It had been a little under a month since she had broken things off with that X-man and left. A little under a month since that picture had ended up on her desk. A little under a month since.... Shelby wasn't taking it very well at all. She had hopped from one safe space to the next until the people working on her case had managed to find her a new place to live. For the first time in years, she was alone again. Her bed seemed too big. The house was too quiet. She spent her days listening to the news drone on in the background while the city outside erupted in chaos. Something about a rift... some kinda alternate dimension. All she had been able to think about was that stupid conversation she had had with saph ages ago, when he told her that such a power didn't exist.  "Told ya so, ya stupid lumox." She muttered to herself, before reaching for the remote and clicking off the TV.

"..... Nowhere, Shelby.... "

Slowly, as if she were in a great deal of pain, she pushed herself up from the couch. In truth, she just didn't have an ounce of energy left in her. Like something was sucking it all away 24/7, and she had no choice in the matter. She shuffled herself to her room, leaving every light on in the house as she passed. She had quickly discovered that it was the only way she would ever get any sleep. 

"....You will never be safe.... "

She paused just a moment, turning to look behind her down the hallway. One beat passed... then another. Finally, she was satisfied with the emptiness. The lack of a Tack  Tack Tack of inhuman feet following her across the tiles.

".....I will kill everyone you love....."

She paused again inside he bedroom, at the only window. Outside, even though the light rain, she could see the shape of her security guards car. They stayed there all night until someone else came to take over. She used to only need one, but... well that changed after the incident.

"....I'm going to unpeel you... Not unlike an onion... I will strip your layers away, piece by piece..."

Drawing her curtains, she turned and shuffled herself into the cold bed. Once again she was reminded of just how alone she was... one more person from her life ripped away from her forever. Like usual, tears built behind her lashes until they broke free, and she pushed her face into her pillow and clenched her hands over her ears. When would it end?

"......I am going to break you SHELBY!"

When would she finally be free?

"YOU'LL NOT MAKE A FOOL OF ME AGAIN, HUMAN!"

Never.

Freedom, after all, was a broken concept. Finding release from one bond often lead to the quick realization of another. For example, she was not currently trapped in the back of a dark semi truck, camera in hand, but even so, had she ever truly escaped the pervading feeling that she was being watched since then?

"..... Nowhere, Shelby.... "

Did she ever truly think that she was alone?

"....You will never be safe.... "

She never would be.

".....I will kill everyone you love....."

He would always remind her, be it through the slight glimpse of a small black spot scurrying out of view, or that nagging feeling that if you just looked up... He might be there, staring down at you.

"....I'm going to unpeel you... Not unlike an onion... I will strip your layers away, piece by piece..."

Smiling.

"......I am going to break you SHELBY!"

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK

A tense drumming at the door would silence the ever closing presence she might be inclined to feel. The air, thick as cane molasses, would suddenly clear as a voice carried through the front door. It was dark. When had that happened.

"Mrs. Walters. It's officer cruise. Are you okay in there?"

There was another knock as a flashlight shone into the window. It was storming now. When had that started?

"The storm blew the transformer outside, I'm coming in to make sure you're okay!"

It didn't feel like she ha really slept at all when she was awoken. She as disoriented, sluggish... felt like she was in a daze. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. It took a few seconds for her to realize the lights were off. Fear sprung up, gently coaxing her into a more alert state.

What had happened?

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

The artist froze, breath dead in her lungs as the sound reached her bedroom. Who was it? Where was her security detail? She heard someone talking, and the voice caused her to finally push herself out from the safety of her covers. It sounded like Officer Cruise. He had been working on her case for a while now, so she was familiar with him.

As she stepped out into the hall, an odd sense of deja vu settled over her, as well as an urgent forboding. Had this happened before? It felt like it had. The darkness of the walls pressing in around her. Her breath held in silent anticipation as she hovered before the front door, hand outstretched with her fingers just barely touching the locked doorknob.

