So, the Write-A-Thon has ended. So sad. So sorry. It might take me a little longer to update now. School's coming up, you know? Can't spend TOO much time on this. I will try though!

Now, I have something special for you. In every A/N from now on in celebration of being nearly halfway done this fanfiction I will put in something about myself. Favorite color, movie you name it, I'll say it. I want my fans to know me.

So, confession #1: I'm fourteen, ten months, and twenty days old (aka certifiably fifteen), but people say I think like a thirty year old. Now you have another fact to cram in your brain.

Now. I. Give. You. The. Great. Split!

R&R!

The world was fuzzy, and Cassia felt the cold floor underneath of her for the first time. She was aware that the light had come back into her eyes, and it was a bit blinding. She blinked once, twice, and she began to hear a voice.

"Cassia?" The voice said, and someone shook her arm. "Cassia?"

"What?" Cassia sat up, propping herself up with her arm. She looked around as saw that sitting next to her was Garry, and his look was concerned and relieved at the same time.

"Oh thank God," Cassia was surprised when Garry pulled her into a hug. She was stiff for a minute, but hugged him back, and it was nice to feel the warmth of another person. Even if that other person was almost a head taller than her. "I thought you were dead. You took a nasty fall."

"Where are the others?" She asked, pulling back from him.

"We split up, remember?" He said. "The others are in some other part of the museum. I really hope they are okay."

"Yeah," Cassia said as Garry got up from the floor. He helped her back up, and her head was still a little woozy. "We should get going. Is that a door over there?"

They walked over to the door and Cassia pulled it open the hallway in front of them was dimly lit. It was lined with small paintings, all still works of Guertena. As they walked, the paintings became more obscure and more abstract. There was one that was titled "Good Boy" that was just a bunch of red and black splotches in a spiraling pattern. Another was titled "Spider" and was a boy playing with a gun, pointing it in the wrong direction.

"Wow," Cassia breathed. "This must have been done after his mental breakdown."

"I'd say definitely," he agreed. He looked around nervously and said, "I can see where Mary gets it from."

"I'm kind of curious to know the whole truth," Cassia said. "Belle only told me bits and pieces of it, so I can fill most of the holes. Mostly about why she needed us four here. I mean, I know why she ends Holly, but she didn't know that until after we were here."

"I know what you mean," Garry said. "When Ib and I were inside this place the first time, we didn't understand why we were here until the end. Mary wanted Ib to be her friend, and I just happened to be thrown in the mix… which is probably why she tried to kill me on more than one occasion."

"Maybe she only needed Holly and the three of us were mistakes," Cassia said.

"I don't think so this time," said Garry. "Maybe she knew that Holly couldn't make it through the gallery to her without help from people older than her."

"Ib did."

"Yeah, but I helped her most of the time, she was ten, and she's very versatile," He said with a smile. "That's my Ib."

"So she's not really your sister, right?"

"No, she's not," Garry said. "But I love her like one. No, her parents were trapped here… or so we think. When we got out of here, no one knew we existed. It was like someone took a huge, godly eraser and rubbed it right over us. I was able to pass for eighteen and I was able to 'adopt' Ib as my sister."

"You would be able to pass of for eighteen," Cassia poked his arm. "What are you, like six feet tall?"

"Give or take," he shrugged. "Anyway, we were sort of able to build our lives up again."

"I wish I could do that," Cassia sighed. "My parents are always gone. I've practically been an orphan since they dropped my sorry butt on the doorstep of some boarding school."

"You probably can," Garry said. "When Adrian said he was looking for you, they had no record of you. Your school didn't even have a record of you. Your parents probably don't even know they have a child."

That hit Cassia like a sack of bricks. She tried top sound as collected as possible when she said, "I don't care."

"Yes you do."

"No way. Don't care," Cassia shook her head. "I barely existed to them in the first place. This isn't any different for me. Besides, I have all you guys now. No doubt we'll keep in touch after this all is done. That's all the family I need. All the family I've ever needed."

"Let me tell you something," Garry stopped walking and Cassia stalled next to him. "Today is my birthday, you know."

"Pretty crappy way to spend your birthday."

"It's even worse because this will be the first one I've spent without my parents. They'd forgotten me and I couldn't go face them and look like a psycho insisting that I was their son. You know what's the worse feeling in the entire world?" he paused for an answer, and Cassia shook her head, "Going home to your own house and see that every memory of you has been erased. Every picture, every little drawing I made when I was little that my parents framed. All of it was gone. And now here I am, in this wretched place again, and I can't even celebrate being seventeen with my own family."

For that, Cassia had no words. Instead, she whispered, "My parents never framed my art."Garry opened his mouth, but Cassia continued, "They never took me on vacation. All the trips I'd ever taken were with my school, and only to the next state over. I was a mistake, the result of failed birth control. They didn't believe in abortion and they thought that they could handle balancing their bustling lives with raising me, but they couldn't. Not once did they ever seem like parents to me. I missed out on being loved by anyone."

"I'm sure they –"

"Sure they what?" Cassia snapped. "Sure they call once in a while to say 'Happy birthday!' or 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Hey Cassia, we still know you exist and we're proud of you!'? Because they barely even do, and it's only to reprimand me about a grade or to make sure I didn't trash the house or get pregnant or elope or something."

Garry didn't reply for a few moments as Cassia got her breathing under control. Finally she said after a few moments in a low tone, "Why am I even telling you this? You don't care. I barely know you. But I guess you just have that effect on people."

