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The artist idly furled and unfurled the jet black appendages stitched to her underarms. While she had been in this infernal place for quite some time, Carmina was still unused to the tar-like substance that made up her new hands. While she was glad to once again have fingers and palms and a way of interacting with the world, she was not happy with the price card they came with. She did carry a lot of emotions within her, almost all of them bad in some sort of way: rage, grief, loss….and guilt. Most of the killers in this realm did, she had noticed. However, Carmina did not think this made her evil. She’d been dealt a hard hand in life with losing her mother, then her baby brother, clawing out a name for herself through her art only to eventually lose even that. Her hands…her tongue. The Entity had not given her a replacement for her tongue which, while she missed being able to have conversations, she wasn’t entirely sorry about. Imagining the slippery goop in her mouth made her shiver – and not in a good way.
The artist turned towards the many paint supplies that littered the floor and walls of the tower, her home, her Eyrie of Crows. Forced to share the space with the spectral birds that had both saved and doomed her in her previous life, the female killer had learnt to accept life with her feathered companions once more. At least they were some form of company, even if they were birds. If they were even that. Some of them were normal birds, whereas others…well…she wasn’t sure but she had heard some survivors whisper how they were spies for the Entity and she could definitely see that.
She sighed.
The survivors.
While Carmina wouldn’t deny some part of her rejoiced in being able to vent all her anger and grief on the hapless – and sometimes downright annoying – mortals that got sucked into Trials with her, she always felt guilty afterwards. None of them had asked to be here after all, Carmina included, and the terrifying screams and pained sobs often haunted her long after the end of a Trial. She didn’t know how some of the others did it. Oh, killers like The Shape and The Nightmare were just plain sadists, there was no denying that. They thrived in this environment. And endless cycle of killing and violence, what’s not to love? And The Demogorgon was just an animal really, following its instincts, Carmina couldn’t fault it for that though she did wish it would stop digging those huge interdimensional holes wherever it went. She had once spent most of her down time between two trials chasing the – surprisingly playful – beast through most of her Boneyard, shrieking at it while furiously closing one portal after the other. Luckily the Entity had seen fit to restore the sandy grounds back to their barren, non-hole littered glory when she had returned from a very successful trial, having vented her frustrations on the poor survivors once again, sacrificing three before allowing the last one to escape.
Shaking her head, The Artist turned her attention to a half-finished portrait of The Huntress. She was one of her few fellow killers that Carmina thought did not always enjoy being here, forced to do the entities bidding. Anna was certainly an extremely violent individual, shaped and moulded by the hunt, living for it even. And while the older female killer would often return soaked in blood from her trials, she seemed to have a soft spot for the female survivors, especially the younger ones. The Huntress also didn’t seem to mind Carmina studying her for her paintings, even once allowing The Artist into her own domain, the Red Forest, to allow her to sketch the beautiful trees and rainy atmosphere.
Carmina was, after all, still an artist and had been dying for any other environment that didn’t have sand, sand and more sand. She had been inspired to make several paintings and sketches, and had even gifted one to Anna, who had seemed delighted with the unexpected gift if the wide smile the woman had given her after removing her mask had been anything to go by. She had also excitedly yelled something, but Carmina didn’t understand Russian.
Still, it had been nice to be able to use her skills and talents even in this realm. The Entity, perhaps sensing that the pained and emotionally distressed young killer needed more than the thrill of the hunt and the dying screams of her victims, had gifted her with some supplies on her arrival: sketching materials and a few poetry books. This had tied her over, allowing her some form of outlet until, after a particularly brutal Trial where no one had survived (the memories of poor little Matias had been very strong back then), Carmina had discovered several blank canvases and pots of black ink.
Please The Entity, and you will be rewarded.
The Artist had remembered these softly whispered words from The Nurse when she had returned from her first Trial, confused and horrified at what this realm wanted her to do.
The new killer had looked at The Nurse – Sally – pleadingly, but could not make out any facial features underneath the pillow case that covered her head. The floating killer had patted her shoulder briefly and told her to “get some rest”, whatever that meant in this place. Carmina had then been transported to the domain she assumed was ‘hers’, the area the survivors called the Forsaken Boneyard and well, that was it. This was her life now. And while she was grateful she could practise her art, she missed being surrounded by like-minded individuals. She missed her fellow painters, her friends. She missed painting for days on end, caught in a manic phase of inspiration together with a few companions who were working equally feverishly on their own works. She missed reciting poetry in dingy bars while getting drunk on wine and spirits. While she had some kind of friendly report with a few of the other killers, they didn’t exactly visit each other often and even if they did, Carmina couldn’t even properly communicate with them. She could only express herself in her art and she had quickly realised none of the other killers were even remotely interested in her passion.
