The Painting at the End of the Hall

It was a cold and rainy day so twins Atticus and Ava decided to go to their local art museum.

They were walking between the red silk ropes looking at all the different paintings and sculptures, admiring each and every one. They came to a spot in the museum where they could go left or they could go right.

If they went to the right it would take them into a giant room full of paintings from medieval times.

If they went to the left it would take them down a dark and narrow hallway with a singular painting at the end of the hallway with a small lightbulb hanging from the ceiling above.

Ava wanted to go right as she got a creepy feeling from the hallway to the left. She begged Atticus to go to the right but Atticus thought it would be cool to see why that painting was all by itself. Eventually, Ava gave in to her brother and they turned to the left.

Atticus took the lead as they walked toward the painting. When they arrived at the end of the hall they saw that the painting was that of a ship off on the horizon in what appeared to be a storm, much like today. As they stared at the painting they realized that it almost appeared as it was moving, like they could see the boat swaying over the waves, filling with water, struggling to stay upright.

They were talking to each other about what they were looking at when they heard a noise coming from behind them tick… tick… tick… Atticus turned around to see what that noise was and came face to face with an old man soaking wet, with long grey hair, a matching beard, wearing an old fisherman's uniform, a big rain boot on one foot and what seemed to be a wooden stick for his other foot.

That must have been what the ticking noise was Atticus thought to himself.

The old man grinned at the twins and asked if they wanted to know the story behind the painting.

As unsettling as the old man was, the twins were curious about the painting so they said yes even though they didn’t really want to be near the old man anymore.

The old man stepped closer to the twins and pushed them towards the painting.

Before the twins could scream they fell backwards and just kept falling, they were spinning in circles trying to scream but were unable to. They landed on a hard wooden surface with a big thud. It was cold, there was a howling wind that shot right through their skin chilling them to the bone. They looked up as rain fell from the sky onto their faces. They looked around and realized they were on a boat, the same boat from the painting at the museum. The ship was rocking back and forth in the windy storm struggling to stay above water.

Just as the twins grabbed onto each other tight, scared for their lives, not knowing what had happened, a door that lead to the bottom of the ship burst open and the same old man from before came running out; he yelled at the twins to help scoop water off the sinking ship.

The twins hurried to the man who handed them large silver buckets. They went to opposite ends of the ship and started scooping water out and throwing it over the edge, they all desperately tried to keep the ship from sinking.

Atticus thought to himself “what have I gotten us into? Why didn’t I just go to the right instead of down that creepy hallway? Why did I talk to a stranger? How am I going to get us home now?”

Ava looked over at Atticus struggling to keep up with the water, she looked over at the old man who was doing the same. She quickly realized she had stopped helping, she wasn’t able to keep up with the water and the boat eventually tipped.

The old man was the first to go under, Atticus and Ava swam over to each other and held each others hands as they started to sink along with the rest of the ship. They watched each other as they started going down farther and farther into the darkness. Then as quickly as it had all happened everything went dark…