[English fic]
(Pickman took a bite. What happened next will blow your mind)
Pickman held the silver fork tight, its gleam contrasting jarringly with the melting, rotten piece of flesh, which was just blackened veins and slightly clotted fat tissues with a bit of meat.
Breathing was a mistake, Pickman thought.
For the smell underneath was far more potent than any dead rat.
Pickman looked at Doresain, who looked back at him with almost eager eyes.
He smiled.
Closing his eyes, the artist swallowed it whole with just a bite.
The effect was immediate.
But it wasn't what Pickman thought it would be.
Before his eyes was no longer the suite belonging to the King of the Ghouls. It was a ballroom, the ship's ballroom. The velvet curtains framed the night sky, and soft light emitted from grand chandeliers sat on the dancing guests' hair and clothing folds like glittering gold.
Pickman took a step backward.
Where was he? What should he do? He looked around. The tables? The floor? The exits? Pickman should have asked Doresain more about the effect, but he knew now was not the time to regret his oversight.
To not get lost in the crowd, Pickman walked alongside the wall, his hand lightly hovering next to it.
Everything, Pickman thought to himself, was too bright, too hazy, like an impression of a memory, a glaze applied when the paint hasn't yet dried.
The people's faces were nonsense, they spoke gibberish too. Any noises they made were to mimic human speech, and if there was any emotion put into it, Pickman wouldn't be able to tell. But it was rather nice, he would prefer these to whispered insults.
Pickman bumped into a man. And what he saw left behind from their movements were afterimages that looked like smeared paint.
The guests' chatter ceased as the music started to die down. When Pickman reached the other side of the room, everything was dead silent.
Someone put a hand on his shoulder.
Pickman tried to shrug it off, but the hand wouldn't budge, it gripped even tighter on his shirt.
Taking a deep breath, he turned his head.
"Good evening, mister!"
"I am [*****]"
"May I have the pleasure of this dance?"
The faceless man spoke with glee, his right hand extended, while his left hand still held a dead grip on Pickman's shoulder.
Pickman looked around, seeing if the man was talking to someone else. Doresain had told him to not speak or interact too much with the memory, but Pickman couldn't exactly pull himself out right now.
He opened his mouth to refuse.
But no words came out.
Confused, Pickman shot the mysterious man a glance, then hesitantly, he nodded.
The man's grip softened into a pull, guiding Pickman to the dance floor.
*Oh*
Looking at the blur of movements, Pickman realised that-
He had forgotten how to dance.
The strange man eagerly held Pickman tight as he swept him into the first step of the Waltz. Pickman tried not to think much of it, but since when has a Waltz become this difficult? Like a newborn fawn, he lost the rhythm right at the start, even accidentally stepped onto the man's feet for two or three times every measure, and each time his leather sole stamped onto the polished dress shoes, Pickman couldn't help but wince. However, thanks to the fact that this was only a memory, the man didn't seem to care.
The music was clearer this time, an old tune that Pickman used to hear from across the mansion, one of those nights when his parents organized Balls that he wasn't old enough to understand.
Was it like this?
Pickman wondered.
Perhaps the years spent in the studio had made it softer, polished the edges until there was nothing more than compositions and colors in his mind. But maybe they had all of these too. A room too big to be used for much else, chandeliers that glimmer even brighter than the light they cast, a red carpet that was made from some kind of fabric Pickman never cared to know the name of, and so many guests that they had to be reduced into spots of color to even fit on a canvas.
Was it like this then?
But Pickman wouldn't know the answer.
They weren't close.
Not then, and now never.
The music came to a slow stop. Pickman's footwork was still an elaborate dance of a collapsing house, but at least he wasn't stepping on his partner's feet anymore, hopefully.
"Are you ready?"
"Now is the second phase of this banquet"
The man smiled, or at least his tone indicated so.
"Tell me, mister, which part of a human corpse do you find most exquisite?"
They stopped dancing, everyone did. Pickman's eyes widened looking at the man in front of him.
What would he like most?
"I had only tasted the...liver"
Pickman said, unsure.
"Oh"
"That won't do"
The music started again.
"Ah, then shall we wait until this song ends"
"I will show you how good a beating heart tastes"
"Wha-"
And Pickman was locked into a dance again, this time, the music was much faster. The strange man almost dragged Pickman with him. One two three One two three- No, not this time, the beat moved with a hectic pace, as though the band had decided to play every note consecutively without rhythm or reason.