Oh, a select few might appreciate a nice work by her hand, but that was as far as it went.
Except for The Demogorgon who seemed to get some kind of gleeful enjoyment out of tearing up discarded sketches and canvasses. He had even made some kind of nest out of the shredded remains in a corner of her tower and Carmina sometimes returned from a Trial to find it snoring away curled up on bits and pieces of parchment, paper, canvas and feathers. It gave her some form of companionship, she supposed. It also helped he’d only once torn up a painting she had liked. Being swarmed by spectral crows was apparently as annoying and terrifying for a killer as it was for survivors. The Demogorgon had stuck to demolishing the works she threw on the floor since then.
Good boy.
Having just picked up her brush to try and finish the portrait, The Artist groaned when she felt the familiar distorting of the air around her.
Of course, another Trial.
Quickly throwing down the painting tool, the killer straightened her back and called her crows to flock around her. She would make this as quick and – not that the survivors would agree – painless as possible. She wanted to return to her art and her poetry books as fast as she could, even if she had to throw the final survivor through the Hatch herself.
Inspiration waited for no one and nothing, not even The Entity. Not if Carmina had anything to say about it.
So of course this Trial would be one that seemed to stretch out indefinitely.
After several pallets dropped on her head, survivors looping her endlessly around, and even four flashlight saves (FOUR), there were still only two generators repaired. The female killer didn’t know if the mortals were just toying with her or just plain bad at repairing today, but she kept hearing generators blow up and seeing survivors sprint away to every corner of the map.
Even her crows were getting tired of being sent off to torment survivors and had started to disappear sooner than normal, taking their refuge in the few dead trees that stood in the desert that made up her realm. After trying to coax her feathered companions down for a solid five minutes – praying that no survivor would see her begging her own damn birds to do her bidding – Carmina did something she hadn’t done since the first few Trials she had participated in.
She gave up.
Having only successfully sacrificed one survivor, The Artist decided she’d had enough. This was just not her Trial. She was tired and just wanted to go back to her tower and paint. So she did just that. Granted, it wasn’t like her Eyrie during her down time, but there were still some supplies and books littered around so she would just, hide in one of the many nooks and crannies with some paper and pencils and wait until the survivors finished repairing the generators and escaped. She wouldn’t get any new materials this time but if that was what it took to be done with this Trial, then so be it.
Nodding to herself, Carmina entered the Trial’s version of her tower and had started climbing the stairs when she noticed something.
A survivor had entered her tower. She could feel it.
Pondering what to do, the female killer decided to just wait until they had left. She only had enough of her powers to summon one Dire Crow, the rest of them still hanging around on the map for some god-forsaken reason, which wouldn’t be much help against a survivor hell-bent on escaping. Plucking some supplies from a crumbling desk, The Artist slowly made her way further upstairs, intent on just hiding away at the very top, when her eye fell on the intruder.
He was facing away from her, seemingly focussed on something on the wall, an opened chest next to him being the obvious reason for his presence. Except, he seemed to have forgotten the contents of said chest (another one of those annoying flashlights, Carmina noticed sourly) and was instead focussing all of his attention on one of the canvases that the female killer had painted. For some reason – probably to uphold some kind of aesthetic – The Entity displayed some of Carmina’s paintings in the Tower during the Trials. Usually her more haunting ones, probably to strike even more fear into the hearts of the survivors brave enough to search the enclosed space. The devil araña* even switched them up from time to time, swapping out older works for newer ones. Something this survivor had apparently noticed as Carmina could hear him muttering to himself as she slowly approached him from behind:
“This one’s new. Is that the Red Forest?!”
Intrigued, The Artist switched her sketching supplies to one hand as she silently formed a blade from the other, it never hurt to be prepared after all. Still, she was curious to the boy’s thoughts, so she tried to keep her presence hidden. How the boy managed to not hear the tell-tale heartbeat growing stronger and stronger was baffling to her, but maybe his hearing wasn’t all that good.
She’d imagine that the gunshots coming from that loud antiquity of a gun the Gunslinger insisted on toting around would do some damage to the eardrums.
“Bit of a morbid depiction of the Forest but still, love the shadow-play in this one. How do you even do that with only black. I don’t understand. Pretty though. Wonder where The Entity gets these from. Does The Entity paint?!!!!!”
Unable to hold back a snort of amusement, Carmina was a bit miffed that her presence had now been announced as she watched the young man in front of her whirl around in fright, letting out quite a high-pitched scream at the sight of her. Realising he was effectively stuck between the killer in front of him and the wall behind him, he quickly seemed to resign himself to his fate and sighed morosely.
