Forgotten Portrait

Deja Vu

                                                                 ~~~Garry~~~

    The longer I stayed there with my lips pressed against Ib's, the louder the little voice in my head started to scream at me. It kept telling me to run, but my mind was to bewildered to understand that I was supposed to be running from the thing holding me there. I only understood why my sixth sense was reacting whenever it was to late.

    I started to feel a sharp pain in my shoulder, and then I felt a warm goop ooze down my back. It took a moment for the pain to register in my brain, but... I soon understood why my arm was burning.

    I quickly pushed Ib away and grasped my shoulder, feeling something cold there. I wrapped my hand around the handle of what felt like a palette knife and pulled it out of my shoulder, sending blood splattering to the floor. "I-Ib... W-what is this...? What have you done...?" Staring at the knife in my hand, I was reminded of what Mary had done nine years ago.

    "What's wrong, Garry? Are you afraid?"

    "Huh?" The voice I had heard speaking to me... it wasn't Ib's anymore. I looked up, confused by the fact that I was staring at Mary, and Ib... Ib was nowhere to be found.   

    "Are you afraid of me, Garry?"

    "So, you really were a fake..." I soon came to understand that the illusion hadn't been showing me my desires. It had been showing me my deepest fears. For the longest time, I had been afraid of losing Ib to the Fabricated World. I was afraid that she would become mad like the girl who took my life nine years ago.

    "Fake? I'm no fake... I'm just as real as everything else in this world..." Mary stated, staring at me. I backed towards the toy box, trying to escape Mary. She started to advance towards me. "Garry... Please... Don't be afraid of me..."

    I hurriedly backed away even farther, but Mary rushed me. She placed her hands on my chest, pushing me backwards into the toy box. Talk about deja vu...

                                                         ~~~Mary(?)~~~

    I found myself staring down into the toy box, watching as Garry slowly disappeared into the darkness covering the box. I smiled to myself, hoping that he would break his neck whenever he hit the ground, but I knew that I probably wouldn't get that lucky. The worst thing that would happen would probably be: Garry was knocked unconscious. It was a shame, really. I didn't want Garry to live. I didn't want any of them to live...

                                                         ~~~Garry~~~

    I'm not quite sure how long it took me to regain consciousness, but whenever I finally did wake up, I found myself surrounded by headless statues, mannequin heads, dolls, and painted ladies. All of them were motionless, but that didn't make things any less scary.

    I sat up swiftly, looking around at all of the monsters surrounding me. I really didn't want to be there, so I hurriedly scrambled to my feet and looked around for Mary and Ib. They had jumped down before me, so the question was: where were they now? I didn't want to think about the possibility of being alone, so I started to walk around while looking for them.

    "Please... Please be here..." I murmured, holding my still bleeding shoulder. "Please, don't leave me alone... Not again... I can't... I can't handle it..." It slowly dawned on me that I might actually be alone... I didn't want that, and my mind's first reaction was to completely break down whenever I didn't see anyone.