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Round of the Art Table
Chapter 8: Refuge of Classics

Chapter 8: Refuge of Classics

“You are rather delirious, curious creature,” spoke the muted, bronze man.

“Uh-uh, um, huh?” slurred Victoria, barely processing what was happening to her, as she slowly sank into the colored mud that began to engulf her body in a tinged oobleck.

“Could it be . . . No, you aren’t infected, or one of them, but then why are you sinking?,” the statue began speculating. “Let’s just get you to the nearest campsite.”

And then the world’s lights went off, as Victoria’s eyes became shut after they began to feel as though they were blistering from the intoxicating fumes. The fumigations encircled her, though the statue didn’t seem to mind the toxic environment he found himself presumably trapped within. During her unwanted coma due to the new, poisoned air that filled the empty space, she felt swift, gliding winds past her, as she was being relocated to an unknown place, that slowly felt more warm as she neared her destination. In her ears, she began to feel ticklish sensations, bouncing throughout her eardrums, as though flies swarmed in her, bumping around inside her flesh. Then her usually sharp senses went awfully quiet, as she fell fully into another ensuing sleep, within this fever dream of a distorted reality. A chunk of time flew by, slipping away from Victoria’s hands, as she dreamt of nothing during her unexpected blackout; her limp body having been likely carried to the social site she had seen in her waking moments of this new world.

Then, Victoria woke up. Her body could barely move, as it stung each time she attempted to position one of her limbs in a more comfortable position. She gently opened her eyelids, and was immediately blinded by the fluorescent lighting that shone lambently over her head, though it appeared warped and squashed. She had first believed that it was another hallucination from her recent exposure to the air of this plastered, fake universe, but she peered around her, turning her head slowly as to prevent aching, and realized that her head was encased within a glass helmet, as though she were an astronaut, speeding through a nauseating galaxy. It wasn’t far off from her situation right now, however, being stranded after taking a quick hibernation from the busy ways of school life, even if it had only been the first day inside of that concrete complex. Her hearing quickly perked up, once more, and she began listening to difficult to listen to conversations that had been happening throughout her observations of this place, from a safer area to be in.

“Hey, Pearl, you don’t think, she’s, uh, dead, do you?” said a stranger’s voice

“No, she isn’t dying, though she may need some parts amputated; she’s in a bit of a rough state, but this isn’t that virus, so there isn’t much to fear,” replied a voice who Victoria could only assume was coming from Pearl.

“That’s great, but doesn’t amputation, seem a bit, much?” asked the stranger once more. “I mean, she is losing quite a bit of blood from internal hemorrhaging, but we’ve salvaged worse without having to cut off a couple of limbs and digits.”

“She’s, uh, how do I put this exactly . . . uh, different,” decided Pearl, though she seemed rather unsure of her conclusion, even if Victoria felt like and believed she was indeed different, especially if the air of this world had managed to choke her out. “She’s very organic, even more than us, and that makes her more susceptible to the airborne diseases that those, freaks, sent to us,” stressed Pearl.

“Well, it's not like she has, it, you said it yourself, but I still think keeping her in one piece, and not chopping her up is the best course of action, currently,” stated the stranger, who’s head now hovered over her. She could see from her blurry memory, before her sudden collapse, that this was the bronze man who had come to her rescue, though she still didn’t know who this exactly was.

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“Fine, Dante, but if I had my way, maybe we could finally experiment on that new idea I had, turning the bio-weapon against us to them!” ecstatically spoke Pearl, which made Victoria frown, though the speed of her mouth curling was enough to send another pain signal towards her brain. I am not your lab rat. I don’t know where I am, but the only thing I hope is for this stupid nightmare to end now! Despite the outburst that she had experienced, the world did not bend down for her.

“Okay, but just don’t harm this innocent person, they didn’t want this, neither did we. Let’s just leave it at that,” reasoned Dante, and as metallic clankings sounded, they slowly dissipated, signaling that he had left the room. She heard more of Pearl’s muttering, though from the spherical glass her head was trapped within, Victoria couldn’t decipher her, especially with such a low volume, though from her tone and what she was emphasizing, Victoria felt like she was rather mad, possibly at Dante. Due to her rather sensitive circumstances, she could feel vibrations fairly easily, though twinges of pain arose each time she sensed these sudden tremors, and she began to feel them, as the ground felt like it was quivering each time something shook it. Suddenly, Pearl’s head looked through her glass headgear, and Victoria finally got a good look at the person who wanted to mutilate her for scientific gain and progress.

The light skinned woman that she saw staring back through her eyes was wearing something oddly peculiar for an apparent surgeon to wear; she was wearing a large, flowing, yellow dress that covered nearly every inch of her body, and her ears were adorned with milky pearl earrings. She wore a turban, though not a stereotypical one, but rather one with more eastern origins, made of fibrous cloth, sporting a pale beige and a striking, deep blue, which Victoria greatly admired for her fashion sense. An artist knows another. But then, Victoria looked closer, and started to draw connections with the rest of this strange location that she had been left in after the slumber on that train. The oils that permeated the soil, and the waxy air; the metallic man, and now a girl with a pearl earring, but wait, no, it is! It’s literally the girl with a pearl earring, oh my goodness! With that, Victoria recognized the world for what it was, but also knew at that point the nightmarishly horrifying scenario she had been in had transformed into something from her dreams, quite literally. It seems, however, Pearl had the opposite chain of thinking.

“DANTE!,” cried Pearl. “Come back right now, or I will have your pedestal removed! Our patient is awake and lucid, but I don’t think it’s for long! Look, and come here, now!” With that, Victoria’s eyes averted to her shoulders, the base where her neck should protrude from. But, a viscous, dark liquid was all she saw, creeping its way up her head like a diseased culture finding its way to an escape. She began hearing audible thumps, approaching the room, as more of the liquid gushed out from nowhere, filling her up with the warm, oozing liquid. She saw Pearl stare with a frightened expression, before the substance reached her lips, then her nostrils, and before it made its way to her ears, she passed out once more.

“Ahhhhh!” yelled Victoria, as the people who were mindlessly gazing into the depths of their screens turned to face the commotion. Victoria quickly noticed two things. For one, the movement of any part of her body no longer hurt as though it was a stitch unfolding. And for the second thing, she was back on the steel train. She looked at a digital sign embedded into the train’s ceiling, stating that Station 7 was up ahead; the station that Victoria needed to get off at, coming ahead in thirty minutes. Victoria then soon apologized quietly for her disruption, and headed for the train’s restroom, where she rapidly closed and locked the doors, to barricade herself in. She needed to process what had been happening those moments ago, and how vivid they were. They were so real. Dante, Pearl, those inky people on the train. Were they all figments of her imagination? As she was thinking, the train moved through the terrain and into the horizon beyond; a swirling mess of art.