An acute sense of danger sent tingles up her arms and down her spine... and yet it felt she was compelled to open that door. Even though somewhere in the back of her mind something was screaming stop! don't!... That she and gone through these motions before, and that if she didn't try to change something terrible consequences were to be had.

The locked clicked loudly in the silent room, with just the whooshing of wind and patter of heavy raindrops somewhere in the background. The door swung inward toward her, lightning flashed in the sky, illuminating a figure. Shebly vaguely registered the shape, as the shadows suddenly seemed to grow bigger and darker around her.

"... Officer Cruise?"

Was that her voice? It seemed distant... weak. Maybe it was due to the sleeping pills she had taken before bed. Her therapist had prescribed them to her months ago... but she had only just started to use them.

... She had remembered to take them, right?

"...Why are the walls reaching for me?" Her legs felt wobbly and weak. She felt like she was melting into the ground.

"Who... gets... the gun?"

The voice echoed in the back of her mind as she approached the door. Maybe it was the pills, but did the silhouette of the officer in the window by the door look a little strange? Familiar?

Was that the slightest bit of laughter she heard as the the lock was released?

CRACK-WHOOSH! With a monstrous sound the door crashed open, encouraged by the wind and a harsh shove. The dark figure there was wearing a police officer's hat, but otherwise didn't resemble Mr. Cruise one bit. Wordlessly it jolted forward with speed impossible, and force presence overwhelming, quickly becoming a wave of darkness enveloping her as she melted into the floor.

---

She would awaken secured firmly to a chair, in a small, dark room, only illuminated by a single flashlight on a countertop, aiming across what looked to be a grungy 70's motif kitchen at a figure fiddling with something at the sink. Was that a humming sound?

"Hummm hummm, ladatida, hummmm hummm hummmm, oh?" He was looking at her. If she tried to speak she would find that her mouth was firmly gagged. To her left there would be two other figures in chairs much like her own, their faces covered. One female, in a business like attire, one male wearing shorts and sandals.

"We're awake, are we? Shelby, let me tell you, I am so glad to finally see you again. It's been... Oh, it's been a simply dreadful year for me. It made me wonder, what could I possibly do to turn it around? How could I... Put some spring... Back in my step?" He danced around as he spoke, spinning to reveal a small revolver in his chest hands.

"And then I noticed you'd left the mansion. Thank you for that, me dear! It's really is so very hard to crack the shell of that place!"

He danced on over to her, and leaned in, the smell of death apparent in his breath. "I have been so patient, Shelby. So, so good. I went to great lengths to grab our friends, here, and didn't even eat a single part of them! With no futher ado. I shall introduce the game for the night!"

He gently pulled the gag from her mouth, and spun off, dancing over to pull the bags from the heads of the other two hostages.

Her parents.

"We're going to have so much fun!"

It felt like she had been swallowed by darkness... It was both cold and almost too warm at the same time. 

What felt like ages passed. Her screams were silent. Had she no voice? Was she dreaming? 

Then, her eyes cracked open slowly and she became aware of other things around her. The dark received slightly... she saw her knees first, bare. She was still in her Pj's. Then she noticed the cold of a wooden chair under her. Stiff. Her head lolled back, and then to the side. She felt like she groaned, but it came out funny. Muffled.

.... Why was something in her mouth?

With a start, she became slightly more alert. She wasn't alone. Two other people near her. Someone was humming... Her head felt like it was full of cotton. Had she been drugged?

"..Mmf." 

"We're awake, are we? Shelby, let me tell you, I am so glad to finally see you again. It's been... Oh, it's been a simply dreadful year for me. It made me wonder, what could I possibly do to turn it around? How could I... Put some spring... Back in my step?"

She screwed her eyes shut. He was talking too fast. Only half of what he was saying was getting through. She opened her eye again a moment later, trying to focus. Sweat was beading down the side of her face. It was too warm. Hadn't this happened before?

"I have been so patient, Shelby. So, so good. I went to great lengths to grab our friends, here, and didn't even eat a single part of them! With no further ado. I shall introduce the game for the night!"

