Ib Chapter 4

Ib passed the hanging dolls and went to the combination.  Green X multiplied by a Red X. Thankfully Ib was a whiz at multiplication, and knew eighteen multiplied by nine is one-hundred and sixty two. Add four to that would be one-hundred and sixty-six. Ib entered the number, and heard a soft click. Ib opened the unlocked door to another room, it was full of wooden trees. All of them had bright green leaves that were obviously unreal, but only one of them bared fruit. It was a red apple, which unlike the leaves seemed very realistic, but when Ib touched it she felt how it was hard, wooden also. She picked it off the tree. Now what was she to do with an apple? Ib promptly left the room and decided to go back to where she first entered the big room. Passing yet another flailing hand, Ib walked down the hallway with the sign saying "BEWARE OF LIPS".

   She tossed the red apple back and forth from her hands, and heard a soft, scratchy voice come from the wall.
"Hungry…."
Ib stopped and drawed her attention to the red lips facing her direction.
"Give me food…."
Very strange. Could it be possible the lips could help Ib though? She didn't have any food though, just the wooden apple.  Though the lips didn't have eyes, so could they tell the difference? Worth a shot, so Ib cautiously walked to the lips and held out the apple as the lips continued to whisper. The teeth of the lips bit in the apple and the tongue dragged it in. It munched on the apple, and once done smacked it's lips in delight.
"This tasty… I let you pass now…"
Suddenly, the mouth stretched open far beyond the normal capabilities of a normal mouth; going from the floor to where it was just above Ib's head, it's sharp teeth pointing out, and the darkness beyond them.
"Go through my mouth…"
Well that's a crazy thing to do. Ib didn't know any other way to go though, and took a step inside on the tongue. Once Ib had fully gotten in the mouth snapped shut and Ib fell into the darkness.

Ib landed on the ground in an empty corridor, with paintings lining the walls. They were all very similar, all of them showing a gilouteen.  As Ib saw each painting as she passed, the realistic blade raised high and higher, until Ib was at the end of the corridor and he final painting didn't show the blade anymore. To Ib's right was a staircase going downward, and just as she turned to preceded down, she heard a noise from above. She didn't have time to look and jumped down the staircase a few steps, and saw he blade of the gilouteen had fallen and nearly killed her. Ib shook it off and continued down the stairs.

Ib was in a red hallway once she was at the bottom of the stairs.  When she reached a turn she saw out of the corner of her eye something run down the hall. What was it? Ib bolted around the turn and kept running. Could it be another person? Could it be leading her to a way out?

She made another sharp turn and appeared at the end of the hall, with a red door at the end also. Ib opened it to reveal a very large red room, much bigger than the last rooms she had been in. There were two very tall sculptures in the room, they looked almost exactly the same except one was blue and the other was red, towering from the floor to the ceiling. Ib explored the room and saw another red door, which she already assumed was locked.  She surveyed some more and saw the room was also full of paintings, but there was one that caught her eye. It was a lady, with long brown hair and wispy bangs, wearing a beautiful red dress, and even had these large, sparkling red eyes.

"Maybe I'll be pretty like her someday…"  She thought. Ib remembered something though, the pamphlet Ib's mother was reading had said how Guertena never modeled his portraits after actual people.

Ib got closer to the golden frame and saw a platc again, which read;
"The Lady in Red."
"So I guess It's unlikely I'll be like that… Oh well." Ib said.

Ib started to walk off when she heard a crash from behind her. She turned and saw the painting had hopped off the wall. Literally, the Lady in Red actually started to come out of the portrait and hopped off the wall! She started crawling after Ib, as the bottom half of her body was still trapped in the painting. Ib ran to the other side of the room besides an artwork called, "Heartbeat." She carefully turned her head around the corner to see. The Lady in Red was over by the red statue, turning every which way. Ib looked around some more and saw something shiny on the floor. It was sparkling red key! She tip toed across the room, making sure to stop whenever the Lady turned a bit, and then cautiously continued. She bent down and picked up the key, but as soon as she did, the Lady turned and crawled after her. Ib gripped the key and sprinted to the locked door, quickly shoved the key in and turned it. A click confirmed it was unlocked now and just as the lady was on her heel, Ib got in the room and shut the door. For good measure, Ib locked it.


