Second update today!

Big changes are coming…! Thanks for sticking around!

The Empty Shell

"I'm so sorry, Gill."

The young man was going through his desk, looking for something to distract his mind. The fisherman was reminding him of things he wished to forget. The only two things he needed to forget, actually.

Toby Hallward shook his head, holding his large straw hat in his hands. He stared into the dim coals of Gill Gray's modest fireplace. "I came as soon as I heard…"

Gill yanked open a stiff drawer with a firm tug. Brown pencils rolled towards the handled end. There were a few erasers, a sharpener, and a pad of paper. Nothing else of interest was inside, so he closed it with a huff.

Toby never knew where Gill had placed the portrait and so he didn't have to ask why it was covered up by a dressing partition. But he still wondered why such a screen would be placed right in the way of Gill's desk. It looked ridiculous.

"Though I never met her… I'm sure she was as lovely as you described," Toby said.

Gill scanned his bookshelf. With a sigh, he nodded. "Indeed… she was very beautiful."

"Such a terrible accident," he commented further. Toby wasn't the type to mourn. He was rather bad at it when he tried. The fisherman was the type to bottle things up like a clam, but he wished to be a strong shoulder for Gill. The boy must be going through a rough time… he was just engaged to the girl a few days ago!

Gill Gray passed the novel titles with aggravation. The Odyssey, Of Mice and Men, Pride & Prejudice, Frankenstein – there was no organization! Why hadn't he at least alphabetized them? He plucked As You Like It from the shelf.

"Accident…" Gill finally replied in a whisper.

Toby turned his head around the over-stuffed armchair to look at Gill. He didn't like his tone. "Yes… Unless you think otherwise? But—"

Gill closed the book with a thud and replaced it on the shelf. "Of course, Toby… It was an accident… a… tragedy. I must forget… Let the past be the past…"

"What – of yesterday?" Toby argued. "You're taking this much… lighter than I expected."

"It's as the Lord Wotton said…" Gill was about to quit his pointless wanderings about the room when he spotted a small vase on his drawing table. It was the rose. The one he had found on the road, hidden from the sun and caught in brambles. His efforts to preserve it were in vain. The flower had not dried properly. The petals had blackened and curled. Only the reddest of hues remained hidden deep in the rotten core. The stem was brown and shriveled at an odd angle.

"And what was it Julius said?" Toby refrained from adding the demeaning 'this time' at the end.

Gill picked up the flower and frowned. "She has been elevated to a higher calling. Her death… was as romantic and beautiful as her dance. But the dance always has to finish. So did Selena… She will never taste the vile, bitterness of old age. She was cut as one cuts a flower – at its peak in life. …And she will remain unspoiled forever."

Toby Hallward watched as Gill tossed the rose into the coals. It immediately wilted in upon itself, catching a pale flame and burning out. He looked up at the emotionless face of Gill Gray. "What happened to you…? Gill?"

"If you wouldn't mind, Toby, I'd like you to draw something for me. A memento of sorts of her."

The ex-artist looked doubtfully into his lap. "I'm afraid I don't remember her face well enough for a sketch…"

"Anything will do," Gill insisted.

"I'll try," the man nodded, giving in. He coughed into his hand and brought a bright smile to his face. "Ahem! With the – um – topic of art up, I was wondering about that portrait. The one I painted of you?"

Gill visibly stiffened. His eyes immediately flicked to the screen behind his desk before he recollected himself. "What about it?"

The harshness of his tone was unexpected and put Toby on his guard. He furrowed his small brows together. "I just wanted to… to see it again. It's still the only thing I've been able to paint with any amount of beauty. Is it…?"

Gill couldn't hide what his eyes had done. All he could do was try to stop the inevitable.

Toby stood. But instead of sounding offended, his voice came out sad and rejected. "It's behind that screen, isn't it? Why is it there? Why are you hiding it?"

"Mr. Hallward, I warn you—" Gill Gray cautioned darkly, the fear his secret would soon escape into the open as the fisherman backed away from him.

