Chapter 24

When I awoke, I was startled by what I saw. There were drawings on the floor everywhere. There were dolls and mannequin heads and many other things everywhere. This was Mary's toy box.

I clutched my arm. I was hurt. I searched for my rose. It wasn't here... I looked around. Neither was Garry. I only saw petals laying around me. I was weak. But I had to find my rose. And I had to find Garry.

I got up, my legs buckling beneath me. I could barely walk. As I limped up from where I landed, I took note of Mary's drawings on the floor. There were train tracks and a blue person lay splattered and crushed on the tracks... I continued up, following a trail of red petals. Up ahead, I saw it. There it was. My rose. I picked it up gingerly. There was a single petal left on there. I carried it with me carefully, preventing any harm from coming to it. Now I had to look for Garry.

I saw stairs leading out of here in the back of the room, but they were blocked by 2 large dolls. Oh please, let Garry still be in this room. I walked to the right side of the room. Nothing here. As I was walking down, I saw a familiar figure lying on the floor. Garry!

I rushed over to him. "Oof..." he grunted. He slowly started to get up. "Oww... ugh. I hit my head..." When he fully stood up, he bent down and looked at me. "Ib... Are you okay?" he asked me.

My body ached and I felt like I could collapse any second. But I didn't want him to worry, so I told him I was fine. His eyes lit up. "Ah! That's good... At any rate..." he said. He looked around. "This place is full of scribbles... Is this the toy box? We fell in from the upper floor..." Garry said. Then he was quiet. "...after she pushed us..." Mary pushed us. It was her. How could she?

Garry got serious and said, "...Well, let's look for the key and get out!" That's right, there was a key in here! We started to search. Around where Garry fell was a drawing of a clown. It looked like the painting that we saw back in the gallery.

Our search was starting to feel futile after a few minutes. Then I remembered something. The last door that needed to be unlocked was the pink house. Logically, it would require a pink key. I fed my idea to Garry and he agreed.

We scoured though the pink drawings. On the pink kitty drawing, there it was. The key. Our way out. We picked it up. Suddenly, the room began to get dark. "Wh-What...?" said Garry nervously. "I don't like this... It's just like before..." he quietly spoke.

Then the room shook. The dolls, mannequin heads and statues sprang to life. I could sense their malevolence, their evil intentions, focused on us. "Wahhh! What's with these guys?!" shouted Garry. He gave me a final warning. "Ib... Be careful!"

Then they started coming after us. They were everywhere. Nowhere was safe. We made a straight-out blitz for the exit. Using whatever strength we had left, we made a mad dash for the exit, dodging, evading, weaving in and out. We saw the exit. We made it. We barely made it.

The next area was silent. It was the night sky again. Only this time, the stars were light blue and the moon was red. As we followed the path, we saw drawings of yellow roses. It was Mary. It had to be. As we walked up the stairs, the path began to take on a reddish tint.

We were back on the first floor of the house. Garry gasped. "Did... Did this room change?" The room wasn't white anymore. It was black as night. And the toy box was gone. There were now green vines from yellow roses blocking the stairs. There were pointy thorns, too.

"Thoroughly blocked... Telling us not to go up, then?" noted Garry. "Got to get through them somehow..." he said. We thought for a moment. We couldn't risk getting hurt from the thorns. If we sustained any more injuries, we would surely perish. Then I told Garry to burn them. These weren't like the stone thorny vines from before.

"Burn them..." he contemplated. "Yes... I suppose that'll work." He chuckled and said with slight embarrassment, "It completely slipped my mind, even though I have a lighter..." He took out his lighter.

"All right... Let's burn these!" he said. He clicked the lighter. Instantly, the vines ignited. They burst into flames and melted away. "Success! It worked, Ib!" he said with glee. I was happy too, but I was also worried about what awaited us at the top of the stairs. We took a glance at each other, took a deep breath, and went up.

We stopped at the top of the stairs. It seemed to be a long hallway in front of us. "Hm? This room..." Garry muttered. "This isn't the toy box... is it?" Oh god I hoped not. I couldn't stand another round in there.

Then Garry noticed something. "More importantly..." he started. He pointed into the distance. "See that, Ib? The painting on the far wall..." I couldn't quite see it from here so we had to move up. "I think I've seen it before... Let's take a look," suggested Garry.

We took a few steps forward. We stopped when we heard footsteps behind us. Bursting from the staircase was Mary. "Who's there?!" she shouted. Garry gasped in astonishment.

