image [https://files.catbox.moe/v0vfzm.png]

The sensation that befell Miles once Shelley’s end was felt in his heart was… a peculiar one, defying his lifelong revulsion of death. For all the grotesque forms he had conveyed through canvas, the reality of corpses —in their terminal stillness— never failed to strike a primal chord of terror in him. A finality too harrowing to dare contemplate, let alone capture in paint.

Yet surprisingly, there was none of that here. In the face of this new, irreversible loss, all of that dread felt distant, almost quaint in essence.

A darkening serenity bloomed in its place. Beyond the natural regret of missing what manner of abomination wore his wife’s face during her final moments… He felt glad for her. No longer would she be shackled to this plane full of woes and torment, to this world of hunger and flesh. She had transcended, free to spread whatever wings the afterlife would grant her, given reign to walk upon the garden of desires’ delight —the paradise whose blackness had once filled his dreams.

The thought pooled like stale paint in the catacombs of his mind, a revolting comfort that solidified with each passing second it was allowed to settle. But no matter how hard he tried to wrap himself in this deluded peace, the truth’s maggots squirmed beneath his legs, scratching restlessly against the floor, questioning.

Was that truly the extent of it all? Wasn’t he simply relieved that her suffering would no longer be biting at what remained of his conscience?

Indignity writhed through him, each segment of his form trembling with self-disgust. He was trying to shroud everything under noble intentions, in pathetic metaphors he barely understood himself. The truth was much starker. Shelley’s death had lifted a weight from him, and that liberation felt like a betrayal deeper than any corruption Mirage Asylum had bestowed upon him.

How dare he feel unburdened by the departure of the woman who had sacrificed everything for his sake? She was the first to attribute depth to his early pieces, where even their teachers saw nothing more than macabre curiosities. When he was laughed at for not relinquishing the disturbed doodles of an unstable artist, she defied her family, forfeited their designs, and walked away with nothing but clothes on her back and unwavering faith —no price or gamble too steep to remain at his side.

Manager, defender, anchor. Wife. Shelley had been the one who gave shape to his pitiful existence, her sheer force of will transmuting disaster into dark beauty worthy of gallery walls. She was so strong… Enough to alienate him, to make him feel small beside her certainty.

Even the miscarriage hadn’t broken her. Miles still remembered finding her in his studio afterwards, surrounded by his darkest pieces —those too morbid to exhibit—, charcoal smudges on her cheeks obscuring the tear marks beneath. ‘These monsters’, she’d whispered, ‘they’re in pain, like our baby was’. A fortitude so absolute that not even grief cracked her, as if somehow his paintings could replace the child they had lost.

Perhaps that’s why, once Ethan finally came into their lives, her protective instincts had bordered on suffocating. Every cough was pneumonia, every fever the harbinger of some dreadful disease. His son lived sheltered from every imaginable threat, while the real horror grew in the very walls of their home.

That made her happy, Miles reasoned. A duty she kept until her dying breath.

In his ample yet eternally empty cage, the solitary canvas continued to catch the scarce light that penetrated the gloom, its very presence taunting. The sharp tips of his frontal legs ran over fabric, while others tinkered with brushes. He wanted to paint her as he remembered —radiant, certain, whole.

Yet still… Miles couldn’t.

His toxicognaths clicked together in agitation, their horrible sound echoing through the vast darkness. He longed so desperately to rationalize Shelley’s death as something grander, as metamorphosis, as anything but what it truly was —one more inadequacy in his oeuvre of destruction.

One more soul tarnished by proximity to his accursed existence.

Amidst the violent aftermath, a familiar heartbeat persisted. Though Shelley’s presence had finished fading from Mirage Asylum’s awareness, Ethan appeared to still draw breath, cradled in the arms of a would-be savior. While the artist couldn’t see them directly, Cole Benoit’s determination rippled across the mansion’s veins —blasphemous in its essence.

An exchange of hands, now. Wasn’t that just convenient? Another excuse to absolve himself of responsibility, to let others shoulder burdens he wished not to bear. The same as he had done throughout his entire life, retreating into darkness while those stronger cleared the path ahead.

This time, he refused such a conclusion.

How dare this man presume to match Shelley’s devotion? No doubt he imagined himself the hero of this macabre tale, finding in Ethan a perfect vessel for his savior complex —a new justification for brutality under the guise of protection. The boy’s vulnerability must be sparking something primordial in those eyes, birthing that same look Miles had seen in countless faces before, falling condescendingly upon his younger self. That need to fix, to save, to prove one’s worth through another’s salvation.

But Ethan was theirs —his and Shelley’s alone. With her gone and Miles… Miles having long surrendered any claim to fatherhood… What right did this stranger have to determine the child’s fate?

The infant born to die. That was the serpentine grace his heart deemed right. Wouldn’t it be more merciful to let him accompany his mother, rather than condemn him to the same thorned path Miles once walked?

