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My feet hit the floor, the cold bite against my bare skin grounding me, reminding me I was still here, still alive, even when my nightmares wanted to drag me somewhere else entirely. I stalked through the darkness of my apartment, each step a silent cry against the images that dared to haunt me.
The living room was draped in shadows, moonlight sneaking in through the cracks in the blinds to splash silver highlights across the floor. It was a damn crime scene waiting for its victim, and fuck if I wasn't ready to play the part.
There it was—my accomplice in the night's madness. The easel sat there, all innocent-like, but I knew better. That blank canvas was an abyss staring back at me, taunting me with its emptiness. A shiver ran up my spine, half thrill, half dread, as I reached for my weapons of choice: brushes that could wield color like knives and tubes of paint that bled just like we did.
My hands shook as I uncapped the first tube, the scent of oil paint filling the air, thick and pungent. This was no longer just about purging the nightmares; it was about defiance, about taking back the goddamn narrative that seemed hell-bent on suffocating me.
Fuck subtle. I grumbled, selecting the largest brush like I was picking out a dagger. The bristles felt rough against my palm, a promise of the chaos to come. We're going bold tonight.
The colors bled across the canvas, a riotous explosion of darkness and fear, the kind that lived deep within the marrow of my bones. I was the artist, the creator of nightmares, the sculptor of my own twisted salvation.
The red paint hit the canvas like blood splattering a crime scene, thick and vibrant against the stark white. My brush strokes were almost violent as I recreated the twisted images plaguing my sleep. The dreams had been graphic, filled with gore and screams that I could hear in my skull even now. Yeah, you're getting immortalized, you son of a bitch. I grumbled, giving form to the lifeless body that haunted me.
Each smear and stroke felt like a confession, a raw, visceral scream from the depths of my gut. My hand moved with a mind of its own, detailing the gaping wounds, the outstretched limbs, the terror forever etched onto the victim's face. "Come on, Celeste, make it real," I urged myself, spitting the words out like they were poison. It was perverse, this act of creation, but it was mine all the same—my way to spit in the face of the darkness that clung to me.
With every fiber of my being poured into each detail, the painting became more than a mere depiction; it was a reflection, a goddamn mirror of the chaos writhing inside me. The lines between what was real and what was born of my fucked-up psyche started to blur, melding into a single horrifying narrative. "Shit," I exhaled sharply. There was something intimate, almost sensual in the way the dream connected with the art—the way it knew me, knew my deepest fears and danced with them in the shadows.
"Is this what you wanted?" I challenged the silence, my voice dripping with venom and vulnerability. The stillness of my apartment was oppressive, suffocating, but the canvas... the canvas screamed back at me, echoing the turmoil that no one else saw.
I wouldn't let it win, not tonight. Tonight, I was the master of my nightmares, the queen of this depraved court of crimson. I painted on, desperate to capture the darkness before it could swallow me whole.
"Justice is blind," I muttered, the words surfacing from the depths of my swirling thoughts like a damned prophecy. My hands shook with something beyond cold or fear as I dipped the brush into the inky abyss of paint. It wasn't just color; it was the manifestation of the anger bubbling inside me, the betrayal that had left its indelible mark on my soul.
I approached the canvas of confession, and scrawled the words behind the grotesquely twisted figure I'd painted—a mangled body that seemed almost too real, too close to the nightmares clawing at the edges of my mind. "Blind," I hissed, pressing the bristles harder against the plaster, like I could carve the truth into the very bones of this godforsaken building. There was irony there—I was the one who couldn't see, couldn't trust, ever since that backstabbing—no, heart-ripping—betrayal.
Time, the sneaky bastard, slipped through my fingers like sand; one moment I was in the here and now, the next I was somewhere else, lost in the trance of creation. The darkness within me stretched out, enveloping everything in its path, a ravenous beast feasting on the meat of my fractured psyche. My strokes became frenzied, desperate slashes of a brush wielded by a woman possessed.
I stepped back, the paintbrush in my hand more like a weapon than an artist's tool. The scent of oil paint was thick in the air—a stinging reminder of the labor I'd just poured into the canvas. My chest heaved like I'd run a marathon, and for a moment, I let myself feel it—the rush, the terror, the goddamn triumph.
The scene before me was gruesome, a masterful stroke of horror that would make even Edgar Allan Poe piss his pants. Blood-red hues, so vivid they seemed to pulse, depicted a carnage that some sick part of my brain had conjured up. There it was, the darkness I harbored, splattered across the canvas for the world—if they ever saw it—to recoil from.
Art imitates life, huh? Or is it the other way around? I mused, the bitter taste of cynicism on my tongue. The painting was more than just strokes of paint; it was a mirror reflecting the fucked-up depths of my soul. I should've been horrified by my own creation, but instead, it felt like meeting an old friend—or nemesis—face to face.
I couldn't tear my eyes away from the scene I had conjured onto the canvas. The mangled corpse, the bloody message scrawled on the wall, every gruesome detail seemed to taunt me, daring me to look away. A chill slithered down my spine and I rubbed my arms, suddenly aware of how alone I was in my dark apartment.
A flicker of movement outside the window made me jump. Heart pounding, I crept closer, peering out into the night. Nothing but the wind rustling through the trees. I let out a shaky laugh. Get a grip, Celeste. It was just my overactive imagination getting the best of me again.
Turning away from the window, my gaze landed on the painting once more. A wave of unease washed over me. It was like some unseen force had guided my hand, using me as a conduit to channel this disturbing vision from the shadowy depths of my soul.
A loud knock at the front door shattered the heavy silence. I gasped, nearly dropping my paintbrush. Who could be knocking at this hour? For a split second, my mind conjured the image of a blood-spattered monster from my painting standing at my door.
Who the hell would be at my door at this ungodly hour? The sharp raps were like gunshots in the silence, shattering the cocoon of morbid tranquility I'd spun around myself. My pulse quickened, thundering in my ears, as I tried to steady my breathing. Was it paranoia or was Chicago's finest darkness clawing its way into my safe haven?
"Shit, shit, shit." I cursed each step I took towards the door, my mind racing with every goddamn horror scenario known to mankind—and a few that weren't. Every betrayal, every whispered threat from my past, they all came crawling back, making my skin itch with the raw memory of deceit.
"Get a grip, Celeste," I scolded myself, gripping the doorknob like it was a grenade ready to blow. "It's probably just Mrs. Nowak from next door, wondering if you're dead or just normally antisocial."
I could feel the cold metal against my sweaty palm, the tremor in my hand betraying the fear I was trying so damn hard to smother. One deep breath—one laced with more sarcasm than oxygen—and I flung the door open, bracing for impact.
Chapter 13
Nash
Itightened my grip on the rusted pliers. The dank walls of my secret headquarters soaked up the sound of ragged breathing, the space lit by a single flickering bulb that cast grotesque shadows against the concrete. He was strapped down, eyes wide with terror.
"Justice is Blind," I whispered to myself, the killer's haunting phrase echoing through my skull like a sinister mantra. It fed the conflict raging within me—it was fucking poetic, wasn't it? My brother, dead and gone, his memory a constant ache that fueled my thirst for retribution for those preyed upon.
I leaned in close to the piece of shit writhing beneath me, his whimpers music to my ears. "Let's see how loud you can scream, shall we?" I said with a sneer, "I want the women you defiled to hear your cries from the afterlife."
