Chapter 5: The Painting That Didn't Belong to This World
The memory of yesterday's argument lingered like a bitter taste in Soma's mouth as he woke. Dinner had started so peacefully—the warm, familiar aromas of Savitri's cooking filling the kitchen, creating a fleeting illusion of normalcy. Then he voiced his request to spend his Sunday holiday exploring the underground storeroom.
His grandmother's reaction had been a cold splash of reality.
"I know tomorrow is Sunday, Soma," she had said, her voice losing its usual warmth. "And I'm happy that you love and want to explore your grandfather's collection. But your grades…" Her gaze softened with worry that made his chest ache. "They've been falling ever since last year. I understand you've been through a terrible situation, so I've held my tongue until now. But if you don't grow up and change your attitude, I fear it will hurt your future."
Her words struck true. Before his parents' accident, his report cards had been adorned with top marks. Now, they were a landscape of bare minimums, a reflection of the emptiness inside him. He had tried to argue, but one sharp look from her sealed his lips.
"You may enter the storeroom after your morning studies," she had declared, plucking the key from his hand with a finality that left no room for debate.
Now, guilt churned in his stomach. He checked the wall clock: 7 a.m. Resolute, he cleaned up and buried himself in his books, the words blurring through his determination.
Two hours later, at precisely 9 a.m., he found Savitri in the kitchen, her hands deftly shaping dough for their breakfast. Flour dusted her fingers, and the rolling board creaked softly with each press. The air smelled of warm wheat and toasted cumin.
He crept behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in her soft sari.
"Grandma, I'm so sorry for yesterday," he murmured. "It will never happen again."
She turned, her hands flour-dusted, and hugged him back tightly. "I was too harsh, my child. I'm sorry, too. Have you finished your studies?"
"Yes, Grandma."
"Then a promise is a promise." A smile touched her lips as she retrieved the heavy iron key from the fold of her sari. She pressed it into his palm. "It is yours."
Joy, bright and fierce, surged through him. He grinned and hugged her again, making her laugh.
"Okay, okay, I can see you're excited!" she chuckled, extricating herself. "But the storeroom will not run away. First, breakfast."
Soma nodded, devouring the meal with an impatience that was almost comical.
The warm, satisfying weight of breakfast lingered in Soma's stomach as he dried the last steel plate. The kitchen hummed with the quiet clatter of chores, the faint scent of soap mingling with the earthy spices from their meal. He placed the plate neatly in the rack and turned to Savitri, his eyes alight with anticipation.
"Grandma," he said, his voice brimming with hope. "Are you ready? Will you come with me?"
She sat on her favorite wooden chair, sipping warm water from a brass tumbler. Her face, etched with gentle wrinkles, held a tender but weary smile. The brass shimmered faintly in the sunlight, and her hands trembled just slightly as she set it down.
"I see your enthusiasm, Soma, but I won't be coming with you this time. I'm not getting younger, you know. This old body needs a little rest. You go on ahead. Just be careful."
His excitement dimmed, but he nodded. The journey to the storeroom felt different this time, charged with a new purpose.
He descended the creaking stairs, each step echoing in the dimness. At the bottom, the metal lock groaned in protest as he turned the key, and the storeroom door swung open, revealing a world apart. The air grew cool and thick, heavy with the scent of old paper, weathered wood, and forgotten time. It was a shrine of memories, and his pulse quickened with reverence and thrill.
Soma stepped inside, his eyes skimming past the lion-faced statue draped in grimy cloth, a three-foot sword gleaming faintly, and a cracked leather journal half-buried in clutter. His target was clear: the "other world" painting, leaning against the far wall, half-hidden behind a jumble of crates.
As he pushed aside a crate, a glint of something metallic—a tarnished locket tucked among the clutter—caught his eye, but the painting's pull was stronger. He moved toward it as if drawn by an unseen force, captivated anew by its impossible beauty—twin suns casting golden and pale light, majestic snow-capped mountains, and vibrant meadows speckled with wildflowers.
"What a painting…" he breathed, his words, a whisper of awe.
