They’re in a new room, but the portrait of the Lady in Red is patrolling the floors, its grotesque arms splayed out, reaching for Yixing. It takes Kris agonizing seconds to realise there is no vase, and they must move on without healing Yixing. Kris kisses Yixing’s forehead and hugs the right wall, looking for any sign that could tell him where to go next. The walls are still a putrid yellow; they’re still in the same odd gallery. Kris finds a door quickly, the Lady in Red trailing right behind him.

It doesn’t budge.

He tries another one, only to find it is locked with a code.

“I don’t know the code!” Kris yells.

He continues carrying Yixing through the corridors, but he’s slung Yixing over his shoulder. Yixing cannot walk anymore, and his eyes are fluttering shut.

“Stay awake!” Kris yells at him.

“I… I don’t think…” Yixing stutters, breathing shallow.

“Stay awake, Xing.”

Kris scans the walls. There’s nothing; nothing but the blank faces of women in different coloured clothes, all with the same pose, all like the Lady in Red and the Lady in Blue. Kris has had just about enough of this.

“This one’s different,” he calls, racing over to it.

“The Hanging Man,” he reads the plaque.

This painting is too realistic. A man is suspended by his neck from a rope above a small stool, his arms and legs dangling down, lifeless. Blood seeps from his neck. He’s upside down. But, Kris notes,  the clothes have numbers on them, in simple block letters. 5629.

Kris runs back down the corridor and punches in the numbers. There is no resounding thud, and Kris knows this combination hasn’t worked. The Lady in Red draws ever nearer, and Kris kicks her away from Yixing, letting her swipe one of his own petals in the process. 

He’s got two left. Dangerously low.

Kris feels his chest as he begins to wheeze. He imagines his lung has been pierced by a blade of some sort, filling with his blood, suffocating him. It’s almost too much to bare, but he remembers that he’s not the only one he has to save. Yixing is there, too, in worse condition than him! This thought is reason enough for Kris to press on, thinking long and hard about the next answer. He has no answer yet, so he tries a door right next to the one. There’s a plaque above it.

“How many portraits of women are in this room?”

Kris does a loop of the floor, careful not to get too close to any of the paintings, or let the Lady in Red crawl too close. There’s 14. 15 if you count the Lady in Red. Does she even count as a portrait? Kris feels his stomach sink as he finds himself in front of the door once again. What if he gets it wrong? What if he gets injured and Yixing dies? Kris pushes these dark thoughts away as he punches the code in.

15.

It must be 15.

THUD!

Kris is incorrect!

Spikes seem to drop from the ceiling, and Kris quickly pushes Yixing into the wall, eliciting a long, drawn out moan of pain from the younger teen. Kris groans as another petal falls to the floor. One left. He’s trapped. His leg is all but impaled in the wirework, and he tries to push it off to get to Yixing, but there’s little he can do. He reaches for the door, punching in 14 instead.

14.

Kris breathes a sigh of relief as he watches Yixing fall through the door to the other side, eyeing a blue vase sitting on a small table on the other side.

“Xing! Get yourself in there!” he shouts.

Yixing moans, dragging himself along the floor painfully slow.

The Lady in Red is closing in, and Kris hopes with his heart that Yixing is smart enough to close the door behind him and leave him for dead.

“I’m not leaving you,” Yixing groans.

He drags himself back out of the room, ignoring Kris’ screams of protest. Yixing uses his hands and as much strength as he can muster to lift the wire grate off Kris’ legs, dragging the taller blonde behind him. The Lady in Red smashes against the door, but the pair have made it.

“Quick, Xing!” Kris shouts.

But the smaller teen is curled up on the floor in a pool of blood. He still has his petal, but it’s dangerously loose. It could fall off any second. Kris carefully pulls the stalk of the rose away from Yixing, who’s clasping it so hard he’s got thorns embedded in his hands. Kris quickly places Yixing’s and his own rose into the vase, and feels the familiar surge of relief wash over him.

That was too close.

Yixing groans and gasps, closing his eyes as pain floods his body. Within seconds his breathing begins to steady, and he falls into a soft state of sleep. Kris removes his jacket and places it gently over Yixing, shielding him from the crisp chill in the air. He traces a finger over Yixing’s nose, and brushes his fringe out of his face. He’s cute. Really cute. Kris has never seen anyone like Yixing before in his life; no one as strong and no one with as much courage.

Kris leaves Yixing to rest for a while and decides to walk around the room, inspecting as he goes. His eyes downcast as he realises that there’s no way forward from here. He has to return back into that room, and figure out the code. Kris finds a portrait off to the side that eyes him intently. It doesn’t look hostile like the others, so Kris moves towards it. There’s a slip of paper tucked underneath the frame, sticking out at the edge.

'The gallery is like a spooky amusement park with lots of strange things!’ it reads.

‘It’s so much fun playing here, the day was over before I knew it!’

Kris shakes his head.

This is wrong.

Is this the final words of another occupant of the gallery, one that slowly lost their mind as they made their way through the portraits, leaving this as their final words? Kris shivers, but nevertheless continues reading it silently in his head.

‘Isn’t it a fantastic place? Why don’t you join me here? You’ll be fine with all this company…’

Kris doesn’t like the type of company he thinks this is referring to. The moving statues, the murderous paintings. It’s enough to drive anyone insane. Kris wonders how he’s still sane. He wonders if this is just some horrible nightmare that he’s conjured up for himself, unable to awaken from. But then he looks to Yixing, the boy’s chest rising and falling with each breath. 

Yixing must be real. There’s no way Kris’ brain could have thought up something so beautiful.

Kris sighs, walking over to the teen, resting his head on the ground next to him. The room is secure, and he hopes that he can rest too. It takes Kris seconds to fall asleep, lulled into unconsciousness by Yixing’s steady breath.