Lavender Mist

The Last Journey

Timothy slowly started walking up the stairs, catiously looking around himself. Briefly, he got drawn by the blue hallway, its incredible similarity to the red hallway and its floor in the colours of a chess table. He stopped for a second, but soon remembered where he was headed, shook his head to come to his senses and continued his way.

An empty fragment of the theatre, that extended through the sets of stairs, seemed completely destroyed, except a single ornate chandelier, that was hanging above the boy's head, turned off and barely held by the ceiling, which was scribbled with cracks and wrinkles. However, although the chandelier was made out of many shapes, thick and thin, it looked like it was poured out it one piece, without many tiny details and without any light bulbs hooked on the ends.

When Timothy stepped onto the first stair, he felt crunching under the sole of his foot. When he lifted his leg, he realized that he had stepped over a skeleton of some small fish, whose head and the large, yellow eye, were still in their place.

The stairs crackled, creaked and bent, as Timothy was slowly walking over them. He stopped when he heard a deep hum in the distance, which was then interrupted by a short note, which sounded like it was accidentally played on a piano. After that, an ominous, silent moment occured, giving Timothy enough time to notice a greyish, thin thread made out of a silky material, which was stretching across the stairs, and then turned and continued up the next sequence, somewhere wrapping around the handrail, somewhere hanging off of the staircase and somewhere sticking to the damp wall. Timothy climbed a few more stairs and lifted the split end of the fragile, sensitive string. However, before he could study it with his eyes, the end slid out of his hand, tickling the skin between his fingers, and escaped upstairs. The boy accelerated his walk to keep up with the thread, but tripping over his own legs, caughing from a cloud of dust and humidity, that flew up, and a painful cramp in his stomach restrained him.

He could no longer see the greyish string when he reached the red hallway. Before he entered, he pulled up to return his breath, holding onto the cold iron, that composed the curly handrail. However, he felt sharp pieces of rust under his fingertips, so he brought his hand close to himself and pulled away from the staircase. As he approached the beginning of the red hallway, the low rumble repeated and he felt like the entire theatre shuddered. The noise was followed by high pitches on the piano, that were either repeating, or echoing (Timothy wasn't fully sure). The chaos of noises blended with the howl of the wind and Timothy thought that he heard a female voice in it.

"Don't come here...," the airy voice whispered, as Timothy tried his best to understand if it really sounded, or if it only came from his memory and imagination.

"Don't, Timothy," the whisper spoke once more, but this time more real and obvious, and then disappeared.

Timothy couldn't remember whose voice it was, although he was aware that he once knew it. Once he stopped thinking about that, he continued walking, as the ruined, peeling walls were replaced by the perserved, red corridor, which now smelled like unused, wooden furniture, like in a young, newly bought home. Timothy couldn't recall if he had ever moved houses throughout his life.

"I need the painting of the lake," he announced, as if the place could hear him.

As he cautiously, on his toes, sneaked over the tiles on the ground, he noticed that there were several more directions, in which he could go, several red hallways. Why was he, after all, calling this part of the theatre as a single red hallway, while there were, in fact, many? With every passing second, he became more relaxed and his frightened hunch soon vanished, so he was holding himself completely straight and walking with no hesitation.

Every turn was announced by a red curtain. Timothy's gaze was quite busy with meeting every painted wall, gentle curtain and black or white tile. After what seemed like a long walk, he wondered how much time he had spent there and when he had even entered the theatre. Did he, perhaps, live here during his entire existance?