“Guess this is what I get for admiring the scenery. Go on then. There’s nowhere for me to run, do your worst.”
While Carmina knew she had the survivor cornered, she still wasn’t feeling up to getting her head back into the game. She recognised him from the beginning of the trial as the first person she’d hooked, but also knew she hadn’t managed to hook him since then. So even if she did manage to get him to one of the giant meat skewers, he’d probably just be rescued and she just didn’t have it in her to do that today. So she did something that completely and utterly baffled the young man in front of her.
She took a few steps to the side, sat down on a rickety chair and put pencil to paper, fully intent on sketching until the Trial was over.
A whole minute passed with the female killer slowly drawing away on the pad of paper on her lap, the soft scratching of her pencil the only sound in the tower.
“Uhm…are you okay?”
Tapping the drawing utensil against the side of her chair in annoyance at being interrupted, Carmina looked up to seeing the survivor still awkwardly standing in the same spot, watching her with confusion and trepidation. She waved her free hand at him, causing him to shrink back in fear. Befuddled she looked at her hand, realising it was still in its blade form from before.
Oops.
She quickly reformed her hand, stretching her newly formed fingers before waving the appendage once again in the direction of the young man.
“Are you…shooing me away?!”
Carmina grinned and nodded. A discomforting sight for sure, before focussing her attention once again to her drawing. It was a rough sketch of The Demogorgon tearing up a painting. She smiled absentmindedly and had just started working on a clearer outline when a shadow fell over he, blocking the light.
Irritated, The Artist looked up to shoo away the crows that had probably perched down in front of the window, when she realised the survivor had gotten closer and was now peering over her shoulder in an effort to better see her sketch.
“Wait, I recognise that style, are you the one who’s been making all these sketches and paintings? They’re brilliant, if a tad morbid most of the time. But hey, I don’t blame you, this environment doesn’t really invoke a sunshine and rainbow atmosphere, of course you’d paint what you see. I knew it couldn’t have been The Entity! I mean, what would he even use to hold the brush or the pencil with? Oh, is that The Demogorgon?!”
Suddenly realising that the woman in front of him was still very much a killer and could still very much kill him, the survivor closed his mouth with an audible clack and quickly skittered backwards, back to his previous spot in front of the wall.
“I’m sorry! Don’t mind me! I ramble when I get nervous! And excited! And well, art makes me excited and well, you, as a killer, make me nervous so, double rambling! And I’m doing it again, shit!”
Now more amused than annoyed, Carmina put down her pencil and – in an unexpected move even to her – held out her sketching pad to the rambling survivor.
Who looked at it with confusion before hesitantly reaching out and taking it from her tar-coloured hand.
“Th-thanks, I’ll be careful, just a quick look…”
The killer studied the survivor as he thumbed through her sketches, eyes widening in wonder when he came across something he liked. Carmina has always had an eye for detail, and she used it to her advantage as her eyes properly scanned the face in front of her.
An unruly mop of short, spikey, black hair rested on top of a rather pale face framed with a thick pair of glasses. Leaning forward just a bit, The Artist tried to make out the colour of his eyes when the young man suddenly looked up, dark brown meeting pitch black.
Those eyes!
Blinking furiously, Carmina stood up and with two long steps was right in the survivor’s space who had backed into the wall, holding up the sketchpad in front of him like a shield. Looming over the young man, The Artist gently folded her long fingers around quivering cheeks, tilting up his chin in order to properly study the now panicked brown orbs.
They look just like Matias’!
Poor Matias, who had always loved seeing her paint and would be delighted when his big sister allowed him to play with some leftover art supplies.
Oh, how she missed him. How she missed his chubby little hands clutching her fingers when they had walked in the garden. How she missed his soft black hair that would always stand upright no matter how much she’d brushed it. How she missed his soft brown eyes, looking at her like she was the only important thing in his world.
Which she had been.
Even the glasses reminded her of her little brother, as the poor boy had needed them very early on in life, apparently having inherited their father’s near-sightedness.
Oh, how he’d hated those glasses. Held together by tape and crafting glue as he was always breaking them, clumsy little boy he had been.
Carmina was pulled from her reverie by the sound of a finished generator.
Oh yes, the Trial.
Focussing back on the survivor in front of her, she noticed his breath was coming out in short, panicked little pants as she was still holding his face. Those brown orbs darting around helplessly, sweeping across her face in scared confusion.
She really should just hook him and be done with it but… He just looked so much like her little brother. Not just in looks but also in his fascination with her art work.
