Chapter Text
Sunny didn’t want to come to the gallery, in fact he thought it a giant waste of time. Truly he didn’t understand why his parents needed to bring him along to pretend like they didn’t hate each other, or maybe this was some last ditch effort to act like a regular family before their divorce was finalized. He couldn’t figure out which one it was and honestly he didn’t care.
The gallery was in a small building in the middle of the city, he’d been told that it was often used to showcase small artist work or events. The walls of the place were white and spotless, they probably clean these walls at least twice a day, it certainly smelled like they did.
“We’ll pay up here Sunny, feel free to wander the gallery, look at the art.” His mother gave him a hefty pat on the back that shook him from his thoughts. He glared at her a bit, he was fifteen and they didn’t need to treat him like he was still a child. After a short stare down with his mother (Which she won) he nodded and walked past the counter.
Right through the walkway there were some paintings, they weren’t very eye-catching but he went to look at them anyway. The first he came across was what seemed like a woman scolding her child who was playing the piano. It looked like a train wreck to him personally so his curiosity led him to the small gold coated plate beneath the painting. ‘A Well Meaning ???’ Sunny groaned, dyslexia was a real pain to have to deal with everyday. Annoyed, he moved to the next painting, this time it was water creeping up onto what looked like a shore. It was titled ‘??? At the Waters Edge’ The man next to him began to speak his thoughts on the piece aloud. “Man, Omori does not disappoint! The more I look, the deeper it seems…”
Omori. Omori was the temporary gallery’s featured artist, meaning he was the only artist who had his work displayed here. Every piece in the gallery was one he dreamt up and put into the real physical world. Many considered his work to be masterpieces, he had a small cult-like following for many years, despite how little attention from the public he got for most of his time as an artist. The thing that really blew him up for a while back in the 2000’s was his donation of paintings of missing or deceased children to their families. I was called ‘The Remembrance Piece’ . Sunny personally found the name to be quite idiotic, it couldn’t feel good to see portraits of your lost kids constantly.
Sunny knew his parents had been looking forward to this gallery showing, they even halted their divorce proceedings to plan it out. It seemed stupid to Sunny that they were both so excited to see some art despite neither of them being artists themselves or caring much for the arts. Hell his mother was a physicist and his dad was a mathematician, the arts didn’t take to either of them.
He went through more paintings, none of them catching his eye really, though as he came around the corner he spotted a large floor painting. He was sure it was painted onto the floor, but that was a ridiculous thought since Omori had died the year prior and Sunny was sure that this had been used for other events at some point. It was a mystery. One Sunny didn’t care much to find the answer to so he continued his gallery walk.
There were a lot of boring paintings, most of them were nothing spectacular, most of which he couldn’t read properly as he went on his way to the next painting. The second floor was the same for the most part, paintings and people talking about the deeper meaning behind them, most of which Sunny thought was absolute bullshit.
The window at the top of the second floor had some condensation build up around the edges, water drops racing down the glass outside. It’s rainy. He stood there for a long time, entranced by the rain drops falling, letting the thought of the rain sink into him. It was familiar and it made his heart pick up speed. It was wrong, no wrong. Sunny shook himself out of it, slapping his face. He just didn’t like the rain, it gave nothing to the enjoyment of the day, but that didn’t really matter, he neer left his room anymore.
He turned from the window, trying to shake off the feeling of dread it gave him, and walked over to the wall lined with paintings. There was a brown haired man in a tattered jacket looking at a painting of a man being hung by his ankles. Sunny leaned over to read the small golden plaque.
“The h.. Han..” He was struggling to read the words, his voice small and almost drowned out by the silence. He was startled when the man next to him piped up.
“The hanging man. You can’t read the words very well can you?” The man smiled at him and sunny gave him a shake of the head no. The man laughed a bit.
“Not a big talker huh? That’s okay.. I hope you enjoy the gallery.” The man waved goodbye to Sunny, and Sunny gave him one in return.
He walked along the wall, seeing more paintings he didn’t care much for. One of what looked like a woman holding a newspaper, one that was half of a creepy looking mask or face, one that seemed to be mountains, and one of a girl made of shadow looking upward. It made Sunny stop and admire it, though he couldn’t place why. He leaned down to read the plaque ‘ABBI’. Sunny hummed at the title. He jumped a little as a purple haired man spoke up behind him, what was with people and doing that lately?
