Girl of Iron and Magic

42.

41.

The world inside the painting was different from how it was viewed from outside. Lotte was in a type of jungle where nothing was the colour or shape it should be. The trees were cubes, or perfect pyramids in vibrant patterns of pink, blue and purple. A yellow and turquoise long-bodied fish with the face of a cat swam through the air right in front of Lotte's face as something that resembled a moose with dozens of tails and the head of a crocodile leapt overhead from treetop to treetop.

Lotte brushed aside the thick foliage of orange and purple leaves shaped like perfectly round discs, trying to trudge forward.

"Blue!" she cried, running down a path between plants that looked like red five-pointed stars that were stuck into the powdery bottle-green sand.

"Blue!" she called again. The trees on her right formed a wall, upon which crawled many strange reptilian owls. "Where are you, Blue?"

She ran ahead, trying to find a path amidst dizzying zigzag trees. Above the squawking, skittering and meowing of the animals around her, she thought she could hear something in the distance.

"Blue! Answer me!"

The noise she thought she heard turned out to be a stream of pure gold liquid. But when she came closer, her heart dropped. It was blood, elven blood. And right beyond it was another stream, this one flowing red.

Both streams flowed on, until they met into one. Lotte could feel the volatile energy coming from the point where both streams met, but somehow, instead of the explosion that should occur, they mixed together and continued to flow onward, in a mad rush.

"Blue?" she tried again, uncertain. Was he even here?

She stepped over the gold stream, and then the red, when suddenly she heard voices up ahead.

She ran, stumbling over low bushes shaped like paintbrushes, moving aside massive rainbow-coloured leaves that seemed to be growing out of the very sky.

She came upon a clearing teaming with triangular bright green flowers. Featureless children who looked like paper cut-outs were dancing in circles, holding hands and singing.

They were all shaped the same, each one a different colour.

When Lotte approached, they all scattered, shrieking with laughter. Several fell over in their rush to escape. A beige girl toppled over a pink one who was helped up by an aqua child.

"Blue?" Lotte asked.

A blue girl froze and turned around. Despite having no face, she stared to Lotte inquiringly and pointed at herself.

"Please, can you help me? I'm looking for my friend."

The blue girl rushed up to Lotte and offered her a hand. She had no fingers. Her arm ended in a type of circular palm.

Lotte took the offered hand, and the circular palm folded over her own when she did.

The blue girl led her through the jungle of dreams, down a field that grew bubbles filled with musical notes, into a dark mass of dense growth, where the colours became darker and greyer, until Lotte recognised where they stood in the painting.

This was the border between the inside and outside. Nightmares lurked beyond. "Her's out there? Are you sure?" she asked, looking down at her guide.

Instead of the blue girl, her guide had changed into a real girl. She had a pale face and large brown eyes. She seemed gaunt and disheveled, but nonetheless, she was luminous. There was something about her eyes, as if she knew things she shouldn't know.