enough that he could make a run from whatever it was that might chase him in the future.
However, as he walked forward to the end of the room, his fear rose again.
For there, sitting at the end of the wall, was a doll head.
"It's all your fault my head was plucked off…" The scribble in that insufferable violet paint read.
"Oh no…no no nonono…" The teen whispered, backing away. Taking a few deep breaths, he tries to calm himself down. 'Get yourself together!' Garry thought in his head, 'You have work to do! Remember your schooling, nothing is ever as it seems!' before trying the purple door next to the severed doll head. It opened with ease.
Inside the room he was met with seven golden pedestals of some sort, each carved exactly the same. The pillars were arranged symmetrically, with three on the left receding towards the center of the other end of the room, three on the right doing the same thing, and one standing in the middle of the room, right in front of him. They stood on square black symbols that he didn't recognize. Looking straight ahead, the boy with the tattered coat saw a notice at the end of the wall.
Garry carefully walked to the end of the room, hoping that the notice might yield something better than the messy scrawls from the dolls.
"Collect the seven balls of paint…
Then the room will be colored,
And your bridge will be made."
"Balls of paint…?" Garry asked himself aloud, "I wonder where those are…"
He glanced above the notice to see a giant wooden painter's pallet hanging from a nail on the wall. It had seven dabs of color, purple, pink, yellow, green, blue, red and white. 'These must be the colors of the balls of paint… I'll keep that in mind.' He thought. Seeing nothing else to do in the room, Garry walked out of the room.
Passing "Depths", which looked like a botched Fibonacci sequence, and the painting of the starry sky called 'Marvelous Night", the purple haired teen spotted a vase of water, and ran towards it. This vase seemed different from the other vases, as it was bright blue instead of a drab grey. Quickly, he placed his rose in the vase and sighed in relief when all the petals on his rose grew back. Taking his rose out, Garry realized that the water level was the same height as when he put his rose in. 'Is this one particular vase charmed to keep refilling?' he thought to himself.
Looking back, he realized that he had passed a purple door on his way to the vase. Above the door was a simple picture of a tree. Feeling a bit more courageous now that his rose was back to full health, he opened the door.
He walks in to find a library of some sort, split by a large wall in the middle, which had another notice on it.
"No checking out books."
'I don't think there's any place to check out anyway.' He thought to himself. Turning to the right, he realized that the passageway was blocked by large bookcases. He tried pulling one of the bookcases to the middle, but the thing wouldn't budge.
"Hrm… I should be able to move it, but I can't." He sighed to himself. To be thorough, Garry checked the center bookcase for something to help him, choosing a book titled 'Theories on This World'
"Theories on this World
Via a trading of existences,
The imaginary can be made reality."
"I'm not sure what that means…" he said out loud.
Seeing that nothing else seemed to be of use, Garry decided to check the other side of the room.
Checking a bookcase on the left side, he found a slip of paper that said "Conquer the Unknown and Know No Fear". 'Finally something positive in this hellish gallery…' he thought to himself.
Moving on, he saw four bookcases at the back, split into two groups by a painting of an eye looking to the right. "Enlightenment" it read. 'Does this mean that somewhere here I will be enlightened of something?' Garry thought.
Deciding to check the bookshelves from left to right, Garry found another free book on the leftmost side.
"Terror
Being alone is fearful.
A group of two can half relief.
A group of three…"
The rest was torn off…
"…I hope Harry and Mary are okay…" Garry whispered to himself, "Well, as long as there are two of them, I guess…" Shaking his head, he continues on the task at hand.
Seeing nothing of importance in the other two bookcases, Garry checks the rightmost shelf. "The Essentials of Color" the title read. 'It describes the uses of color…' he mused, 'to bad I know most of this stuff… not very helpful…'
The teen felt a shiver run through him as soon as he closed the book.
"Hm?" Garry asked aloud.
Thunk.
A small green ball appeared on the boy's left side, and Garry bent down to carefully pick it up.
"What's this, now…" he asked no one in particular, "It's soft, but I feel I could break it…"
Then the answer struck him.
"Perhaps this is a ball of paint?"
Once the words fell from his lips, the green ball disappeared in a small swirl of green paint.
"Hm… it vanished." he said out loud. 'I have been talking to myself for a while now… I doubt this is healthy…' his mind added, 'This entire place is surreal and you are most likely going mad.'