It was yet another small, red room with a locked, red door. The room had short bookshelves full of books. Some had information about Guertena, some were about his art. Ib couldn't read most of the words though so she just skimmed. A piece of paper fell from one of the books though. It had words scribbled on it;

" H A V I N G  F U N ? "

"No, I am most certainly not having fun" Ib spoke to herself.
Ib skimmed some more until she found one particular book. It was made of construction paper of different colours, and was held together by multi-coloured string. It was crudely written in crayon;

"Carrie Careless and the Galette Des Rois!"

It looked like it was made by a six year old, it had a crayon drawing of some sort of cake or pie with a knife next to it. Despite the poor craftsmanship, Ib decided to read it. She turned the page to start to story. It was a drawing of four girls around a table, Three smiling and one with blue hair having a surprised face.

"Happy birthday!" It said in crayon. There was a text bubble above the blue haired girl's head, "Thanks you guys!" It read. On the next page, there was another bubble above a girl with pink hair saying, "For your special day…" Ib turned the page again and it continued, "We made you a galette des rois!" The pink girl said, and now she held some pastry like the one on the cover. The blue haired girl asked, "What's that?" The next page started with the pink haired girl again, "There is a coin inside this pie, and if you eat the slice with the coin, you'll be a happy person!"  The next page went on, "That sounds fun!" The blue girl said. "Isn't it? Now, let's divide it up!" It showed the pink girl holding a knife cutting the pie.

The next page simply said, "Now pick the slice you want and eat!" and the four girls ate their slices of pie in delight. Ib noticed though, the blue girl had a troubled look on her face. He next page had the pink girl asking, "What is it?" The blue girl answered, "Aah.. I think I just swallowed something hard!" The next page showed the other three girls laughing, "Haha!" "Oh Carrie!" The girl in pink said. Then, one of the other girls exclaimed, "That must have been the coin!" The blue haired girl, apparently "Carrie", had a depressed look. "What do I do?" The next page had the pink girl commenting, "It's fine, the coin's small!" She was picking up the empty plate and knife and leaving the room with her saying, "I better clean this up now!"

The next page had the girl in pink in a hallway next to a red door and a wooden table, with a taller woman with pink hair with a troubled face. "What's wrong, mom?" The shorter pink girl asked. Her mother replied, "Have you seen the key to the study?" The next page continued the conversation with the pink girl puzzled, "The study? It's always here on the tabl- huh?" The pink girl was at the table staring at a little dot sitting on it. "It's the coin… that should have been.. in the pie… Could it have been that.." The next page showed the mother walking off, "Where could it have gone.. Oh, my dear will be so upset.." The pink girl was just standing there, "What do I… do…" The pink girl was worring so much she didn't see the knife sliding off the plate she was still holding. Ib turned the page to see the girl staring at the knife on the floor. The next page showed the girl walking off with the knife talking to herself, "Looks like I was just as careless as Carrie~"

Ib turned to the next two pages, side by side. The one to the left was completely black, and the one to the right was a bright red. Ib flipped the page one more time to the last set of pages. The left one had the girl in pink, now covered in red, still holding the knife in one hand and a red key in another. She was exclaiming, "I found the keeeyyy! Now open the door!"

Ib kept staring at that last page.

"That was cheerful." Ib said.

She finally adverted her gaze over to the back cover page. She hadn't even noticed that here was a small, red key taped to the inside-back cover. She put the book back but took the key, used it to unlock the door and promptly left the room.

Two hallways. Again. Both lead to doors, and not sure if one was locked or not. There was an open area with a much larger vase than the last ones Ib had seen. She put her rose in, a sparkle f light came from the flower and it had five petals again. The vase was still so large it could hold heal Ib's flower at least two more times. Ib decided to go right into another corridor. There was yet another black, crazy eyed tongue wiggling, painting on the far side of the room, and another door. These didn't catch Ib's eye though. It was something in the middle of the room. Laying, lifelessly on the floor.

It was a man.