Red Gallery
The Scream
Yixing soon realises that he is not through the yellow gallery just yet. There’s a strange painting of a face with a large tongue on the left-hand wall. Yixing edges closer…
“!” he yelps.
Somehow, the painting as spat an odd liquid at him, and it burns his skin. It looks like a chunk of skin from his exposed stomach has gone, and Yixing hopes this doesn’t scar. A petal, gone. Yixing his lips and backs away warily. He’s not going to go near that painting anytime soon. There’s another painting next to this one, but the canvas looks white. Yixing squints, finding a small number written in pink ink right at the centre.
9.
Yixing squeaks as a piece of paper falls from the roof. He walks over, picks it up, and proceeds to read it.
“Just when you’ve forgotten…”
Yixing doesn’t know what this is supposed to mean at all. Yellow paint dots the wall, and Yixing reads it carefully.
“Beware of lips. What the ?”
He walks further to the right side of the corridor. Funnily enough, there’s a set of lips on the wall. A small inscription sits below them.
“Hungry… need food…?”
Yixing decides it would be best not to get closer, and makes his way back. He finds another corridor, leading north, and decides that this must be the way. Yixing screams when hands once again reach out at the walls for him, but quickens his pace. He notices there are deformed dolls hanging from the ceiling from red strings, but he tries his best to ignore them. Yixing finds a locked door, but it won’t budge. There’s a password on the door…
X x X + X = ?
“What?”
There’s another door on the opposite side, but it’s not locked like the other. Yixing reads a small note on the door.
“Liar’s Room?”
He opens the door and finds himself in a wide room with six different portraits that have people wearing different colours. Green, pink, yellow, blue, white, and red. Yixing walks up to the blue one.
“The only truth-speaker wears green!”
Yixing steps over to the white one next to it.
“Stand in front of the statue, go east two steps, then south two steps. That’s the answer.”
He turns to the red.
“I agree with the one in yellow!”
He walks to the yellow one.
“The one in white speaks the truth!”
Yixing thinks he’s gathered enough information and walks into a door between the paintings.
“Okay then…”
He finds himself in the middle of a tiled room, a lone statue occupying the centre. He follows the instructions of the white portrait. He positions himself in front of the statue. Two steps east, two steps south. Nothing happens. Yixing is about to step again, but he notices that the tile beneath his feet is loose.
“I suppose this is it?”
Yixing pulls the tile up, but a large metal blade comes flying up at him. He escapes just in time, but his arm is severed in the process. A petal falls to the floor. Yixing moves backwards and checks the two remaining portraits, green and pink. He read the green one first.
“Stand in front of the statue, go west three steps, then south one step. That’s the answer!”
The pink has a different instruction.
“Stand in front of the statue, go east four steps, then north two steps. That’s the answer!”
“Hang on…”
Yixing remembers the words of the blue portrait.
“The only truth-speaker wears green. That must be it.” Yixing hits his head in annoyance. He’d been such an idiot!
Yixing has his doubts, though. If any of the portraits could be lying, and Yixing already knows that the white is lying, the blue one must also be lying. It seems logical that the only one not lying is completely unrelated to the others… Yixing steps once again into the statue room, deciding it best to follow the instructions of the portrait in pink.
“Alright, east four steps, then north two…”
Like before, the tile beneath his feet is loose.
“Here goes nothing…”
Yixing pulls up the tile, and to his relief, a number is scrawled on the centre.
4.
There’s a weird sound like shattering glass, and Yixing glances warily at the statue. There’s a loud grumbling sound that reminds him of an old car out of gas, spluttering out noxious fumes into the air. It hasn’t budged. Yixing memorizes the number and leaves the room, screaming in horror at what has become of the portrait room. All six of the portraits are covered in blood, and the pink one looks like it has been completely scratched out of existence. Yixing notices that the inscriptions underneath the paintings have changed. All but one read out a single word.
LIAR
Yixing rubs his hands over his arms, trying to get rid of the goosebumps that are rising as his hands become sweaty. It’s almost as if the other portraits murdered the one wearing pink… Yixing thinks carefully as he makes his way back through to the room with the hanging dolls. He’s got two of the numbers so far, but he needs a third to work out the puzzle and open the door.
The only thing left to look at is the dolls, Yixing realises. As much as he is freaked out by this thought, he knows it’s the only way forward. Yixing stands underneath the first doll. There’s no number at all. Yixing shrieks as it comes crashing down, almost landing on him. The porcelain smashes all over the floor. He’s going to get nightmares from this…
He walks back over to the doll to inspect it. Better safe than sorry, he supposes. To his luck, there’s the final number.
18.
Yixing walks back over to the door with the code.
X x X + X = ?
Yixing thinks for a minute before punching in a combination.
166.
There is a small click and the door opens. Yixing walks into the next room, one entirely filled with apple trees. All are bare, except for a lone tree in the centre. A painting of a tree sits on the wall. Yixing stretches up with his uninjured hand and takes a wooden apple from the tree.
“I suppose… I feed the apple to the lips in the wall?”
Yixing backtracks. Once he’s standing before the mouth on the wall, he presses the wooden apple against the lips. A chewing sound reverberates through the room.
"This is tasty. I’ll let you pass. Go through my mouth…”
Yixing jumps as the wall begins to speak to him. It opens up and creates a gaping hole in the wall. Yixing doesn’t think this is an entirely good idea… He takes a few steps back, and launches himself forward, hoping with his heart that this will work out somehow.
