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rndavus · 3 years

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The Collector

TW/CW: mentions of We*pons, bl*od, d***h, vi*lence

I purchased a painting from the merchant's stall at the back of an abandoned alleyway, it looked wonderful. It really did. The gorgeous face of a middle-aged woman played with my lonely heart with a devilish smile, making my breathing uncontrollable.

I was in the habit of collecting paintings, mostly portraits of beautiful young women. One might have called me a connoisseur of the beauties of the visual arts. As I walked with the bag I was keeping the canvas in, it seemed to become heavier with every step. I tried to protect it from all the Victorian dangers that could've damaged the painting. By the time I had reached the doorstep of my house, my arms ached as the weight of the bag began to make me understand how Atlas must've felt holding Earth in his arms.

I entered my house, a familiar smell coming to me as I walked past the threshold. Everything I had grown accustomed to and took a chair on which I placed the bagged painting. After I removed the cloth, exposing the naked, revealed canvas for my delighted gaze. Oh, how beautiful she still was, although her smile had gone astray. I could see no more glee on her face. Instead, she looked at me with widened eyes. Her lips slightly parted, exposing her front teeth in the candle light that lit up the room. She slumped to the side a little.

"How could it have changed?"

The painting also looked worn to me, as if decay had somehow gotten to it in that small amount of time. As I bought it before, the canvas looked new. That is what attracted me to it so much, what urged me to buy this work of magnificent art. The painting appeared as if it had just been created. As I looked at the painting then, it was scratched up, old, and almost ready to be thrown away. There were cuts in canvas everywhere and the paint had scratches, deep enough to have taken parts of the paint away. I analyzed it for hours, my mind was unable to process the strange sight that I observed.

I got up and walked away from the painting to get a whiskey. Perhaps that would straighten out the confusion so heavily set on me. I took a few sips from the bottle of whiskey that had stood on the counter since the last couple of days and turned around to take another glance at the portrait.

"By God!"

I gazed at it as I noticed it seemed like the frame had been broken. When I bought it, there had been no damage to it, nor as I brought it in. It was in pristine condition. To see damage to my new canvas saddened me. It used to be such a beautiful painting, and presently, the painting appeared more decrepit with my every glance .

To prevent any further damage, I decided to watch it more closely. I grabbed a chair from the table in the small dinner area, shoved it to the opposite side of the painting, and stared at the painting, refusing to take my eyes from it. For hours, I kept a close watch on it, not allowing this mystery to unfold any more and my painting to become more damaged than it already was. But staring can be more tiresome than one would think. After a long passage of time, in which I denied my eyes the rest they needed; that they demanded, they forced themselves to close.

Hours went by with me sleeping in that chair, guarded by the painting across me. As I awoke, my shock was immense. The painting had lost all its color. There stood a gray painting in front of me. No more were the colors vibrant. But the colors were not the worst of it. Those eyes - the eyes that were vibrant when I observed the painting before, were dull. The color had disappeared from them. They looked horrifying. What beauty had once lied in them was a long-gone fantasy. It broke my heart to see the eyes staring back at me with such a vacancy.

Why the painting was acting in such a manner, I don't know. Perhaps it was the paint that was of an inferior quality, perhaps it was bad luck, but the radiant image was fading with such speed that I couldn't keep up with it. I thought about staring at it again , but my mind quickly told me that in the long run, this would be futile, as I would grow tired yet again, and my consciousness would eventually extinguish. I stood up, walked back to the bottle, and then heard it. A short groan, as of someone waking up and gasping for air. It was impossible though, since I was alone in the house.

I tell you, I am not insane, nor do I have the tendency to hear things that weren't there. But as I stood by the counter and reached for another bottle of whiskey after having finished the last one, I heard another groan come from behind me, close to the painting, but not from it.

My heart raced within my chest as I jolted around and freaked out. The bottle of whiskey dropped as I turned, my hand shoving it off the counter and hit the ground. For a moment, I stayed still, expecting to hear the sound again. But alas, my silence was answered by more silence. My eyes darted to each corner of the room, scanning whether I could, before hearing the sound again, see the origin of the sound that was chilling me. Yet again, I was met with failure.

With my heart still racing, I bent over to pick up the bottle off the floor. My ears kept listening to my surroundings as I cleaned the floor, expecting to hear that dreadful sound again. The more I listened, the more it seemed like all sound was starting to be sucked from the room. I walked to the window and opened it. I hoped to hear horseshoes prancing and the wheels of carriages rolling on the stone roads, birds chirping, people talking, or even the leaves from the trees being rustled by the summer wind. Instead, I heard the groan again, now coming from right behind me, almost at the place where I stood.

