Chapter 22

As we left the room, I noticed something different. Where the red gas was pouring out before, it was gone. I only saw holes on the floor where I guess the gas came from. To our surprise, there was a door there. This was the only path left to take. We went inside.

Inside we saw a large painting titled "Aspiration." It looked like a girl who was sleeping on a crescent moon. It made me feel sleepy, but I knew we had to move on.

There was a headless statue blocking a set of stairs. "Looks like these stairs go down," noted Garry. He motioned that he was going to move it. "Alright, Ib, step back." I listened and watched him move it.

"Oogh...!" he heaved. It slid as he pushed it. "Whew..." said Garry, massaging his arm. "Just how many statues have I pushed today...? Oh well. Let's go!" he said. We walked down the stairs.

Immediately, we saw a drastic change in appearance. The stairs were hot pink and it looked like we were walking across the night sky. As we walked down, a white shooting star passed by. Then a blue shooting star.

At the end of the stairs, there was a crudely drawn path. It was scribbles, but we were able to walk across it. Suddenly, there were drawings of flowers, stars and the sun in crayon. We walked on, unsure of what to think of this new world.

The next area was also a night sky, but it had blue and red stars. A large drop of water with a clown face dropped down. We saw orange and green shooting stars. Then what looked like an axe blade dropped down in front of us.

There was writing on the night sky. It read, "Sketchbook," and an arrow pointed to the left. This appeared to be a child's place for drawing. We headed through.

As we walked through, Garry noted where we were. "Well, now..." he started. "This is a significant change in atmosphere..." Then he smiled at me. "But nothing we can't handle. Let's go, Ib." With Garry, I felt like we could take on anything.

We saw yellow, orange and blue tulips. However, one of the tulips was still a bud. "Why hasn't this one bloomed, I wonder..." said Garry quietly. There was a house next to it, so we went inside.

Like the rest of the area, it was crudely drawn. As if a child drew it. Garry went to check out the bookcase. "What? These are all storybooks..." he said in astonishment. The clock on the right side of the room wasn't ticking. There was a portrait in the back of the room, but we couldn't tell who it was. With nothing else to do in here, we left the house.

We saw that there was a path leading up from where we walked in, but decided to keep moving left. We saw more tulips and a sign that read "Bulletin Board." There was a house with an artist's pallet on it, but it was locked. We decided to keep heading left.

The other side of the house had a smiling blue face with red eyes. This door was locked as well. With so many locked doors, I started to feel a little nervous. How were we supposed to move on? Garry noted that there was a path up, so we walked up. As we walked up, I saw something frightening.

It was me. I saw myself, hanging in the air with a rope around my neck. Garry was busy looking at a sign that read "Down to Gallery." I didn't want to worry him, so I ignored it and told him I was ready to keep moving.

A sign read "Butterfly Park." There were 3 yellow butterflies, harmlessly flitting around. The next house was locked as well. Looking closer, we noticed there was some writing. It read, "There are instructions on the pink building! Read them to open this door."

Garry looked skeptical. "Such a kind message, it wraps around to suspicious..." he muttered. I agreed. But it was our only lead, so we began looking for a pink building. We continued up the path.

There was a white snake with red eyes. I think I remembered seeing a painting of this somewhere back in the gallery. There was another house, deep blue. It was freezing. The door was frozen shut... We walked to the right side.

Here, we saw the most decorated of all areas. It was a house with many flowers and grass bordering it. Unfortunately, it was locked, so we had to keep moving. We kept along the right side.

In the next area, there was a pond. It was a bunch of rough scribbles, but I could tell it was a pond. I put my finger in it. The water was lukewarm. I decided it would be a bad idea to put my rose in there. I stared at it, trying to see my reflection. Garry warned me, "...Ib, make sure you don't fall in while you're spacing out." Wasn't much else left to do, so we moved along.

As we walked down the pink road, I noticed a fork. I looked straight ahead. It went back to where we first started. We moved in a circle, or a square, rather. Realizing we hadn't checked the middle area, we headed left.

