Ebrugh Report 11: Never Paint the Russian Sky

Photo of Irkutsk where the painter supposedly met the wife of the customer.

In this Ebrugh Report, a painter witnesses strange events and starts painting great, alien paintings. After a while, the paintings start to have terrible effects on the people looking at them.

## Summary

In the vast Russian countryside, a struggling artist grapples with the harsh realities of life. Frustrated by his financial woes and seeking a creative breakthrough, he embarks on a journey that will forever alter the course of his artistic career.

Desperate for inspiration, the artist turns to a mysterious set of pills that promise to enhance his senses and unlock his creative potential. Under the influence of these mind-altering substances, he experiences a profound artistic awakening. With heightened perception, he paints breathtaking depictions of the Northern Lights and an enigmatic entity he dubs "the Hare."

However, the following morning, as he sobers up from the effects of the pills, he discovers that his artistic outburst has had a startling and disturbing effect on the local farmer who discovered him and his striking painting. The farmer's encounter with the artwork drives him to madness, and in his deranged state, he sets fire to the masterpiece and ends his own life.

Despite his shock caused by this bizarre and unsettling incident, the artist continues to experiment with the pills, producing a series of captivating paintings that quickly gain recognition and sell well. His newfound fame transforms him into a local sensation, but as time passes, an ominous pattern emerges.

A strange, unexplained spot begins to manifest on each of the artist's creations. This peculiar mark evokes an eerie sense of paranoia and unease in those who gaze upon the paintings. The once-admired works now seem to cast a sinister shadow, and communities are plagued by a series of unsettling crimes and murders.

Recognizing the havoc his art has inadvertently wrought upon society, the artist decides to take drastic action. He decides to organize an art exhibition, inviting the public to view his paintings under the pretense of showcasing his latest creations. In a climactic moment of revelation, he gathers all of his haunting paintings and, sets them ablaze. The fire consumes the paintings, and as the flames dance, the artist believes he has thwarted the emergence of "the Hare" from his nightmarish creations.

## Report 11

### Rumoured Origin

*This report was posted on a paranormal forum in 2015.*

### Report

Who I am? Once, I would have immediately given you an answer, told you my name with greatest pride, hoping for it to be spread all around the world. Now, after the events that I got wrapped up in have turned to the worst, I am hoping for my name to never be spoken again.

Writing these words is scary and even now that all seems lost, I still in part refuse to fight my lust for fame.

I am an artist. I have always been an artist, a painter, but in the past, people have never paid me any attention. My creations were laughed at, and my name always faded away in people's minds like a dying echo. I dreamt of glory, of recognition, of a purpose for my existence. Yet, I only painted pictures nobody wanted, pictures of landscapes and things no one cared about.

My parents had died when I was still very young and I am glad they did not have to witness my sad path through life. Some might disagree with me, might try to explain that they are watching over me from the heavens, sitting next to the Lord and his angels. That everything would turn out well if only I showed faith and started living a pious life.

Angels? The Lord? Oh, you clueless, blind fools...

I am unspeakably glad to know that my parents lie buried deep down in the ground, rotting away. I am glad that they have not been taken to the hellish planes existing out there... Pulling at our minds from time to time...

I know you might think of me as just some madman. And... yes, I have probably gone mad. After what I have lived through, after what I am about to experience, there would be no soul free of insanity.

But it has not always been like this.

Growing up in the poorer parts of Irkutsk, Russia, without much education, without friends, I still managed to always retain a clear mindset.

I knew exactly, what I wanted:

I wanted to give my life to painting, wanted to create worlds on canvas that could set me free from the meagre alleyways of the old city, worlds that could give people hope in times of turmoil. That is why I started to learn the handling of brush and paint at a young age, trying to make my dream become reality.

But I had to realize that people did not want colorful paintings, their minds having been poisoned by the ways of thought in this age. So, I made ends meet with small orders - portraits mainly - that I half-heartedly completed. Despite that, they seemed to be my best-selling goods.

About ten years have passed since someone carried the first painting out of the small atelier in the narrow alleyway I lived in.

People were already restless back then and a fear of the future seemed to grow inside their hearts, like premonitions. Did they dread a third world war? Or did they even feel that other, more ominous things had started moving whilst all eyes were looking west?

Either way, I did not care.

The past years feel hazy in retrospect:

To me, it did not make a difference whether it rained or snowed, whether the sun shone brightly, or the winds were wheezing. I just painted. Mountains, valleys, deserts, forests. I had almost never left my hometown, but read many books and magazines, trying to grasp the beauty of the outside world. My pockets might have been empty, but my mind gave way to such great creativity that even I myself got scared at times.

