The door opened up into another green room like the one she had come from. There was a pillar in the middle of the hallway directly in front of her and mostly paintings of insects to her right. The latter path looked less ominous so Linda went that way and found a door at the end. However, path came to a quick end when the door opened to reveal a gaping hole in the middle of the room. There was no hope going around it because the hole stretched from wall to wall. Not willing to chance a jump, Linda decided to brave the other hallway with the pillar. Walking back, Linda paused when she saw a rather large ant crawling around aimlessly. She had no idea how she had missed it before. Linda was planning on squishing it before it could attack her when it spoke up.

"Hi! I'm an ant." Linda stopped mid step and gasped. The ant paid no heed to the fact that it almost died and continued talking. "I love paintings. My painting is especially cool. I'd like to see it again, but it's kind of far away…"

"Umm," Linda started uncertainly, "I-I think I can help if you tell me where it is." Look at me, I'm talking to an ant. What's next? Linda rolled her eyes at that thought and the ant looked up at her and nodded before going back to aimlessly wandering around. Linda shook her head and took a moment to wonder what was wrong with this place before walking to the pillar, taking extra caution not to step on the ant. At the pillar, she saw a small plaque.

"Beware the edges," it said. Linda carefully walked around the pillar, careful to not touching the edges of the pillar. She really had no idea if that was what the plaque meant, but she did it anyways, just to be safe. However, when Linda rounded the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks. This hallway was giving off a bad vibe. It felt ominous somehow. Nevertheless, she shook it off and kept walking. She wouldn't be able to finish the gallery by fearing every little thing that SEEMED scary. Yet, barely a couple of steps into the hallway, a roar resonated from the walls as a shadowy arm shot out from the right wall reaching for Linda.

"Shit!" Linda jumped back and pressed herself on the opposite wall away from the hand. Then again, she thought, breathing hard, if I ignore my senses, I might never finish the gallery ALIVE. The arm only went so far, so it couldn't touch her but instead stuck out of the wall like a sore thumb, wriggling and writhing. Fearing that another arm would come out of the wall she was on, she jerked away from the wall and stood trembling in the middle. Linda walked slowly through the hallway but then another roar sounded through the hall and she immediately pressed herself to the left wall again, but this time, an arm shot out from the wall she'd taken refuge on, passing through her and tearing off a petal of her rose. Linda fell back as the pain seared through her body again.

When the pain had subsided a bit, she looked at her rose. Eight. There are only eight petals left on this rose. What is this? Some sick Beauty and the Beast horror film? Linda thought bitterly as she picked herself up. Looking back, she saw that both creepy arms could only reach a little distance and that if she were to place herself directly in the middle, she could walk by without them touching her.

Staying strictly in the middle, Linda continued to walk, trying to take up the least amount of space she could. She was nearing the end of the hallway when another roar was heard. She braced for impact as a split second later, two arms lunged out, from both walls, and tried to grab at her. Luckily, her theory proved to be true for neither of the arms were able to reach her. Relieved, Linda relaxed a bit and continued walking. She reached the end of the hallway and let her guard down when, with no warning at all, an arm shot out from the wall directly in front of her.

Linda screamed and closed her eyes, but when she felt no pain, she looked down and saw the hand lingering, millimeters away, from her neck. Stepping back slowly, she let out a deep breath as she looked to the side. The ant painting was hanging on the wall near the black arm. Linda walked up to the painting and decided to take it off. I'm not stealing since I'm helping something in this place, right? And who knows? Maybe the ant can help me get across the hole in the floor. Linda reasoned as she reached up and took the painting off the wall. Only then did she notice a door to the side, but when she tried to open it, she found it was locked. Linda sighed and hauled the ant painting back to the ant, easily avoiding the writhing hands. The ant looked up when she got back.

"Oh. That's my painting. It's just as cool as I remember it." The ant sort of just stared at its painting for a while before saying, "You know ants are really strong? I can hold up to twenty times my own weight." Then the ant went back to wandering aimlessly. Linda scrunched her eyebrows and wondered if the painting could support her weight, since it was a painting of an ant. She went back into the room with the hole and laid the painting across the hole. Sure enough, it formed a perfect bridge and the hole could not be seen. Linda took a cautious step on the frame and then on the canvas, but when the painting held, she walked across in two steps. There was a squishing sound when Linda got the other side. She looked down at her feet but didn't see any crushed bug, so she decided it must've been through the door at the end.

This door was thankfully unlocked and Linda was able to walk into the room. There was a sculpture like the one she saw in the real gallery that sent chills up her spine, and on the floor, lay a green key. Linda cautiously bent down, and picked up the key.

Suddenly, there was a small roar from the sculpture as it threw its arms up and ran after Linda. Linda screamed and ran back out the door to find that the ant in the painting was crushed and bloody, the crimson liquid seeping through out the painting. That was the squish sound earlier! I'm so sorry ant! Wait, Linda stopped dead before the crushed ant, what if it can't carry me across anymore?! What if- Linda's thoughts were interrupted by the door slamming open. The statue that had chased her earlier opened the door. Looming in the hallway, it rushed towards Linda. Shit, shit, shit, shit! Linda ran over the painting anyways. She panicked as she heard the canvas tearing open under her feet but was able to lunge forward at the last minute and barely scramble safely onto the other side. The statue had also made a lunge at the same time, but, fortunately for her, though unfortunately for it, the statue was a couple of steps behind and plunged straight down into the gaping hole and shattered below. Breathing heavily, Linda got up and walked to the door with shaky steps. She walked back out and calmed herself as she made her way to the door that was locked earlier. The key dissolved through the keyhole again and Linda walked through the threshold to reveal a tannish room that strongly resembled a cat. She wasn't sure if things were getting weirder or worse.

A/N: Thank you guys so much for reading this! I really appreciate it! And as always, I would love feedback if you have any! If I need to improve on something, feel free to let me know! I'm going to go on a small break right now, I know it's pretty early on to take a break, but I have AP testing and so I'll be back in two weeks! Sorry guys!

I also really want to thank InuChimera7410 for slashing through my mistakes with her mighty beta pen! (Or laptop, y'know, whatever.) She has a great HieiXOC fanfiction if you guys want to go check it out! Just don't leave me forever since she's a lot better at writing than I am ;A;

Oh! And If you spot any mistakes, like grammar wise and spelling wise, let me know! This website is being mean and it omits my letters... Idk why D;