It was the pink building! The door was also locked, but there was some writing outside. It read, "The Pink Key is always kept in the toy box." Garry was puzzled. "The toy box..." he muttered. "I guess there's a key there." Yes, Garry. That's what the message said. "Let's find it, Ib!"

We went back to the house that told us about the pink building, and to our surprise, it was unlocked. We ventured inside. The inside was shoddily drawn. A bunch of red fruits were on the table, nothing important. We checked out the left side of the room.

There was a stuffed rabbit and a bucket. Remembering the flower that hadn't bloomed yet, I took the bucket. Perhaps I could give it some water and help it along. As we turned to leave, he heard the door open.

Freezing in place, we stood there holding our breath. There was a familiar voice. "Ib... Garry..." it called out. Oh my god it was Mary. "...Where are you?" We quietly took a few steps back, our hearts pounding in the silence.

Mary walked forward a bit. We hoped to god that she wouldn't check where we were hiding. She stopped and sighed, "..." Then she ran out of the room. As soon as we heard her footsteps fade away, Garry barely made out, "...Don't tell me... that was..." Then he got deadly serious.

"She's after us..." he told me. We were going to have to watch our step in here. We ran out of the house. We went to the lake and filled the bucket with water and hurried back to our little friend.

When we got there, we saw that the path we came in here through was gone. We were trapped in this chalk world. Pushing this aside, we went to the little bud. I poured the water from the lake on it, and it bloomed. There was something shiny inside it.

It was a key. We tried it out at the next house, the one with the artist's pallet of colors. It fit, and unlocked the door. When we went in, we saw something strange. On the wall were 2 drawings. They were of me and Garry. We were holding our roses. There were also drawings of Mary and a creepy blue doll holding her rose.

A small box in the middle of the room was labeled "Pandora's box." I recalled the myth that my parents had told me before. A little girl had opened the box, releasing all the horrors and evils of the world, shutting hope inside. "'Pandora's Box,' huh..." said Garry, contemplating what to do.

If we were going to move on and find a way out, we had to do something. So we decided to open it. It clicked, and a whole bunch of colorful symbols formed a circle around the box. Then they dispersed. "I wonder all that was..." Garry said with amazement. He looked back in the box. "...Ah? There's something left in the box."

It was a small mirror. "A mirror... Well, let's just hope it's hope" he said, apparently recalling the myth as well. We chuckled and left the house.

We continued to explore the area. There was a new butterfly in "Butterfly Park." It was orange, and there was something else odd about it. "This butterfly has an eye pattern on it..." observed Garry. We kept walking around, seeing what else had changed. We went back to the lake, seeing if there was anything different. Staring into the water, there was a sudden brightness. Blinded for a few seconds, we finally opened our eyes. Shining in the water was a crescent moon. Or its reflection? I wasn't sure. We moved on from there.

"Bulletin Board" had a spiral drawn on it. The path from the lake that was empty before was now filled up with trees bearing all kinds of colorful fruit. There was a single red fruit hanging from an orange tree. Odd... Even stranger, and scarier, was what appeared to be someone hanging from the cherry tree. I shuddered, and told Garry we should keep moving. Back at the house near where we first entered, we looked through the place, seeing if anything changed. One of the books caught Garry's eye. They were still storybooks, but he noticed something odd. "Full of stars inside, too..." he commented. Then we left the area.

Continuing left, we were back at the place where I saw myself being hanged. It was still there... But I ignored it. We noticed a hidden path in the blackness. It led around behind a sign. There was a cat drawing there. Strange... We moved on. The very decorated house now had a heart painted on the door. Nothing else was significantly different, so we went to the frozen house. We saw an orange spot on the floor. Could it be...? It was sunlight. There was a drawing of a sun, shining its rays down on us. It felt a warm. I stood in it for a few moments.

"...Ib. Sunbathing is nice, but we've got to go," Garry said jokingly. Like always, he got serious again. "...Or we might not get to see the real sun again." I told him I was tired and that we should sit in the sunlight for a while.

This whole time, I've been so cold. Everywhere I went, I was shivering with fear. It felt good to feel normal again, even in this fake sunlight. Besides, Garry looked tired as well. Agreeing with me, we both sat down in the pseudo-sunlight, basking in its warmth.