The Ben-skeleton sighs. He removes the cigarette from between his teeth and sets the burning end against your curtains. There is a curl of smoke, and then a tongue of fire.

 

“You can stay, or you can run,” he says. “It makes no difference.”

 

You run. He does not follow.

 

You limp down the stairs, crying out for Gregory. If there’s a fire, the system will kick in, seal the painting rooms, and take out all the oxygen. If he gets trapped in a gallery, he’ll die. You hobble from wing to wing, calling out his name. As you reach the Baroque gallery, you hit something, trip, and fall to the marble, your wrists cracking painfully. You sit up, rubbing them. It is only then that you see Gregory, flat on his back, his eyes open and staring at nothing at all.

 

Over him, an unattributed Dutch painting of a singing couple begins to move. The wife turns her head and looks at you. She smiles with the corner of her mouth and reaches for the candle. She pushes it out, away from the canvas, and it enters the gallery, real heat, real flame. A few drips of wax pitter-patter on the floor. She tips it back toward her own canvas, and the flame shoots up the oil. As you scramble to your feet, you see that the other paintings are moving, shifting. Some of the figures are looking at their own features like they are new. Some of the canvases are empty.

 

The automatic doors begin to close in the entrance. You run toward them. As you skitter through the opening, the doors stop closing, as if something has jammed. In the hallway, you see that all of the doors are half-open. The fire-system has failed.

 

You begin limping toward the south wing. Your ankle throbs with each step.

 

The Monets are leaking color onto the floor. Without faces, without features, they are just useless landscapes, dead before, and even deader now. Fire moves along every surface, jets of flame following lines of paint, frames, curling black canvas, paper, even the walls. You wonder if Gregory…

 

Gregory. What if he had just been unconscious? What if you have left him there to die? He might be all right. You need to both get out of the museum.

 

 

If you keep moving toward the main hall, turn to page 30.

If you turn around to go back to the Baroque wing to rescue Gregory, turn to page 29.