Three chapters in a row. I believe this is a record for me.
R&R!
It turned out that away was worse.
She stepped out of the room and immediately came face to face with a very disturbing painting of a man being flayed alive by a lizard with formidable claws. Cassia hated guts and gore, so it took all her strength to go up to the plaque and read it:
Guertena's Komodo Vanquish
Underneath, in the same scratched letters, spelled:
NOT ALONE
NOT ALONE
DISCOVER THEM ALL
IF YOU WANT TO GO HOME
What did she have to discover? She went along the hall and there were some pretty useless painting's on the walls, all done by Guertana: The Goose, The Mantle, The Yelp, even Fall Straight which depicted a man committing suicide by falling off a building. It seemed like this man Guertena was very bipolar when it came to what he drew. It was either happy animals or gruesome death and blood. After close examination, she discovered that Guertana depicted the more severe paintings later in his life as opposed to earlier in his career. What could have happened to make him want to paint this? She thought as she came to the end of the hall. The large painting that blocked her way was called Glaiciabelle and depicted a little girl sitting in the snow with her eyes closed and her arms tightly wrapped around her like she couldn't get warm. Her hair was blonde, her eyes blue, and she looked around nine or ten.
This painting is beautiful, she thought with an artist's curiosity. She went up to the plaque that said Guertena's Glaiciabelle and looked at the words etched at the bottom:
I'LL HELP YOU ALONG
TO SETTLE MY SCORES
MY NAME IS BELLE
WHAT IS YOUR'S?
Something was weird, though. This handwriting was neater than the first ones, kind of curvy at the ends of some letters, like a child who really knew what they were doing. It seemed less evil and more prophetic.
At the bottom of the words, there was a poorly etched straight line. Cassia looked around for something sharp and found a jagged rock in the corner of the hall. She picked it up, brought it over to the plaque, and did the best she could to etch her name onto the line. Cassia, it said when she was finished.
Before her eyes, the words began to warp, letters switching and disappearing all together, until cassia was left with this:
CASSIA YOU SAY?
THAT'S QUITE DIVINE
NOW I WILL GIVE YOU
SOMETHING OF MINE
Suddenly, the painting began to ripple, and something fell out. Cassia picked it up off the floor and saw that it was a little glass snowflake pendant on a delicate silver chain. The letters changed again, and this time, two passages showed up side by side on the plaque. The first said:
NOW THAT WE'RE FRIENDS
YOU CAN HAVE MY SNOWFLAKE
SHE WANTS IT REAL BAD
PLEASE DON'T LET IT BREAK
The second one, next to the first, said:
I KNOW YOU'LL BE CAREFUL
YOU'LL KEEP IT REAL SAFE
RIGHT 'ROUND YOUR NECK
WOULD BE THE BEST PLACE
Cautiously, Cassia slipped the chain over her neck. The pendant fell to just above the neckline of her shirt and rested there securely. The pendant glowed when she took her hand away, and she felt very calm and confident.
"Thank you," She said aloud. The letters suddenly shifted again, and now they said:
WE'LL PLAY A BIT LATER
AND I'LL HELP YOU GET THROUGH
BUT FIRST YOU MUST FIND
THE GOLD, PURPLE, AND BLUE
The letters stayed like that and didn't move, and that's when the painting suddenly slid aside. Behind it was a long tunnel that led into darkness. Cassia swallowed once, shook her head, and plunged into the black.