"You don't like it do you?" Toby asked, completely distraught. He briskly walked towards the screen as if he could take the painting away.

"Toby, if you take one more step, I'll never speak to you again!" Gill's voice rose unnaturally as the last words came in a shout. The threat was dark and wild, something that took even Gill by surprise as he stood there shaking in anger before his friend.

Toby froze. He looked doubtfully at the dressing screen, hundreds of questions on his tongue. He knows, doesn't he?

Gill firmly stepped forward, pointing threateningly. His eyes were wildly furious. "If you dare look behind that screen, I will hate you forever!"

He had no choice. The fisherman stepped away, his head downcast. "I'm sorry to have offended you, Gill… I should leave."

Without another word, Toby was gone.

Gill let out a sigh, holding a hand to his forehead. He rubbed his temples and started to pace back and forth across the darkening room.

There was something maddening – almost insane – about the way Gill felt about the portrait. His strange need to protect it. To keep it safe. Away from suspecting, curious eyes. Didn't he hate it so? What could make him… cherish such an evil as a portrait that has captured one's soul in acrylic and oil?

Gill's blue eyes sparked with realization. He stopped pacing and faced the portrait from across the room. There was a presence – that of a likeness to a beating heart behind that screen. And it was himself.

It was his soul.

So what did that make him? Soulless. Hollow. An empty shell.

For the first time, Gill experienced the feeling of the power held within the portrait's frame. He tore the screen down – the wood and fabric clattering to the ground. The picture of his horrid self revealed, Gill stared at what he was. What the sins of his life looked like. And that scowling sneer with the dark glint in the ocean blue eyes was the death of Selena Vane.

In a fit of near madness, Gill pulled the heavy frame off the wall. It fell to the floor like a boom of thunder. The bolt that held its back tore across the dry wall, chipping paint and leaving an ugly scar where the picture used to be.

Even though it was much too heavy for him, Gill carried the portrait out of his study. He kicked the door open to the main hall, dragging the enormous frame. As he made his way through the kitchen, loud oldies music pealed off of a spinning record in his father's room. Careful not to disturb him or make him curious, Gill propped the portrait against the wall and silently opened the last door in the house. A dark wooden staircase stretched up into blackness.

Gill scaled the stairs and opened the hatch. Though it was a struggle, he angled the painting back and forth up the steps and finally brought it through the attic floor. Blond strands of disheveled hair hung in his eyes and sweat poured as he panted in his efforts, Gill cleared a place on the wall. He pushed dusty chairs and tables on top of one another and kicked boxes away.

The tools were easy to find amidst the clutter. Gill soon had a hammer and thick bolt in hand. Each time he beat the hammer against the head into the wall, Gill felt a greater sense of urgency.

The hammer fell from his hand. The portrait became lighter in his near hysteria, and Gill picked it up and planted it firmly on the wall. The glint in its eyes was oddly bright in the dark attic.

"Rot in here, foul monster… If my sins cannot be seen, they cannot exist!" Gill tried hard to believe his words, but the painted form of himself matched his grimace. "I can do anything without you! Nothing will matter… Nothing…!"

Not able to bear it any longer, Gill snatched a ragged sheet from an old sofa and draped it over his counterpart. He stepped back slowly, the boards of the attic creaking under his feet.

"There…" he said, breathing hard in the silence. He pushed the hair back over his head. "Out of sight! If you bear my sins, you will do it alone… I will live free of your evil! Keep your treacherous misery to your canvas. In my life, I do not wish to look upon you ever again!"

Gill Gray slammed the hatch closed and fled down the stairs to his room. He nearly tripped over the fallen screen, but having a second idea, he propped the screen back in place. He would tell them that he didn't want the sun to tarnish it. He would make them believe it was still there. No one would ever know the portrait was gone…

Activity in the house ceased with the night. The attic was still. Through the lone window, a small slit of moonlight touched the wall with the portrait. Behind the curtain, the frown deepened and the lip curled, revealing teeth.