Nothing but a Painting (Ib Fanfic)

Mary

~4~

After wandering the maze of art, we come to a long, empty hallway. Except a little blonde girl curled up on the floor, a yellow rose clutched in her shaking hands. "Mary," I say under my breath. What? Why did I say that? This is a random stranger, I don't have a clue on who she is. Garry approaches her and asks is she is from the gallery. She nods, sniffling. From the looks of it she was crying.

"What's your name?" Garry asks, helping her stand up.

"M-Mary," she says shaking. My eyes widen. But... how did I... "This is Ib, that's Lorelei and I'm Garry." On my name Mary stares at me, first with wonder, next with fright and then with anger. Her hands ball into fists, and then soften. She sighs, and runs over to Ib. She seems to have quite a liking to her. But there's something off about Mary. It's like she's... inhuman... I got this same feeling when I talked to the woman in blue, but that was different. She seemed more... comforting? Around Mary, her presence just feels... kind of scary, confusing, sad. I'm not sure what it is, but whatever it happens to be, its not good.

We continue to wander the gallery, running into many displays that attacked us. However, it felt more like they were attacking Garry and Ib, but not me and Mary.

Further on, The four of us stop to take a rest in a 'safe room'. I didn't sleep, I wouldn't even if I could, because no where in this place is safe. Mary doesn't sleep either. She sits against the wall, knees to her chest. For the whole time, it seems as though she's watching Ib. I sigh, and Mary stands up and approaches me. I take a step back and lean against the wall, as if I was just doing something normal and not trying to back away. She puts her hands around my neck and begins to squeeze, tight. The air tightens and my lungs burn. Vision becomes blurry. I desperately choke, trying to remove her hands, but they have too tight a grip.

"You think I don't know?" She hisses, continuing. "Just as you cannot remember your time here, I cannot remember my time there. Theres a reason for that. We need to be where we belong. We don't remember barely any of our time because we need to be in our rightful places. But you obviously don't remember, but I do. You just gotta try reeaaal hard." She laughs harder. My eyes flash red and by miracle, Garry wakes up. However, Mary notices this too and grabs my wrist, dragging me to the ground. She then falls back against the wall, and by my position it looked as though I had attacked her. Garry's stands up quickly shouts, "Lorelei, what are you doing?!" I just stand there, not knowing how a little girl could do something like this. But then again...

"Do you mind if a take some of this paint? It's so red and pretty..."

That person was definitely me, but I have no memory of it. Except...

I pull out one of the shards from the bottle from my pocket. The inside of the glass is stained red. "Lorelei!" Garry is giving me a glare. Mary is on her feet, hiding behind Garry, but I can see her evil grin. "You... you need to go," Garry says. A sad look crosses my eyes, but I don't hesitate to take my leave.