7) Watchful Paintings

Watchful Paintings

Slowly stepping into the dark room made me shiver, in here it was cold, and as soon as Khaos entered the room as the last one behind Astoria, Namir, Müsli and Arctic, who shook himself and made an unnececary amount of noise, gas lanterns on the wall flickered on like it was magic. I hold my breath, and we all just stood there for a moment, taking in the look of this huge hallway. It was.. a real hallway this time. Not looking old, and rusty, but big and.. like royalty. Namir whispered silently "There are so many paintings.." and he was right. The walls were covered with paintings of probably very high status royal humans. I slowly start to walk over the red carpet with golden decorations, and the others followed right on my track. Astoria swished her hair out of her eyes to see better, there was so much to take in. We all tried to be as quiet as we possibly could, with just Müsli suddently whimpering something. "What?" Asked Namir, whispering over to Müsli. He just answered.. "The paintings!! The.. the.. the eyes!! They are moving!!" We all stand still after the realization of his words hit us- he was right. All eyes from every painting in this big room like hallway stared at us. No matter if tiny rat, little goat or humans, everyone stared at us. Even the armor stands seemed to all look at us. I shiver, and Khaos says coldly "Let's go, we should not stand here for long!" I turn my head, just to see that the door was gone once again. I catch Astorias look, she must have noticed already as well. With a nonverbal nod, we agree to keep quiet about it. There was no need for panic with a horse like Müsli in our group. Arctic, who was the last one following behind us, made the most noise out of all of us, with his tail dumbing into the walls all the time. He really had no control over his limbs whatsoever. Namir seemed to be quite brave, not looking like he cared for the watchful paintings in here in any way. I look back to the front, where Khaos was leading the little group. His ears turned into all different directions the whole time, to make sure he would definitly hear it, if something, or someone... suddendly happened. He really was such a good friend. I turn my eyes over, and catch the looks of the paintings. The big paintings had heavy shiny gold frames, who looked as if they were really antique and very worthy. "I wonder who lives her.. or better.. lived here?" I thought to myself, looking over at Astoria again, who stared at the paintings herself right at this moment. I look back, and let my eyes linger on a few of the paintings. The backgrounds were mostly faded, muted colors, who show old landscape drawings, or just simple brown oil backgrounds. The humans depicted all wore heavy looking royal robes, some fancier with lots of gold, accessories and jewellery, over other who seemed to wear some kind of blue uniform with white trousers and way too big hats, over others who didn't wore super shiny and fancy robes, but were more modestly dressed. Animals were just rarely depicted, but if, they were looking very funky and innacurate. Astoria seemed to think the same thing, because she tried to surpress a laughter after seeing a funny looking cat with an ultra long neck. Arctic shot her a warning glance, and Namir seemed like this all was a really bad joke. Khaos, who had now led us halfway through the hallway, ignored us. Müsli, who really hated it in here, kept muttering and tried to not look at.. well.. everything that was looking at him. I really felt sorry for this guy. His Owner seemed like he thought this was the best trip in the world, but Müsli was already when he had arrived a week ago, definitly not the same opinion. And my guess is, that he is not more of a fan of this trip now either. I take a deep breath, trying to ignore the piercing looks, who seemed to just get more intense, the more we progress through this hallway. Astoria, who seemed as if she was in fact not able anymore to ignore the situation, walked up next to Arctic and silently said "This is so creepy. How is it possible that their eyes are moving? It just.. is impossible, isn't it?" Just as Arctic wanted to answer something, Khaos said calmly "Not only their eyes are moving." I sigh, exactly what we, and Müsli, needed to hear. As expected, Müsli gasped, looking around very very terrified, to try to catch the paintings move, and Khaos had the audacity to chuckle slightly. "Calm down Müsli," said Namir, "As long as they are staying inside of their paintings, they can move as much as they want. I just dont want them to move outside of their frames..." We all nodded in silent agreement to those words. Arctic lifted his head, looking in front of Khaos onto the end of the hallway. "See, we nearly did it!" Astoria said, hope swinging in her voice. Müsli, who seemed super exhausted, just nodded, slightly shivering, speeding up a bit to be as soon as just possible outside of the stinging looks again. I follow the little group, and Astoria helped Khaos to softly nudge the door open after reaching it. The room behind it seemed to be very bright, considering that the other rooms were super dark at first. I had a bad feeling about this...