Chapter 14
We left the room and I remembered seeing 5 portraits of the vampire man when I fainted. It was very eerie. The first one was "normal." Then he started bleeding from his eyes. The third and fourth portraits had blood trickling down his face. But the last one was just like the first one: "normal." How odd... We left the area and headed down the stairs.
The change in the atmosphere was immediate. We noted the change in the color of the walls, from gray to violet. As we walked down the hall, we heard a knocking sound on a nearby door. Hesitating at first, we eventually made our way to the door to investigate...
It was locked. There was a peephole so we decided to peer through.
Nothing. Pitch black. We couldn't see a thing. In a way, this was a good thing. We breathed a sigh of relief and walked back to continue down the hall. We noted a lone light bulb in the hallway.
We saw what appeared to be a rope maze. There were some headless statues in there but they weren't moving so we decided to check it out.
As we ventured in, a pole shot straight out of the ground. We were trapped. "T-The exit's blocked?!" exclaimed Garry. One of the statues roared and started coming after us. Frantically, we ran away from it to the paintings at the top of the room.
The first one read, "Red Button." We pushed it. The headless statue in red came to life and started chasing us. Oh god oh god. We ran to the bookcase and found a book.
"Diary." "It's said that spirits dwell in objects into which people put their feelings. I've always thought that, if that's true, then the same must be true of artwork. So today, I shall immerse myself in work, so as to impart my own spirit into my creations." Perhaps this is what Guertena did to make his art come to life...
Garry had a disgusted look on his face. "Is that really all it says...? You could have said something about the exit!" He turned to me and said, "Let's get out of here, Ib!"
We ran to the painting above us. "Green Button." Looking around, there weren't any statues in green, so we pressed it. The headless statue in blue right next to us came to life and attacked us. Unbelievable! Garry hurried me away. There was only one more painting to try...
The space was getting cramped. 3 headless statues now were chasing after us. We had to get to the last painting. It was our only hope...
Dodging the statues, we desperately made our way to the last painting, "Blue Button." We closed our eyes and pushed it. There was a clinking sound. Our exit! We ran as fast as we could and escaped the rope maze.
Garry appeared calm and collected, so I emulated his behavior, and we continued down the hall. A painting at the end of the hall read, "Milk Puzzle."
Garry stared at it, then asked me, "Ib, have you heard of milk puzzles?" I told him I haven't. He then explained, "Well, as the name implies, it's a puzzle where all the pieces are white like milk. Since there's no picture on them, they're much harder than regular puzzles."
Looking back at it, I realized how difficult it was to put the pieces together. "Very smart people can finish them in no time at all, but..." Garry paused. "To be honest, they're not exciting. Since they don't even make a picture in the end..."
He smiled and said, "It feels much more worth it to do a puzzle of a picture you like." I thought of the puzzle we were in, this shadow of a museum. I hated this puzzle, but Garry was helping me solve it.
The next painting was called, "Fleeting Thoughts on a Moonlit Night." It was really pretty. It looked like pink cherry blossoms falling from a tree at night. We left the area.
In the next room, there was a mirror. We carefully walked up to it and stared at our reflections. Thankfully, nothing creepy appeared this time...
The door at the end of the hall was locked. Garry noticed something and said, "What's the story with this panel here...? Can we put something in?" He thought for a minute and said, "...I'm not getting any ideas. Let's look around some more." There was another room near us. It was unlocked, so we went through.
We were met with a headless statue. It didn't move though. "Sheesh, this statue... It's blocking the way," said Garry. He stepped to the side of it and began to push, "Hrrr..." He heaved and it moved. Garry wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, "Whew. Okay, that should do it!"
The door ahead of us was the one that we heard the knocking sound from before. We were in the room with the knocking... Yet nothing in here could have done it. The only thing left to do was investigate a cord casually hanging from the ceiling.
We pulled it. Nothing happened, so we left through the exit. Back where we were before, underneath the light bulb was a message in violet writing. It read, "What is the title of the large floor painting in Guertena's exhibition?"
Garry scratched his head and said, "Gah... Could it be a password? The big fish painting, right? Did you see it, Ib?" I nodded. He went into deep thought. "But what was it... I think it was... Something of the deep...? It was just one word..."
He turned to me. "Ib, can you remember it? Of the deep... what of the deep...?" I thought for a bit and tried to remember the fish painting. It was... Abyss!
"'Abyss of the Deep'... Ah!" exclaimed Garry. "Yes, that was it, Ib! 'Abyss of the Deep'! ...Did you read the title?" I did more than that, I remembered it.
"Okay, let's remember that!" He reiterated one more time, "'Abyss of the Deep'!" With that, we hurried back to the locked door.
Investigating the panel at the door, Garry said, "...Ah! This must be what the password was for! Let's try it... 'Abyss of the Deep'..." There was a click, and the door was unlocked. We looked at each other, and went through.
Inside were some bookshelves and a single large painting. The bookshelf on the far left had a book with some words I didn't know. I tried reading it, "?" "? by the ?, I ? my finger over her beautiful ?... With her ? she..." Garry took the book from me and inspected it. He quietly shut it, and said to me, "...Don't read this kind of stuff until you get older." I guess it was an adult thing.
The bookshelf on the right side of the room had a book sticking out. I read, "The women here... Like playing 'Loves Me, Loves Me Not.'" I thought about the lady plucking the petals off Garry's rose, one by one...
The painting read, "Separation." It looked bloody and black. It made me feel scared. I thought about getting separated from Garry. Then I'd be all alone...
Garry remarked. "What an off-putting painting..." Suddenly, it was dark. A kind of darkness that swallowed us whole.
"Wh-What?! The lights?!" yelled Garry. "It's too dark to see...! I-Ib! Are you there?!"
I felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt as if the darkness were choking me, strangling the very last breath out of me. With all my spirit and whatever courage I had, I yelled out to Garry that I was there.
He breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good to hear... Stay right there, all right?" I wasn't moving anywhere. I was way too scared to move at all.
"But, this is a problem..." thought Garry aloud. As if a light flashed in his mind, he said, "Ah, that's right. I forgot I had a lighter." He clicked it, but I saw no light. I only heard a moan, a soft scream. Then the lights were back on.
What I saw made my eyes widen and my heart beat intermittently. There was writing all over the wall, graffiti'd in different colors. Looking around slowly, I saw that they read, "HELP NO DON'T KILL ME STOP DON'T" Who was in here with us that wrote this... The title of the painting had also changed to "S T O P"
"...Huh?" said Garry as he pocketed his lighter. He found me and looked around with me. "Wh... What is THIS...?!" He walked forward a few steps. "... I don't think this is... good for my mental health..." This was our cue to leave the room.
When we left, there was a notice painted in neat red letters. It read, "A notice to all visitors. There is a strict ban on fire-starting implements in the gallery. We request that you report the use of any matches, lighters, or the like. Should the use of such implements be reported to the staff," It appeared that the rest of the notice when down to the other rooms, but it abruptly ended like that...
As we walked back to the milk puzzle area, we noticed footprints. Red footprints. They led to a hidden passageway that we didn't see before... Anxiously, we followed the footprints in.