He could feel Ethan stirring, the kid’s fragmented consciousness gradually returning to focus, tainting Miles’ own thoughts with his second-hand fright. He didn’t blame the boy, all too able to imagine the terror coursing through that small, weakened frame of his —awakening in an intruder’s embrace, surrounded by a nightmare he had been blissfully kept from thus far.

Each quickening breath, each trembling whimper poorly soothed, Miles absorbed them all as foundations for his own resolve. He was just too young to process Mirage Asylum’s horror.

What would happen if Ethan survived, somehow? What truly awaited for him in the world of light? A life of whispers, of sideways glances, forever marked as the son of Miles Seagrave —the artist spirited away by madness. Therapists and counselors hovering over his son like vultures, waiting for the signs of his inherited darkness to appear.

Aware of it or not, the boy was already touched by Utopia. Wouldn’t it be crueler to allow the flowers of madness to fully bloom, to let him be judged by those that could never understand?

Acceptance and lucidity towards his own corruption brought Miles a surprising amount of control. Not only did the shadows bent to his will, corridors also twisted into new configurations as Miles guided his prey deeper into the labyrinth. The gallery’s architecture reformed, offering shortcuts to its core, where his nest awaited.

Each step Cole took brought him ever closer to that sanctum. It was a natural conclusion —how could the intruder know any better than to blindly trust the path laid before him?

As he awaited their arrival, a strange sensation began to stir within Miles, one so long absent that recognition came slowly, painfully. It was anticipation. How long had it been since he last crossed another human being? The question festered like an unhealed wound, his isolation having stretched enough for the very concept of conversation to feel foreign, a language eroded by an eternity of silence.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

The prospect of an interaction sent tremors through his segmented form, an ember of humanity that refused to be fully claimed by Mirage Asylum. It was dangerous, threatening to undermine the conviction marking his corrupted new flesh.

Consciousness, once scattered like pieces of debris in a dark sea, touching briefly the surface of reality before sinking back to the depths, now coalesced into a sharp focus. He was now aware of every single moment spent in waiting.

Through the spectral nervous system of Mirage Asylum, he felt the aftermath of violence elsewhere in his domain. The other intruders had survived their encounter with that one other girl —a discordant note in this carefully orchestrated symphony of suffering. These people, these unwanted players in his theatre of shadows, displayed a resilience that managed to surpass what should’ve broken them. Such stubborn persistence carried its own dark poetry, and now, they too advanced towards his stage.

Hope kindled once again in his malformed heart —treacherous, unwelcome hope. Had he perhaps underestimated their capacity to comprehend this gallery of underworld nightmares? Could they somehow possess the strength to triumph over this haunt?

To save not just Ethan… But to drag him out of this abyss just the same?

Thoughts that scattered like startled insects as Cole Benoit breached the final threshold. The man’s footsteps echoed with deliberate caution, as if negotiating with the horrors left unseen. Miles’ first instinct was to retreat deeper into the darkness’ embrace, his countless legs skittering in agitation as both shamed and yearning waged war within him —the desire to remain hidden battling against the desperate need for a witness.

Try as he might, the scraping whisper of his massive, segmented form on the newly established boundaries of his confinement could hope to go unnoticed. Miles watched intently as Cole’s hand raised his firearm quickly, motions fluid despite all the injuries. His gaze swept through the vast room frantically, steps naturally drawn to the sole beam of light piercing the encompassing, writhing gloom.

And oh… How could Miles not end up utterly transfixed by his sight?

Through the dim illumination, the centipede devoured every detail with an artist’s hunger. Cole’s deep umber skin, marred by blood and makeshift bandages torn from his very uniform. The careful geometry of his faded haircut, tight curls crowned by precision-maintained sides. His very short beard following the sharp angles of his jaw like calculated brushstrokes. Those deep-set brown eyes remaining alert despite exhaustion’s obvious toll, while his broad shoulders, though transparently powerful, bore the signature of recent conflict in subtle ways —a slight favoring of his left side, and the careful distribution of weight to avoid aggravating what must be significant injuries.

But it was how Cole held Ethan what truly enraptured Miles, one muscular arm being more than enough to cradle his son’s anemic frame, pallid skin nearly translucent against his protector’s chest.

The contrast struck Miles with the unstoppable force of inspiration. Strength tempered by gentleness, fortitude married to compassion. It was beautiful. Painfully, perfectly beautiful. A composition he ached so much to immortalize, if only art were to still flow from his fingers instead of venom.

So dangerously close did he get to Cole in his appraisal, that Miles’ antennae quivered only inches away from the officer’s exposed neck, caustic fluid beading at the tips of his lower mandibles. The droplets fell, striking Cole’s shoulder with a malevolent hiss, fabric dissolving into vapor as an immediate, alerted response was prompted.

