Vindicta: The Story of a Vengeful Spirit

Chapter XIII

Dolores was back in the filthy psychiatry building, with mystery stains on the ground and dark fungi sprouting out of the walls. She loved that place. And the doctors were just so pleasant, with their fake cheerful attitude and fake bubbly tone, like that Dr Clepta Animi she was seeing.

This was the third time she was here. The second time she was here, she had officially come to the conclusion that these meetings were unnecessary, and that Clepta Animi doctor was downright stupid. She did not look forward to the third time. This time, she took the elevator to the fourth floor. It was the first time that she had done this, probably the last time as well, as she almost choked on the heavy paint smell in the elevator.

When she entered room 413, she stared at the hated face of Dr Clepta Animi once more. The doctor smiled a sickly sweet smile at Dolores, but it was fake. Dolores returned the smile.

"Hello, sweetie, we meet once more," Dr Clepta Animi said in her sugary tone.

Dolores gagged internally, but externally replied in the same manner.

"Now, Dolores, tell me, do you like art?"

It pains my eyes, Dolores thought. "Kind of," she said.

"Oh, that is wonderful news," Dr Clepta Animi practically sang, "because, as you know of my passion for art, I signed you up to art therapy sessions!"

Dolores had never heard of worse news, but at least she was good at faking her smile. She asked: "When does it start?"

"Don't worry, darling; let's go down to the art room now. We might be a few minutes late to the afternoon session, but nobody will mind."

The art room was a word too glamorous for the dingy old room where a few canvases and paint brushes were stashed. Like the rest of the building, paint was peeling off of the walls in this room as well, but here there were also paint splashes on the floor. Dolores then understood why Dr Clepta Animi said that no one would mind them being late. There were only two patients in the room, with a monitoring doctor. Dolores glanced at one of the pieces, taking in the abstract lines in black and white. The patient, sensing her stare, whipped her head around. Dolores was startled to see the scars lining her cheeks, and promptly moved on.

Dr Clepta Animi instructed Dolores to take a canvas from the corner of the room, and they set their canvases beside each other. The doctor started straight away, but Dolores just stared at the blank canvas.

"You can paint whatever you want, hon," Dr Clepta Animi whispered to Dolores. "There's no right and wrong in art."

Something just urged Dolores to be honest in her painting, paint what she wanted to show. It started out with a stroke; Dolores didn't know what she was doing—she just kept painting. She even found herself enjoying the process. Time flew by, and when the session was over, Dr Clepta Animi tapped Dolores on the back. Dolores glanced over at the doctor's piece, and learned very quickly that just because you liked to do something, doesn't mean that you were good at it.

"That's one impressive piece." Dr Clepta Animi smiled. "What do you think it shows?" Then, as if taking another clearer look at the painting, the doctor's smile dropped. Dolores stepped back to look at her piece, and was surprised to see what she had painted. It was Vindicta. Dolores wasn't an artist by any means, so the painting was rather abstract, but there was the unmistakable shape of a little veiled girl, except instead of wearing black, it seemed like she was dressed in a colorful puffy dress. The veil remained over the little girl's head in the painting; it almost seemed stuck to the girl's hair forever.

"Do you see her?" The doctor asked suddenly, pointing to the little girl in the canvas and Dolores was taken aback.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry, do you sometimes see this little girl that you have painted, like, in a dream or something." The doctor replied, speaking quickly, as if out of breath.

"Uh, no, why?" Dolores lied.

"No-nothing. It's just that some patients have also reported seeing a little girl with a veil over her head. It's probably nothing though. There's a bridge nearby that some teenagers like to vandalize on, perhaps one of them drew something like that on the bridge, and a patient saw it."

But Dolores could hear from her tone that it was not "probably nothing", and she had started to regret even touching the paintbrush in the first place. But other patients seeing Vindicta, that was nothing, right? People with mental illness see things all the time; perhaps the doctors just thought they were describing something, when actually then were thinking of something else.

"Actually," Dolores said, " I want to add some final touches to my painting, I'll leave when I'm ready later."

Dr Clepta Animi nodded and walked away, but stopped to whisper something in the other doctor's ear. Dolores caught the words "girl" and "watch." Then they both walked out the door.

Dolores stood up, discarding the colourful tissues covered in paint, and walked over to the painting of the patient with scars on her face. Her blood ran cold. What started out with just some black lines in a canvas had evolved into a shape, it was the shape of a veil, draped over a face, rough outlines of the features poking from beneath the fabric. Dolores rushed to another painting. This one was in colour, but only shades of red. Opening drawers, scrambling through them now, Dolores was beginning to grow frantic. She grabbed the paper on the top of the stack on the paper stack at the corner. Then started grabbing the paintings of random patients and hurriedly scanning them through in a mad haze. Dolores had flipped through every painting, pieces of paper scattering through the room, flying around. All she needed was to find one painting, one, that wasn't the painting of the same thing. She collapsed on the ground, trying to picture something else, but only that flooded her mind.

Every drawing, every thought, every movement, every shadow—it was all Vindicta.