It all started about a month ago, when I set out on one of my few trips to the countryside, intending to capture the impressive splendor of nature on my canvas firsthand. Therefore, only armed with my easel and the bare necessities, I set out to leave the miserable alleyways and streets and the miserable people behind and ventured into nature.

Not long after finding a spot on top of a sunny hill, I drove my easel into the ground. The sun started to go down after a while and began to color the sky in a burning red. The juicy green hills with their many trees reaching as far as the eyes could see gave me the feeling of standing amidst an oasis of blooming life. My brush slid over the canvas, top to bottom, left to right, all ways around, like a skater on ice.

I immensely enjoyed painting this wonderful world of peace, not having to waste my time with those unpleasant people that sometimes appeared at my doorstep. The main part of the picture was already finished when night slowly fell, suddenly making green strings of light appear all over the sky.

Those northern lights I saw were beautiful enough to make me throw away my unfinished painting. I quickly started a new one. With precise strokes of my brush I bound the neon-green, huge circles to my canvas. Perhaps the excitement clouded my senses or perhaps I simply did not know back then, but it surely was unnatural to see northern lights so far away from polar regions and in such strange shapes.

It almost felt as if the painting alone became my whole world, as if all important things happened only there. I went on and on for a long time, only looking for a barn to sleep in very late at night.

The next night, I stood on the hilltop again, painting more and more of the countless lights that were becoming more distorted and brighter, pulsating, contrasted by the darkness of space, until my fingers got sore, and I sunk down to the ground, exhausted.

On the third night, I made the mistake that would in the end lead me into the peril I am currently in. The mistake that would rob me of the prospect of a quick death.

The pills had probably not been clean and well too cheap. Getting them had not been the huge effort I had suspected in the beginning, either. I therefore assumed that they would not have the desired effects.

I had never taken drugs, not even a small sip of alcohol or a quick cigarette, but the pieces of "modern art" some colleagues created under the influence of intoxicating substances undeniably sold rather well. And there it was again, the lust for glory. For recognition. For admiration. The lust that finally made me go off the deep end.

The pills tasted juicy and delicately, dissolving on my tongue into powder, in the end disappearing. It did not take long for the substances to get into my bloodstream, making me drop into the green grass, my brush in one hand, a small empty canvas in the other.

My mind travelled towards the sky, towards the eternal expanses above. Slowly, a warmth ran through my veins, sharpening my senses and elating my thoughts. The vast northern lights pulsated in rhythm with my heartbeats. Their round shapes appeared to be the gateway to another world, unexplored parts of space, to moons and stars and quasars and planets...

It felt like flying, into the vastness of space, into ecstasy, feeling the touch of eternity. And for the first time in the last ten years, I had forgotten all about my brush and my canvas, as I vividly imagined travelling those colorful worlds by myself, knowing that I had to take in as many impressions as possible to enrich the rest of my mortal life.

Should I share them with all the lifeless people? Should I really capture this beauty and carry it to those waiting for an age of death? They wouldn't care anyway, wouldn't care about how I felt and what I gazed at. Certainly, paintings of this magnificence would end as miserably as my other works of splendid nature had before.

But, what if they didn't? If people realized the perfection of those worlds I saw in those moments? I would get rich, my name engraved into the annals of art's history, next to famous people like van Gogh and Picasso.

Whilst floating farther and farther into the pure grandiosity of the starry skies, a faint thumping entered my thoughts. Like a festering ulcer it tainted my experience, my revelation. The ground seemed to shake, and other lights appeared in front of me, amongst the northern lights, flickering and blueish white and cold.

Or did I imagine things?

Wasn't there something slipping down to the earth from between the heavens? Did not a shade escape those alien flashes?

No, I must have been mistaken, not long till those irregularities disappeared and my thoughts were captured again by those green streaks, running through the night sky as long strings. Space was calling me again and those shining green colors seemed like the cradle of life itself, like a source of pure energy. The stars were glowing, quasars and nebulae surrounding me, no thumping left anymore, only silence and security. I wished with all I had for these moments to never pass, so that I could be in a state of pure bliss till the end of my days, though that was not for me to have.

I felt a presence, got up, whilst everything around me appeared to be spinning.

And there it was, sitting on another hilltop, not thirty meters away.

It was... a... hare?

Or... was I mistaken? The world seemed unreal; the skies were still rushing past my inner eye.

