Incomplete
Not all creations wait to be made.
Mira Pell flitted about the storeroom, broom in hand. She swiped long streaks into the coating of dust that rested on the wooden floor, causing it to billow and form choking clouds around her. Her amber hair, tied into twintails that framed her face received its share of ashen dust, which she brushed off before wiping her hands on her apron. She hummed the eternal hymn as she worked, always having taken solace in the divine melody. It calmed her and made her feel safe. Not that she was in any danger in a dusty store room.
The shelves were filled with boxes and old art supplies that Mira didn't understand much about, though she wondered why all of this junk was supposedly important enough to store in this manner, under lock and key. Nevertheless, she dutifully dusted the old vases, bottles of paint and easels. Or at least the ones that were most visible, anyway.
She was almost ready, too. She could already imagine the pride in the voice of Mr. Tallow when she'd tell him she had taken the initiative and cleaned this room that clearly hadn't been cleaned in quite some time. It was most fortunate she had found the key in his office.
Suddenly, Mira stopped humming. In fact, she stopped in her tracks. Ahead of her was a stone wall, somehow different from the rest of the room. There was a large black stain in the middle of it, which Mira thought looked damp and sticky. Something primal, deep within her mind, was telling her to walk out of the room and lock the door behind her, never to return. But curiosity is a powerful force indeed, and Mira took a cautious step towards the wall.
Several more steps followed that one, and soon she was standing right next to the wall. At this distance, she could smell the substance and it smelled awful. Like tar, yet with a stinging undertone akin to ammonia.
"What is this stuff?" She thought aloud and almost without realizing it reached for the wall and the black goop on it. Just before the tips of her fingers would have made contact with the substance, that same primal dread from before threatened to overwhelm her.
"Better to just rub it off..." She mused, and took the rag from her aprons front pocket. She pressed the cloth against the stain and rubbed.
The rag came away streaked with black. Mira frowned. It was wet and clinging, like tar warmed by sunlight. She wiped again, harder this time, and the dark smear spread wider. “Ugh, it’s everywhere…” she muttered. The cloth caught on to something, and a flake of stone fell loose from the wall, exposing a hairline crack beneath. Mira crouched down, taking a closer look. Within the crevice, she could swear she could see through into... somewhere dark.
“It’s...” she realized. “A room.”
Then came the sound. A faint scratching. It was so light she thought at first it was the broom settling behind her. But when she held her breath, the noise persisted; a steady, deliberate scrape, like a nail against the stone. Her heart quickened.
“Is… is someone there?” she whispered. Silence. Then another scrape, closer this time. From right beyond the wall. She took a hesitant step back. The air had changed; it carried the dry, stale scent of something long sealed away. Why was there a hollow space behind this wall? Her fingers brushed the edge of the fissure, and the stone felt oddly warm, almost pulsing with a faint rhythm. Slow, like a heartbeat beneath the surface.
"You have to finish it."
Mira stumbled back, the voice echoing in her ears. Clear, impossibly so, as if whispered directly inside her skull. She waited for more, but the storeroom was silent once again, only the ticking of the large grandfather clock outside the storeroom reaching her. “It was nothing.” she muttered. “I’ve been breathing in too much dust, that’s all.” Still, her eyes drifted toward the crack in the wall. The black seepage had formed strange patterns along the stone, almost like brushstrokes. She stared too long at them, tracing the lines with her eyes until they began to look deliberate. Almost... beautiful.
Mira shook her head and grabbed her broom before hurrying out of the room. She noticed that Mr. Tallow had retired for the night and left her a note telling her to go home too. After stashing the supplies and returning the key to Mr. Tallows office, Mira did just that.
***
That night, Mira's restless dreams were plagued by darkness. She stood in a colorless place; a narrow, empty street paved with something that gleamed like wet glass in the muted moonlight, or what she assumed was moonlight. The air was thick with smoke or mist, and through it all came that same voice, slow and patient, its words brushing against her thoughts in a most disagreeable manner. “Finish what he started.” Before her, a faint light pulsed. It was not bright, but enough to outline a figure standing just at the edge of sight at the far end of the alley. A man, she thought. The form was tall, draped in darkness and turned away from her. The shape was painted, not real. She could see the brushwork at its edges. In fact, she could see that everywhere she looked. Mira tried to speak, but her voice dissolved into the air. Each step she took toward the figure made the world feel thicker, like she was walking in oil. Beneath her feet, ripples spread through a black, liquid surface that reflected no stars above. The silhouette shifted. Its head tilted, ever so slightly, as if listening to her approach. Then it began to turn toward her. But before she could see its face, a streak of ochre light split the darkness, banishing the dreamscape in a blinding flash. The voice spoke once more.
