Little Doll
The Scream
Kris finds a new corridor, lined with purple walls still. There is a door dead ahead, but Kris ignores it for now. There are other things for him to worry about. Five long chords drop down from the ceiling, with a note behind them.
“Pull if you dare,” Kris reads. He doesn’t want to, but he finds his hand reaching forward, ready to pull the one on the farthest right.
“!” he screeches.
Something comes hurdling down from the ceiling, and Kris throws himself backwards against the tiles to avoid it.
“Wrong one,” he says to himself.
He tries the second one.
THUD!
Kris doesn’t know what’s happened, but at least his mind tells him that something good must have happened.
“Woah!” Tao shouts in surprise. Yixing follows his line of sight, gasping as he sees that something is sliding down the wall, bridging the gap within the room. They can pass through!
“Let’s go!” Tao says quickly, pulling Yixing to the side.
Meanwhile, Kris is trying the other chords.
“This one…? NO!” Kris shrieks. A black arm comes out of the wall in front of him, swiping at his blue rose. He loses a petal, gasping. He tries another.
“Wrong again!” he shouts, chastising himself. Noxious gas fumes come down from the ceiling, burning Kris’ skin. Kris backs away, noticing that that’s two petals gone. Kris tries the middle switch.
“What? It only turns off the light?” he screeches, annoyed.
Kris makes his way back to the door, finding that it is, as he expected, locked. There’s no way through this place at all.
“Seems I’ve reached a dead end,” he says, resigned.
Kris sits down next to the door, pulling his legs into his torso. He rests his chin on his knee, deciding that he’ll at least try and get some rest. He’s bleeding heavily, and his breathing is no better as his lungs try and exhale the fumes. Kris just hopes Yixing and Tao are faring better...
There’s a cardboard box on the other side of the room, and Yixing can’t help but walk towards it. Why is it shuffling?
“Don’t touch it,” Tao warns. Yixing gives a curt nod, following the dark haired boy down yet another passage.
“What about this?” Yixing asks. What looks like an obelisk sits in the corner of the room.
“I don’t know,” Tao mumbles. Yixing slides an arm around it, and finds that it’s not too heavy for him to move.
“Do you think we need it?” he asks with curiosity.
“I don’t know!” Tao snaps.
Yixing jumps. He drags the obelisk along the floor, until it’s right next to the gap from before, which is now opened once again.
“Come on, we’re wasting time!” Tao yells at him. Yixing flinches, pressing his hand against the obelisk.
“Ah!” he screeches.
Tao dashes forward, grabbing hold of his arm. The obelisk that he was leaning on has slid down into the gap, almost taking Yixing along with it. Yixing tries to steady himself as Tao slaps him on the cheek.
“What did you think you were doing?” Tao shouts at him. Yixing flinches. Tao is scary.
“I’m sorry… it was an accident,” Yixing mumbles. Tao shakes his head, dragging Yixing away from the gap.
“Let’s just go.”
Tao drags Yixing down another corridor. There are weirdly shaped figurines that line the floor, but Tao ignores them.
“Can I ask you something, Yixing?” he growls.
“Sure…”
“Is Kris… your lover?”
Yixing gapes at Tao.
“We… we’re strangers before now,” he whispers, “but we… we have this connection.”
Tao nods.
“You miss him, don’t you?” Tao whispers. Yixing gives a small smile.
“Yes.”
“We’ll find him,” Tao assures Yixing. “We all want to get out of here alive, right? We’ll find him, OK? We’ll all get out of here together.”
“We can’t go that way,” Tao tells Yixing softly. “We have to go the other way. Try another door.”
Yixing walks past a large painting that hangs on the wall.
“Fisherman,” he reads.
But the painting is just of a rock and the sea. The waves lap against the edge of the stone, but Yixing cannot see a fisherman.
“Look at this,” Yixing points. Tao walks over, reading the title and staring at the painting.
“There’s nothing there, though,” he breathes.
“WHAT?” Kris shouts.
An obelisk falls from the ceiling, landing on the floor beside him. It almost hit him, and Kris realises that if it were merely centimetres different in its path of descent, it would have impaled him. Kris doesn’t know what to do with the obelisk, so he scans the floor. There’s a gap right in the centre of the room, perhaps just big enough to fit the obelisk.
“I wonder…” he whispers.
The obelisk is easy to move, so Kris has no trouble pushing it down into the hole. There’s a click as it finds its place, and Kris whizzes back around. The door’s unlocked.
There’s a long passage. One of many long passages that Kris has ventured down. But this time, there’s a difference. He has no Yixing to hold on to, and the pathway is frighteningly silent. There’s a lone doll, sitting by the wall, with a note scrawled in messy handwriting atop its stomach.
Hello there, Kris…
I don’t like being alone…
Take me with you!
It’s disturbing. It knows his name.
“No!” Kris tells it, continuing on the same path. The corridor winds its way around.