And amidst the turmoil... a... a... hare?

Light-brown pelt, protruding shaggy rabbit ears, somewhat... rotten. The head straight up, inspecting its surroundings from almond-shaped eyes...

Was that even... a hare?

It vanished and reappeared.

For the small moment it was gone, my innards grew cold, and a deep primal fear of an immeasurable danger surged inside me. It disappeared as quickly as it had come. Peace returned and there was just a hare. Looking at the world. Inspecting the world...

As if it was looking for something beyond the hills.

It disappeared for another time, the feeling inside me surged again...

Wasn't some different being scurrying, wreathing atop that hill? A viscous... mass? A mucous body? Armored limbs? Hairy claws? A swarm? A fluid? Hands, feet, antennae? Eyes and mouths? A gorging maw of scum?

No, just a hare...

A hare sitting beneath northern lights, the grass around it shining like the stars I wanted to escape to.

Was I getting blind? Or did my eyes not want to grasp the thing being there? Was my mind... protecting me?

I grew cold again. And then, I noticed the ground below my feet spinning, the sky distorting, time slowing down and a being moving, back on that hill.

I had probably taken too many pills... Why did I imagine those things?

It must have been the pills.

Just a hare.

The animal sat over there, looking around, its rabbit ears listening, its nose shaking, smelling, probing. I did not want to see it anymore, looked back into the skies, towards the milky way. A thousand white dots, forming ungraspable beauty.

Shouldn't I paint those stars? Shouldn't I ignore the thing on the hilltop? I took my brush, wanted to capture those celestial bodies, but I then I felt it again.

This presence, this disgusting presence. Was I imagining quacking, clicking sounds? No, I had to calm down, I had to go back to my stars.

Yet, there it sat on that hill.

Just a hare...

Why... why not paint it?

It suddenly felt so logical, so... clever. When the animal vanished again, it seemed like shapes of something horrible started to show.

Did the pill's influence fade?

Panic got hold of me and my heart started hammering away. What if there was no hare? If not the drugs made me feel sick and afraid? If they protected me... made me... not see it?

I took the rest of the pills and all got well again.

The sky opened my mind and the hare seemed majestic and noble.

Why... not paint it?

Why… not?

Stars I could always see, but this beautiful animal, this chance-encounter…

This animal, I could paint.

A good idea.

Perhaps I should...

Perhaps I should...

Get closer? To get more detail? To create a more vivid painting?

It was just a hare, after all.

A little bit fluffy, puffy, adorable.

Harmless.

Just one step, I had to capture its whole natural perfection.

Slowly, I rose up.

Took a step forward.

Another one.

Closing in.

The animal did not move, it just sat there.

When I took another step, the world started spinning again and I fell. I did not feel hitting the ground. My hands dug deep into the grass, already being covered by thick morning dew. I was very close to the... hare...

Felt for my brush that had slipped from my fingers during the fall. Took the canvas that had gotten bent because I had landed on it.

Then, I painted.

I painted... the... hare.

It was so... beautiful, its brown pelt... its brown eyes, bold, watchful, covered in mucus... its stubby nose... its maws, its rabbit ears... its fluffy paws and buds, its small tail.

Its... tongues...

So beautiful.

I painted and painted, losing myself in fantastic worlds, captured an ungraspable perfection.

The next morning, I awoke, perplexed.

I must have travelled a bit in the night as I came to my senses beneath an old oak tree, the brush in my hand, the canvas nowhere to be seen.

I had slept off my intoxication.

And I had dreamt of the hare. My thoughts had created silly images. The hare had flown away, its rabbit ears flapping like wings, away through flashing northern lights and into the depths of space. Naturally, I worried about my sanity, having never thought up such crap. I was a painter, but my paintings and visions had always been grounded.

Not this strange and crazy.

I swore to never take those pills again. It took some time for me to regain my sense of direction and I got aware of the fact that the hilltop was not far away from my current location.

However, there wasn't a hilltop anymore. The landscape looked chipped away, an area of pure level resting in its place. What had happened over there? Did the locals plan on building a farm on that spot? Or did the landscape disappear during last night's events? Whilst... I had been there?

Where was my painting? I knew that I had to find it, surely it would explain everything. It would show a hare, looking at its surroundings.

Just a hare.

When I heard the scream, my blood froze in my veins. Inhumanly high pitched, drenched with terror, as if somebody's soul was being ripped away by the devil himself. I stumbled forwards, circled the hill and its flattened top and finally I saw him.