The Artist slowly released the frightened young man in front of her and plucked her sketchbook from nerveless fingers. She then took a few steps back and to the side, sweeping her arm in the air as to say ‘there you go, you can leave now’.
Of course the survivor, who apparently had the survival instincts of a drunken fish, stayed where he was. Had Carmina still had pupils, she would have rolled her eyes. She picked up her pencil, ripped out the last page of her sketchbook and wrote: you can leave now, I won’t kill you.
“Why not?”
I’m not feeling like it today. I just want to paint. And you survivors have been particularly annoying today.
“Hey! It’s not our fault! The Entity suddenly decided to not give any auditory warnings anymore! Not when fixing generators, no heartbeat, nothing! No wonder we’re all on edge and constantly looking over our shoulders, you try fixing a generator in those conditions!”
Oh, well. That actually made sense. She had wondered why no one seemed to notice her when she tried sneaking up on them, a feat that was usually not very successful because of the heartbeat.
The Artist blinked and then shrugged. Not really her problem, not today at least. She told the survivor as much in her writing.
“So…you are the one who made all the paintings and sketches in here?”
Carmina nodded.
“They…they’re really good. I like them a lot, like I said before.”
Thank you. Do you paint?
“Oh, oh no! I don’t have any talent! I mean, I tried out some art classes when I was little but everyone said I had no talent so… Yeah not for me unfortunately, but hey I still enjoy consuming it!”. The survivor let out a small self-deprecating laugh as he scratched the back of his head.
What’s your name?
“uh my name? I’m Dwight, Dwight Fairfield. A-and you? I mean, you’re not actually called The Artist are you?”
My name is Carmina Mora. And while I am ‘an artist’ I would never presume to call myself ‘The’ Artist.
“Uh, well, nice to meet you Carmina-er Ms Mora.”
Carmina will do. Would you like to paint, Dwight?
At this, Dwight nearly choked on his own saliva.
“Wh-what?! I just told you, I can’t paint.”
Grinning at the suddenly flaming cheeks in front of her, Carmina tutted and softly whacked Mati-Dwight on the head with her sketchbook.
I didn’t ask if you can paint, I asked if you wanted to paint.
As she waited for an answer, the killer heard the ding of another generator being finished and while she knew their time was almost up, she didn’t want to rush the young man in front of her. Carmina was a firm believer that if someone liked doing something, they should be allowed to, not just because they had the talent to do so. The survivor in front of her was also the only living soul she had met in this realm who showed an interest in the visual arts and she wouldn’t – couldn’t – let him slip through her fingers. She longed for some kind of human contact and while he wasn’t her little brother he could have been, with his eyes and his hair and his adorable little stutter when nervous.
Lost in thought again, Carmina quickly tuned back into their strange conversation when she realised Dwight had hesitantly touched her shoulder to ask for her attention.
“I said I…I would like to learn, if, if you would maybe want to teach me, that is? You’d have to provide the supplies though, The Entity doesn’t really give us anything.”
I would gladly teach you. And don’t worry about the supplies. While I cannot promise a lot of colour, there’s a lot of fun to be had with simple black and white.
At this answer, a grin lit up Dwight’s face, making him seem years younger, the happy twinkle in his eyes so much like Matias that Carmina had to forcefully stop herself from hugging the boy.
When a while later the final generator had finally been prepared and the exit gates powered up to be opened, Dwight reluctantly ran to freedom, passing a surprised Jane and Adam who had been loitering around one of the gates. Tucked inside his shirt he had a pencil and a small sketchbook The Arti- no, Carmina had given him. Encouraging him to try and sketch something on his own for when they’d meet next time. She had promised that if they ran into each other during a Trial, they would find a quiet corner and practice sketching, working on painting whenever they would end up in the Forsaken Boneyard.
Giddy with a sense of childish delight Dwight thought he had lost during his teenage years, the survivor rushed out of the Trial, impatient to see if he could draw something that would maybe impress Carmina.
As the three remaining survivors escaped her Trial, The Artist closed her eyes as she felt The Entity push her back into her own realm. Opening them, the female killer saw she had been placed back in front of her work in progress regarding The huntress. And while she did want to finish her work, her oil-like fingers itched for her coloured paints, the few she had, to start a new portrait.
She’d definitely need to mix some browns so she could capture her young apprentice’s eyes exactly so.
araña*: spider
1: Anna shook her head as she watched her little one squeak in fear as she was once again clinging to a tree like a kitten. She opened her arms and tried to gently cajole Meg to jump down. She really needed to teach her how to get down from heights The Huntress mused as the girl, after much prodding, finally let go of the trunk and fell back into her arms.
End of day 2.