Seven Abenian sisters fleeing the forces of their Glendelinian oppressors. The poor sisters are frequently compelled to defrock themselves and hide among the child slaves around them. Faerie-like creatures and Christian armies are there to help them. Darger made 300 illustrations which comprise three volumes of The Realms . Nearly all the works are hinged pieces of paper, to facilitate book form, revealing themselves to exhibition goers as disturbingly beautiful panoramas.
Some pieces are as long as ten feet, complete with slightly arcing irregularities.
Consequently, because of the high cost of materials, Darger painted on both sides the paper. Obsessively conscious of his poor draftsmanship, Darger would rummage through the garbage of Chicago's North Side, looking through discarded newspapers, children's books, and comics for imagery to carbon trace. The severe horizontal aspect of the paintings allows Darger to make dizzying use of foreground and background elements. A series in the Museum's north wing shows the Vivian girls escaping the Glendelinians by hiding in a cave and making strange noises. In the painting Lost in a Cavern, the foreground is littered with craggy composition and the viewer looks through a bleak, dense gray to a warm trail for the figures to follow.