An old man, laughing manically, sounding almost like a goat. His wide eyes seemed dead. Saliva ran out of his open mouth. He was shaking, holding up a lighter he probably had used to light a cigarette.

However, something different was burning at his feet.

It was the canvas I had had with me in the past night.

I had just painted a hare... or hadn't I?

"What did you see?" he cried in a coarse voice.

When my eyes met his, I saw a spark of clarity reappearing, a small flame of sanity. It felt as if every particle of that man held me responsible for all the evils in this world and bottomless hate for me and my existence burned inside his gaze.

He took up a rock whilst the remainders of the painting turned to ashes. Before I had the chance to act, the old man smashed the chunk into his face, again and again, until he collapsed, surrounded by a growing puddle of red liquid, whilst his mind faded away.

I grabbed my things and hurried to get away, away from the hill and that corpse, its grotesque image tainting every future second of my life.

+++++++++++++++++

I left the hill of horror as fast as I could. Not even an hour later I already sat inside a tram, protected against the thunderstorm that had started bringing rain, though nothing shielded me against my own thoughts.

I felt cold but didn't know whether it was because of the wetness or the experiences I had had. The people around me seemed distant and alien. Indifferent. Incurious. Their whispers and murmurs faded away whilst I got lost in terrible thoughts. The tram's floor was filthy, almost as filthy as my innermost being.

What had happened? I could not comprehend anything anymore.

What had happened on that hilltop? What did that man see on my canvas before it had turned to smoldering ashes? When would they find his corpse? Had anybody seen me near the hill? What if they found proof of me being there, leading them to suspect me of killing that innocent man? I could only hope for the rain to wash it all away, away from the face of the earth.

When the tram had stopped near my home and I finally ran through the heavenly floods towards my room, the presence of something foreign seemed to lure close by, tracking every single one of my steps.

The walls of the buildings around me were crumbling and old and despite having gotten used to them long ago, there was also something new to them – something so abhorrently different that I sped up even more until I finally reached my own four walls, slowly calming down.

I looked out the windows.

Was the sky not seeming unnaturally brown? Dark... even as lightning flashed across it? Was there not movement, things that should not have been there? A shape?

No, I was still hallucinating, my drug trip simply hadn't ended yet. I had to be wrong! Perhaps I was even going insane?

I finally stumbled into my room, dripping wet and more desperate than ever before. What was I supposed to do? What if the police found the corpse, if someone linked me to the dead body, if someone suspected me of murder? How could I possibly prove my innocence? And when would these illusions and this feeling of being lost fade away?

Today, I know that nobody ever cared for the dead man. That he had been forgotten, not even a footnote in history. At this point I wish for the same fate, for my name fading from people's minds, so that this...

But it did not happen.

The whole night I was tormented by visions of horror, pictures of disgusting distorted worlds and entities searching for me. After I woke up, I had the urge to paint, to get my mind off those thoughts and feelings, though I couldn't. My brush refused to dance across the canvas, refused to bring my nightmares into this world.

Then, I spotted them. Two of the pills I had bought, left behind in case of an emergency. In case the other ones helped me paint more interesting works of art.

And in a way...

They had succeeded...

In a way... they had worked. Had calmed me down, given me peace, happiness and satisfaction. They had protected me against the thing on the hilltop. They had given me comfort amongst the stars. Between the strings of the milky way.

Why... why not take another one? Maybe... maybe I would get better again. Perhaps I could even go to sleep without dreaming of the horrors from beyond? Leave it all behind?

Why... not...

I struggled to get to the old reeking sideboard standing in one of the corners of my room.

Took a pill.

Put it in my mouth whilst a low voice in the back of my head told me not to.

Waited...

Everything got better again.

The terror and the fear slowly faded away.

What strange worries I had had! Worries that gradually dissipated. Everything was well.

Time to sleep.

Or...

Should I paint?

I was well again, after all.

I did not have to paint those strange worlds I had seen, only plain landscapes.

The brush slid across the canvas and my mind got lost in divine ecstasy.

Hours later I got back to my senses, splashes of paint all around me. The pill's effects had finally worn off.

Where was the picture I had painted? What would it show? Something unnamable, something that would drive everyone insane who looked at it?

A splinter of hell, tied to a canvas? Death? The ending of all things?

My eyes frantically darted around until I spotted it. A painting.

It showed a landscape, graceful and full of beauty – yet also mysterious and enticing. The colors wove a wonderland so enchanting that I could not look away. How could I have managed to create something like this?

Such perfection?

For an eternity I must have just stood there, my eyes fixated on the valley, the trees, the creeks...