“Interesting painting right?” The man looked at it, his eyes seeming to study every brush stroke on it. “I wonder if this was someone real… They say Omori hardly ever depicted people who actually existed, well excluding his missing children collection of course. But some sure do seem like real people, don’t they? Like this one here… It’s amazing!” Sunny thought the man was crazy but he nodded along, walking to the next painting on the wall.
This one was just the bottom of a wine glass on the top right corner and the actual cup portion. He looked down at the plaque ‘Glass of ???’ . Sunny looked around and sighed, no one here to creep up behind him and read this plaque card for him. He stood up straight, giving the painting one last gloss over before deciding he wasn’t interested in it and moved onto the next one.
The painting was being crowded by en elderly couple, preventing Sunny from properly seeing the plaque as well as parts of the painting. From what he could see it was just an ear, uninteresting to him but the couple seemed to love it.
“Hm, superb… I’m truly jealous of Master Omori’s genius! Hahaha!” The old man said to his wife, giving a gruff laugh at the end.
“My… simply incredible. This painting would look perfect hanging in our living room…” She whispered to him. They seemed very absorbed by the moment, inches away from kissing, so Sunny left as quickly as possible.
Sunny didn’t care much for the sculpture that was around the corner so he walked past it, it was just colors hanging on a tree after all. He sighed looking at the strange sculpture. He just couldn’t understand how it was made, nor did he enjoy the bright pink color of it. A brunette woman in a long green skirt looked puzzled at the sculpture, though not for the reasons Sunny did.
“Doesn’t this exhibition seem kind of small? Shouldn’t there be more pieces than this?” She leaned toward the man next to her to ask. He held up his left arm in a gesture of explanation.
“From what I hear, they didn’t have the space or budget to even remotely show everything.” He explained to the woman who now looked more like she understood.
“Huh…” The man sighed and shook his head.
“It’s a shame Omori’s kind of an obscure artist, so he only gets exhibits at tiny galleries like this.” He sighed again.
“It’d be nice if more people knew about him, really… It’s just too bad he died before I got to meet him” The woman next to him turned to speak to him again but by that point Sunny had already tuned out of the conversation, moving onto the next part of the room.
There wasn’t much left to look at and he wanted to get a good sweep through of the gallery before he met up with his parents again in the hopes it would give him some drawing inspiration. He walked over to where he knew there was a staircase with small steps, the stairs were just as clean as the walls and floor in the place asn it put him on edge a bit. He didn’t like stairs as much as he hated the rain, but he could never remember why, only that he loathed them with a passion.
Gripping the handle he took in a deep breath and shakily exhaled. He could do this, it was only fifteen steps, nothing more nothing less . He placed a foot on the first step, feeling a wave of nausea flood through him. He swallowed it down, placing his other foot on the same step. It was lucky there was no one behind him waiting to get up these stairs because he made his way up slowly, gripping onto the rail for dear life.
After a few minutes he finally reached the top, quickly walking off the steps and hunching over, catching his breath and swallowing down any bile that had arisen in his throat. He looked up in front of him to see a large painting. He didn’t know much about Omori’s works but he had never heard from his parents that such a large painting was made by him on a canvas. Standing up fully Sunny walked up the painting, admiring the colors on the framed work, unable to see a single brush stroke in the paint. He had to admit, this was likely his favorite piece he had seen yet in this exhibit. He took a look around, noticing a door off to the side of the room with a sigh on it that said ‘Open to the public’ .
He considered his choices, deciding to read the title of this painting before opening up the door. He leaned down, this one much closer to the ground to accommodate the size of the painting. He squinted his eyes, unable to read the first word of the two sentence title. ‘??? World’ He whispered it out to himself, stopping when the lights flickered.
Sunny looked around confused. Maybe it was a power trip, or they really needed to replace the lights in the room. He shrugged his shoulders, turning to the space on the wall where the door was, only to find it gone. Sunny froze, there was no way for the door to have simply gone. He began to rationalize it, maybe he had been hallucinating. Yeah, that had to be it, he had been ever since…
Slapping his face Sunny cut off that train of thought, deciding that it was time to leave, he had seen everything he wanted to. He turned around, walking to the steps, and repeating the same agonizing routine of getting down the stairs. It was silent on the second floor, strangely silent.