Mary was quiet. "...Ib, Garry... You're both okay...?" she whispered. Then her face was angry. "...How did you get into this room? Leave..." she said dangerously.

"Mary... You..." said Garry nervously. "Don't take another step!" she shouted. Garry was stunned. "Wha...?!"

Mary took a step closer. "Leave right now!" She whipped out her palette knife, waving it in the air. "Now! NOW NOOOW!" she screamed. Thick, red cracks in the ground appeared beneath her feat, stretching out far.

"LEEEEEeeeEEEeeAVE!" Mary screamed. Then she ran toward us. There was a furious anger burning in her eyes. Garry took my hand and we began to run. We didn't dare look behind us. We ran all the way to the end of the room.

There, we saw a painting that was ripped in such a way as though someone burst out of it. Garry brandished his lighter. "There's no other option!" he yelled. He clicked it.

"Ib...! Please! STOP!" Mary shrieked. I'm sorry Mary. The painting ignited. Glass shot out from the frame. "Waugh!" shouted Garry.

Mary stopped moving. She sank to her knees. A low moan escaped from her lips. "Ah...! NOOO...!" she howled. She fell backwards. The picture frame became an ashen black. She, too, burned with the frame. She crumbled into black dust before my eyes. Goodbye, Mary.

Garry was silent. "..." he panted. "I have... to say..." he started. "Girls... sure can be scary..." Truer words have never been spoken.

He stood up straight. "Well, anyway... It burned up a lot more violently than I expected." I guess he didn't think too much about Mary. He turned his attention to my body. "Are you okay, Ib? The glass shattered, after all."

I looked at myself. Nope, I was fine. However, I noticed that Garry's hand was bleeding. I pointed that out to him. "...Hm? My hand? Oh, you're right, I cut it... I didn't even notice... It must have just happened." Silly Garry. How could you not notice something like that?

He smiled and said, "...Well, it's just minor." To me, it looked bad. I wanted to help him. I pulled out my handkerchief. This was the handkerchief I got for my birthday. I decided he needed it more than I did.

"Ah, a handkerchief... May I use it?" he politely asked. I told him he could. "...Isn't this real lace? Well, I don't particularly want to tarnish this..." Garry said, delicately wiping his cut with it. The blood seeped through and diffused. "Too late, unfortunately..." he said quietly.

Stuffing it in his pocket, he turned to me and said, "Oh well. I'll borrow this anyway. Thanks, Ib." You're welcome, Garry. "Well... Let's get going!" he said with cheer. That's right! We can keep going on now! Before we left, we decided to look around a bit more.

Mary's palette knife lay on the floor. "She really... wasn't human after all..." he muttered.

Some blue dolls were lying on the floor. When I went to go look at them, Garry stopped me and said, "...I've had enough of these... Don't touch it, Ib." I guess he really doesn't like dolls.

The inscription below the burnt picture read, "Mary." She really was a painting after all. "A bit late, but... was it wise to torch one of Guertena's paintings?" asked Garry. "If it was the real deal, it... WAS worth a fortune, wasn't it?" Then he sighed. "Like I said, a bit late."

There were some books lying around. Garry flipped through them. "Are these... books about candy? And these... storybooks... 'How to Make Friends'..." he quietly said.

There were drawings and pictures lying around. I saw something written in crayon. It read, "I like the visitors coming in to live with me, but... I want to leave this place myself and live outside! But unless I take the place of someone from outside, it seems I can't do that... Won't somebody come soon? Won't somebody come soon..." Garry was about to comment, "...This is..." but he didn't finish.

I felt sorry for Mary. I truly did. All she wanted was to be a real girl, to live in the real world. For all these years, ever since Guertena's death, she was trapped in this warped world. She was eternally condemned to a life without friends, without real people. A life without true happiness is no life at all. I loved her like a sister. And she loved me too. I know that. The way her eyes looked after listening to the secret the lips spoke. They were scared. She was afraid to lose me. I was her only friend. My heart was broken, bruised, beaten and burned along with Mary. Even though she came after us with a knife, I understood her. The pain she felt. The crushing loneliness. Like a thousand steely daggers piercing your soul, cutting, slicing away, until there's nothing left. This was what Mary felt. This is what no person should ever feel. I laid my thoughts to rest. This was my final goodbye. Farewell, Mary. Perhaps in another time, you'll find what you were looking for. You'll always be in my heart. I'll never forget you.