Someone knocked at the door.

Who could that be? Who would ever enter these alleyways voluntarily? Hesitatingly, I opened the door.

There was a man in wealthy clothes, about forty years of age and well-nourished.

"I need a portrait, but cheap," he said brusquely.

"Yes, of course! Please excuse my irritation, not many people come..." I started, but he quickly cut me off.

"Don't get any ideas. I will not stay for long in this... rat hole. I was told that you can quickly paint a portrait for a good price. Shall we start immediately? I don't have a lot of time. I..."

He went silent.

Had noticed the painting.

A fire started to glow in his eyes.

"What... what is that?" he asked in a dreamy voice.

"My newest work of art," I answered.

"I want it."

In a trance he got closer to the painting.

Staring.

"How much?" he purred.

"I don't know whether I want to sell it..." I heard myself saying.

The man turned around.

Seemed angry, almost hateful.

Or was I imagining things?

He named a price.

I believed I had heard wrong. Asked him to repeat his offer.

Five minutes later I was alone again, holding more money in my hands than I had cumulatively earned in my entire life. Next to me an empty easel, the painting gone.

I got a bad feeling. What had I done? Was the thing the man had bought really of this world? Of course, I still mistrusted the pills, but they had helped me to create something special twice now. Unique works of art.

At least that is what I told myself back then, my eyes still looking at the money, trying to forget the images of the man that had passed judgement on himself in front of me not long ago.

+++++++++++++

Using the money I had gotten for the painting, I soon was able to move to a new place in one of the more renowned districts.

The work caused by the move managed to distract me from those dark and incoherent thoughts I had had since the night on the hilltop. I did not look at the sky anymore, fearing to spot some entity coming from the depths of space or someplace else. Indeed, I started to feel an otherworldly presence from time to time.

The atelier I moved into was much larger than my previous room and I had some more space for new works of art. But the first things I painted dissatisfied me. Nothing I created came close to what was probably hanging on the wall of the wealthy man by now.

All art of mine that came to be felt soulless and wrong. The more I painted, the less I found inner peace. Memories of the landscape I had brought to canvas during my drug trip were mocking me. The room got more and more filled up with pictures of boredom, pictures of bleakness, pictures of unimportance.

Hour after hour I moved my brush, but every time I reached for the true beauty of this world, I only managed to touch empty space.

Soon I forgot to eat and drink and sleep. The situation could not stay like that, I had to produce something of meaning! But nothing worked, only bleak landscapes languished on the walls.

Then I got a visit.

A beautiful young lady and an elderly, smartly clothed gentlemen stood at my doorstep, their eyes full of excitement and twinkling.

"Excuse us, but… are you the one... the one... who painted the landscape?" the woman managed to utter after some moments of silence.

She did not have to describe the landscape in more detail, I knew which one she meant. There could only be one. Hesitatingly I nodded.

"Young man, my wife and I have spotted your fantastic work of art in my brother-in-law's living room. We were smitten by it immediately. Of course, he did not want to sell it to us, but after some work he gave us your name. That made it quite easy to find you. Not many artists can afford such an atelier after all!"

The man seemed excited, and his wife was already looking greedily around the room.

"What are these pictures? I am afraid I must tell you that those do not even come close to that landscape," she said, sounding disappointed.

"Just a bit of practice. My real art is of course far more sophisticated than those things," I hurried to reply, turning slightly red.

"Yes, of course. But... would it be possible to get one of those that my brother-in-law bought? I am paying well. Better than my brother-in-law at least," the man promised.

„I'll see what I can do. Perhaps I will have been blessed by the muse until tonight. If that happens to be the case, I will immediately notify you. Just leave me your number."

"I am really hoping for that. Give me a painting of such incomparable beauty and virtue as the last one and I promise you that I will spread your name across the land!"

His words were echoing back and forth inside in my head. Was this real? Had I finally gotten it right?

When the couple had left, I did not know what to think. My name? Spread? I couldn't believe it! Had my dreams of glory gotten this close to being fulfilled? This had to be a miracle!

But... I couldn't paint. At least not what they had asked of me. My pictures were without soul – unlike the other one. They were dead and dreary.

What should I do?

How...

The pills, yes, the pills.

I needed more. Many more. I needed to see, I needed to understand.

Today I wish that I had not gone to that lousy scoundrel the next day, that I hadn't bought more of those small pills, enabling me to continue my unimportant existence – but that is not how it went.

The prospect of success and a life of fame had extinguished every rational thought.

