Chapter 3:

Ascending the Stairs

The Gallery


What…?

I saw some dark figures in the corner of my eyes, so I got up and looked to see what it was. There were maids and butlers standing on the grassy field, across the flowers and the berries, and it was a lot of them too. At least 50 of them were standing there, not doing or saying anything.

H… How did they get here?

I turned to Hanako, who was still sleeping to wake her up.

She woke up and saw what was happening. Her face turned into pure dread. She gathered her painting supplies and began to paint a clear, blue sky in place of the dark one.

While she was doing that, I looked back at the maids and the butlers. Their body was wrapped with that bizarre looking flowers that were on the maid's arm. Their bodies started to deflate, and it started leaking dark colored oily fluid. It started to flood the Garden.

"NOO!! I ran out of blue!!" She yelled.

She panicked for a short while and very swiftly painted the sky to be orange instead.

That moment, the Garden turned to dawn. The sun was rising, then stopped, just enough to turn the whole sky golden orange. The berries and the flowers stopped illuminating.

The dark colored oily fluid started to solidify, and all of the maids and the butlers froze in place. Their frozen bodies darken as they dried up, turning into a stone-like dark grey color. Once their transformation was completed, the field became full of statues wrapped with plants that bloomed black flowers.

The situation seemed to be under control for now. The sun hadn't moved at all, so the sky was still orange. Hanako turned to me and asked: "Were you scared?"

"Of course, I was" I replied. "What was that?"

"It happens from time to time." She replied, "When there is enough of the monsters in the Gallery, they will be able to break into here, and if I'm not careful, they'll get me."

Based on what she said, it seemed like the maids and the butlers are not human, but a creature created from oil, I supposed?

"So where did these monsters come from, exactly?" I asked.

"A painting in the Living Room, I think." She responded.

"Huh? Is there a way to destroy a painting?" I continued asking.

"I dunno. I've only been there once. It was too scary for me." She replied.

"why is it scary?" I asked.

"There's a lot of monsters there, and sometimes, the master will be there too." She replied.

"Say, why don't we go to the Living Room and find a way to destroy that painting?" I proposed.

"Noo. It's too scary and risky. You don't have to do that." She replied.

"Well, if you don't wanna go to my world, at least I can try and make your world better." I said.

"fine, but if things get too dangerous, promise me that we will run away, okay?" She said.

"Yeah! I promise." I replied.

Our goal was to put an end to the monsters that were the maids and the butlers, and if we're lucky, maybe I can confront the Gallery's master, and ask them how to get home. If we can't find them, we gonna have to find some more blue paint, so Hanako could continue working on my painting.

We leave the Garden. What once was a calm and peaceful safe zone of ours, is now a nearly deserted nightmare. We took Hanako's painting supplies and our paintings with us before we leave.

When we made it through the painting, the floor was different. Before, it was just a normal wooden floor, but now, there were purple lilacs growing from the crevice of each wooden plank, but shouldn't lilacs grow from a tree? Well, what else is new at this point?

The living room was on the top floor, so we started ascending the spiral staircase. While doing so, Hanako told me everything she knew about the Gallery.

She told me that the master owns the mansion, they were the ones who painted the Gallery. Also, there are people like us, who are stuck in this place, but we may never find them, since the mansion seemed to be infinite in terms of size.

Hanako used to have a friend, but he got captured by the master and was transformed into some form of a monster, different from the maids and butler, and her friend still wandering the Gallery somewhere to this day, according to her.

Eventually, we reached one of the middle floors, this was the floor that I came from. And now that I think about it, even after we walked up the stairs for a quite long while, I didn't seem to get tired at all, but I still need food and use the toilet? Weird.

There are two more floors before the top floor. There will be another dining room on the floor before the top floor, and we will stop at that floor for the night, so we continued.

"So, What exactly happened to your friend?" I asked.

"He was a cute puppy." She replied. "Until master turned him ugly and I haven't seen him since."

"Do Daisuke have a friend?" She asked.

"In my world, we called them 'pets'," I responded. "But I don't have one."

"I can be your pet if you want." She said.

"N... No! It's... It's a little different." I replied.

"Hmm? How?" She asked. It seemed that to her, humans and animals are the same. Where did she come from? Or was she born here?

"Well... We become friends with other people, but animals are our pets." I answered.

"Oh! I get it now." She said. "So we are friends, right?"

"Exactly!" I said. "By the way, can butlers talk?" I asked.

"Of course not! they're just oil monsters, remember?" She replied.

"But when I first came here, a butler talked to me." I said.

"How was that butler looked like?" She asked.

"He looked different from the rest, I guess." I replied.

All of the sudden, her face turned pale. it showed true fear. "That must be the master." She said.

"Are they that scary?" I asked.

"Yeah. They can make anything appear or disappear." She said. "They are the one who creates and control the Gallery."

"Well then, how are we gonna fight them?" I continued asking.

"We're not gonna fight them!!" she yelled at me. "There's nothing we can do. We can only run away." 

