King of Hearts

4.

After a few minutes of Stella and Cloé making fun of naked sculptures and Val doing her best trying not to laugh, the girls end up in a long corridor.

The space from one wall to the other must be approximately thirty feet and the full length around sixty feet. Tall columns with carved patterns embellish the hall.

This part of the museum doesn't look as dull as the other rooms. The halls they have visited previously can be described as modern and simple. Whereas this hall has a baroque touch to it.

A long glamorous red carpet is spread along the corridor. The ceiling is covered with rich paintings of all sorts. Val recognizes people of different time periods, mystical creatures such as dragons and mermaids, symbols she has never seen before. On each side, numerous paintings of people and landscapes are decorating the walls. Val recognizes forms of art, such as classicism, romanticism, and even surrealism, but she has never seen those paintings before. Everything seems out of place, yet so fitting. It feels as if they just entered another building.
The girls explore the hall and examine painting after painting as if in a trance.

At the end of the immense corridor, Cloé and Stella turn around a corner but Val stops in front of a portrait. It is the last one and not much different than the others - at first sight.
Suddenly she starts to feel strange. Somehow her body doesn't want to move or go anywhere. It should feel as if she is being forced to look at this portrait of a young man, but she doesn't feel any form of pressure, though. It's more of an instinct. No, a desire. She wants to look at this portrait of a young man.

Val assumes he is some type of royal since he is wearing a golden crown. He is dressed in a neat white shirt, a red plaid tie, and a navy coat with red adornments. The glowing reds and royal purples in the background feed the painting with warmth and a sense of romanticism. His brown eyes stare vividly back at her as if calling her. Almost seducing her. There is something sly about his gaze, but it is well covered by a bright joyful smile.

Val's heart skips a beat when she notices a little, barely visible, detail. The man is wearing the exact same ring as Val, except, his is not ruby, it is sapphire. The deep blue is quite a contrast to all the warm colors the painting contains. 

It is Val's matching ring. How is this possible? Is she hallucinating? Has she gone nuts, because of that strange shopkeeper? Maybe it is just a prank.
Val examines the rich golden frame and realizes, there is no title. It is a random portrait of a stranger by a nameless painter. Unease is crawling up her body. Something's clearly wrong.

The King of Hearts. 

What was that? Val looks for her friends and then turns once again to the painting, facing the young man. Her eyes bore into the man's ring and back to his eyes, repeating this process numerous times.
The King of Hearts? This sounds familiar for some reason. Where did she hear about it? Why did these words randomly pop up in her head at all?
Val is totally confused and afraid, she might also hear voices now. Brilliant, this is proof that she has completely lost her mind. 

Val feels the temperature gradually rising, and with it, strange feelings of nostalgia, amusement, and warmth at the same time fill her heart. Once again, Val takes a look at her heart-shaped ring and compares it to his. She doesn't know what to expect, it's not like it will materialize or transform into something else.

Cautiously, she reaches out to it, slowly touching the surface of the painting. She feels water. As if she is digging her finger into some sort of liquid substance, but Val is not afraid. Her finger bores into the man's chest, followed by her entire hand and arm. Even if she wanted to stop, she wouldn't. 

At that moment, a white flashing light sucks her in, only to throw her into a deep black hole.