Claire slammed her bedroom door shut and leaned against it, breathing heavily. *What just happened?* she thought. *Am I going crazy?*
She tried to rationalize what she had seen and heard. Maybe it was just her imagination, fueled by being alone in a new, creaky old house. Or perhaps she was more stressed about her job than she realized, and it was causing her to hallucinate.
But deep down, Claire knew what she had experienced was real. The portrait had moved. It had *spoken* to her.
As her racing heart began to slow, Claire's fear gave way to curiosity. She had always been drawn to mysteries and the unexplained. If there really was something supernatural happening here, she wanted to understand it.
Taking a deep breath, Claire opened her door and crept back downstairs. The portrait hung silently above the fireplace, the woman's eyes once again staring straight ahead. Claire approached it cautiously.
"Hello?" she whispered. "Is someone there?"
At first, nothing happened. Then, so faintly she almost missed it, came a reply:
"*Help me...*"
Claire gasped. This was real. Somehow, impossibly, the portrait was alive - and it needed her help.
"How?" Claire asked. "What can I do?"
The eyes in the portrait shifted to look directly at her once more.
"*Find the key...*" the whisper came. "*Set me free...*"
Support Flow | PixieBrix
Mini tools