He walked out of the stairwell, heading towards the stairs to the first floor. His steps echoed on the tile floor, putting sunny more on edge than he already was. He persisted on, making his way down the stairs slowly.
The lights on the first floor were out, the room somehow still dimly illuminated. Sunny walked around the corner to where he had first begun seeing the paintings, and not a soul was there. No one was around. He sped walked past the large floor panting into the short hall, nobody. He rounded the corner, past the rose sculpture, past the paintings and strange blue sculpture around the corner. He heard a cough, quickly turning around, looking at the corner from where he just came. Nobody.
Sunny walked back towards the reception desk. He wasn’t sure where everyone had gone but he was leaving this creepy building, he could just use someone’s phone… He looked around the reception desk, empty, he walked to the doors and twisted the handle. Locked. He groaned, trying the handles a few more times before giving up.
It was dark in here which made no sense, it was the middle of the day when they arrived and it had only been an hour, so why was it so dark in here. Sunny moved over to the window near the reception desk. It was pitch black, he squinted trying to see if there was anything out the window. Suddenly blood poured down the window, making him fall back in fear. After a few minutes he stood up, quickly walking back towards the stairs. The entire way he could hear some distant footsteps behind him, making him break out into a run up the stairs, forgetting his fears in the process.
He made it to the top of the stairs to see a person pass the second floor window. Taking no time to process it he made a sprint around the corner, running past, not hearing the tapping and black hand print stamped on the glass. He made a break for the stairwell, too scared to think he stumbled back and fell onto the floor when a rotten fruit fell out of the painting on the wall next to the stairs. Sunny panted staring at the oozing muck of the fruit. He stood up, shakily making his way to the stairs, feeling even more unstable climbing them.
His thoughts ran rampant as he climbed up the stairs.
Where is everyone? They couldn’t have just left. Who was behind the glass? How did blood fall down the window? Why are the doors locked? Maybe someone is up here… Sunny’s thought persisted even as he stepped onto flat ground and looked around the room. The door from earlier was still gone but the large painting was different. It looked like a child’s drawing, the previously bright vibrant colors were now muddles with black marker jutting up through the bottom center of the painting. The marks looked as though they were drawn with crayon, and overall looked more aggressive and angry than it had previously.
Sunny cautiously walked up the painting in fear that it may move or pull him through. He stood in front of the larger painting that towered over him, as he bent down to read the plaque again. ‘??? World’ He knew it was different, it was another unreadable word but it was different this time. As he was reading he noticed blue liquid seeping through the painting and staining in the wall. He furrowed his brows at the anomaly, jumping and quickly turning around wide-eyed when a loud stamp sound filled the quiet room. He stared terrified at the letter C stamped on the white tile floor, continuing to back up into the painting as more letters appeared one-by-one. C-O-M-E S-U-N-N-Y we’re stamped on the floor in red paint by the end of it.
Blue writing appeared on the wall, some he managed to read with ease. “I’ll show you a secret spot” It was then when Sunny decided he would much rather face his fear of the stairs than have to potentially be murdered in the building. He basically ran down the stairs, trying not to step on the o,in-house blue footprints that made their way in his direction, almost tripping down the last step from how bad his legs were shaking, and the tears clouding his eyes.
He successfully made it down the second flight of stairs, a chill going down his spine at seeing the black hand print in the second floor window. It was darker than before, a bright blue light now illuminating the room just to the side of the staircase. He stuck his head out from behind the wall to see what was glowing so brightly. On the floor where the ropes around the floor painting of the sea monster was were gone, the belie footprints leading into the sea of blue paint.
Sunny looked around desperately before silently laughing uncomfortably, there was no way this did anything so it would be fine. Right..? He held that thought for some time before groaning loudly and walking towards the blue floor. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. He repeated over and over to himself as he walked closer to the painting, hovering his foot over the blue mess on the floor. He took a deep breath in and out before putting his weight on the foot, falling straight through, silence permeating the save once more.