"Ughh.." I stirred awake, my neck killing me from falling asleep slumped over in a chair. My wrists were stinging from clawing at them and then tugging them against hard leather.
I looked around the room and saw that I wasn't alone. It wasn't Lester or Bo, however. I recognized him to be the one who was watching me yesterday in the House of Wax.
He had long black hair and seemed to be wearing a realistic homemade mask. He was recording me on some old camcorder.
"Oh, shit, it wasn't just a bad dream." I did my best to stretch while tied down.
He looked at me, confused.
"Are you Vincent?" I asked him. He nodded so I decided to keep talking. "Your sculptures are absolutely beautiful." I felt once again the intense depersonalization rush over me. "Seriously. You're really talented."
He just stared at me for a moment before walking closer to me and leaning in closer to examine me. I should be scared, but I just feel like I'm dreaming.
"How did you even get the bodies inside the wax figures?" I asked. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it's horrifying, but it's kind of impressive from an artistic standpoint."
He didn't respond. He set down the camcorder to be facing me and held one of my pigtails in his hand, closely looking at my hair.
"It's hair dye." I admitted. "My hair is not naturally bright neon orange. I wish it was. That would be cool. My pigtails are probably all messed up from running for my life yesterday, though."
He nodded and slid the scrunchies out of my hair, ruffling it out with his hands.
"I bet it's all separated in the back now." I grinned, closing my eyes. "It always does that when I leave them in for too long."
I felt him comb through my hair with his fingers before carefully putting my hair back up in a neat ponytail, moving to the other side to put up the other.
"Oh, thank you." I was surprised. "You're a lot nicer than Bo. ...Is your mask also made out of wax?"
He nodded as he got my second pigtail up.
"It's really beautiful. You're really talented." I wasn't even trying to be nice so he'd let me go. I was just being honest.
He backed up so that we were face to face. Then, to my surprise, he asked me something in sign language.
"Do you sign?" He asked. I nodded so he went on. "Why aren't you scared?"
"I have this problem where sometimes when I should be upset or scared or something I end up depersonalizing instead." I explained to him. "I just end up feeling like I'm dreaming. Or like I'm high or something. Or like I'm not real."
We had a moment of just looking into each others eyes. Or... eye? I could see up close that one of his eyes seemed to be missing. I decided not to say anything about it. I could see something in Vincent that I couldn't in Bo- a sense of compassion and caring. Empathy. I felt much safer around him, although I didn't doubt that he could kill me in an instant if he needed to. He had two large blades in sheaths against his belt.
"You're recording me." I pointed out. "Are you also into video making?"
He nodded.
"That's cool. I like photography." I smiled. "Sometimes I draw too, but I think what I'm best at is photography."
He walked behind me and opened my little burger themed backpack, taking out a Beanie Baby. It was Inch, the inchworm. He'd grabbed the small one- I had two.
