A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words

Sometimes I wonder if I really am mad. The ceiling and walls shake and crack, the cold hard floor splitting open, ready to swallow me for what lies below. A single long piece of rope hangs from the ceiling. I can only hope I am imagining these things. In an instant my attention is drawn to the computer screen, detecting movement. I observe the boy in his room. He was shaking uncontrollably then he suddenly stopped. An image momentarily pops up of the boy proceeding to hang a man that looked like me. I draw back in shock as the screen crackles back to normal. Then I realize he is gone. Then that's when I notice it, the painting on the wall. As soon as I try to make out the details the screen switches to static.

I jerk back from the screen and run to the boy's room but there was no sign of him. Everything seemed to be ok except for the fact that he wasn't there. In a rush I frantically looked around for him but there was still no sign of the boy. Tired of running around, I walked back to the boy's room to look at the painting. I stop and observe the painting, it was beautiful, each brushstroke careful and precise. With horror I viewed what seemed to be a picture from my past. It was the day I started high school. That's when I see myself walking towards the school. My back is turned as I walk off into the distance. Towards the back I see a tall hooded dark figure standing behind a school building, its head turned directly towards me. I backed away and retreated back to my room, the pure feeling of fear gripping me. I had trouble sleeping due to the feeling I was being watched.

The next morning the first thing I saw was the painting hung up on my wall. I wondered how it got there but I couldn't come up with a conclusion. Somebody must've come in, but there was nobody that could get in my room but me. In the moment I heard the computer buzz and saw the same painting in the boy's room. To my relief he had returned but then I noticed the dark figure I had seen in the painting materializing behind the boy. It slowly turned its head towards me and smoothly glided to the boy; an arm slowly protruded out from its robe and fell onto the boy's head. He slowly started to look up at the camera, his eyes filling with black. He smiled and I saw blood starting to seep through his gums, discolouring his teeth into a deep, dark, red. Then to my surprise he faced the painting which now showed my office. I heard the heavy plodding of its footsteps behind me. I cautiously turned around to face him. His facial features were almost unrecognizable, his veins popped out and his teeth protruded out of his mouth which now housed his split gums. I only hoped that he was still human inside but I had a feeling it was already too late. I looked behind him to see that the painting once again changed. It showed a small boy standing in front of a house on fire. Then suddenly, he leapt towards me, teeth bared and snarling but I dodged just in time. Then as if by some unheard command, it slowly slinked backwards out of my room and raced to its room. My head suddenly felt as if all the blood had risen up to my brain. My head suddenly filled with a deafening high pitched sound which caused my legs to buckle and collapse. Kneeling on the floor, my vision slowly clouded with black spots, slowly gathering to become a black figure peering at me saying "tsk tsk tsk, so feeble, so weak."

Finding out that I had woken up in another place wasn't the worst thing. No, the worst thing was feeling the excruciating pain brought from missing my right arm. The wound bled freely into a small bucket underneath me. The blood ran down my leg before hitting the bucket with a "plink." I hung suspended from a chain tied around my waist not too high above the ground. A dark shape suddenly inched towards the bucket, to my horror it was the beast that the boy had become. He or it lapped up the blood until the bucket was empty. I guessed that my arm was now devoured by the beast. It crawled around, circling my suspended body waiting for me to fill up the bucket once more. I felt an ominous presence watching me, watching what I'd do. I tried to look up at the ceiling but there was only the sky, the stars winking out one by one. I forgot all about my pain as I watched the stars. My eyesight began to wane as I let myself be taken by the comforting and warm feeling of death. The last thing I saw was a painting of myself being devoured by the creature.