Chapter 44 - Young Woman on Her Deathbed

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Chapter 44 - Young Woman on Her Deathbed

I wake up in a small room that smells of death.

It doesn't take me too long to figure out where the smell is coming from.

There's a girl lying in bed, clearly dead. She's frozen, her eyes empty, and hands stuck in a weird angle.

I am repulsed instantly, and not in a this is gross way, but in a this is wrong, absolutely wrong way.

The girl is dead. It's obvious.

I feel chills all over my body. I'm super uncomfortable. This is not okay. She's just lying there, dead. And he's... painting her?

Because there's a man in the room, with a canvas looking at the woman and painting.

"She's dead," I stated the obvious.

"Yes, she died. Two hours ago," the painter clarifies.

"Why are you paintings this... why..."

"I didn't before. I didn't paint her. So, I shall paint her now."

It's only been two hours, but there's already a smell, a very specific smell that comes with death. And I feel a strange sense of panic, like this is not okay.

I don't know why. I've been to open casket funerals before. I didn't freak out like this.

But this feels different somehow.

"You should cover her, this feels wrong," I tell the man, taking a step closer to her.

"No covering. I loved her and she is dead, so if this is the only way I can keep her than so be it," the man tells me.

Is this the curse's way of telling me that fighting to stay with Gustave, to keep him, a man that is essentially dead in my time, wrong?

Or is this my future somehow?

"At least close her eyes," I press and take another step.

"I said to not touch her!" the man yells and picks up a heavy bookend, smashing it on my head, making me pass out instantly.  

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