Seeing no use to be in the room any longer, Garry left the room to search for more of these 'balls of paint.'
Turning to the next opening in the room, Garry turned the knob of the new purple door only to find it locked. Shrugging, he checked the painting next to the door. "Fishing Hook" it read, and true to its name there was a fishing hook that hung from the top of the inside of the frame and descended to the outside of the frame itself.
"…What's up with this?" he says aloud once again, "It's coming out of the painting… Could it be, well… a hook?" He suddenly had the huge urge to touch the hook, but stooped himself once he realized his hand was hovering only and inch away from the point of the hook.
'Garry snap out of it, remember the story of Sleeping Beauty, prick the finger and you're done for…' his mind chided.
"No, I won't touch it…" he said aloud, as if to defend himself from his own mind. 'Wow, I really am going mad…' he thought.
Going around again, Garry stopped when he saw two more paintings. There was the painting "Worry" which he swore the background used to be red and the face used to look from the other side that winked at him when he passed it. Next to it was "Juggling", depicting a juggler in a red suit who was juggling blue and yellow balls in the air. Listening closely, Garry heard a voice coming from the painting.
"What year was I born?" it asked the purple haired teen.
'Oh good I know this one, glad to know my obsession with art is actually paying off for once in this place…' Garry thought to himself triumphantly.
"6223." The teen said with confidence.
"C-O-R-R-E-C-T!" the juggler spelled out, happy someone got the answer right for once.
Another small 'thunk' came from the floor, this time from the boy's right. Turning, Garry saw a deep blue ball of paint on the floor. As soon as he picked it up, the small object vanished with a small swirl of blue. 'Well, that's two done at least…' he thought to himself.
Turning around, Garry opened the door opposite to "Worry" to find himself in a room full of some sort of red gas that was being pumped out from some holes in the ground.
"Oof… What's with this room…?!" he said before gasping as the mist entered his lungs. "Don't want to stay here long…" he panted out.
He hacked and coughed at the stench, and while he recognized the mist as some sort of poisonous gas, something told him that he had to get to the other corner of the room. However, something caught his eye.
A red umbrella was leaning against the wall, a few steps to his left, and Garry felt an unnatural pull toward it. Making up his mind, the teen lurched forward, absentmindedly watching his rose rapidly lose petals as he made his way over to the umbrella. Scratches began appearing on his body, bleeding profusely, the pain becoming more unbearable the more steps he took. Picking the object up, he sprinted out the door, making his way over to the bright blue vase, and sighed in relief as the rose of three petals quickly turned into a rose in full bloom, and the wounds disappearing from his body as quickly as they had come.
Now with a much clearer head, Garry stared at the red umbrella. 'What am I supposed to do with this?' he thought to himself, examining the innocent-looking thing. With the intention of continuing his exploration, Garry attempted to get past "Worry" when on the way he felt the pull towards "Fishing Hook" become even stronger. An idea struck him.
"I wonder, if I put this umbrella on it…" he murmured.
Carefully, the boy in the tattered coat hooked the umbrella onto the fishing hook. As soon as the umbrella was secured, the line above whirred, and the hook retracted upwards, umbrella in tow.
"Huh… It went into the painting…" Garry gasped aloud, "There sure are a lot of inexplicable things going on…" 'and I'm not even an ordinary either…' he finished in his mind, just in case.
Deciding to continue his search, Garry rounded the bend past "Worry" and found what he hoped was the final purple door in the room. He tried opening it, but the door was locked tight. The doorknob was strangely cold…
Getting a bad vibe from the door and whatever was behind it, the purple haired teen spun around the see a yellow ball of paint laying a few ways away. He picked it up, and it vanished in a swirl of bright, yellow paint. Going back to the vase, Garry saw something he hoped wouldn't happen again.
The decapitated doll head had moved again, this time next to the vase. Above it was yet another one of those disturbing notes scribbled in purple paint.
"No…" he whispered aloud, reading the messy handwriting.
"Whatcha doing?
Whatcha doing? I wanna know!"
Garry let out a frustrated groan.
"Not again…"
Suddenly exhausted from the new development, Garry walked to the rose drawing placed on the ground and sat down.
"I hope Harry and Mary are okay…"
AN: Yay first chapter finished! A little backstory on our favorite purple haired friend, hope you like it! Remember, reviews make the world go round, so just send one in so I know what you think of it! Til next time, my pretties!
-Oni