A dim room devoid of much. A few brushes, a couple of canvases, a single painting being made. The poorly crafted wooden room that housed all these things seemed to have been made very rushingly as if the one who made it only needed somewhere for privacy.

“Grandpa,”

The old man’s brush strokes slowed at his grandson’s calling.

“Hmm?”

“How long have you been painting?”

The old man put the brush in his hand down on the table and turned towards his innocent-eyed grandson whose little legs moved back and forth on the chair too high for him.

“That’s a good question.”

“So, when did you start?”

The old man laughed. His hand lifted up to the ceiling, almost as if to touch the ceiling, and clenched down.

“I’ve been painting for as long as I can remember.”

His hand lowered painfully.

“So you’ve been painting since you were born?”

The old man let out a loud chuckle.

“Maybe!”

The old man quickly wiped away his tears and picked the brush back up. His silent brush strokes resonated with the boy.

“S-so, what are you painting now?”

The boy looked quite puzzled as he stared at the painting the old man made.

“One of the neighbors requested a family portrait, so I plan to deliver.”

No other people were in the room.

“How can you draw a portrait without the people being here?”

The old man, once again, put the brush down and turned to his grandson.

“The family who requested it asked the same thing.”

He pointed to his head, then to his eyes

“I have a great memory when it comes to faces.”

The old man paused for a moment, then pointed to the painting he had been working on.

“Wanna see?”

“Yeah!”

The boy jumped from the table, leading the old man to lean forward in an attempt to catch him in case he fell. As the boy ran over, his eyes widened as the painting.

“Cool!”

The portrait depicted a perfect representation of a family of three: a father, a mother, and a six-year-old daughter. The old man laughed once again because of the boy’s excitement.

“This painting depicts quite the sad story in it.”

“Like what?’

The young boy stared at the old man, and the old man stared right back with a genial smile.

“Okay, go sit back down. I need to finish this.”

As the old man lifted the boy up, a man came through the door.

“Welcome! Please take a se-”

As the old man turned to look at the customer entering his shop, his words paused. He stopped and put the boy back down on the ground. His smile quickly turned forced as he began to hold the shoulders of his precious grandson.

“Grandpa needs to talk with the gentleman about something. Go and run along.”

The old man pushed the kid in the back, leaving the kid confused by the sudden change in his grandpa's temperament. Still, the grandkid ran out of the studio to see his parents. As he runs out, he looks up at the man in a tailcoat and feels a sudden fear, leading him to nearly trip on his own feet.

“Hello, old man.”

The old man scowled. His thoughts were full of nothing but disdain for the person in front of him.

“You have no right to call me such a thing; you look the same as you did sixty years ago.”

The man wearing the long tailcoat smiled quite happily.

“That I do.”

“What do you want now? I’ve already given you my damn masterpiece! What else do you need?”

“Your eyes.”

The old man’s golden eyes lit up the dim studio. His scowl turned from annoyed to downright angry.

“I refuse.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

The sound of the old man’s clicking tongue reverberated in the poorly insulated studio.

“So you’ve finally got over your trauma from the last time you attempted something like this? I really hoped I’d died first.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry too much. I don’t plan to take your life.”

“You know damn well I won’t live without them! Just as a wolf can’t live without its mate, I can not live without my eyes. You are asking me to kill myself!”

The man’s eyes seemed to almost glow despite their dark appearance.

“Well, then that’s just unfortunate.”

The old man turned away and sighed before looking back up, his scowl still unchanged.

“You’ll have to take them.”

The old man stood up from the seat he had taken at the start of the conversation and began to dust off his pants. He quickly loosened up his sleeves, removing any stray dirt or debris they may have been covered in.

“You’re an idiot.”

A loud crack broke out inside the old man’s mind, his rapid descent caused by the immense pain he felt. His body convulsed rapidly, leaving him nothing but a man who knew only terror.

“You knew, and yet you still took the hard path.”

The man turned over the old man’s writhing body. His body flopped like a fish out of water.

“You are not brave,”

The man pushed his fingers toward the eyes of the old man. The fingers slid in between the eyes and the skull.

“You are a fool.”

As the eyes ripped out of the old man’s skull, the painful screams that should have come from his mouth were silenced by the immeasurable pain assaulting his mind.

“Pleasure doing business with you once again.”

It took ten minutes for the old man’s mental pain to cease, bringing the pain left behind by the tearing of his eyes. The old men let out a loud, exhausting breath, picked up the brush, and began to paint a slightly different picture than before.

The family depicted was still the same, but the image deep within, the meaning, was completely different. It was, once again, a masterpiece, a truly perfect art piece.

 

 

Author's Note:

More backstory, more suffering!

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