Yixing walks around and nothing walks or attacks him, so he calms down a little. There’s a door, but it’s not locked. Yixing presses his palm against it and walks forward.
He’s in a large room with a ridiculously high ceiling. The giant blue alien sculpture from the original gallery casts a heavy shadow over the room, towering over everything. Yixing looks around at all the portraits. There’s a door, but Yixing won’t check it yet. One of the portraits on the wall is a heart with an arrow shot right through it. You can touch the arrow. Right where it pierces the heart, the arrow seems to come out of the painting.
“Heart Wounds,” Yixing reads.
He moves on to the next portrait. There’s a rather attractive woman, with long, flowing brown hair. She sits in a red gown, her lips also painted red.
“The Lady in Red.”
Yixing gives her a nod and begins to walk away, but he hears an all too familiar sound.
THUD!
Yixing turns around and howls as he notices the portrait has fallen to the ground. But that’s not all… The arms and head of the woman have left the portrait and entered this world; she’s dragging herself along the ground, with blood pouring out of , towards Yixing. The Lady in Red shrieks as she gets closer and closer, panting heavily. Yixing lets out a muffled cry as he bites his tongue, turning to run. He finds the door from before, and turns the handle.
Locked!
Yixing quickly scans the ground. The Lady in Red is a lot closer than before, and Yixing darts back through the gallery. But the Lady in Red is faster than him, and she grabs his left leg, pulling him closer to her. is foaming now, and she grunts as she goes to take a bite… Yixing kicks forcefully, and the Lady in Red releases her grip on him. He’s lost a petal of his rose in the process, and his leg is killing him, however he’s away from her for now.
She keeps whining and writhing on the ground; closer and closer.
Yixing lets out a shout of delight as he locates the red key, lying on the floor next to where the Lady in Red once hung. He limps over, picks it up, dodges the Lady in Red and s the key into the door, pushing it open and slamming it behind him. There’s another door just across from him, but it too is also locked. Four shelves of books line the room.
THUD THUD!
The Lady in Red is trying to get in!
Yixing drags himself in a crawl across the red tiling, and begins throwing books out of the shelves. If this is anything like those horror movies he’s seen, one of these books must have a switch behind it to unlock the door. He finds a scrap of paper on the ground.
HAVING FUN?
Yixing scrunches it up into a ball and throws it away. Whoever's doing this is content in taunting him now? Yixing shakes his head in exasperation. Ridiculous. He continues searching for the right book…
THUD THUD!
Yixing finds a thick, red-covered book and pushes it down, grinning as he hears a click. He runs to the door, slams it, and locks it behind him. He breathes a sigh of relief as his legs buckle and he falls to the ground. He’s safe, for now. He spots a small table with a vase on top of it and exhales slowly. He uses his hands and knees to get across to it, pulling himself into a standing position by leaning heavily on the table. He places the rose in the vase… He feels refreshed and rejuvenated as the rose in its sustenance. He’ll be all right.
Yixing gives himself a few minutes to gain his breath back and decides to explore along the right wing of the gallery. He’s on the opposite side of the wall to where he was before; he can still hear the groaning of the Lady in Red on the other side. Yixing gasps as he finds a teen, perhaps only a year or two older than himself, sprawled out in the middle of the corridor.
“Hello?”
He pokes the teen, rolling him over to his side. A small key falls out of the teen’s pocket, and Yixing takes it, examining his face. The teen is tall and very, very attractive. He’s got hard-lined eyebrows and a chiseled face. He must be fit; Yixing can see his muscles through his torn shirt. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the teen is his tuft of wild, messy blonde hair.
He sees a door, however there appears to be a headless statue guarding it. Yixing knows he is too weak to push the statue aside, so he moves backwards through the gallery. The next room of the gallery is narrow, and strangely an observation window occupies the space in the wall right next to another red door. Yixing gulps as he notices a flourish of blue petals occupying the carpet.
They’re mixed in with blood.
Yixing looks up at the wall.
“The Lady in Blue.”
Yixing uses the key he found off the other teen on the door, letting out a terrified shriek as he finds what’s inside. Like the Lady in Red, there’s a similar portrait dragging its way across the floor. It’s got the stalk of a flower, and it’s ripping the petals of it off, one by one. It’s a blue rose.
THUD!
Yixing screeches as he sees an arm clad in blue swinging at the observation window.
It’s still following him!
Yixing drags himself across the ground, leaving the Lady in Blue far behind. Once he’s out of her sight she turns around and returns to her room. He finds the vase, and he replenishes both his and the other teens’ roses. Unlike the other vases, the water does not disappear when he places the flowers into it. Yixing takes the roses out and carries the blue rose into the corridor, placing it gently on the ground in front of the teen. There is a groan. The teen lifts his head and pulls himself off the ground, running a hand through his hair. Yixing can’t help but stare at his eyes. They’ve got this fierceness to them, but behind all that Yixing can see there’s softness too.
“What’s this… the pain’s gone…?”
The teen’s eyes slowly come into focus. Once he sees Yixing, he jumps back in fear.
“Get… Get back! There’s nothing left for you to take!” he yells. Yixing places a hand on the teen’s shoulder and tries to calm him down rubbing soothing circles with the palm of his hand.
“Wait… are you from the gallery?”
Yixing nods, holding out his right hand.
“I’m Yixing,” he gives him a small smile.
“So there’s someone else besides me…” the blonde mutters.
“I’m Kris…”
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