"But how am I gonna get home?" I asked.

"As soon as I get more blue, I'll continue painting your home." She said.

"Will it really work?" I expressed my concern.

"Just trust me." She insisted.

"fine. I'll trust you then." I said.

After a while, we finally reached the next floor. We decided to take a quick break, so she sat down on the stairs, and I took a moment to observe the corridors.

In one of the hallways, among all of the blank canvases was a peculiar painting. It had a normal wooden frame, instead of the golden wood frame that the other painting had. the painting depicted a group of people, five of them, to be exact. They looked to be in their teenage years, and the background was completely white.

"That painting looks weird." I said.

"Why's that?" She asked as she couldn't see the painting from her sitting position.

I described the painting to her, and she told me that the master can trap someone in a painting forever by changing the type of the frame. Basically, we can only go through paintings with golden frames, we can't go through the bare wooden ones.

"That's why I'm so scared of them." She said.

"But don't you want to stay in the Garden forever?" I asked.

"Those people got trapped in an endless white void. Haven't they?" She replied. "They're not gonna trapped me in somewhere nice like the Garden."

I started to understand her fear of the master now. After a while, we continued ascending the spiral staircase, while doing so, we talked more about her puppy.

Apparently, she met the puppy randomly in the Gallery and became friends with it. After it got turned into a monster, it didn't want to see anyone, so it disappeared into the depth of the corridor.

We finally made it to the floor before the top floor. We walked down the corridor for a little while. Until eventually, we stumbled across a door labeled "Dining Room."

We opened the door. The room looked identical to the dining room from the bottom floor. Endless walls. Endless table with freshly cooked food. We each took a seat and began to eat the food on the table.

"Uhh... What should I eat this time?" I asked. The foods here are even fancier than the food from the bottom dining room.

"Here! Try this!" She handed me a plate of red liquid, with eggs in them.

"What's this?" I asked. 

"It's called a shakshuka." She replied. "It's a tomato sauce with poached eggs. Eat it while it's hot!" 

"Oh! Okay then." I said as I started eating the food. It seemed like her view of me is different now? But is it a good or a bad thing? After all, I just want to go home, but she wants to stay in the Garden. Our goals were different, so maybe we shouldn't get attached to each other?

We finished our food. Hanako took her painting supplies from her bag and lined them down on the floor to see what she had left.

What was left was a couple of brushes, a palette, and very little amount of color pigments and linseed oil, both of which were used to make more oil paints. Hopefully, the Living Room will have more of the other paints as well.

Hanako grabbed a blank painting from the wall, and painted a small platform onto it, using green and brown.

"This is where we sleep tonight." She said, as she put the painting on the floor and started to pack up her painting supplies. 

We hopped through the painting. The other side was a small and modest island floating in the middle of nowhere. Our surroundings were completely white.

"What if we fall down?" I asked.

"I dunno." She replied. "But if I have to guess, you'll probably be falling down for the rest of your life."

"Oh..." I said.

We laid down and get ready for bed, but the white void made it really hard to fall asleep. Hanako couldn't paint the whole canvas, that would be too much of a waste, not that I would be able to sleep anyway after what happened last night, but eventually, after a long while, I succumbed to my drowsiness, and fell asleep.

I woke up to see the white void. There is no day and night cycle in the Gallery, it seemed like we just eat and sleep whenever we want. Even in the mansion, there are no clocks or windows at all, so I couldn't know how long I was sleeping for.

Hanako was already woken up and was eating breakfast in the other room. I joined her and have some toasts followed by some tea that neither of us knew its name.

We were ready to ascend the stairs once again, so we leave the dining room after we got ready.

We started walking up the stairs, while doing so, I asked her what her puppy looked like now. She told me that he turned into a big dog with wings, but couldn't fly, with fins, but couldn't swim. She said that he was too ashamed of how he looks, so he just ran away, and disappeared, never to be seen again.

"Do you want to meet him again?" I asked.

"Yes! of course!" She said. "It doesn't matter how he looks, he's still my friend. I miss him."

"Hopefully, we can find him then." I replied.

We finally made it to the top floor. I could see the stained glass dome very clearly now, and when I looked outside, I saw the sun. It looked real, a lot more realistic than the sun in the Garden. But is it real? It could be something that the master created. Maybe I should find a way to break the windows? That way, I can know for sure, if the sun was real or not.

We continued walking on the top floor's corridor, and eventually, we reached the Living Room. This part of the house is relatively normal. The room isn't infinite anymore. One of the paintings on one of the walls depicted an army of maids and butlers. The painting was still wet, dripping black oil down the wall, creating a small oil puddle on the floor.

The other side of the room had a shelf full of stuff that could be painting supplies, and a big fireplace with a chimney. The fire was still lit.

"That's the painting that the monsters came from, right?" I asked. "Let's burn it in the fireplace."

"Yeah. Let's try that." She said.

We slowly approached the painting.