Panic, slowly and steadily, was creeping up through the cotton. Her chest was tightening. It was hard to breathe. The large bug removed the stuff from her mouth, but she could only groan slightly. Her head felt too heavy to hold up. The floor was breathing.

Nonononono.....

She felt like she could hear screaming behind the quiet. Sobbing.... pleading. 

She managed to look to her left, and her eyes watered. There her mother sat. Only, she wasn't terrified and crying. She was glowing with intense golden light. Her red lips were twisted up in a radiant smile. Her eyes twinkled.

The artist blinked, and the vision was gone. Her mother was disheveled... hair pulled out of its perfect bun. Makeup smeared, mascara tracks racing down her cheeks. 

Her father was there also. He was terrified but trying to keep it together. A gag still fixed in his mouth, no doubt because he would are shouted an hollered until needing to be silenced. 

It was the last time she would ever remember seeing them together. She missed it suddenly... terribly.

"Please..." Her voice was weak. Whatever was in her, coursing through her body to make everything feel slow and muted, she couldn't fight it. She let her tears fall. Let the broken desperation seep into her words. She didn't have the energy to fight him again. 

"... Please l-let them go."

"But you know I don't let them go, Shelby. You know how this ends."

The scene was frozen in place. The giant bug stuck in a mid twirling pose, his shell-like back turned to her, his head leaning back at an unnatural angle to view her, and speak.

"It's magical, the things you see in your head. You're like me... Inspired. An artist..." His head cracked back into place, and everything started moving again.

"Shelby, dearest, you know I cannot! How could I stop now and still stoke that wonderful flame in you?"

He danced to the side, and grabbed her father's chair, starting to scoot it off to the side a bit. Once it was in place, he held a hand up, tilting his head as if he were gauging an angle. "Perfect!" He spun about once more, skipping toward her mom, but stopping for a moment to turn to the protesting pink haired women. He huffed, and spun again, sending an artful smack to her face as he did so.

The room would go dark.

She would awaken to the sound of her own running. Was she in the house again? Was she fleeing down the hallway, which had become impossibly long? Was something following her?

"SHELBY! Admit it, and everything will be fine! You want to paint her, don't you! In all of her glory! Bright, no RADIANT! Twinkling eyes! A PISTOL IN HER HAND." The voice became impossible distorted and dark at the tail end as the presence quickly caught up to her. Even if she didn't look back, she would feel it behind her.

"You can't run from it, Shelby, JUSt LiKe YOu CAnT RuN FROM mE!!!"

Every time she blinked the scene shifted. Dark, then light, then dark again. Black, then red... so much red, then black again. Roaches head was twisting, creaking, then back to normal like nothing happened. She was panting like she had run a marathon, but she remained fixed in her chair.

He shifted her parents into place. The chair legs wailed like banshees against the floor. He shifted her into place and the room spun as if she and boarded a ride at an amusement park. Faces swirled around her, morphing and shifting. Blood blood blood, pearly white teeth. Blue eyes. They all blurred together into a smear of pale skin and red. Suddenly the spinning stopped. She felt the urge to hurl.

Something smacked her. Hard. She flew back into the wall, absorbed by it, and was once again in darkness. Only... this time she was running. In the blackness, she knew long clawed hands reached for her. Her legs burned like lightning through a tree trunk. Searing white heat.

She was so slow... so tired. She ran and ran and ran, but it felt like she had only moved an inch.

"SHELBY! Admit it, and everything will be fine! You want to paint her, don't you! In all of her glory! Bright, no RADIANT! Twinkling eyes! A PISTOL IN HER HAND. You can't run from it, Shelby, JUSt LiKe YOu CAnT RuN FROM mE!!!"

Bright white light flashed in the dark hall. Instantaneous and brief, like the flash of lit gunpowder. SHe flinched from the light, flinging up an arm to cover her eyes. Another flash as she ran, then another... another.

She reached the end of the hall, just as that force from behind was looming over head. Her feet met air and down she fell.

SMACK

Her head jerked back up, eyes blinking slowly. Her cheek stung. She was back in the chair, arms tied behind her, ropes around her middle.

