Felicia wandered in a long hallway, following the figure in front of her, unsure of where they were going. She looked at the pictures on the wall, followed the twisted frames and brush strokes that reminded her of Picasso or maybe Dali. The whole hallway seemed like a Mobius Strip, seeming to be the same endless black and white marble walkway with doors on either side. She stopped to look at a painting that caught her eye, a painting by El Greco.
She looked at the blackened sky, the twisted figures, the serpents bending themselves to pierce the skin of the two men, to pierce the souls of the wicked. There were two figures, a man and a woman that stood apart from the rest, looking on unaccosted by the serpents that attacked the others.
Felicia cocked her head from side to side wondering who the two figures reminded her of. The man turned and looked at her with an evil gleam in his eye and pulled the lady to him, placing his head on her breast. The lady, who didn't even look human, smiled a horribly sadistic smile and ran her fingers through the young man's black hair. The man tipped a wine goblet to his lady friend and they both drank from it deeply.
She heard the other figures moan in agony and her attention flickered to them. She gasped in horror and took a few steps backwards. The three men were Marshall, Tommy, and Amatto; the three of them being attacked by snakes whose eyes gleamed the same color of the wine in the goblet. She reached her hand towards the painting and the woman turned her head towards Felicia sharply and hissed, showing her vampiric fangs. Ciprianna sneered at Felicia from her place in the painting and mocked her.
Everyone you care for, everyone you respect, everyone you love. They all live by my whim. I'm the one with the control here. They live and die by my command. My playthings to break or toy with as I please. They know it. They love it. They'll die for me, you know. They love me for it. If I put out my boot they'll lick it if I want them to. They die for me. They even kill for me.
But you already knew that, didn't you?
Ciprianna grabbed Issac's hair sharply and pulled his head back, exposing his white neck. She grinned wickedly and Felicia heard Issac's moan of approval. She reared back her head, her fangs glistening in the painting's dim moonlight and grinned at Felicia in wicked cruelness. She plunged her fang's into her son's neck, spraying blood on the canvas at her feet and behind her, rimming the two of them in red ochre. Issac cried out as he used to during release, and her family moaned out thier ecstacy as well, the serpents digging thier fangs deep into their bodies in a mockery of the kiss that Ciprianna was giving her son.
Felicia was unable to move, unable to choke out the scream that hovered at the back of her throat. Her hands clutched at her neck, trying to wrench it free. In the picture, Ciprianna feasted on the blood of her child, drinking him dry. Felicia saw his face hollow out and dry like a husk, his skin dusting before her very eyes. She heard the thud as the last bits of his corpse dropped to the ground at Ciprianna's feet. Ciprianna wiped the blood daintily with the back of her hand and looked down to survey Issac's remains. She lifted up the heel of her foot and placed it right above his brittle skull and looked into Felicia's eyes.
Felicia sputtered, her voice a mere rasp, building within her chest, N... N...No...No...NO...NOOOOOOOOOOO...
Ciprianna smashed her heel down into Issac's skull, crushing it with the sound of pottery breaking. Felicia's voice found purchase then, screaming her agony that echoed all around her, drowning her in it. She launched herself towards the painting, clawing her fingernails into the canvas in a blind panic, in a blind rage. She heard echoing laughter as she did it, the painting bleeding onto her fingers, rivets of it, splattering across her face, into her mouth...insane laughter bubbling up....
The hand on her shoulder made her whirl around to face....herself. Brown hair glistening in the track lighting, blue eyes sparkling like diamonds, her suit neatly pressed, her nylon seams in just the right places. This Felicia smiled at her and took her by the hand.
Come now. We have so much more to see. Maybe we should pick a door now, hmmm?
Felicia looked back at the painting only to see just the normal Laocoon, perfect in its twisted frame. She looked back over to herself, smiling in her perfection and saw something strange refected in her eyes. She looked down to her hands and once again lost the sanity within her, feeling it flee into the furthest recesses of her mind. Her hand....her hand! She pulled away from the real Felicia, the ALIVE Felicia and lifted her hands to her face. Bone...not even sinew. Her eyesockets were nothing but holes, her clothes nothing but tattered remains on a long decayed skeleton.
She sobbed once again, sinking to her bony knees on the floor, feeling the cold stone clack as her bones hit the floor. She went down to her hands, unable to support herself at all, looking at the reflection of herself in the gloss of the tile. Her hair was only strings, her nose gone. As she watched, a snake, like the one in the painting, stuck its head out from her mouth and flicked its tongue at her before retreating back into the darkness of her skull.
She looked up in confusion at the other her, shook her head and rasped Why? WHY?
The new Felicia shrugged, her beautiful features unmarred by any emotion other than pity.
You really are a disgrace to the family, you know that? I suppose that its better this way. Oh, well, I really should clean up this mess, now.
Felicia lifted her foot above the head of the kneeling skeleton before her. The skeleton opened its mouth, wailing, pleading with her to stop.
The foot collided with Felicia's head, breaking it into a thousand little pieces.
The blackness receded.
Felicia screamed.
In the darkness of the night, Tommy heard the most blood-curdiling scream he had ever heard before tear through the shroud like it was paper. He choked on his own emotions and bent himself to the task at hand. He had to quicken his movements.
Before it was too late.
