"Come on fratello, hurry up! We're gonna be late!"
"It's a fucking open exhibit, we can't be late."
"I... just want to get there... before it closes."
"...You're meeting your potato bastard here aren't you?"
"...ummm..."
"Goddammit, Feliciano."
Feliciano grabbed his brother's hand and started whining.
"But fratellooooooooooo!"
Lovino began flapping his arm wildly, trying to prise him off while squawking long strings of curses. Feliciano released him and gasped.
"Ve~ look fratello! There it is!"
Lovino squinted at the building.
"How the fuck do you know?"
Feliciano sighed and planted his hands on his hips. "Because it says so on the sign. Duh~"
"It looks like fucking gibberish to me."
"It's in Spanish, Lovino."
Feliciano dashed away inside before Lovino could come up with a snippy retort. Lovino sighed and slouched after his brother, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets.
It was cool inside the art gallery with people milling around, muttering. Lovino idly picked up a leaflet about the exhibit and the artist they were featuring, some guy called Guertena. He sounded like a crazy creep but Lovino would let the art do the talking.
He wandered around, idly glancing at the various paintings and sculptures. He resolutely turned away the moment he say Feliciano hanging onto the potato bastard's arm. He walked around a corner and was greeted with the sight of one enormous painting spanning the entire wall. He peered at the plaque beneath it, trying to find out the name. Unfortunately the stupid thing was in Spanish. He understood that it was "Something World." Big fucking help that was.
Suddenly, the lights began to flicker. "Alright, fuck this shit, I'm out of here." Lovino turned heel and ran to the exit. The gallery was somehow even quieter. Not only that, there was no one to be seen. The reception was completely deserted and the front door, which he knew had been left open, was resolutely closed. He tried the handle. No joy, it was locked.
Lovino felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, he could sense eyes watching him.
"Hello?"
Lovino began walking towards the sculpture he knew his brother had bee standing in front of mere minutes earlier. His footsteps echoed hollowly in the empty hall.
As he passed a painting of a bowl of fruit, something fell with a soft thud. Lovino jumped about a foot in the air. An apple was sitting demurely on the floor beneath the painting and there was now a gap in said painting. An apple shaped gap.
"Fucking...hell." Lovino picked up the apple. It felt real to him but, turning it over in his hands, it left reddish smears. He dropped it quickly. This place was getting creepier by the minute.
Feliciano had been standing by a statue of three flowers twisted together. A daisy, a carnation and some weird blue flower. "Embodiment of Spirit", whatever the hell that meant. However by the time Lovino returned to it, like everywhere else, was completely deserted.
Lovino turned to go ...somewhere else when someone coughed lowly. Lovino whirled around again, his heart pounding. There was no one else there and nowhere for anyone to hide. The closest thing to another human being was a painting called...
Lovino glared at the painting. "It was you, wasn't it? You bastard. Fucking 'Coughing Man'. Go on, cough again, I fucking dare you!"
Lovino backed away slowly, maintaining a fierce death glare with the painted eyes.
He ran back to the centre room of the exhibit. There was a massive painting of an underwater scene...with a freaking massive shark on the ground. There had been roped off earlier but now there was a section missing. It seemed to have an almost gravitational pull, bring Lovino nearer and nearer to it.
Lovino took a deep breath and stepped past the rope and onto the painting. And all around him everything went completely and utterly dark.