"Angie, NO!"

Her eyes lifted at the sound of her father's voice. She was staring down the barrel of a gun. Her monther's perfectly painted nails in a death grip around the handle of the gun. Shelby trailed her eyes up her mother's arms, past the prim work suit, over the dainty gold chain she always wore... higher and higher until they landed on her face.

But.. it wasn't her mother. The Artist was staring at herself. She was smiling placidly, pink hair wild around her pretty face. Behind her, just barely visible in the darkness, Roach's multifaceted eyes glinted in the darkness from over the top of her head.

"...N-"

BANG

Her eyes popped open.

She as in a white, brightly lit room... Things were wriggling underneath her. Shelby lifted a hand to see cockroaches scurrying across her skin. In a panic, she shifted and fell into a pile of roaches up to her waist.

So much would seem so familiar, so much so alien; it was an injection of her subconscious into a sick, white washed reality.

"the pills aren't helping, are they? They mute the pain, Shelby, but they also mute you. You know what you have to do. Your mother knew what she had to do. And you blame yourself for it! I LoVe ThaT ABOut YoU!"

His voice fluctuated, shifting between the gentlemanly drone and an acidic hiss that stung the ear drums like a swarm of angry hornets. Her dad's voice rang clear and true, a reflection of a memory so cemented into her being that anything but perfect recall was impossible.

"PULL THE TRIGGER, SHELBY! PULLLL ITTTTTT-" BANG

A rush of tiny skittering limbs provided a cacophonous symphony as the room came into focus. She was among them, and they, among her, crawling in and around her body as if it held no barriers. It was a sea of them, and all of them, moving like a current to sweep her away. Effortlessly they shifted her in their grasp, aiming her toward her destination, a giant laughing maw. "Try all you might, no pill will fix this. You must let it out the only way you know how!"

A swell came up in the wave, lifting her up high, and sending her into a free-fall into the great cavernous mouth. Quickly as she fell into the darkness, the mandibles slammed shut-

---

"You see, this is how we'll play our little game. This gun... Has one bullet in it! Only one. That bullet is going to kill one of you! Isn't it grand!" The shifting from the small audience increased as they all took in the news. "Now now! Settle down! I'm no barbarian! A gentleman and an artist like myself revels in a chance to create drama... So, I will give one of you a once in a lifetime choice! One of you gets this gun! You will get to choose who dies!" Unable to contain himself, the giant bug squealed in excitement. "ohhhhhhhh I CANT WAIT TO SEE THE ART UNFOLD BEFORE MY VERY EYES!"

He spun on them, and froze, clacking his mandibles slowly.

"Now... Who... Gets... The gun?" He slowly paced around, tapping the small snub nosed revolver against his head as he pondered.

"Oh! I think I know just. the right. Choice."

The teeth on the giant maw slammed shut with an clack. Darkness.

Then, light.

Her eyes cracked open and she found that she was staring down on a scene. The room was lit by a single bulb from an upturned flashlight. Three chairs sat facing each other, three people occupied them.

Shelby slowly registered that she was one of those people in that chair.

Then... what was she doing up here on the wall? She tilted her chin to better look at herself, confused s to why it sounded like wood rubbing against wood when she moved. Then she saw that her arms were just that. Wood. Arms, legs, hands, and feet. She was a wooden doll. Hanging from broken strings in a corner of the room.

She tried to open her mouth to call out to one of them, but found that she couldn't. There was no hinge for her jaw. She had no mouth, and could not scream.

Below, the Roach had started to talk again. Explaining the rules to a game she did not want to play, while merrily moving around them. From her perch, she watched in muted agony as he went on, dragging things out as long as possible before he ultimately stopped before her mother.

The Shelby below struggled weakly, crying and begging. Promises dropped from her lips like the tears from her eyes. If only he would listen! If only he would let them go, she didn't care what he wanted from her. She'd give anything if only to ensure her parent's safety.

That girl... the Shelby down there who was open and raw... her pain on display for Roach to bask in, she dissolved into quiet, sobbing moans.