Kris continues along a straight path, but there’s another doll. It’s identical to the other one, in the same pose, the same clothes, the eyes rolled back in exactly the same way. There’s another note.
Hey, why aren’t you talking to me?
Kris gapes. Could it be…?
Kris, thoroughly confused, continues up the corridor. Another doll, another message.
Why are you ignoring me?
Do you hate me?
Kris stares at the doll.
“I don’t hate you, you scare me,” he whispers to it. He feels like an idiot, talking to an inanimate object like this. But he understands nothing in the gallery is normal. He walks on.
“Stop!” he yelps. It’s there again. Same pose, same clothes, same blank expression on its face. Same blood red eyes.
Hey, play with me!
I know lots of fun things we can do…
“No!”
Kris breaks into a run, but still the doll follows him.
I’ve got lots of friends, too…
I’ll introduce you!
“Stop, please!”
Kris has tears streaming down his face now.
“Leave me alone!” he screams. The next doll seems to answer Kris.
Be here forever.
You can’t leave.
Kris wipes a tear from his eye, running blind. This is too freaky. Why does it know his name? Why does it follow him? It’s a doll. Dolls don’t talk. Dolls don’t walk either. Kris finds the end of the corridor and sighs in relief. There’s a purple door, but blocking the way…
The doll. Again.
“Please stop following me,” Kris tells it.
“I’m not going to play with you and I’m not going to be your friend. Leave me alone!”
Kris thinks it would be best not to get involved with this doll. It scares him, and the way it follows him makes him anxious. Kris pushes the doll to the right, making room for him to slide through to the next room. But the door’s locked. A message flutters down from the ceiling.
Take me.
Kris looks at the doll.
“You?” he points at it. The doll stares blankly at him.
“Fine.”
He picks up the doll, holding it in his arms. There’s a click, and the door swings forward.
“OK.”
Kris walks out into a new section of the purple gallery. There’s a door, and Kris tries it. It’s locked, and the handle is oddly cold, as if someone’s pressed ice against it.
“Look, Yixing. A vase,” Tao points out. It’s sitting in the middle of a wide room with high ceilings, just past the Fisherman painting.
“You use it,” Tao tells him.
“I haven’t been hurt yet, so it’s OK.”
Yixing gives Tao a gracious smile.
“Thanks,” he whispers.
“It’s no problem,” Tao responds.
Yixing places his rose in the vase, and it up all the water, until there’s nothing left. Yixing feels guilty, but Tao has seemingly already moved on.
“That door’s locked,” he tells Yixing, pointing to a door on the right.
“We could try that one, though.”
Yixing and Tao are both surprised when they open the door on the left. There’s not even a square inch of colour in the room, not even on the walls. There’s an easel, but the page is blank. Everything’s either white, black, or pale grey.
“What’s this place…? There’s no colour!” Tao exclaims.
Yixing walks over to closer inspect the easel, but he jumps back in fright.
“What is it?” Tao asks.
“The paint brush and palette… they’re floating,” Yixing explains in surprise. “It’s… it’s like there’s someone there…”
“Well there’s nothing we can do here, we might as well go back.”
They head back into the large room, taking a look around. There’s a painting on the wall, entitled ‘Heavenly Thread’. It’s simple, a white background with a straight, black thread running down from the roof of the canvas.
“Let’s keep moving.”
Tao pushes Yixing to the southern part of the corridor, pressing his hand against it. It’s locked.
“There’s a code,” Yixing points out.
“What is this portrait?”
It’s a portrait with a starry background, hills to the bottom of the frame. The stars are a fluorescent yellow, and contrast against a dark, navy blue sky. The hills are an odd shape, much darker than the sky, yet still light in some way. It’s difficult for Yixing to describe it. There are three choices for Tao and Yixing.
“’Heavenly Thread’? It can’t be that, that was the one we just walked past,” Yixing explains.
“’Worry’?” Tao asks.
“No. That was a sculpture, if I remember correctly,” Yixing tells him.
“It is of a night’s sky… ‘Marvelous Night’? Could that be the answer?” Tao nods.
“Probably.”
Yixing presses the button, and a familiar click resounds.
“Got it!” Yixing says triumphantly.
But the door they open leads into only a very tiny room, one lined with bookshelves. There’s a space beside one, and Yixing sneaks a peak.
“There’s a keyhole in the wall!” he exclaims.
“But where’s the key?”
“’Fishing Hook’.” Kris furrows a brow. There’s no fishing hook in sight whatsoever. All there is, endless ocean.
There’s a vase, and Kris quickly drapes the stem of the blue rose into it. He notices that the ceiling seems to be dripping water right above it, and within seconds the vase is once again full. This is a reassuring sign. Kris finds two doors, one on the left unmarked and one on the right marked with a small palm tree above it. The one with the tree is locked. Kris decides to take the one on the left. It opens, to reveal a room with seven pillars, with the depiction of a paint palette nailed to the wall. There’s a note underneath, and Kris reads it to himself.
