man walks in with a scowl on his face. "Get to your places," he says with so much condescension I nearly choke on it. "It's time to do art."
Declan frowns, and I'm trying to figure out why this feels like such a threat.
Dean stands slowly, shaking his head at the offer of help, and we each take easels near one another.
"What's going on?" I whisper to Declan.
"Just do what he says, and whatever you do, don't improvise."
“Improvise?” I ask, but the rest of my words are strangled as I take in the scene set before the group.
Up front, where a model or subject would normally sit, rivers of crimson blood pool around a body lying prone and motionless on the hard floor. A wound, deep and bloody, mars the victim’s chest, but that’s not what sends me reeling. It’s his face. The recognition—and the grief I feel at seeing him like this.
My paint brush slips from my fingers.
For a moment, I’m propelled by the need to intervene—to save him from his injuries. But in the next breath, I know it’s too late.
Some unexplainable part of me, intuition maybe, knows he’s too far gone.
Dr. Livingstone is dead—and we are meant to paint him.
Holy shit, what kind of art therapy is this? I wonder as my stomach churns with sick disgust.
Is art torture a thing? Because I think Le Rêve has figured out how to make it a thing. At this rate, I’ll never get out of here before completely losing my shit.
6
My arm aches with the effort of holding a brush for so long, and red, angry welts swell on my forearm from where I’ve been struck with a ruler when I dared stop painting.
With shaky strokes, I do my best to illustrate an accurate depiction of the scene we’ve been assigned to paint. A difficult endeavor considering the tears that blur my vision as they stream in silent tracks down my cheeks.
I have no idea how long I work on my painting. Shock and horror swirl inside me until I’m numb from the reality of what I’m looking at. My stomach cramps in hunger while simultaneously churning at the sight before me.
And faced with the brutal murder scene I’m being forced to paint, who can blame me?
Nearby, Dean is slumped over his easel, using it for support as he works to complete our assignment. I wonder if he’s as disgusted as I am. Declan hasn’t reacted, but I suspect he’s had practice hiding his true emotions; something I’ve never been good at.
Twice, I’ve let my hand brush Dean’s and tried sending him the same healing energy I gifted to Declan earlier. But either I’ve lost my touch, or my own hunger and weakness have zapped my reserves. From the looks of it, the entire group is hanging on by a thin thread.
Angus looks ready to keel over, and the fingerless woman has a glazed look in her eye that makes me wonder if she’s truly aware of what’s happening as she swipes her brush over the canvas. Even the girl has gone pale at the sight of our “still life.”
But I’m the only one who tried to stop. Who tried to help. And who was struck repeatedly for it.
Maybe the rest have already learned what I’m coming to understand.
When you don’t obey, you pay.
No one will look directly at the gory scene before us. Not for longer than necessary. Not that we need to study it too intently; it’s only a matter of slashing red paint over the outline of a dead body.
Our teacher, a man who never introduced himself by name and insists we simply call him ‘Sir’, paces along the perimeter of our little class holding a metal ruler like the weapon it is. His crinkled brow and set jaw suggest he’s assessing us for some kind of pass or fail. I don’t even want to think about what will happen if we don’t measure up.
Maybe we’ll meet the same fate as the doctor lying in a pool of his own blood while the rest of us look on in an attempt to memorialize his murder through art.
It’s disgusting.
And I’m more upset than I should be that I’ll never talk with him again.
He was only my therapist, and even that was a short-lived connection. But I can’t help the sense of loss that hollows out the center of my chest as I attempt to paint his lifeless form.
A lump grows in my throat, and more tears leak from