The bug stopped in front of her mother. The woman flinched, terror etched into every feature. Her hands were released, and then the gun gently... lovingly... pressed into them.

Shelby watched as her mother lifted the weapon with shaking hands and aimed it directly at her father...

The scene was set, real as day, and yet as out of body as anything could get.

As the giant cockroach coerced the older woman into taking the pistol, he simply laughed at all of Shelby's pleas.

"Too late, my dear. Too little, too late. I gave you your chance to just give in! Now, we will relish in each other's misery until you die! Me, I will live forever, and one day you will be but a fond recollection. That's how little you matter in the end, Shelby. I will grow and flourish while you whither underneath by thumb!"

His head snapped again at an odd angle to face the doll on the wall, the room freezing once more.

"How did someone so strong come from someone so weak? I knew I could break her. Easily, and in doing so, I broke you. I finally broke you. You told me you would do so many things for me. Anything, you ended with. Anything. You pitiful mess. You already know what you need to do!"

Back to reality. He merrily skipped around the woman, practically singing. "you have to choose, you have to choose! Choose or I kill everyone and eat your bodies! Chooooooose! CHOOOOOOSE! CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-" She aimed at Mr. Walters, and pulled the trigger.

click

"Empty, my dear. But now you all know who she would have chosen." The giant bug cackled from his spot behind Mah Walters, and reached down to grab her head, twisting savagely until there was a loud pop.

The room went black again.

Shelby was standing in a dark room free to move, unrestrained. A soft whisper creeped into her ears.

"You know what you need to do..."

A spot light kicked on, aiming down at a blank canvas on an easel. Paints carefully placed to the side.

"You know."

"How did someone so strong come from someone so weak? I knew I could break her. Easily, and in doing so, I broke you. I finally broke you. You told me you would do so many things for me. Anything, you ended with. Anything. You pitiful mess. You already know what you need to do!"

..No...

"you have to choose, you have to choose! Choose or I kill everyone and eat your bodies! Chooooooose! CHOOOOOOSE! CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-"

...No! 

"Colin.. I- I'm so sorry.."  NO! "Angie, don't!" NO! NONONO! "Mom.. mom PLEASE."

Click

"Empty, my dear. But now you all know who she would have chosen."

Her moms head twisted at an unnatural angle, blue eyes twinkling up at her with a smile on her lips.

Her wooden mouth ripped, splintering as the doll shrieked. All of the pain an anger that had trapped inside of her, churning like molten metal surged forth. Her scream shook the walls, rumbling the very foundation of this nightmarish place. The flashlight on the counter across the room topped over. Bright white cracks of light started creaking up from the bottom of the walls she continued to scream. The room was collapsing in on itself. Everything went black again.

--

When next she opened her eyes, she was in an empty room facing a single canvas. It was silent. Her head felt clearer. She looked down upon the brightly lit tubes of paint, before reaching for one. The cap pricked her finger as she picked up a vibrant blue. With a hiss, she dropped the tube.

She was bleeding. Bright blue blood bubbled up from the wound, dripping from her finger onto the black floor. She watched in fascination as the color of her blood gradually shifted. Blues, reds, greens... All of the colors under the sun seeping from her in a little river. 

Her eyes rose back to the blank canvas. 

Slowly, she lifted her finger to begin to paint.

--

Gasping, Shelby woke tangled in her blanket. She sat upright, drawing in breath after breath like she had run out of air. Sweat dripped down her face an neck, soaking her shirt. 

She was in the living room... All of the lights were on.... She had fallen asleep on the couch. She proceeded to get up and move around the house, checking all of the locks on windows and doors. She found that not a single thing had been touched or changed.

...It had been a nightmare. Just another nightmare to add to the pile.

Unwilling to go back to sleep, she peered through her window once more to make sure Officer Cruise was still out there, before settling herself back down on the couch. The TV clicked on with a hum. The news anchors were still chatting about the rift and the weeks' events.

She let their voices fade into the background as she huddled into a blanket and stared at her hand.

-End-