Chapter 13 - Memory world(1)
The world was wrong.
Too small. Too fragile.
Lumian stared at his hands—tiny, bruised, trembling. They weren't his hands. His legs were short, his breath shallow, his heart racing too fast for a grown man. The air smelled of dust, medicine, and blood, pressing into his lungs with every inhale.
The floor beneath him was cold wood, splintering against his bare feet. He staggered upright, unsteady, like a marionette pulled on strings too thin to hold him.
The room was dim, lit only by a crooked lamp that buzzed faintly. Shadows stretched unnaturally long, clinging to the walls like stains that would never wash away. The wallpaper peeled like rotting skin. Faded canvases were tacked to the walls—paintings of faces with hollow eyes, bodies contorted into impossible shapes, screaming mouths captured mid-howl.
And then he saw her.
A woman crawled across the floor, nails dragging against the wood with a sickening scrape. Her dress was torn, her knees bloodied. Her face—though blurred by tears and shadow—was agonizingly familiar. The shape of her jaw. The long strands of black hair matted against her cheeks. She looked like the headless woman he had returned the boy to… only here, her head was still attached.
Her voice trembled as she reached out with broken hands.
"Son… stay there. Don't move. Mama will come. Mama will… save you."
Lumian's breath hitched. Son?
His lips parted, but no sound came. His throat was small, weak. His body wasn't his own.
A bitter chill crawled down his spine.
Am I… the boy?
The woman dragged herself closer, blood smearing behind her. She tried to stand, but her legs buckled, crashing to the floor again. Still, she smiled at him through the tears.
"You're brave… so brave… Don't cry, my darling. God will punish the monster. I promise."
Lumian's chest clenched. He wanted to say something—anything—but his body refused. Only the trembling of a child's lips escaped him.
Warm tears spilled down his cheeks, but he knew—they weren't his. They were the boy's. Grief, fear, confusion poured out of him in rivers he couldn't dam.
His trembling hand brushed against his pocket. A toy phone—plastic, scratched, the paint peeling off—sat there. The boy had kept it close, clutching it like a lifeline. Lumian felt the desperate attachment to that small object, as though it were the only safe thing left in this house of nightmares.
The woman reached him. She pulled him close with shaking arms, kissing his forehead. Her embrace was weak, but warm. For a moment—just a flicker—Lumian felt something he hadn't expected. Safety. Love. A tenderness so raw it made his heart ache.
He thought of the headless woman, her bloodied form wandering aimlessly. How could this gentle mother become that… thing?
He looked around. The room wasn't a home. It was a cage. Crude paintings, smeared in colors too thick, too dark—some of them smelled of iron. Others looked wet. His stomach turned. They weren't just paint.
Blood.
The air was suffocating, pressing down on him with invisible hands.
And then—
The door groaned.
A figure stepped inside. His boots slammed against the wood with deliberate weight. On his hands, smeared like gloves, was a mixture of paint and blood. His smile was faint but sharp, curling like a blade.
The woman froze. She shivered violently, hugging Lumian tighter, shielding him with her battered body.
Carl.
He filled the room with his presence, tall and jagged like a broken pillar. His eyes were wild—too bright, too focused. His grin widened when it landed on Lumian, though his attention lingered first on the woman.
The mother begged in a trembling voice. "Please… please, not him. Not my son. Take me, but not him."
Carl tilted his head, amused. He grabbed a fistful of her hair, twisting it into a knot, and yanked. The sound of roots tearing from scalp split the air as she screamed. He dragged her across the floor, her fingernails clawing splinters into the boards, leaving behind streaks of blood.
Lumian collapsed to his knees. His small body shook, his vision blurred with tears. Not his tears—the boy's. Sadness so raw it hollowed his chest consumed him.
Carl turned his head, gaze snapping to the boy. To Lumian.
His smile was carved into stone.
"Son… come here. Daddy will show you a good art."
Lumian screamed inside, clawing at his own mind. No. Don't go. Don't move. This is memory—this already happened..No Don't walk into his hands again..damn it
But the boy's body didn't listen. It moved on its own, trembling feet dragging toward Carl.
Carl's tone dropped, sharp and cold as steel.
"Come. I'll say it only once."
The command cracked like a whip through the boy's bones. His legs obeyed without question.
He walked. Slowly. Steps echoing too loud in the suffocating silence. His mother's muffled sobs trailed behind him as Carl dragged her along.
The hall reeked of rot and turpentine. The walls were lined with half-finished canvases—faces without eyes, torsos twisted into wrong angles, children with their mouths sewn shut. Each painting seemed to watch, heads tilting, eyes invisible but present.
Carl pushed the door open to another room.
And Lumian saw it.
The workshop.
The long table gleamed with metal tools—knives, saws, scalpels, pincers—each one polished, each one stained. Jars lined the shelves, filled with cloudy liquid and floating things that looked almost human. Some were fingers. Some were eyes. One jar held something small, delicate—a child's hand, curled like it was still reaching.
The smell was unbearable. Chemical sweetness mixed with rot. Oil paints, turpentine, and blood fused into one suffocating stench.
On the walls hung canvases. Unlike those in the hallway, these were fresh. Wet paint glistened under the lamplight, but the colors weren't pigments. They were shades of red, brown, and yellow that no brush should ever use. They oozed. They smelled of iron.
One painting showed a screaming face stretched wide as if flayed. Another was nothing but eyes—dozens of them—painted with such precision they seemed to blink. A third was incomplete: the outline of a body, torso half-finished, but the "paint" still dripping down the canvas in sticky rivulets.
And then Lumian saw the cage.
In the corner, half-hidden in shadow, a figure knelt. Naked. His ribs jutted out from paper-thin skin. His body was carved in wounds, some fresh and bleeding, others blackened, rotting. A gag of filthy cloth was shoved deep into his mouth. A blindfold covered his eyes, but blood had seeped through both sides, trailing down his cheeks and drying into thick crusts. His hands twitched weakly, shaking chains that clinked against the bars.
The boy's breath hitched. Lumian felt his heart twist until it nearly tore.
Carl walked over to the cage, crouched, and tapped the iron bars with his bloody fingers. "Do you see, son? This… this is true art. Not paint. Not canvas. Flesh. Pain. Suffering—that is the purest color in the world."
He turned, smiling too wide, teeth glinting in the dim light. "Every masterpiece needs sacrifice. Even family. Especially family."
Lumian wanted to vomit, to scream, to rip Carl apart—but he was trapped in the boy's body, forced to watch through innocent eyes that didn't understand cruelty.
The boy's lips trembled. His body shook. Yet inside, Lumian's soul howled. He knew.
The broken figure in the cage…
It was Simon.
Carl's brother