He needed to see it better. Finding a rickety wooden stool in a shadowy corner, he placed it carefully beneath the painting. He climbed, his balance precarious, and reached up. His fingers brushed the weathered frame. He applied a little upward pressure to adjust it.
*CRRRRACK!*
The stool leg splintered and gave way. For a breathless instant, time twisted around him—the air seemed to thicken, sounds stretched into hollow echoes. A cry caught in his throat as gravity yanked him down. The painting tore free from the wall, tumbling with him in a chaotic crash of wood and canvas. The stool shattered beside him, and the painting hit the unforgiving stone floor with a sickening, crystalline explosion.
Soma's heart stopped. He scrambled to his knees, panic clawing at his throat. "No, no, no!" he gasped, staring in horror at the wreckage.
Shards of glass glittered like a field of deadly diamonds. But as his eyes focused through the panic, he saw the impossible. The canvas itself was pristine. Not a single scratch, not a whisper of tear marred its surreal landscape. It was as if the glass had sacrificed itself to protect the art within.
He exhaled, his pulse thundering. "That's… impossible," he murmured, his voice trembling. Any ordinary painting would be ruined, but this one seemed to defy reality itself.
Soma leaned forward to clear the glass, careful not to touch the jagged edges. But as he picked up the largest shard, its sharp edge sliced his left thumb—a thin, clean cut. "Ow!" He flinched, bringing his finger to his mouth, the metallic taste of blood sharp on his tongue. The cut was small, barely a drop, but as he bent forward again, still holding the glass, a single red bead fell.
It landed not on the front, but on the back of the wooden frame.
He hadn't noticed it before, hidden beneath the canvas's securing frame. But now, with the glass shattered and the wood exposed, there it was: a complex, elegant silver rune—seven slightly irregular rings, each formed from spider-like characters of an unknown language, woven into intricate loops. They nested one inside the other, creating a mesmerizing labyrinth. At the core rested an icon akin to a sealed eye. The whole thing gleamed with a silvery sheen, pulsing with a faint, internal light that evoked ancient temple carvings and resembled the magical runes from his favorite manga about ancient magic.
Soma's eyes widened. His breath hitched. "This is real."
The moment his blood touched the center of the rune, the closed eye absorbed it swiftly. The seven rings began spinning, erupting in blinding white light as the eye was slowly parting its eyelids. And the world dissolved.
The symbol erupted with blinding white light. It swallowed the room, the sound, the air. The very atoms around him seemed to scream in protest. A vortex of raw energy snatched him, pulling him through a tunnel of pure sensation. The walls of the storeroom bled away into a formless, rushing void.
Then—nothing.
Consciousness returned slowly—first the cool, unyielding press of earth against his back, then the mingling scents of rich soil and wildflowers drifting into his lungs.
Soma's eyes fluttered open. Above him loomed a colossal tree, its branches stretching like the arms of a sleeping giant, its roots coiled and burrowed deep into the ground like wooden serpents.
He pushed himself up, breath catching. Behind him spread an immense forest, its depths wrapped in a darkness so dense it seemed to swallow the light whole. Shadows pooled between twisted trunks, hinting at paths that might never end.
But before him—before him opened a world he could scarcely believe.
An ocean of grasslands unfurled under twin suns: one golden and warm, the other vast and cold, casting a pallid brilliance over snow-capped peaks that pierced the heavens. Scarlet and yellow flowers swayed in the breeze like scattered embers, a living echo of the meadow in the painting. The horizon itself shimmered, as though the land were enclosed by some invisible wall where sky and soil fused into haze.
The air was richer here, sweeter, heavy with the perfume of countless blossoms. It filled his chest until he felt almost light-headed, as though the very act of breathing bound him to this place.
Soma rose unsteadily, his legs trembling. His heart drummed a frantic rhythm, caught between terror and wonder. He brushed his fingers over the grass, dew beading against his skin, startlingly cool and real. His gaze climbed once more to the suns above, their combined light painting him in warmth and chill at once.
His throat tightened. The words tumbled out, ragged and hushed.
"No way…"
It was disbelief: prayer, and surrender braided together. His lips trembled into a broken smile as awe drowned him whole.
"Am I dreaming… or did I really step inside the painting?"