I walked the foggy halls looking for tonight's subject. I was again allowed to enter this place, my duty to paint a portrait of someone from the royal court. Something tugged at me to my right and, turning, saw a dark room through a doorless passageway. Dark Gray walls seemed to fade into a fog as they got farther from me. I set up my station, waiting for the visitor to arrive, and the sound of rustling leaves alerted me of his arrival. As I turned towards the sound, I saw that he was already in the room, silently staring at me. Gray leaves from an unseen tree seemed to cover the path he followed in, gently moving from a hidden breeze.

He stared at me with dark beads of eyes, sizing me up, his head a tall column with two thin red lines traveling from the top on the sides down and into a point over the mouth. Thin ripped tendrils of skin floating upwards from the top of his head, as if another section had been ripped away.

In an upsettingly quiet manner, he drifted towards the chair, only some of those gray leaves making a sound. A large dark cloak completely hid his legs and feet, and I couldn't determine if he was floating or walking. As he sat down, I heard the unsettling sound of flesh splitting open, and I watched in near horror as the thin red lines separated and his head opened like a bloody flower, tiny thin wisps of fluids and flesh sticking to the sides. It took a deep breath, and I took this as the sign that it was ready for me to begin.

Once I was done, I nodded at it and saw as his head began to close up once again. It slowly nodded back at me, and I felt as if it seemed more awake, more aware, and more energetic as I finished the painting. It certainly seemed to feed on that. The leaves underneath it now swirled more energetically and seemed to carry him away from the room, leaving a single spinning gray leaf on the center of the room. Perhaps a payment? I picked it up, wondering if, much like everything else in this realm, it was a message of some kind, a clue, or was I merely overthinking things once again, and it was just that, a leaf. I picked it up and placed it within the pages of a sketchbook.

I heard the whispers growing and that tugging feeling in my stomach that always preceded my involuntary departure. My task was complete, my journey here was at its end, and I was in danger of overstaying my welcome.

For tonight at least. I woke up, knowing that I would be once again summoned to that place soon enough.