"Paint a picture of me."
Mira awoke gasping, her heart hammering in her chest and her sheets drenched in sweat. She bolted out of bed and rushed into the washroom where she splashed the entire contents of the water carafe on her face before curling up in the bathing tub. She wept until she had to leave for work, which she did even though the mere thought of it made her sick to her stomach.
***
Standing outside the main entrance of the Vintage Vault, Mira felt as if she should just resign and never come back to this place. She gathered herself and stepped through the door, only to almost bump into Mr. Tallow. Elric took a hold of Mira's shoulders as he addressed the girl.
"Is everything alright, Mira?" He asked, his face marked with genuine worry. Mira felt ashamed to be in the presence of her employer in such a disheveled state and simply abstained from eye contact with him.
"I'm fine, Mr. Tallow. Just slept poorly, is all. She lied. Elric kept his grip on the girl for a moment longer, before he smiled and let go.
"That's good to hear. You've been working so hard lately that I am worried for you, Mira. If you ever need to take a few days off, you have my permission to do so, no questions asked."
"That's mighty kind of you, Mr. Tallow. But who would tidy around the shop if not I?" Mira inquired, but her focus had shifted. She saw the large brass key hanging on the hook by Mr. Tallow's table, where she left it the preceding night. Such a small thing it was, yet it occupied all of her attention in an instant, the sound of Elric speaking blurring into the background, before a ringing in her ears swallowed even that.
She had to take the key. To open the door to the storeroom, take down the wall and-
"Mira! Are you listening to me?" Elric's voice came back into focus and snapped her out of it.
"I- yes, Mr. Tallow. I'm sorry." She apologized, though her eyes still drifted towards the key.
"As I was saying, you can dust the figurine hall today and go home. It would be cruel of me to work you more than that when you're in this state." Elric said and gave Mira a fatherly pat on the back before he began to don his coat. "I have a client to meet in the upper tiers, I'll be back in a few hours. If anyone visits during this time, write down their names and send them off, got it?"
"Yes, Mr. Tallow." Mira said and bowed, before putting on her apron. Elric stepped out of the door and Mira was left alone.
Mira set about her work with quiet diligence, dusting the figurine hall as instructed. The little statues—porcelain saints, brass animals, and faceless dolls—stared blankly as she moved between them. The cloth in her hand drifted over their heads like a blessing, yet her mind was elsewhere.
With her mind's eye she could still see the key, hanging there, heavy and shining in the lamplight of Mr. Tallow’s office. She tried to hum the Eternal Hymn again, but the melody faltered halfway through the second verse. It no longer soothed her. As if she had somehow moved beyond its reach.
“Just clean, and go home.” she told herself. But the words held no weight. Every motion felt slow and sluggish, as if she were acting out someone else’s idea of her chores. Worst of all, she thought she could hear that awful scraping she had heard from beyond the storeroom wall. She set the broom down and rubbed her arms, hugging herself. “It’s just the rats.” she whispered. “Rats in the walls.” The moment she said it, something answered. Not a sound, more like a memory of one. The same voice from her dream, sliding into her thoughts as smoothly as oil into water.
"Finish it, Mira. He could not, but you can."
She should have been mortified. She should have been running down the street, crying her eyes out. Instead, all she could do was... agree.
"Yes..." She uttered, her gaze fixed into the distance, unfocused.
***
When she came to her senses again, she was already standing in the office doorway. The key still hung from its hook, gleaming dully. For a long moment, she just stared. At the same time she desperately wanted to take and pocket the key, and to do none of the sort and throw the damned thing out the nearby window. Before arriving to a decision, she already reached for it. The metal was cold against her palm and the key absorbed her full attention again. By the time she managed to tear her eyes off of the key, she found herself in the corridor outside the storeroom. “Just a look.” she convinced herself. “Just to make sure it isn’t spreading.” The lock turned with a soft, metallic click. The air that escaped from the room was stale and heavy, tinged with that same chemical rot she remembered. She stepped inside. Dust hung thick in the air, disturbed only by the fading afternoon light that poured through the window slats. Everything looked as if she hadn't even been there yesterday. How was that possible? Dust doesn't collect that fast. It was- Mira's heart leapt into her throat as she laid eyes on the back wall. The black stain had grown. It spread now in long, deliberate tendrils that reached higher up the stone face, curling in shapes that looked like they were forming into some coherent whole. Mira approached slowly, drawn by a quiet wonder she didn’t understand. The patterns were beautiful. Terrible, but beautiful.