With his weapon raised, the officer turned in his direction, just slow enough for Miles’ upper segments to retreat into the shadows with an unsettling fluidity. Only fragments of his segmented form caught the sparse light as he moved, creating a disorientating dance of chitinous reflections under the ebbing motions. Cole’s composure wavered for just a moment —barely perceptible, but more than enough for the centipede to savor.

“Seagrave!?” Cole’s voice carried a tense steadiness, though Miles was intoxicatingly aware of those minute tremors his finger made against the trigger. “This is Ethan, isn’t he? We can talk about all this!”

>> “There must be a way to—”

But right now, Miles had already transcended such mundane concerns. Negotiations, reasoned discourse, both of them instruments of a world that had left him behind, concerns that belonged to creatures of mere flesh and bone. His mind now dwelled in darker spaces, in the abstract realm where beauty and agony blurred together like an overflow of wet paint on canvas.

“Tell me, officer…” Miles’ voice emerged, distorted through the layers of his own corruption, crawling in the air rather than traveling in it. “Is art… The artist?”

>> “If something beautiful blooms from a grave, should we remember that the seeds were planted amongst the dead? When you stand before my paintings… Do you see beauty spawned from suffering? Or suffering masked as beauty?”

He shifted position again, segments flowing like liquid as Cole tried to pinpoint the exact origin of his voice. Those deep-brown eyes darted between shifting patches of blackness, pupils dilated with the primitive recognition of prey realizing it’s been trapped.

“If I showed you the shape of my heart, and you beheld its shine, what happens once you realize it is but another shade of atrocity? Where did all the beauty come from, then?”

>> “Did you bring it, when you witness it? Did I create it, despite my flawed spirit? Or can the abyss flowers grow seedless from desecrated corpses?”

In the dim light, Miles watched Cole clutch Ethan closer, a hand keeping the boy’s head protectively against his chest, as if trying to prevent him from looking. Was he unable to understand what he meant?

“My son sleeps in your arms. But he isn’t pure, nor untainted. He also carries it, this otherworldly contagion. Does that not terrify you?”

>> “It should.”

No reaction beyond a tightening of his grip. The officer didn’t appear too shaken from such a revelation, a display of stubbornness that spoke more of ignorance than faithfulness.

“I’m running out of patience, you demented freak.” Benoit finally spat back at him, anger rising to a belligerence that failed to provoke Miles. How could he be, when it carried so transparently the edges of desperation? “Is this not your son!? Why won’t you even check if he’s alright!?”

>> “Do you even care about him anymore?! Or is this twisted art-talk of yours all that matters now!?”

Miles’ segments coiled tighter, closing in a circle around the officer as his mandibles clicked predatorily. A fair request deserving of its similarly fair answer. His upper abdomen descended, and for the first time, the two of them held each other’s gazes directly.

“Critics used to applaud my work, not grasping the very purpose of its creation.” In the wake of Cole’s face contorted through a cascade of emotions —disbelief, revulsion, horror— Miles was free to continue his manifesto. The now violent trembles of his gun were of no importance, as it weaved through the air as if unable to decide which part posed the greatest threat. “And just the same, as an artist I never crafted monsters for their entertainment. Still, it is only now that I can see my what my role truly was.”

>> “A prophet, offering glimpses of what this world will become.”

A bitter laugh escaped him, sounding far more monstrous through his multiple sets of mandibles. This wasn’t so bad, either… If he couldn’t paint him, then maybe in his destruction he would find a similar bliss.

“So tell me, when you look upon this form I wear, can you see the hand behind its metamorphosis?” His voice trailed off, gaze lingering on his son one final time before unleashing the tyrant rumbling beneath the pretenses. “Or am I just a vessel for the grandest of designs?”

>> “Is the artist… The art?”

>> “For this one particular exhibit should have never been brought out of the shadows.”

Unable to maintain his composure any longer, the sepulchral quiet of his prison was shattered under the staccato bursts of gunfire. Through desperate muzzle flashes, each bullet that punctured his flesh drew forth only the black essence of Mirage Asylum —wounds that bloomed like dark blossoms before withering into meaninglessness.

Each desperate shot illuminated fragments of his massive silhouette, until only the hollow click of an empty chamber remained. Miles studied the final vestiges of the officer’s will to fight crumbling into despair, raw terror painted across those superb features of his —in an authenticity that no brush could ever truly capture.

In the fleeting seconds that his massive form took rising to towering heights, Miles felt an almost peaceful clarity descend upon him, watching as Cole braced for impact prioritizing Ethan’s protection over his own body.

This too was art in and of itself. The destruction of beauty in service of the profound. The innocent blood sacrificed in the night to birth a masterpiece painted in anguish.

And so he struck, fiercely, crushingly so. It was so easy for him to tear bones and flesh into pieces with only an inkling of resistance.

For at last, the artist had embraced his role not as creator, but as an instrument to devastation.

image [https://files.catbox.moe/v0vfzm.png]