Life in Paintings

Chapter 14 - The Nightmare

Chapter 14 – The Nightmare

I'm still coughing up ash when I wake up in the next painting. I can't help but suddenly dread going in a painting where I might be buried alive because that's what the last painting felt like—like being buried alive and maybe also being cremated at the same time. I know I've been through worst. I've been eaten and skinned alive for crying out loud, yet I dread the very thought of being buried alive. Who would have thought I'd still have fears at this point of the game? This really surprises me.

I'm sitting on the ground and I know I should probably stand up and walk around, and try to see where I am and guess what awful plan the evil mastermind behind my curse has in store for me this time but I don't want to.

I'm a god damn mess. If I shake my head a little, dust falls all around me. My clothes are in ruins. I don't even know what it is I was wearing before, if it was Gustave's mother dress or if it was a hospital gown or the clothes Tanya had let me borrow.

I don't even remember how many painting it's been so far. I've heard once that one of the tactics torturers use is to disorientate their victims. They make sure that they don't know what time it is, if it's day or night and how fast time is passing. I never really understood how it could affect someone the way cutting into their flesh might not, but now I do. I understand. It's not just the strain that's been put onto my own body that's draining me of all energy, it's also the strain put on my mind.

I sigh and look at my hands. My skin is cracked and dirty. They look nothing like my hands. I look nothing like myself right now. If Jarvis could see me, he would not recognize me. If anyone I knew could see me right now, they would not recognize me. This is not me. Whoever I am, even if I'm still confused as to exactly who that is, there's one thing I know for sure, it's that this weak girl sitting on the ground covered with ashes that only wants to wrap her arms around her legs, lay down and weep is not me.

I'm not this. I'm stronger than this, stronger than this stupid curse.

I get up, get ready for a fight, but I freeze when I see what is in front of me.

There's a woman lying in bed, or maybe dangling from her bed is more accurate—her head and shoulders are just hanging floppily from the side of the bed. She doesn't look alive. But she's not what's got me frozen, no it's the hairy gargoyle look-alike that's got me frightened, that and the fact that it's staring right freaking at me.

I don't know how long it's been staring at me, probably since I got here, and it looks like it got the advantage, like seeing me as made it know everything it needs to know to destroy me.

I should probably turn around and run away, it would be the wisest course of action, but when have I ever been wise? And anyway if I'm meant to pass out or die here, I might as well do it while being my usual smartass self. "Stop fucking staring at me you ugly ass ape," I tell the monster, because it is a monster, that's the only thing it can be, some kind of monster from people's nightmares. A monster that prays on us while we're sleeping, like the woman that he's sitting on is.

"Interesting..." the monster drawls, it's head tilting and I'm a little surprised, because I hadn't expected it to talk. I had expected it to snarl and jump at me, but not to start a conversation, and not for its voice to sound like what a snake would probably sound if it could talk, all sibilants. I take a step back. "Your fears... you've got so many... and your certainties, so little." It smiles, it actually fucking smiles at me. This is ridiculous. "What do you know for sure, do you even know your name?"

I glare at it. This is ridiculous. Even if that monster has claws and looks like it could do some damage if it decided to jump me, I've been through worst—I killed a freaking Roman for Christ's sake. That ewok on steroids shouldn't really be a threat. "Melody Orsay," I answer, squaring my shoulders, like that's going to help me, like telling my name will be its undoing.

"Are you sure?" It drawls the last word, turning it more into a hiss than a comprehensible word. And suddenly, I'm starting to be out of breath, like I've been running for too long. "Do you even know anything? You only know what you've been told... sooo pathetic." I'm really out of breath now. I would want to throw something at the damn monster, but it feels like I'm having some kind of weak asthma attack. "You're not even worth my time," it adds, and it looks like it's actually disgusted to be in my presence. Something's got things a little mixed up...

"Nobody cares about you, nobody ever cared about you. If you died right now, nobody would shed a tear, nobody would even notice." I'm still out of breath but what it says, well I do register it. And as much as I would want to ignore it, it stings, it stings because those are my insecurities. And I can't, I can't ignore it. I can't ignore the fact that I've never really felt like anyone cared about me. I can't ignore the fact that I've always felt alone. I always feel alone. I'm always alone.

But I'm not exactly alone. "Jarvis would," I tell the creature weakly. I'm actually sweating now. I don't feel good. There's some kind of hallow pain in my chest.

The hairy gargoyle scoffs. "Please, the minute things started to go south he took off and abandoned you. He never cared about you."

I don't want to acknowledge that even though I kind of believe it. But I would never admit it. "He cares about me, he needs me," I answer, but I don't sound convinced. And I feel a tingling sensation in my hands and arms.

"He doesn't need you. He might use you but he never needed you. Nobody ever needed you. No one needs you." Pain shoots in my back between my shoulder blades and I have to wrap my arms around my torso. It hurts and I'm still out of breath and my limbs are still tingling. I don't know what's going on but I don't like it. And I don't like what this creature is telling me because it hits home and it hurts.

It really hurts.

"You should just die. Die. That's all you're good at anyway. Die." When it says that I notice two things. The first thing I notice is that there's some kind of horse head peeking from the curtains behind the monster, but it looks like a ghost, like an apparition and its eyes are glowing and it's staring at me too and it looks smug, like it knows something I don't. The other thing I notice, the thing that makes me scream out in terror is the woman the monster is sitting on. I hadn't realized it before, I hadn't looked at her properly.

It's me.

I'm the one lying there looking half-dead. Or maybe fully dead. I stumble back and fall to the ground. "DIE!" the monster screams and then the pain in my chest is too intense and I feel like in one instant I disintegrate and I'm back in my body, in that body on that bed and the pain intensifies more and more until I feel nothing.