She lifted her hand and pressed it against the black.
The surface yielded like warm wax. A faint tremor passed through it, almost tender, as though the wall itself sighed beneath her touch. It wasn’t cold, as she had expected, but alive with a slow and deliberate pulse. A warmth spread from her palm, winding up her arm and through her chest. The world seemed to narrow until there was nothing but the soft, steady beat within the stone. Images unfurled behind her eyes. A young man hunched over a canvas, his hands blackened, his eyes frenzied as he worked. Each stroke he painted bled the same black she was now touching. The voice from her dream whispered through the vision, its tone no longer pleading but commanding.
“Mira!” he exclaimed, shaking her. “Are you alright?” Her eyes fluttered open. For a moment, a thin sheen of black rippled across them, like oil over water before they melted into their usual green. She smiled faintly, and then she went still.
***
Mira’s memory of leaving the Vintage Vault was a blur. Elric had offered to walk her home but she had declined, insisting that she was fine. The walk back left no imprint in her memory, she was just at the Vintage Vault one moment and at home the other. When she closed the door behind her, she slumped against it.
For several minutes, she simply listened to the silence around her. Partly because she didn't have the energy to do anything else, but mostly because she was expecting to hear the voice again. The silence endured, and Mira rubbed her face in exhaustion. It was then that she noticed a small, black star-shaped smudge right in the middle of her palm. She tried to rub it off with her fingers with no success, so she filled a wash basin with water and retrieved a bar of lye soap from the washroom.
As she began to scrub her hand, the water first turned brown, then black and finally red as she frantically, desperately scrubbed away. But the stain remained.
Mira shrieked her frustration and anger before tossing the basin and its water at the back wall of the kitchen. She curled into a ball in the corner of the room and sobbed.
Not because her hand hurt, but because she knew she'd have to sleep sooner or later.
The shelves were filled with boxes and old art supplies that Mira didn't understand much about, though she wondered why all of this junk was supposedly important enough to store in this manner, under lock and key. Nevertheless, she dutifully dusted the old vases, bottles of paint and easels. Or at least the ones that were most visible, anyway.
She was almost ready, too. She could already imagine the pride in the voice of Mr. Tallow when she'd tell him she had taken the initiative and cleaned this room that clearly hadn't been cleaned in quite some time. It was most fortunate she had found the key in his office.
Suddenly, Mira stopped humming. In fact, she stopped in her tracks. Ahead of her was a stone wall, somehow different from the rest of the room. There was a large black stain in the middle of it, which Mira thought looked damp and sticky. Something primal, deep within her mind, was telling her to walk out of the room and lock the door behind her, never to return. But curiosity is a powerful force indeed, and Mira took a cautious step towards the wall.
Several more steps followed that one, and soon she was standing right next to the wall. At this distance, she could smell the substance and it smelled awful. Like tar, yet with a stinging undertone akin to ammonia.
"What is this stuff?" She thought aloud and almost without realizing it reached for the wall and the black goop on it. Just before the tips of her fingers would have made contact with the substance, that same primal dread from before threatened to overwhelm her.
"Better to just rub it off..." She mused, and took the rag from her aprons front pocket. She pressed the cloth against the stain and rubbed.
The rag came away streaked with black. Mira frowned. It was wet and clinging, like tar warmed by sunlight. She wiped again, harder this time, and the dark smear spread wider. “Ugh, it’s everywhere…” she muttered. The cloth caught on to something, and a flake of stone fell loose from the wall, exposing a hairline crack beneath. Mira crouched down, taking a closer look. Within the crevice, she could swear she could see through into... somewhere dark.
“It’s...” she realized. “A room.”
Then came the sound. A faint scratching. It was so light she thought at first it was the broom settling behind her. But when she held her breath, the noise persisted; a steady, deliberate scrape, like a nail against the stone. Her heart quickened.
“Is… is someone there?” she whispered. Silence. Then another scrape, closer this time. From right beyond the wall. She took a hesitant step back. The air had changed; it carried the dry, stale scent of something long sealed away. Why was there a hollow space behind this wall? Her fingers brushed the edge of the fissure, and the stone felt oddly warm, almost pulsing with a faint rhythm. Slow, like a heartbeat beneath the surface.
"You have to finish it."