"What effect?"

"You kind of make me just want to open up," Cassia said.

"I do care," he said, and he sounded as sincere as possible. "Believe it or not, I have that effect on people for a reason. I believe that you can help people just by listening and relating."

"So you're a philosopher now?"

"More a philanthropist, but you were close in that they both start with 'p'," He smiled one of those smiles you'd usually give when you know a secret and someone else doesn't and nodded towards the end of the hall. "Now stop moping and start walking. I don't know about you, but I'm itching to see what's at the end of the hall."

"I never thought I'd ever hear a sane human being say that in this place," Cassia couldn't help but smile a little, even if it was repressed.

"What can I say? I'm curious," he led the way down the hall, and Cassia followed him.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Oof!" Holly landed on her brother when they fell, and both their lungs emptied of air. "Sorry Toby!"

"Ack! What have you been eating Holls?" Toby lifted her up off him and plopped her down next to him. Then suddenly, his mind clicked and he cried, "Holly!" he pulled her into a hug and said, "Where in the world were you?"

"I… I don't know," Holly looked puzzled. "I was dreaming, and then this girl appeared, and then… I can't remember, but I was falling and I ended up here."

"Did you get a good look at her?"

"No, I didn't," she said. "It was so cold, though, and I kept hearing this giggling…"

Toby and Holly shuddered, then Toby looked around and said, "Is that Adrian over there?"

On the floor over on the right side of the room was a tall dark heap. Toby rushed over and flipped him over. Holly said nervously, "Is he alive?"

In response, Adrian groaned and his eyes flew open. "Of course I'm alive," he sat up and shook his head, "Where are we?"

"The split took Cassia and Garry away to another part of the gallery," Toby explained. His vision was still topsy-turvy, but he'd gotten the nauseas spells under control. "We better get going if we want to find one of those buttons Belle showed us. There's bound to be one around here somewhere."

"Is that door unlocked?" He pointed across the room to the door. Toby hadn't even realized it was there until now. Adrian went over and turned the knob. The door opened, and it led into another room. He gestured in and said, "Come on. Let's get going."

Toby kept Holly close to him as they entered the room. The room was enormous and the walls were painted white. There was one window on the side. There was a scent in the air like paint fumes, and as soon as Adrian was clear from the door it swung shut. Adrian tugged at it hard, but it wouldn't budge. The knob wouldn't even turn. Holly panicked and clung to Toby's side, shaking.

"Look," She pointed forward, and there was, in the middle of the room, a tree. A giant tree made of thin plate metal. It was intricately carved and covered in paint, like someone had just painted its trunk and left for a few minutes to let it dry out. Holly detached herself from Toby's side and went up tot eh tree. She looked up, went on her tiptoes, reached her little fingers, and with a little snap she removed something from a branch. She showed it to Toby and said, "It's an apple."

And an apple it was. It was heavy like a paperweight and was made of shiny metal. It was spotless and unpainted, and the metal was cold as she put it in Toby's cupped hands. Adrian looked over his shoulder and said, "What are we supposed to do with it?"

His question was drowned out by a pounding that came at the door. Toby's blood turned to ice in his veins as the pounding got louder. The door vibrated with ever knock, and as they became more aggressive the wood began to splinter.

"Uh oh," Toby said.

"Fooooood….." A moan came from outside. "Fooooooooooooooooood…."

And then the door exploded into a shower of splinters inward. Holly shrieked as a creature emerged from behind the wreckage of the door. It was unlike anything Toby had ever seen before. It was a painting, but it had someone coming out of it. The person who was waist deep in the painting was a woman with sandy hair and a yellow dress, and her face was ravenous. Her teeth were sharp like a piranha's and her eyes were fathomless, completely black and beady, and shined with bloodlust.

"FOOOOD!" It tore across the floorboards with its fingers, the nails bleeding from the effort. It came straight for Tob y, and he fled to the other side of the room.

"What is that thing?" Adrian cried, running away from it. He took Holly and dragged them away from it, which was still going after Toby.

Suddenly, there was a banging on the window. Oh no, Toby thought just as another painting creature crashed through the window. She had a blue dress on this time, but that didn't make her look any less menacing.

"You have GOT to be kidding me," Toby muttered as they closed in on him slowly.

"I think they want the apple!" Holly said.

"Well that I've already figured that out, but there's only one apple!" Toby yelled.

"Break it then!" Adrian barked.

Toby pried at the apple, but his fingers slipped on the surface and he couldn't find any notches or seams or buttons. Meanwhile, the women were closing in like a panther on their prey. They were practically clawing at his feet and his heart was bounding in his throat when Holly yelled, "Throw it to me!"

"Are you crazy? No!"

"Just do it you big sissy! I have an idea!" She cried. Toby was reluctant, but he threw it to her anyways. She caught it and waved it over her head, making sure the paintings knew she had it. They turned around and advanced towards her.

She did something strange after they came closer. She threw it, but not to any one of them in particular; she made it so it landed in front of their faces. They looked at it for a moment, then at each other with their big black eyes, and both lunged for it at the same time. They shrieked as they both clawed for it, and they scratched at each other, tearing at their eyeballs and at their hair and their canvas, until all that was left of their scuffle were two frames, some torn canvas, and a glimmering iron apple.

"I can't believe a seven year old thought of that," Adrian muttered incredulously.