Punishment Halls

Since when had this entrapment begun exactly? It was a question that popped into his head every now and again, yet its answer remained always elusive. Days had long ago blended into weeks, and those into months, so much that time itself became a forgotten casualty of his isolation. Has it been years already? Sanity, like a relentless foe, refused to release him into the cold comfort of madness, clinging stubbornly around his mind like barbed wire sinking in flesh.

Miles Seagrave, yes… That had been his name once, wasn’t it? The syllables once by one joined into a unified whole, bringing alongside them the identity they represented —once an artist, now not much more than a prisoner in a realm of his making.

Funny word. ‘Artist’. It felt like a title from another life, one he could barely even recognize anymore. What did it exactly mean? Miles reminisced, but it really didn’t matter much. Its answer wouldn’t bring escape to this prison without walls, to this punishment without end.

The space surrounding him was an expansive, inky abyss. An interminable room swallowed by a darkness so complete that it devoured any notion of boundaries. His only light came from an invisible source high above —a harsh, solitary beam cutting through the void, illuminating a small island of existence in this ocean of nothingness.

At the center of the light stood a plain wooden stool, and before it, a blank canvas on an easel. It was this monstrous object that painfully anchored him to sapience, like prisoner shackles in an execution that refused to arrive —it was an accusation, a silent, relentless reminder of his failure; of the creative spark that had been extinguished years ago. Such blankness taunted him, mocking his inability to bring anything to life upon its surface.

Beyond the spotlight, even his sense of self and physicality blurred. Time and reality refused to fixate in one place, like wet paint marred by constant, careless brushes.

The inky shadows around sometimes shifted, hinting at unseen figures lurking right beneath his vision, grotesque forms that made his old nightmares seem like childish fears.

At other times, it was the air that thickened, becoming a suffocating and viscous fog like a noose tightening around his throat —an echo from a past he so desperately wished to forget.

No matter how hard he tried to escape, to flee into the comforting embrace of the darkness that beckoned from all sides, the canvas would always follow. He knew not what it wanted, yet he also understood that it wouldn’t leave him, reappearing in its unmoving and oppressive whiteness everywhere he went.

But to go where exactly? What was it that lay beyond these dark mirrors to his soul? What life was there to return to?

Right… He did remember. Miles Seagrave, that was his name. ‘Artist’, that’s what they called him. People around him bestowed such title upon him since childhood, ever since he first channeled the visions onto the canvas… Yet he didn’t even know its true meaning.

His torment here wasn’t the physical, nor the metaphysical. It was that relentless introspection that consumed him, dragging his mind down a spiral of self-doubt and bitter regret. Each thought was a barb, tearing at the battered flesh of his ego.

What had become of Shelley, he questioned? Once he had told her to leave, to not follow him into this mansion turned prison. To forsake him and carry on, to build a new life to lead away from danger.

She had never been one to listen. Her stubbornness was a trait that defined her ever since their high school years, one that always kept her there, by his side —even when he wanted nothing more than to be alone.

Now her loyalty and devotion were one more weight to plunge him with… Had he ever truly loved her? Or had he merely allowed comfort to twist into dependency, to shield himself from emotions he never understood?

What had become of Ethan, he wondered? He had never been a father, not really. In many ways, he was terrified of his own child, of the crushing responsibility that came with parenthood.

He had always told himself that it was fear —fear of failure, fear of not knowing how to raise a son in a world so full of uncertainty.

But was that the whole truth? Or was it easier to let that fear construct walls between them, to avoid the vulnerabilities of fatherhood and allow Shelley to shoulder the burden on her own?

For indeed he had cowered, again and again, into the familiar refuge of his art, shutting them both out. It was safer that way, or so he had convinced himself. Better to bury himself in brush and chisel rather than face their eyes, filled with expectations of love, guidance and protection he knew he could never provide.

Husband, Father, Artist —they all had something in common. Miles never wanted to be neither of them, just roles he stumbled into, too hesitant to confront the reality of his own inadequacy. He just followed the path of least resistance, only to find himself at the edge of a chasm now impossible to cross.

It was unfair… Just not to him. Innocence and purity, love and companionship, were now tainted by the cold, grasping fingers of his mistakes —casualties of his pitiful existence. And for what? For a failure who never truly knew how to even be there for them.

Neither Shelley nor Ethan were the roots of this despair. Even the intruder that haunted his exhibition years ago had been but a catalyst, a prod against an open wound that had been left to fester from long, long ago. The true genesis of his torments lay buried deep within the recesses of the past, in memories visceral —etched into the very fabric of his being.

When was it exactly, that he lost control?

Or had he ever possessed it in the first place?

All it took were faint ripples crossing the vast blackness to transform the insidious murmurs in his mind into hallucinations born of confinement. Whether to blame the paint monster or his own corroded sanity for those slithering thoughts, he was pulled into their nightmare regardless —malevolence seamlessly blending in with reality.

To be twelve years old again, light blue eyes widening as he stood stood frozen in the doorway of his childhood home. The stench of decay that assaulted his nostrils, that sickly-sweet odor that refused to go down his throat, clogging it. Before him, suspended from the ceiling fan like a morbid marionette, hung the lifeless form of his mother once more.

