Author: Pascal, BHS,2025-06-03
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It rained all night.
Detective Wei stood at the gate of the old house, the wind tugging at his wet coat. The building before him was a tall, three-story villa standing alone in the woods outside the city. The missing man, Alexandra, had lived here—an artist known for his strange paintings and quiet life. His assistant, Lin Chia, had called the police early that morning. She claimed she heard something inside the house last night—something impossible.
"I heard the sound of a paintbrush," she had said. "For two whole hours. But the studio door was locked from the inside. And he never answered me."
Wei Ying didn’t believe in ghosts, but something about her voice had stayed with him. It was too calm, too certain.
He unlocked the door. The house was silent inside. The smell of oil paint and turpentine hung in the air. The wooden floor creaked beneath his feet like it was whispering secrets.
Lin Jia sat on the living room couch, her hands wrapped around a gray scarf. Her face was pale, eyes wide.
"You came here last night at eleven?"
She nodded. "Alex called me. He said he finished a new painting. He sounded strange—like... like someone was in the room with him. But when I got here, the place was dark. I knocked and knocked, but no one answered. Then I heard it. The brush. Slow strokes. Over and over. For hours."
"And the studio door?"
"Locked. From the inside."
The studio door was heavy oak, no signs of forced entry. Locked, just like she said. He found the key and stepped inside.
The smell hit him first—oil, canvas, and something faintly metallic. In the middle stood an easel with a fresh canvas. A brush lay on the floor—wet with red paint.
But there was no sign of Alexandra.
The painting showed a man in the same room, wearing a gray scarf. And in tiny red letters: "Help."
Wei took the painting back to the station. He stared at it for hours. The man in the painting seemed to change when you weren’t looking directly at him.
Professor Li arrived the next day. She stood in front of the painting for ten minutes and whispered: "This… is wrong."
She pointed to a mirror in the painting. It showed Wei’s reflection—something that hadn’t been there before.
"If you capture the soul, someone gets stuck. Only one can leave. The other must take their place."
That night, Wei heard a whisper: "Finish it."
He returned to the house. The original painting was gone. Behind old frames, he found a new one—a painting of himself, unfinished, with the words: "Finish it, and I’ll be free."
Wei painted all night. When done, the man in the painting pointed outside the frame. Wei turned around. Nothing. But in the painting, the man smiled.
The next morning, Wei had vanished. Only a gray scarf remained.
Days later, Lin returned, holding a wrapped painting. It showed Wei Ying, holding a brush, inside another painting.
A whisper came from the house: "It’s not done."
That night, Lin stayed in a motel. By midnight, the painting changed—the man now stood, and a figure watched from the shadows.
Across town, Professor Li found a passage in a red-inked journal:
"If a painting captures the soul, only one can leave. The other must take their place. The canvas decides."
Then the lights went out. And from the corner—brush strokes. A whisper behind her:
"It’s your turn."