“Collect the seven balls of paint… Then the room will be coloured, and your bridge will be made.”
Kris sighs, walking back out of the room and down the corridor. This seems almost too easy. A yellow ball of paint sits in the centre of the corridor. Kris kneels down to touch it, feeling its gelatinous texture. The paint seems to be wrapped in some kind of soft, thin plastic, and Kris worries that if he presses the end of his fingers to it too harshly, it will explode in his hands. Kris picks up the ball and places it in his pocket. If this is right, there’s only six more to go…
Kris finds another door and enters, gasping. There’s a weird acidic smell, and Kris feels his lungs tear in his chest.
“I can’t stay in here for long,” he whispers.
There’s a ball, and Kris makes a break for it. He picks it up, noting the colour. Violet. Kris feels sick with each step he takes, and decides to quickly double back, gasping for air. There has to be some sort of substance in that room that does not mix well with his insides. He walks back through the larger part of the gallery, back to the vase. He places his rose in the water, feeling instant relief.
“No good,” he breathes.
He takes the umbrella in his hand and exits the room, back to the vase for a third time, thanking whatever is causing the leakage from the ceiling.
Yixing and Tao try the other southern corridor. It leads to a room, but Yixing doesn’t like what he finds inside. It's the white heads of statues, sitting on the floor once again.
“I… I don’t like this place,” Yixing mutters. Tao gives him a smirk.
“Scared?” he asks with a chuckle. Yixing nods.
“Hey, look over there!” Tao points out.
“It’s a key… shaped like a… tree?” Yixing looks at it carefully. Tao thinks for a minute.
“Let’s keep looking around," he breathes.
Yixing scans the walls, finding only one portrait. It’s a woman, her head downcast. Simple black and white.
“’Woman Without Her Umbrella’,” Yixing reads. He doesn’t know what to do with this information yet, so he idly walks around, trailing behind Tao. Maybe the key will fit in the wall from the other room? Yixing takes Tao’s arm and leads him back out, taking the key from his hands.
“We should try this.”
They walk back to the other room, and surely enough, the key fits in the wall. There’s a click, but once again, nothing seems to have changed.
“Well, I’m out of ideas,” Tao announces, collapsing to the floor.
“Let’s rest for now.”
Kris finds a portrait hanging on the wall of the main corridor, a man juggling. He’s not juggling anything that one would first expect; there are knives and razors, seemingly spinning out of his grasp. He gasps as the painting begins to move. The knives and razors spin faster and faster, until the juggler has lost all control. He drops one, and the rest come out of loop. The knives cascade down. The juggler is on the floor, dead, carved up by his own instruments of entertainment.
“What year was I born?” reads a plaque underneath the painting. Kris furrows his brow. How is he supposed to know this?
Kris places the doll on the ground and fishes around in his pockets, smiling as his fingertips curl around a piece of paper. It’s the gallery’s guide. Kris flicks through a few pages, nodding as he thinks he’s getting closer. Surely enough, to his luck, the Juggler painting takes up a page, the year of its creation typed in bold. Kris reads the description below.
“The Juggler, believed to be one of Guertena’s most famous works. A work based on a juggler he saw at the circus with his grandchild. As it is extremely rare for Guertena to use real people as models, this work is of particular interest to art critics word wide.”
Kris shivers. Seeing such a juggler, with a grandson at that. Kris doesn’t want to know what kinds of circuses Guertena frequented during his time; all he can think of is death and corruption. Kris punches in the number at the top of the page, muttering it aloud as he goes.
“6223.”
A small ball of paint drops from underneath the frame, and Kris grins ecstatically. Blue. Only four more to go.
Kris backtracks, deciding to take the door on the right, with the tree above it. Somehow, the branches have extended out, and it is now unlocked. A wall runs through the centre of the room, one side blocked off by bookshelves, the other a simple circular shape. Nothing appears to stick out, yet Kris knows there are four more coloured balls to find.
When Yixing and Tao exit the room, they are met with another surprise. More white statue heads.
“Let’s go back and look at the portrait with the Lady. The one without the umbrella,” Tao says, carefully stepping around the statue heads.
Yixing doesn’t like the look of them. It’s like they’re multiplying, trying to block off any means of escape. The room with the painting is the same. More statue heads have found their way in, sitting on the edge of two low benches.
“What do we do?” Yixing asks.
“I don’t know. We could move them.”
Yixing shakes his head. He doesn’t think touching them is the best idea.
“Look, we can move them,” Tao presses.
Without warning, Tao walks over to a statue head in front of Yixing, pushing it violently off the table. Yixing lets out a moan of pain as china fragments fly to the ground, cutting into his leg.
“Sorry!” Tao gasps.
Yixing shakes his head, leaving the room. There’s a statue head before the door, and Yixing lets out a shriek.
“Yixing?” Tao calls from behind him.
“There’s another one!” Yixing exclaims. But the one before him differs from the others. There’s blood pouring from its eyes.
Is it because Tao smashed its brother?
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