In the end I stood in front of my easel, brush and paint close by, swallowing the little objects that quickly led me into ecstasy.

And there they were, the trees and mountains, the creeks and forests and stones, the animals and plants from a perfect world, eternal and old. They gleamed and flashed in front of my eyes whilst my mind flew across distant skies. There were only those landscapes, no space above, no depths beneath. Just infinite pastures and valleys, cities and fortresses, the towers and merlons and gables of another world, long forgotten and not yet built.

When I came to my senses again, I spotted it immediately.

A painting, more perfect even than my other one. The flora and fauna I gazed at felt divine and pristine. Like a slice of infinity itself.

I had managed to do it again! They would fight over this work of art, I would get rich and famous, every child would know of me, every...

Though... could I even sell it? This thing of beauty?

Could I sell it to that man and that woman and never see it again?

They would probably want it for themselves. Just for themselves...

What was I thinking? Nonsense! Why would they?

I shook my head in confusion and dialed the number.

The praise I was showered with by the couple was more than I had ever expected. Nervously they had entered my room, the woman slightly shaking, the man sweating. They went past me into the atelier and froze in their tracks when they spotted the painting.

"It... it is beautiful," the woman gasped.

"A dream come true," the man added.

They got closer to the canvas, sneaking, stalking.

I observed them from the doorway.

"The price... how much do you want?"

I shrugged and told him what the other man had paid.

"Disastrous! I will give you three times as much! No, four times! We must buy it!"

The two of them looked at me tensely, waiting for my answer.

Should I sell it though? It was so marvelous! What if I never managed to create something like that painting again? If this was the pinnacle of my art and everything would be going downwards from now on?

The pills! Yes, aided by the pills I would surely conjure up more holiness.

So, why not?

It would not hurt anybody, wouldn't it?

So, I sold it. The bank notes filled up my pockets, a nice weight.

Back then, I was incredibly happy about the encounter on that hilltop, the encounter with the... hare...

In the evening I took some more pills, let my brush dance, the colors pulsate and splendor enter my world.

The next day I painted two additional paintings, the day after three more. I took them to another room, hid them in case someone would spot them from the street! After all, no one knows what scoundrels are living in those alleys...

Then the people came. Every day some more. They had seen the paintings on the walls of the previous buyers and a rumor started to spread.

There supposedly was a painter in the center of Irkutsk who could bring the afterlife to this earth. A painter, that had opened the gateways to being and grasped the perfection of this world. A rumor about me.

In those days it felt like everyone with money knew of me. And soon they came from other cities as well, from Moscow and Berlin and Warsaw... I did my best to keep up with their demands.

Every time I got back to my senses only to see another beauty on my easel, my heart jumped a little. I remembered every painting I created and sold. All the landscapes and cities, the valleys and skies, the stars and the moons, the animals, and plants and all the rest. Every detail stayed with me; every stroke made. In those days, everything seemed like a miracle.

I was lucky that everybody was satisfied with buying only one painting. They always wanted just one. Otherwise, I would have probably not managed to make enough. Fifty-two paintings I created, every single one an image of perfection itself.

The papers came by and even people from TV stations, with their clunky cameras and all their modern equipment. They shot photographs and videos of my works, would probably spread them across the world, making me one of the most famous people alive.

But then came the call that started to change everything. The call that set in motion the events that made me start to plan the terrible things I am about to do.

The call came from the TV guys.

"We looked at the videos we made of your paintings..." he started, a young man, probably around twenty years of age.

"Yes, what about them? You suggested editing them together for a documentary and then showing that across the country. Did you change your mind? Do you want to rob the world of this perfection?" I asked brusquely.

"Of course not, I have personally seen them! With my own eyes. But... on the videos... the paintings are just white. Nothing. Like interference. Like a blind spot. As if the things they show cannot be captured by earthly means..." the man reported.

He was afraid.

"If... if you look at the videos... you get this feeling. At first it is just confusion. Understandable. Because why shouldn't one be able to see them? But soon...

As if you get blind, you know? As if there is something that we cannot detect with our equipment. I have seen the paintings and I am convinced... they are not of this world. And that they show something that doesn't belong here."

He made me angry. What an idiot!

"And therefore, you bail on me? Because there are problems with the recordings? Come on, just make new ones!" I cursed at him.

This moron tried to sabotage me, make people laugh at me. After so many had wanted one of my paintings! He was jealous of my success, was probably living in some run-down flat feeding his bastards. I would not let him ruin everything. I would...

