![]Impetigo['s avatar](https://a1cdn.gaiaonline.com/dress-up/avatar/ava/fa/49/36e63f892149fa_flip.png?t=1318829512_6.00_00)
The Mobile
The day was cold and bright. The children and their teachers were walking to the Museum of Art in History. The small public school wasn’t far from the building, and the kids enjoyed the fresh air of the outdoors, as opposed to a stuffy classroom or a stinky bus. Mrs. Erickson’s fourth grade class was taking a trip to the museum for an “educational experience”. Excited chatter buzzed through the air, over the various sounds of the urban area.
Nadine stood apart from her peers, observing her surroundings with feigned interest. She was an outsider, an outcast…often called a teacher’s pet or brain. Her attempts to make friends were unnoticed. So, Nadine lagged behind the group, watching them, but not allowed to join in their innocent fun.
At the entrance to the museum the class was split into groups among parent chaperones, and maps were doled out. Nadine reluctantly followed her group around the Impressionism Exhibit, and the Italian Renaissance, although she really wanted to go to the second floor, where she had glimpsed a mobile, turning in an imaginary breeze.
Nadine briefly showed an interest in the Egyptian jewelry, marveling at the usage of gold, and the gems set within the various necklaces and head ornaments.
“Well, well, looks like The Brain has a weakness too. You might wanna get that drool offa your chin, girl, before you get a rash.”
Nadine blushed, mollified by her classmates’ taunts, and wiped at the non-existent saliva. Her classmates’ laughs increased in volume upon seeing this action, and she briefly noted how like monkeys they sounded.
At last, her group was led up the stairs, toward the recently renovated Modern Art Exhibit.
Nadine gazed at the glorious gallivant from stupid paintings of dead people with wide eyes. The mobile was a beautiful piece, with scattered broken panes of colored glass in shades of red, orange, blue, indigo, green, yellow, and even gray. The skylight in the ceiling sent bright rays of sunlight into the room, which shined through the glass, catching their brilliance. The walls surrounding the mobile were slightly angled and mirrored, so the colored rays reflected billions of times over. Nadine and her classmates oohed and ahhed at the perfect piece.
As the group moved on, Nadine stayed behind to stare at the artwork. She felt a connection to the piece…bits of genius and perfection broken and scattered haphazardly, controlled entirely by strings.
Nadine slowly pulled her eyes from the mobile, and was making for the exit way, when a sudden silence descended upon her. The background noise of the museum seemed to fade, until it was entirely gone. Nadine almost sprinted to the doors, only to find the exit blocked by heavy iron doors, with humongous steel bars, too big for her to lift. The skylight slowly closed in on itself. An odd, red-ish light filled the room.
The mobile began to spin ever so slightly faster.
A whispered voice entered into the fray. Nadine could not tell if it came from the room, or her own head. The walls reflected her shocked face billions of times over.
She came here lonesome. Came here sad…
“Who are you?! What is this!?”
Then she saw it. It made her glad…
“I don’t understand!” She began to turn herself, standing in the center of the room. Her face was everywhere, panicked, frantic. Her voice cracked. A pounding resonated in the room. She felt as if the walls were closing in on her. The mobile spun ever faster.
The room grew dark. The room grew red…
“Stop it! I SAID STOP IT!” Wide eyes, terror, reflected all around. Out of the corner of her eye, a face, watching smirking. Her classmates teasing, taunting, jeering at her, like uneducated apes. Voices, voices that wouldn’t leave you alone.
And the room WAS closing in on her. No! She would be crushed!
Pretty soon…she’d soon be dead!
The walls were coming in ever faster now! Spiked walls, walls with blood already dripping on them. The mobile was nothing more than a spinning blur, the object that had lured her to her fate.
Screams filled her ears, screams of many before her, all sad and lonely people, now crying out for mercy. Then, screams of the evil filled her, tearing her inside out.
She fell to the floor, too much, too much! She would implode! The walls would crush! The screams would snap!
No. No! NO! STOP!
You’re nothing! Worthless! You don’t belong anywhere! Stupid, smart, fat, bony, ugly, stuck up, quiet, noisy! Horrid nasty little beasty!
Suddenly, mercifully, the noise stopped. A pounding was heard on the doors, frantic to get in. People were heard behind the door, a murmur or two here and there, and then a barked order.
Within the course of an hour, firefighters and police had successfully opened the doors.
The red lights made everyone uneasy. It was hard to see, and many of the policemen hurried out to keep back the small, but persistent crowd.
In the center of the room was Nadine, crunched into a ball. She was muttering to herself. Her hands were clasped over her ears, holding on for dear life, as if she would go over the edge if she let go. She stared fixedly at the floor.
“Are you alright, sweetheart? We’re here to help you. Can you stand?”
Nadine ignored the nice firefighter. Her muttering grew slightly fainter.
“Come on, dear. We’ll get you out of here.”
But, as he grabbed her shoulder, Nadine’s mouth opened in a scream. The scream was so loud, so violent, that nothing could be heard. She shook like crazy.
No matter what anyone did to reassure and calm her, she kept screaming. And she would have kept at it if she hadn’t gotten a whopping good amount of tranquillizer.
From that day on, Nadine was mute. She was labeled insane, and had to be kept in a special ward. The Modern Art Exhibit was shut down, and eventually, the museum was forced to close for good. No one would go there. The artwork and artifacts were distributed into other museums, and the building practically faded away with time.
Nadine could never speak about what had happened, and no one else knew how she had become mute. They never knew about the noises that ran rampant in her head, even now, when night came and filled her. The darkness brought on a slew of voices.
Yet, Nadine wasn’t entirely mute. The doctors that worked with her daily were able to get two sentences from her. That didn’t seem like much, but it was something. Whenever they had probed her mind as far as they could, she’d say, like a robot:
“She came here lonesome. She’d soon be dead.”
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O__O I don't even know how I came up with this. It just popped into my head one day, and has been evolving ever since.
I was gonna submit this in the guild's Halloween contest, but I went over the deadline so...>__<
Oh well, I still like it. Happy Halloween, y'all.
![[ In Nomine Satanas ]'s avatar](https://a1cdn.gaiaonline.com/dress-up/avatar/ava/1b/c4/6aa1e08031c41b_flip.png?t=1244610061_6.00_01)
