The Mad Alpha

Chapter 9 - Art

Chapter 9: Art

October 8, 2015. Grimstone Asylum Grounds, Northern Pack Lands.

Art was therapeutic, especially for those that couldn't share their feelings through words. I learned that long ago, when I took craft classes at my college during my finals. I became sucked into it and decided to enroll myself into a summer class that had painting and sculpting, weeping for a number of hours to make something worth the time. It was quite fun, especially with Natalie who was an art person since the beginning of time.

But here, I was staring at a blank canvas, trying to come up with something to paint. Nothing in my head, not a thing. To add to the dilemma, there was a session that lasted the entire morning and even though I could've spent the entire time sitting and painting, the only thing in my head was Dom. Dom Stone.

He wasn't dead.

Of course, knowing that gave me less reason to feel guilty.

I glanced around, at the other people in the room. They were glued onto their canvases like it was going to save their life—or probably it was saving their life.

It was the evening craft session for the patients and I was here again because I had skipped out on the morning one. It wasn't voluntary, at least not for some people here. Some were required to attend some and some were encouraged. The choice was always one but you were dragged when it wasn't given.

Each person wore an expression of focus as their hands brushed across the canvases. I dipped my brush into white paint, thinking of something, something to put up so I could get out of here early but nothing came into my mind.

Lana, sitting by my side, had painted out an entire sunset, beach and a family swimming and having a picnic by the water. There was even a raft in the water.

I put the brush with the white paint on the side and grabbed another brush that was new. I was conflicted—mind and reality.

That night was so utterly unbelievable that I still was in disbelief. When I woke up the next morning, I realized it wasn't a dream at all and that I had seen Dom, in my room, telling me that I wasn't insane and that it was all just a plan.

What the heck was I supposed to do with that information?

I smeared blue paint onto the canvas, trying to get something done. A sky was better than having a blank white canvas. The minute there was some paint on it, I felt relieved. Relieved of all the time it took for me to start working.

"Just a few more touches and then I'm out." Lana said, wiping her hand and grabbing another brush.

"How can you even do it so quickly and so—neatly?" I stared at her painting for longer than I thought I would.

She giggled in a low tone, "Well, I've been painting the same exact scenary for the past five years. That's my secret."

"Really?" My eyes widened.

"Yes,"

I looked at it again, and it began to make sense.

This was dark.

"It's all the storage room. I'll show it to you later."

"So, you paint the same exact thing each time?" I asked her, wanting to know how in hell could she repeat the same exact thing for so long.

I wouldn't be able to. Ever.

"Yes," she smiled at the painting in front of her. "It's easy to paint what you already know but not so easy to find inspiration from nothing." Her eyes fell over my canvas that was now painted blue.

It was an awful blue.

I heaved out a breath and did a few things on the canvas, enough to fill it up so I could be finished with this. Once it was done, a nurse came over to take our canvases to the storage room where it was going to be kept along with the others.

Lana suggested that we go together and keep ours by ourselves and since the nurse knew Lana, she agreed and let us go.

"I don't get it. It feels like such a waste of time." I mumbled under my breath while carrying the canvas and one hand.

"Maybe it is but there are people here who can really paint things, nice pictures of places and others. There are the one who use paint to draw everything they see in their mind and the one's who end up fucking smearing whatever to every part of the canvas. And then, there are those who sit at one spot the entire time, their only movement is to move the brush on the canvas, back and forth." She laughed while opening the door of a room that read storage.

We entered in and since it was afternoon, sun seeped in through the small window by the corner, behind the hundred's of shelves that were filled with painting supplies, craft stuff, paintings, sketch books and whatever the hell else was in there.

"Also, these weekly classes are designed so nurses can watch and see us patients from inside. It gives them chances to study us like human projects." She said, walking straight in and in between the aisles till she reached a large storage of canvases.

At first glance, I thought they were blank canvases, but when I got closer, I realized they were blank at all. They were paintings, the same exact painting that Lana had done just a few minutes ago. There was no different in her paintings. They all looked like they had been copied and pasted.

"Wow." My lips parted in surprise as I looked at them.

"Told you so." She appeared proud, but I was concerned.

It was a little scary to see it.

I pulled out another one that was dated to five years ago, and it wasn't different.

"Oh," My hand slipped to another but it wasn't the same. "What's this?"

"Yeah, this one—" she paused to look at it herself. "I did this one a while ago, after I came out of the care of Dr. Crow. I was so scared, all the time and I didn't know what else to do then."

There was a shift in her tone.

I looked at the painting closer. The colors were different, everything was different. It wasn't even a picture of the sunset and the beach—it was of a dark, eerie place, barred windows, metal roof and pipeline. It appeared to be a room but I wasn't sure about it.

"What is it?" I asked her.

She didn't look at it twice. "It was my room in the basement or at least what I could make out of it. I didn't get much sunlight in there or anything at all but I could see the outside of my room. It was like some kind of jail and in one of the other rooms, I always saw someone's blood on the ground even when there was no one there."

As she described the place, my stomach began knotting, the hairs on the back of my neck raising. I could see the blood she mentioned. It was painted far in the painting in another room.

I swallowed hard and let go of the painting.

Lana didn't tell me much about the basement, except for the fact that a different kind of punishment system was conducted there.

I shivered in, not with cold but with fear.

What was I even doing here? If I wasn't crazy, why was I here? For what?

"Were you able to get the file on Dom Stone?"

The words came out before I could register them. I cleared my throat, hoping to God that I didn't sound too pushy or demanding.

"Yeah, I got it earlier in the morning. I kept it under my bed for now. You can go through it before tomorrow because I've to keep it back soon." She said as we walked out of the storage room.

My heart beat fast, "I'm free now till my session with Dr. Frost later. I can go?"

"Yeah, yeah, just make sure no one sees you while you're going through it. You don't want to be caught and once you're done, keep it back."

I nodded, "Thank you so much."

Read ahead of Inkitt or Patreon and get access to other books and steamy one-shots. Inkitt: www.inkitt.com/miakerr www.patreon.com/miakerr