"We won't record anything new about your art. Orders from my boss. And we will not broadcast anything. Nothing. He says that something unnamable is captured on those pictures. Ghosts that hunger for our souls, waiting for us, waiting to be brought back from hell. Souls that don't rest and that have found new life in those colors...

My boss made us burn all recordings of the paintings we possessed. He is terribly afraid! We all are terribly afraid! What did you paint? What did you see?????"

The man went silent, let out a moan and hang up on me without uttering another word. I just stood there in shock, the phone still in my hand.

*...what did you see...*

That question scared me more than anything else. Beauty? Hadn't I seen beauty? Or had there been something else, something more threatening? Something that used me? Something that...

I lost myself in thoughts and stared at the wall. Decided that it would be best to take a walk outside. To relax, get my mind off those things. When I left my atelier, I felt as if some clear truth was hiding away from me...

+++++++++++

The streets were grey as usual, the people alien and distant. The sky covered in clouds made me wish to be in one of those other worlds, those worlds of perfection. What was I even still doing here? In this bleak city of mistrust and animosity? Filled with seeping arrogance and pride, with hate...

Did I not just spot something in the clouds? A shade? A distorted shape, twisting itself? No, impossible. Probably just symptoms of withdrawal. I had taken the last pill about a day ago – so this was only my body asking for its medicine. Its daily dose of euphoria.

Was someone following me? I turned around, looked down the street, saw cars, pedestrians... nothing abnormal.

But still...

I accelerated my pace, through narrow alleys and past reeking flats. Wasn't someone there? Was it the hare? What if the animal... *it* came to get me? If its maws consumed me? I had to make haste, started running, fleeing. Past frowning people, away from their piercing stares. Was it closely behind? Was it sliding across the pavements? I could have sworn that clicking and quacking made the cold air tremble. No, just a delusion, just the withdrawal.

I was closing in on the park, where the treetops would protect me from the skies.

Slowly, I calmed down.

Then, the questions started to emerge from the depths of my mind.

What was happening to me? Should I go see a doctor? But what would they think of me? The greatest artist of history – just a poor maniac? A lunatic one could not take seriously?

"His art was not that special, if you examine it closely. Just some strokes with a brush. Everyone could have done, what he did. No talent, the fraud should immediately be forgotten..." I already heard them say as I was cowering under a tree, sweaty and full of fear.

Today, I hope for people to talk about me in exactly that way. That they forget. But back then...

Back then, those thoughts were unthinkable, for a fever had taken my mind and threatened to drown it in madness.

Loud rustling came from the leaves above me, distracted me. What could be there? I couldn't spot anything, no squirrel, no bird... yet...

What, if that was the creature? The creature from the outside?

The... hare?

I had to run, leave, get away.

The rustling got even louder.

Might it be just the wind? The wind blowing through those leaves? Just the wind?

Nothing was visible, but I knew... Terror grabbed me and blurred my world as I was about to faint, but I kept fighting the dizziness. Thought about a way out of this hell.

There was... but one...

Maybe I would have taken my life in those moments, had perished, and made the paintings even more famous, more notorious...

But that's not how it went.

"Are you that painter? The one that sold that picture to my husband?" I suddenly heard a voice.

It was a woman who had slowly walked towards my tree, looking at me in fear and disbelief. I must have looked like a pile of dung.

"What painting...?" I managed to ask.

"He gave it to me for my birthday. At first, I thought it was one of those boring portraits of himself – he often gifted me those before – but when I unwrapped it... My heart almost stopped because of all the joy flooding my mind..."

"I remember. The first one... indeed," I answered quietly.

"How may I help you?"

"Well... In the beginning, I was overwhelmed with pleasantness, felt like on a trip when I set sight on that landscape. I made them put it on the wall above the fireplace, dreamy, and spent the next few days just looking at it. I got lost in that other world. My husband felt the same, but he was off to work for most of the time and did not have as many moments with the painting as I did. In the evening, we sat there many times, together, not saying a word, just staring at the canvas. Such ecstatic beauty..."

Her eyes trailed off to the tree top we were sitting below.

I carefully cleared my throat.

"Sorry, I am just..."

"Don't worry. I have seen many people react like this, myself included. But what happened afterwards?"

She looked at me, slightly confused.

"When I got up some days ago, I looked at the picture, just a short look..."

She stopped, started shaking.

"It seemed... changed. Alien and uncomfortable. Even a little threatening. I could not explain, why, so I suspected that I was getting mad. The trees felt dead, despite their splendor. The mountains seemed tarnished and forgotten, the creeks filthy – despite their blue waters. It was the same painting but changed. My husband hadn't noticed, he just gazed upon the landscape. But I could not. Not another second. It was wrong, corrupted...

