The skeleton—Ben, you think, Ben—grinds his jaw a little, the cigarette pinching between his teeth.

 

“Look,” he says. “Look at it again.”

 

You turn toward the painting, and you can see. You can see Ben, his soul being pulled from his body by an invisible hand. You can see the legion of demons, rising up, crowding each other out. You sob and reach for him. Perhaps you can pull him up from the painting, pull him back into this world. Your fingers brush the canvas.

 

A demon reaches out and digs its claws into you.

 

You yank your hand back, hard. The painting releases you. On the canvas, where your fingers had been, there are splotches the color of your skin, like the set that you found earlier.

 

You start to weep. You think of the funeral, Ben’s body laid out, so unreal it could have been wax. The skeleton sighs.

 

“Either everything is real, or nothing is,” he says. “You are in danger, or you are mad. No middle ground.” His bony fingers grip your neck, and he shoves you face-first into the canvas.

 

You sink. You feel something entering your lungs, slick and thick, and you can’t breathe exactly but you don’t feel dead. You are sprawled on a black floor. You look up at the only source of light.

 

Through a watery haze, there is your office. The skeleton peers down over the painting, a few flecks of ash dropping from his cigarette. The ash floats down around you, more color than form, but you cough anyway. You watch as he sets the cigarette on the curtains that cover your windows. A curl of smoke rises, then a bright tongue of fire.

 

You feel the hands of the egg-woman on you before you see her. She presses her milky, featureless face into you. From every side, shadows crowd and reach, creating a cage with their limbs.

 

As you sink deeper and deeper into the inky mire, flames begin to lick across the top of the canvas. The skeleton sits in your desk chair and seems lost in thought. A demon’s hand grasps your face and pulls you under.

 

THE END.