Chapter 4: The Disappearance of Time
Ethan barely noticed the days slipping by anymore. He hadn’t left the studio in what felt like weeks, the outside world a distant, irrelevant memory.
The sunlight no longer reached him, replaced by the faint, cold glow of the dim lamp beside his easel. The air was stale, heavy with the smell of oil paint and something else—something that clung to the room, something that made his skin crawl.
He would occasionally glance at the clock, but the hours seemed to lose meaning. Time no longer moved in a linear fashion. One moment it was midday, and the next, the sun had disappeared, and darkness filled the room with a suffocating weight. He would sit for hours, staring at the canvas, unable to look away, as if the painting had become a mirror into another world—one that was swallowing his own.
At night, the whispers grew louder, more distinct. It started as a soft murmur, a voice that seemed to be coming from the painting itself. "Finish it. Finish what you’ve started."
Ethan’s hands trembled as he reached for his brush once more. He had to finish it.
He wasn’t sure why, but every fiber of his being screamed that this was the only way to make sense of it all.
As his brush touched the canvas, he felt a shiver of anticipation—a connection between him and the woman in the painting, as though she were reaching out to him, pulling him in.
But something else was happening now. As he worked, the walls around him seemed to shift. His studio had begun to change. The room, once familiar, had become unfamiliar.
The floorboards creaked in unnatural patterns, as if someone—or something—was walking beneath them.
The shadows in the corners of the room stretched and writhed, inching closer to him with every stroke.
In his mind, he began to see flashes of people—his family, his friends, faces he hadn’t seen in years, all distorted and contorted, as though they were trapped within the canvas.
He could hear their voices calling out to him, desperate and pleading. But when he looked up, they were gone, replaced by the still, silent figure in the painting.
The woman’s smile was wider now, impossibly wide. Her eyes were no longer calm, no longer watching.
They were hungry. Her lips trembled with anticipation, and Ethan could feel the weight of her gaze pressing against his chest.
Then, one night, as he worked feverishly to finish the last detail, he looked up—only to find the woman staring back at him, no longer on the canvas.
She was standing in the corner of the room, her eyes wide with an emotion he couldn’t quite place.
He blinked. She was gone.
But the room... the room had changed. The walls were now damp, the air thick with a rancid smell. The shadows were alive, creeping toward him, closing in. And the whispers... they had turned into words.
"Finish it. Or she will finish you."
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Chapter 5: The Return of the Artist
Ethan had long since stopped trying to leave the studio. He had abandoned the outside world, and now, it felt as though the studio had become his entire existence.
He lived and breathed the painting, its presence consuming every waking moment.
But one morning—if it could even be called morning—there was a knock at the door. Ethan had long forgotten what it was like to hear anything from the outside.
He had cut off contact with everyone. But the knock, persistent and harsh, broke through his stupor.
Reluctantly, he dragged himself to the door. When he opened it, standing on the threshold was a man he hadn’t seen in years.
The man was tall, with sharp features, and a face that seemed both familiar and foreign at the same time. His eyes were dark and intense, his expression grim.
“I’m Gabriel Winters,” the man said, his voice low and raspy. "You’re the one who bought it."
"The painting?" Ethan asked, his voice hoarse.
Gabriel nodded. "I’m the one who painted it."
Ethan felt his stomach churn. “You... painted that?”
The man’s eyes flickered to the canvas in the corner of the room.
"Yes. I was the one who trapped it there. And I was the one who made the deal."
He stepped inside without waiting for an invitation, his gaze fixed on the painting as if it were calling to him, too.
"You didn’t have to take it," Gabriel continued, his tone quieter now. "But I’m afraid it’s too late now."
Ethan swallowed. "What do you mean?"
Gabriel turned to face him, his face a mask of sorrow.
"The painting isn’t just a painting. It’s a prison. A portal. And it was never meant to be completed. Not by you, not by anyone. But you’ve gone too far, haven’t you?"
Ethan tried to speak, but no words came. His throat felt tight, constricted, as though the painting itself was choking him. Gabriel saw the panic in his eyes and nodded.
"You’ve been painting yourself into it, haven’t you? Slowly. Piece by piece. Each stroke, each detail—it’s pulling you in. And now it’s too late. There’s no going back."
Gabriel’s voice grew harder. "You don’t understand. I made a pact, a deal with something ancient. And now you’ve entered it. The painting has a power that’s beyond us both. And I... I’ve come to stop it before it claims another soul."
Chapter 6: The Fractured Canvas
The next few days were a blur of half-conversations and frantic actions. Gabriel tried to convince Ethan to leave, to run as far away as possible. But Ethan couldn’t bring himself to go.
The painting was too much a part of him now. It was as though his own soul had been bound to the canvas, intertwined with the woman’s twisted gaze.
Gabriel explained how the painting came to be. He had been a young, ambitious artist—obsessed with the idea of creating something so beautiful, so perfect, that it would transcend the boundaries of art itself.
But in his pursuit of that goal, he had made a terrible mistake. He had sought out a dark, ancient force—a being that lived in the cracks between worlds, in the space between dreams and nightmares.
And in his arrogance, he had bound the creature’s essence to the canvas, creating a painting that was both a masterpiece and a prison.
But the creature’s hunger had never been satisfied. It fed on those who gazed upon it, drawing them into the canvas with every stroke of the brush.
Gabriel had spent years trying to free himself, but the more he tried, the stronger the painting became.
He had hoped Ethan would be the one to break the cycle, but now he realized it was too late.
"You have to destroy it," Gabriel said, his voice desperate. "If you don’t, you’ll be trapped forever, and it will consume you just like it consumed me."
Ethan’s mind was a storm of confusion and fear. He wanted to believe Gabriel, wanted to believe there was a way out. But each time he looked at the painting, he felt a pull—a magnetic force that made him want to finish it, to bring it to its terrifying conclusion.
Chapter 7: The Last Stroke
The studio was filled with an oppressive silence, the kind that presses down on your chest and makes it hard to breathe. Ethan stood before the canvas, trembling, his hand clutching the brush.
Gabriel was behind him, urging him to stop. But Ethan could feel the pull of the painting, the woman’s eyes locking onto his, urging him to finish it.
Every fiber of his being screamed for him to step back, to run, to throw the brush down and leave the room.
But his fingers moved of their own accord, dipping the brush into the paint. He knew that if he didn’t finish it, something worse would happen.
The painting would consume him, devour him whole, like it had consumed Gabriel.
He took one last breath and made the final stroke.
The woman’s smile widened impossibly, and the shadows around her seemed to explode outward, wrapping around Ethan, pulling him into the canvas.
He cried out, but the sound was lost in the chaos. The room spun, and he felt himself being dragged, torn away from reality.