A continuation on Liminal Spaces and why they are to be avoided at night.
There have been brief mentions before regarding the thinning of reality in transitional spaces, namely the dimensional leaks that cause otherworldly entities to seep into our own normality. We call them monsters but within their own setting they are as regular as you and I among other humans.
These beings often seek to hide within the liminal spaces of out world, their presence waxing and waning, coming and going like the tide as the spaces become more or less used. The space in question today is a simple art gallery in a major city. You've probably been there and seen the painted faces of people long dead, wondering what they might have sounded like or how their patience allowed them to sit for so long to become this piece of history before you.
Galleries are a special kind of liminal space, one that is only liminal at certain times and is thus a temporally liminal space. For instance during the day it's a common meeting ground, exhibitional and educational space all rolled into one, however as night approaches and the fewer people are around, the thinner the walls between realities become.
Some museums play up on this and offer late night tours to small groups, playing up the altered atmosphere and calling it a haunting. While they were certainly followed by something non-human and, by our standards, non-living it wasn't a ghost. Though it's skin was translucent and it hovered four or so feet above the floor, it wasn't a ghost.
For this group of three journalists and their guide, the entire museum felt like it was full of whispered promises and threats. Faint giggles drifted through the air towards the group, far too high pitched to be any of them and far too high up to be an immediate threat.
The guides were usually trained in how to deal with the varying beings that came through to the gallery at night and were selected on a shift-to-shift basis depending on what beings had made themselves known at the time and who had the most experience in dealing with them. There was never any mention of low casualty rates. There would always be at least one casualty.
Tonight the being they were trying to avoid whilst simultaneously trying to sneak a glance at was jokingly referred to as "A Picasso" for its preference to hiding over the faces in the paintings. It would blend its entire form in bar its eyes and make it seem like the art had come to life. It knew that humans were often too curious to walk away.
As the crossed to Renaissance painters the giggles suddenly grew louder and they saw it as a cherub pretending to fire arrows at them. The guide flashed his torch as the Picasso and it leapt out of the room, clawed appendages slipping and skittering along the polished wooden floor.
Their aim was to get to the largest piece of art the museum displayed - coincidentally it was Picasso's "Guernica" and at 3.5 by 7.8 metres it was truly worth the danger. The cooler night air and constant threat of death made it seem so much more alive. The guide stood to face the group and began the lengthy explanation of the processes and ideas the artist had been trying to convey.
Behind him, the painting licked it lips.
There have been brief mentions before regarding the thinning of reality in transitional spaces, namely the dimensional leaks that cause otherworldly entities to seep into our own normality. We call them monsters but within their own setting they are as regular as you and I among other humans.
These beings often seek to hide within the liminal spaces of out world, their presence waxing and waning, coming and going like the tide as the spaces become more or less used. The space in question today is a simple art gallery in a major city. You've probably been there and seen the painted faces of people long dead, wondering what they might have sounded like or how their patience allowed them to sit for so long to become this piece of history before you.
Galleries are a special kind of liminal space, one that is only liminal at certain times and is thus a temporally liminal space. For instance during the day it's a common meeting ground, exhibitional and educational space all rolled into one, however as night approaches and the fewer people are around, the thinner the walls between realities become.
Some museums play up on this and offer late night tours to small groups, playing up the altered atmosphere and calling it a haunting. While they were certainly followed by something non-human and, by our standards, non-living it wasn't a ghost. Though it's skin was translucent and it hovered four or so feet above the floor, it wasn't a ghost.
For this group of three journalists and their guide, the entire museum felt like it was full of whispered promises and threats. Faint giggles drifted through the air towards the group, far too high pitched to be any of them and far too high up to be an immediate threat.
The guides were usually trained in how to deal with the varying beings that came through to the gallery at night and were selected on a shift-to-shift basis depending on what beings had made themselves known at the time and who had the most experience in dealing with them. There was never any mention of low casualty rates. There would always be at least one casualty.
Tonight the being they were trying to avoid whilst simultaneously trying to sneak a glance at was jokingly referred to as "A Picasso" for its preference to hiding over the faces in the paintings. It would blend its entire form in bar its eyes and make it seem like the art had come to life. It knew that humans were often too curious to walk away.
As the crossed to Renaissance painters the giggles suddenly grew louder and they saw it as a cherub pretending to fire arrows at them. The guide flashed his torch as the Picasso and it leapt out of the room, clawed appendages slipping and skittering along the polished wooden floor.
Their aim was to get to the largest piece of art the museum displayed - coincidentally it was Picasso's "Guernica" and at 3.5 by 7.8 metres it was truly worth the danger. The cooler night air and constant threat of death made it seem so much more alive. The guide stood to face the group and began the lengthy explanation of the processes and ideas the artist had been trying to convey.
Behind him, the painting licked it lips.
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