My head turned to the source of the sound. It was now close enough for me to locate where the sound came from. It came from the floorboards. It was in the room, there was no doubt. I was sure that it came from under the floor now. I know I am not insane, and I know that I heard it from there. You might say that a groan could never come from the floor. Where else would it come from? My eyes glanced over at the painting once more, and the sight I beheld terrified me. The woman in the painting looked at me with those gray eyes. Perhaps even through my soul. Her lips curled into a small grin as she gazed at me.

A loud gasp escaped me with an impressive echo which overwhelmed the otherwise silent room. I observed the room, fear taking over my mind. My head felt dizzy, and my stomach felt as if it was about to spill all the contents of the day to the ground. My breathing became loud and heavy. What was going on? Why had this simple painting brought this insanity into my home?

"My God!" My lungs inflated in synchrony with the words, "Why have I deserved this? Why have you brought this misery to me? What sins have I committed to deserve such punishment upon my mortal soul?"

I received no response from the God that I had once adored. I still stood in the room, alone, pestered by the loud groan. I turned around and dropped to my knees. I began desperately looking through all the cracks of the floor, searching whether I could see through them and, perhaps, discover the source of the horrible sound.

Then I heard another groan. This one came from a different place. It sounded different and was more guttural. It was somewhat louder than the others.I quickly ran to the kitchen and took the first knife that I could find. I held it tightly in my hand as I walked around the room and scanned every inch of it, trying to determine from where the new torturous sound came.

As time went by, it started to seem as if the room filled with the vile groaning. It filled my ears until I could no longer hear anything else, nor think about anything else. I had to stop it before it would have cost me my entire sanity. Wherever I looked, it appeared to become the one source of the ear-shattering noise. In the insanity that was beginning to conquer my mind, I could suddenly distinctly hear the source of another groan. It was the closet - the damned closet. I marched towards it and opened it, the uncontrollable force of my anger pulling the closet door nearly out of its hinges.

There she was: another painting. The painting of a young girl which I had brought only a few days ago. How beautiful she looked! Yet, she had begun boring me all those days ago. That was an issue I had since my early years. I would get something new, and within a short amount of time, I'd become bored with it and needed to get rid of it, as it would become a bothersome thing for my eyes. For that reason, I had placed the painting within the closet so my eyes wouldn't have to look upon it. The gaze of the girl in the painting looked directly into mine. I saw the mouth move, and before a groan could come out, I smashed the knife into the canvas, ripping through it.

Suddenly, a loud knocking on my door disrupted the salvation I delivered myself. I jerked the knife back and forth while I watched the door. I looked at the knife, and saw that my hands were covered in a scarlet liquid, sticky substance. My mind could only grasp this to be paint. I looked at it with raised eyebrows and smirked at the prospect of having stopped at least part of that terrible sound. My enjoyment was short-lived as the knocking at my door became louder. almost louder than the groans were. I began walking to the door, marching over the floorboards and through the deafening noise. I pulled the door open, and in my anger I stabbed the knife into whoever stood outside, adding to the noise that was already enraging me.

My eyes grew wider as I saw a police officer standing before me. The large fellow looked at me in shock. As I looked over at my hand, I realised I had stabbed his colleague in the stomach. He sat on his knees, as life slowly left his body. His pained gaze darted at me as the sounds of his teeth grinding tightly together ground against my mind.

That brings us to today. I am now sitting in a cell. It is tiny, but I will soon be out of her and be guided to the gallows. They tell me that I murdered many women... That my house was filled with victims... That the stench of the dead women could be smelled everywhere in my house... Their words confuse me. I couldn't even hurt a fly. Yet they keep telling me that I'm a killer?! They said that I had abducted a woman that day, strangled her, and placed her dead body upon a chair in my house. They also said there were corpses of women in the closet and under the floorboards. I now sit in my cell confused, able to only conjure the sight of the many paintings that I had bought.

I am sure that no women, dead or alive, were in my house. I can swear to that, as God is my witness. I was alone in that house as the police arrested me. I merely collected paintings. That was all which was present in my house. Now they are calling me "insane", but as I have stated before: I am not insane. Of that fact I am sure. Never have I felt insane, nor have I felt any urge to put harm upon anyone. I merely enjoyed collecting my paintings. The only insanity that may have pierced through my sanity is how I became bored with the paintings after a while, and kept putting them away in various places around my house.

But it doesn't matter. I have already been declared insane, and thus, my words aren't believed by anyone. No matter how much I speak, the gallows shall be my final destination. That is a fact of which I am sure.

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