The Portrait

Hunter stood warily in the foyer of the grand old house, a drop of condensation clung stubbornly to his forehead. As he peered around, an unsettling feeling grew in his chest. The doors swayed gently back and forth of their own accord. Light breezes of warm and cool air seemed to duel with each other in the open space. He could swear the walls were writhing, pulsing, as if the house itself was breathing.

The uneasy feeling swelled in his chest, mingling with regret for having accepted this dare. The silence was broken by a creaking door in the distance. Hunter whirled around to run back out the door from whence he came, but it was... gone. The old and yellowed wallpaper that adorned the foyer had closed in. There was no escape.

The wall where the door had once been now hung a painting of a particularly pale and dreary family. Hunter felt as though they were staring into his soul. As he backed away, their eyes seemed to move and their heads appeared to follow him. He backed into a wall, nearly toppling a coatrack. Still horrified, he found enough grounding to surmise that there must be a back door to the house.

He peeled his eyes away from the painting and forced himself to peer down the hallway toward the back of the house. He could not see the end of the hall. It grew darker and darker the farther down he looked, until it seemed he was staring into a black hole. He strained his eyes, but the void yielded nothing. The sight filled him with dread, but he couldn't imagine another way out. He glanced at the wall one more time, hoping, praying that the door had returned. It had not, though the painting now showed a vase full of half-dead flowers rather than a family portrait.

Hunter steeled himself and forcibly put one foot in front of the other toward the darkness. The hallway appeared straight, but it felt as though it meandered while he trudged. He felt eyes on him. Up ahead to his left, the portrait of the family hung once more. And once again, they were all staring at him, following him.

As he passed the portrait on his left, he noticed it again up ahead on his right. It became harder to move as he approached the darkness at the end of the corridor, as if some sort of gravity were pulling him backwards. He pushed on, as if walking through a heavy wind. The eyes of the family members in the portrait began glowing red as he passed by it again, and he could swear he heard them screaming at him.

Finally, he saw the faint glint of an old bronze door handle. He reached out for it and missed. Another step, another flail of his arm, his finger brushed against it. Fighting to press forward with all his strength, he took another step and finally gripped the handle. Except it wasn't a handle. No longer forged of bronze, no longer attached to a door, what he held in his hand was... another hand.

He looked up and saw the man from the painting towering over him, as tall as a spire, his glowing red eyes piercing Hunter's soul. The man laughed maniacally and said with a booming voice, "You're one of us now." The resistance dissipated, and Hunter stood up straight. Ahead of him was the family from the portrait amid a background of darkness. He turned around and saw the foyer he had been trying to escape earlier. He was now a part of the portrait, forever trapped.