Mira stumbled back, the voice echoing in her ears. Clear, impossibly so, as if whispered directly inside her skull. She waited for more, but the storeroom was silent once again, only the ticking of the large grandfather clock outside the storeroom reaching her. “It was nothing.” she muttered. “I’ve been breathing in too much dust, that’s all.” Still, her eyes drifted toward the crack in the wall. The black seepage had formed strange patterns along the stone, almost like brushstrokes. She stared too long at them, tracing the lines with her eyes until they began to look deliberate. Almost... beautiful.
Mira shook her head and grabbed her broom before hurrying out of the room. She noticed that Mr. Tallow had retired for the night and left her a note telling her to go home too. After stashing the supplies and returning the key to Mr. Tallows office, Mira did just that.
***
That night, Mira's restless dreams were plagued by darkness. She stood in a colorless place; a narrow, empty street paved with something that gleamed like wet glass in the muted moonlight, or what she assumed was moonlight. The air was thick with smoke or mist, and through it all came that same voice, slow and patient, its words brushing against her thoughts in a most disagreeable manner. “Finish what he started.” Before her, a faint light pulsed. It was not bright, but enough to outline a figure standing just at the edge of sight at the far end of the alley. A man, she thought. The form was tall, draped in darkness and turned away from her. The shape was painted, not real. She could see the brushwork at its edges. In fact, she could see that everywhere she looked. Mira tried to speak, but her voice dissolved into the air. Each step she took toward the figure made the world feel thicker, like she was walking in oil. Beneath her feet, ripples spread through a black, liquid surface that reflected no stars above. The silhouette shifted. Its head tilted, ever so slightly, as if listening to her approach. Then it began to turn toward her. But before she could see its face, a streak of ochre light split the darkness, banishing the dreamscape in a blinding flash. The voice spoke once more.
"Paint a picture of me."
Mira awoke gasping, her heart hammering in her chest and her sheets drenched in sweat. She bolted out of bed and rushed into the washroom where she splashed the entire contents of the water carafe on her face before curling up in the bathing tub. She wept until she had to leave for work, which she did even though the mere thought of it made her sick to her stomach.
***
Standing outside the main entrance of the Vintage Vault, Mira felt as if she should just resign and never come back to this place. She gathered herself and stepped through the door, only to almost bump into Mr. Tallow. Elric took a hold of Mira's shoulders as he addressed the girl.
"Is everything alright, Mira?" He asked, his face marked with genuine worry. Mira felt ashamed to be in the presence of her employer in such a disheveled state and simply abstained from eye contact with him.
"I'm fine, Mr. Tallow. Just slept poorly, is all. She lied. Elric kept his grip on the girl for a moment longer, before he smiled and let go.
"That's good to hear. You've been working so hard lately that I am worried for you, Mira. If you ever need to take a few days off, you have my permission to do so, no questions asked."
"That's mighty kind of you, Mr. Tallow. But who would tidy around the shop if not I?" Mira inquired, but her focus had shifted. She saw the large brass key hanging on the hook by Mr. Tallow's table, where she left it the preceding night. Such a small thing it was, yet it occupied all of her attention in an instant, the sound of Elric speaking blurring into the background, before a ringing in her ears swallowed even that.
She had to take the key. To open the door to the storeroom, take down the wall and-
"Mira! Are you listening to me?" Elric's voice came back into focus and snapped her out of it.
"I- yes, Mr. Tallow. I'm sorry." She apologized, though her eyes still drifted towards the key.
"As I was saying, you can dust the figurine hall today and go home. It would be cruel of me to work you more than that when you're in this state." Elric said and gave Mira a fatherly pat on the back before he began to don his coat. "I have a client to meet in the upper tiers, I'll be back in a few hours. If anyone visits during this time, write down their names and send them off, got it?"
"Yes, Mr. Tallow." Mira said and bowed, before putting on her apron. Elric stepped out of the door and Mira was left alone.
Mira set about her work with quiet diligence, dusting the figurine hall as instructed. The little statues—porcelain saints, brass animals, and faceless dolls—stared blankly as she moved between them. The cloth in her hand drifted over their heads like a blessing, yet her mind was elsewhere.
With her mind's eye she could still see the key, hanging there, heavy and shining in the lamplight of Mr. Tallow’s office. She tried to hum the Eternal Hymn again, but the melody faltered halfway through the second verse. It no longer soothed her. As if she had somehow moved beyond its reach.
