Despair on Display

~ P r o l o g u e P a r t I I ~

After five dreadfully long minutes of sitting curled up by the door, Rei lifted her head and bit her lip. She started drumming her fingers against her knees and tapping her feet while looking around the room. After nothing happening for another dreadfully long moment, Rei bounced back up and smoothed out her skirt. With a light step, Rei walked over to the other side of the room. Might as well look around the room to pass the time.

The room had a total of 6 paintings, including the original abstract one she examined earlier. The other 5 had a similar color scheme and style in addition to having some musical aspect to it. One painting that was on the opposite wall of the first painting had a bright red upside-down treble clef and upright bass clef forming a heart splattered onto the canvas. The other four paintings had similar symbols: musical notations, instruments, and musical symbols were painted onto the canvases. Though she found the work to be intriguing in the least, Rei found it all very strange. The room seemed to be made specifically for her and with her interests in mind: whoever set this all up (Rei's immediate guess was the statues) knew more about her than she would have liked. To ease her mind, Rei turned to the small plaques below each painting in hopes of finding a familiar name. Unfortunately, after examining each painting in the room, she found out that the plaques only listed the name and date of the piece, but not the painter. She furrowed her eyebrows and whipped around to face the door. She stared intently at the door while trying to fight the temptation to leave crawling up her spine. Rei forced herself to look away, but the temptation clawed at her, causing her to walk over to the door in defeat.

Rei's hand hovered over the doorknob. Surely, one peek wouldn't hurt.

Cautiously, she turned the knob and creaked the door open ever so slightly. She peeked her head out and was greeted with an empty hallway. Rei lowered her eyes. Just as she was about to close the door and sulk in defeat, she perked up as she heard faint whispers from down the hallway. Rei opened the door a bit more to try and catch what was being said.

"...It's about to start. Are you all ready?"
"Yes indeed. We even treated the ones who woke up early."
"We promised them a prize."
"Oh. How... nice! Well, I look forward to seeing what they come up with. But that's for a later time- we probably should hurry back!"
"Yes yes yes, you should get going. You don't want to be caught talking to us, now, do you?"

The next thing Rei heard was the growing sound of footsteps, so she quickly retreated into her room and shut the door. Just a few moments later, she heard the opening and closing of two doors.

Rei was pretty sure she just witnessed something she wasn't supposed to see.

+++

Not long after the doors shut, an announcement played in Rei's room, and she heard the vaguely familiar voices of the statues from before.

"Welcome, welcome, visitors! I hope you've all got a good rest! After all, you have a long journey ahead of you! Please exit your room and make your way down to the main room at the end of the hall. Don't keep us waiting~"

As soon as the announcement ended, Rei forcefully opened the door and stumbled out of the room in anticipation. She then straightened her posture, adjusted her glasses, shut the door, and walked down the familiar hallway in a composed manner. The hallway quickly filled up with others coming out of their rooms and nervously making their way down the hall. Rei, however, walked down the hallway with as much confidence as she could muster and ignored any glances in her direction.

Upon coming to the main room, Rei's eyes darted over to where the statues were standing before- they were no longer there. Her focus switched back to the others gathering up in the room, and she looked to see if anyone caught her eye. Some people kept to themselves, while others started to nervously talk to each other. Rei's observations were interrupted by a figure approaching her. She tried to ignore the person, but the figure wouldn't leave.