Pickman tried to pry open the grip on his waist, but the man's fingers just clamped down tighter, like hooks clawing into his skin, the more Pickman struggled, the deeper it dug.
Frantically looking around, Pickman tried to find something, something to help him out of this, but even the once distinguished room had become a mess of colors and flesh.
Oh
Oh no.
Guests started feasting on their dance partners, pulling out muscle fibers by the teeth, they gnaw at the neck, the shoulders, the hands, while intestines spilled onto the floor as though they were ribbons. It was a bloom of colors,
Red.
Pink.
Yellow.
White.
It wasn't that Pickman didn't find the change in scenery fascinating, but he would rather it not be as nauseating as this moment, when he was being spun around by a stranger who didn't understand social cues.
One
Two
Three
One
Two
Three-
"Ugh"
The room was spinning with them now. Pickman had no choice but to catch up with the rhythm, however chaotic it was.
But something stirred deep in his throat, his temple pounding with each new step, and Pickman's breath slowly turned into fast heaving, trying to grasp at the nonexistent air of a memory.
When his legs buckled and finally gave in, the music came to a halt, the pair of hands that refused to leave him alone now became his sole support. He leaned onto the man.
The room didn't stop spinning.
No, it was now a whirlwind of pigments too bright for Pickman's comfort, melted and blended into each other, the room no longer resembled even a fraction of what it was. Except-
The man pulled him, again, to a table. The white sheet covering it hurt his eyes with its blinding color. Pickman winced, his body trembled, something pressing at his throat, and his head wouldn't stop hurting, sweat beads traveling down his face in concerning quantities.
"Please sit down"
"This meal, I assured you, will be the best you have ever tasted"
Pickman no longer bothered to even glance at the man. Taking a seat at the table, he might as well, in that very moment, have spill his organs out like the scene he saw earlier.
But Pickman, against all odds, willed himself to at least see what he was being given.
A heart.
A blackened, yet still beating
Heart.
It was, like Doresain would say, alluring, amidst the vomit of colors clinging to all of his senses. This thing had the...tact to be something...mild.
What an admirable quality.
Ah
Pickman would... like to have a taste of it.
He picked up the silver fork next to the plate.
The color, the shape, the rhythm, how it steadily slowed down.
Drool...or was it sweat?... Stained the corner of his mouth.
"Ah, I have to stop you there"
A hand wearing a black glove held his wrist firmly, stopping the fork from stabbing into the beating heart.
Another hand, appearing from behind the base of his neck, slowly, softly, lifted his head up. Silk gently pressed up against his jaw.
A veil of black.
Pickman's dilated eyes traced along the calming color, and then sat on the face of a man he was more familiar with than anything in this place.
And for a moment, Pickman felt he could breathe again.
"What did you see?"
Doresain asked. His skin was still that pale shade befitting of a Ghoul king, the area around his eyes, however, was covered with a strange black mist, dissipating and gathering in a calming rhythm.
"Co...hah...Colors, t-too much...hah..."
Pickman squeezed a coherent enough sentence from his lungs.
Doresain looked at him, then softened his gaze. But a slight crease, just barely visible, sat on his brows.
"How unfortunate"
"This is no good, the food was poisoned"
Before Pickman could ask what Doresain meant. He felt something being pulled up from his stomach, then traveling up his throat.
*Thump*
"Ugh!"
Doresain hit him square on the back of his chest, and Pickman spit out the piece of meat he had consumed earlier.
"Hah... Hah..."
The world around him finally turned back to normal, the polished wooden floor, the table, the plate, the fork, and the barely eaten meal.
Pickman sat there for a while, his lungs gasping for fresh air after such a...less than ideal experience.
"Doresain... I sincerely apologize for ruining our dinner"
After finally regaining his bearings, Pickman could speak normally, albeit his voice was a little hoarse.
"Mr. Pickman, I should be the one to apologize"
"It was I who invited you to dinner, yet I couldn't ensure your safety"
"This is very unbecoming of me"
Doresain said as he bowed his head.
"Oh, you...it wasn't your fault"
"Uh, don't blame yourself...it was...an unforgettable experience"
Pickman scrambled for the right words to say, praying that the 17 years of etiquette that he had thrown out the window five years ago would return at this instant.
Doresain's eyes softened, he smiled.
"Then allow me to make up for this with another meal. This time, I promise it will be a memory worth keeping"
"In the meantime, what would you like to do?"
"Maybe a walk would suffice"
Pickman breathed out, and a smile crept up from the corner of his lips.