“Just clean, and go home.” she told herself. But the words held no weight. Every motion felt slow and sluggish, as if she were acting out someone else’s idea of her chores. Worst of all, she thought she could hear that awful scraping she had heard from beyond the storeroom wall. She set the broom down and rubbed her arms, hugging herself. “It’s just the rats.” she whispered. “Rats in the walls.” The moment she said it, something answered. Not a sound, more like a memory of one. The same voice from her dream, sliding into her thoughts as smoothly as oil into water.
"Finish it, Mira. He could not, but you can."
She should have been mortified. She should have been running down the street, crying her eyes out. Instead, all she could do was... agree.
"Yes..." She uttered, her gaze fixed into the distance, unfocused.
***
When she came to her senses again, she was already standing in the office doorway. The key still hung from its hook, gleaming dully. For a long moment, she just stared. At the same time she desperately wanted to take and pocket the key, and to do none of the sort and throw the damned thing out the nearby window. Before arriving to a decision, she already reached for it. The metal was cold against her palm and the key absorbed her full attention again. By the time she managed to tear her eyes off of the key, she found herself in the corridor outside the storeroom. “Just a look.” she convinced herself. “Just to make sure it isn’t spreading.” The lock turned with a soft, metallic click. The air that escaped from the room was stale and heavy, tinged with that same chemical rot she remembered. She stepped inside. Dust hung thick in the air, disturbed only by the fading afternoon light that poured through the window slats. Everything looked as if she hadn't even been there yesterday. How was that possible? Dust doesn't collect that fast. It was- Mira's heart leapt into her throat as she laid eyes on the back wall. The black stain had grown. It spread now in long, deliberate tendrils that reached higher up the stone face, curling in shapes that looked like they were forming into some coherent whole. Mira approached slowly, drawn by a quiet wonder she didn’t understand. The patterns were beautiful. Terrible, but beautiful.
She lifted her hand and pressed it against the black.
The surface yielded like warm wax. A faint tremor passed through it, almost tender, as though the wall itself sighed beneath her touch. It wasn’t cold, as she had expected, but alive with a slow and deliberate pulse. A warmth spread from her palm, winding up her arm and through her chest. The world seemed to narrow until there was nothing but the soft, steady beat within the stone. Images unfurled behind her eyes. A young man hunched over a canvas, his hands blackened, his eyes frenzied as he worked. Each stroke he painted bled the same black she was now touching. The voice from her dream whispered through the vision, its tone no longer pleading but commanding.
“You understand now. I must be seen.”
Her fingers sank deeper. The tar-like substance clung to her skin, tracing her veins like ink finding its channels. She did not resist. The thought of being of use filled her with strange, aching joy. Then came the sound of hurried footsteps in the hall. “Mira?!” Mr. Tallow’s voice, strained and fearful. The door burst open, flooding the room with light. He froze where he stood. Mira turned to face him, her expression calm, almost serene. Black veins spidered across her arm, gleaming faintly under her skin. “I can see him.” she said softly. “He’s beautiful, Mr. Tallow. So very beautiful.” He ran to her, seized her wrist and tried to pull her away, but the wall would not release her. The black sludge clung like glue, elastic and living. “Let go!” he shouted, tugging harder. “He won’t.” she whispered. “He needs me.” The wall quivered, a low groan reverberating through the stone as if it exhaled. Then, suddenly, it released her. Mira fell backward into his arms.“Mira!” he exclaimed, shaking her. “Are you alright?” Her eyes fluttered open. For a moment, a thin sheen of black rippled across them, like oil over water before they melted into their usual green. She smiled faintly, and then she went still.
***
Mira’s memory of leaving the Vintage Vault was a blur. Elric had offered to walk her home but she had declined, insisting that she was fine. The walk back left no imprint in her memory, she was just at the Vintage Vault one moment and at home the other. When she closed the door behind her, she slumped against it.
For several minutes, she simply listened to the silence around her. Partly because she didn't have the energy to do anything else, but mostly because she was expecting to hear the voice again. The silence endured, and Mira rubbed her face in exhaustion. It was then that she noticed a small, black star-shaped smudge right in the middle of her palm. She tried to rub it off with her fingers with no success, so she filled a wash basin with water and retrieved a bar of lye soap from the washroom.
As she began to scrub her hand, the water first turned brown, then black and finally red as she frantically, desperately scrubbed away. But the stain remained.
Mira shrieked her frustration and anger before tossing the basin and its water at the back wall of the kitchen. She curled into a ball in the corner of the room and sobbed.
Not because her hand hurt, but because she knew she'd have to sleep sooner or later.
Comments