Her vibrant eyes, now glassy and vacant, fixated deep into the abyss. Mottled, bruised skin stretching over the protruding bones of her malnourished frame. Rope cutting deep around her neck, leaving behind a glaring purple furrow.

Miles was too young. He understood too little about the complexities of adulthood and relationships. In many ways, he still chose to ignore them, retreating to a world of tinctures and techniques, of creation and creativity. Yet for all the horrors he had brought to life through art, none could compare to the sight of his mother’s corpse gently swaying in the stagnant air.

She left no note, no explanation for her final act. A deafening, departing silence —a void that Miles would spend the rest of his life trying to fill with pigments and clay.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, the visions began. As sunlight gave way to darkness, otherworldly apparitions crept into the corners of his vision —creatures so alien that were both frightening and fascinating in equal measure. When he began recreating them through drawings, psychologists called it a coping mechanism, a way for his fragile psyche to process trauma and loss.

His father didn’t share their conclusion.

Bitterness welled up inside the painter as the recollections played before his eyes. The man who should have guided him through the storm of grief, becoming instead another source of anguish —harsh words and harsher hands leaving scars both visible and hidden.

Yet even as he nursed this resentment, a part of him couldn’t help but wonder if he truly deserved better. After all, he had failed to notice his mother’s pain, blind to the suffering that had driven her to desperation.

Such was the guilt that gnawed at him, one that grew stronger every year, cursing his inability to fully understand the intricacies of human emotion.

An alleged talent blossomed as he continued to pour nightmare onto canvas and hallucination into clay. Those around him took notice, praising his supposedly unique vision and emotional power —accolades that felt hollow, a perverse reward for the horrors that fueled his creativity.

The more he painted, the more he sculpted, the more elusive his grasp on reality became. Lurid specters continued to echo at the corners of the moonlighting darkness, whispering secrets he dared not to acknowledge. Faces peered out from the innocuous patterns, expressions twisted in silent roars —ripping forth from heaven or hell to herald their rapture.

In his enigma, the stranger’s only contribution was merely shattering the precarious equilibrium that the artist had managed to construct. With him came the demon, a presence both terrifying and oddly comforting in its concrete tangibility.

For the first time in decades, the cacophony of delusions fell silent… Leaving behind only a disconcerting disquiet.

Before this communion, Miles had been creating with feverish intensity. Fame and fortune followed, more as a result of those who surrounded him, his works becoming coveted prizes in the art world regardless.

But each piece felt more like an exorcism than an act of creation…

And then, as suddenly as they had begun, it all stopped. The well of nightmares ran dry, leaving the painter staring at blank canvases and formless lumps of material —unable to conjure even the faintest spark of divinity that hid behind inspiration.

Now, trapped in this limbo… There was nothing left but to confront the bitter truth. He was a fraud —as an artist, as a husband, as a father. That talent that others used to define him with, was proven fake once the terrors of the ethereal abandoned him.

In their absence, he was forced to face the wreckage of the life he left to himself, the pain he caused, and all the love he squandered.

But as these thoughts threatened to drag him back into the depths of despair, something changed. Faint echoes reached him, like droplets of awareness in a tranquil lake of emptiness, pulling his fractured mind back into some semblance of coherency. The void around him rippled, responding to an unseen disturbance.

There were intruders in his domain.

Three souls breached the borders of Mirage Asylum, their presence a discordant note in the lingering symphony of isolation. Two of them seemed to be following the crimson staircase, their steps heavy and deliberate. The third, however, had stumbled in more chaotically —an unlucky soul, very likely, plunging down to the abyss.

A spark of something almost like hope flickered in the painter’s chest. Were they here because of the girl that had fallen a while back? He remembered her steps hazily, her vibrancy reverberating through the corridors of his realm. If he could recall her path more clearly, perhaps he could guide these new arrivals her way.

To have others consumed as prey to his plight was a thought the artist abhorred. Their safety, he concluded with a pang of guilt, mattered more than his own. Yet despair clung to him like a second skin, the weight of imprisonment crushing any fantasy of escape.

Still, if there was even the slightest chance they could all survive… He at least had to try.

Of course, things could never be simple in this epitome of illusions. While the painter couldn’t directly interact with the newcomers, he wasn’t entirely powerless either. Fiercely, the subconscious stirrings of the monster that shared his existence protested his purpose, coiling under the walls and ceilings and floors like a living layer of paint.

He could hear its wishes, its demands —to twist this new development to its own inscrutable purposes. The painter realized, that he would have to fight it.

As he concentrated, the blank canvas before him shimmered, images flickering across its surface like a fever dream. With ghostly paint dripping down his fingers, his only input was to pour intention into the ephemeral visions.

The painter longed to do more, to scream at them to flee if they still could… Yet he was limited to indirect interference, conducting a play he barely understood.

Another fragile ember rose in his chest. Even if he couldn’t escape that room he was trapped in on his own… Perhaps they could eventually reach him… Though he also feared that this torment would find no end until he himself encountered demise.

But before all of that… He needed to remember… Who was he again?

Right… Miles Seagrave… ‘Artist’.