But that was not all. The next day...

I spotted changes.

The mountains had without a doubt lost some of their color, had gotten bleaker, the trees had started to lose their leaves and, in the streams,... I could see small dark shapes. But the most terrifying thing was a shadow above the horizon. Firstly, I thought that it was just a mote of dust that the cleaning lady had missed, but... on the next day, it had grown larger, had gotten clearer. An entity, closing in from the distance.

I got terribly afraid, but my husband did not see. He still described all the magnificence of the painting, as if nothing had changed. Though, in the night... he started to flail around and screamed, as if the devil himself was trying to get him. When I finally managed to wake him up, he did not remember anything. He said that he had dreamt of the picture, said that he had floated amongst the divine landscape.

Yesterday, the spot, the shadow... it had grown again. I cannot find the words to describe it... a mass, perhaps an animal or a plant, or...

And the landscape... I just can't...

You must believe me! I am the only one who sees it, the only one! Everybody thinks I am mad, but you... you must know, what is happening. Where did you get those ideas? What do you know about the spot of filth? You are the creator, it has to have come from you! *What did you see*?"

The woman had turned pale. Her eyes were empty.

Should I call a doctor? Could anyone help her? Had she taken medicine as well, things that broaden one's horizon? And yet... those words, so familiar. So precise.

What... what if it was the... the *hare*?

With its buds and its stumpy tail?

What if it was closing in? If it came through the painting into this world?

Rubbish, absolutely rubbish.

My heart had started pounding during those thoughts, as if it had tried to warn me.

If it was indeed the...

"I want to see it. Show me, I want to see the painting!"

Naturally, I had not forgotten a single detail. Every painting I had created floated past my inner eye, precious and divine. Nothing bad could be there, couldn't it? What horrid things could possibly live in such wonderlands?

"Thank you! Yes, follow me! You will see it. You will spot that dot of crawling, flying calamity..."

Not ten minutes later, we sat inside a tram, travelling towards the painting.

+++++++

Three mountains, vast and sublime, shining in turquoise colors, calming one's soul. Creeks carrying crystalline waters, glistening in the light of a warm sun. Densely wooded plains, juicy green and booming with life. Flora and fauna from a sweet dream. The painting was far greater than I remembered. It made the mind soar.

"Everything is alright! There is nothing out of the ordinary, everything still looks like in my memories. Exactly, as I have painted it."

I was standing in an elegant room only lit by a brightly burning fireplace, the canvas hanging in front of me. The sun had already set, and the head of the house had shown me with enthusiasm and excitement to the living room and invited me to stay for dinner.

"You have changed my life. Improved it. Who was I without that painting? A nobody. A small businessman...

Oh, ignore my wife, please, she has her moments of instability and confusion. She brings other... qualities into our marriage. Just... just enjoy the painting with me," he said with stars of wonder in his eyes.

"And this one is enough for you? Don't you want another one? This one is pure beauty, after all..." I hesitatingly asked.

He frowned.

"No! Why? This perfection is all I need. It almost feels as if the painting was designed to be mine all along..."

With those words he suddenly stormed out and didn't return.

His wife had not dared to venture into the room holding my strange piece of art.

Afraid and shivering, she had remained outside whilst I had taken my time to inspect my painting.

"Are you sure that there is nothing?" I heard her whisper from beyond the door as I gave her an all-clear signal.

"Everything is good. Only the landscape" I confirmed.

The door opened. Like a cat, she entered the room, slowly, her eyes filled with fear and skepticism.

She looked at the painting.

Her eyes grew large.

She fell to her knees, her body trembling.

"Do-... Don't you see? The spot... the thing... the... thing..."

She fainted, accompanied by spasms shaking and contorting her body.

They called a doctor, who could only diagnose a heavy shock. Her husband insisted on keeping his poor wife at home and asked me not to tell anyone of her fit.

"What is wrong with her? It is the embodiment of magnificence..." he muttered and left to take care of her.

I could not understand her harsh reaction, either, was as confused as he was.

The juicy pastures, the fields, and woods and at the horizon...

I held my breath.

Blinked.

What... what was that... over there?

Blurry, inconspicuous.

Growing.

I jolted back from the painting in disbelief. For a moment I thought that my mind was playing tricks on me. That there was no spot. From one second to the next, the painting changed. The whole world it depicted got distorted, unclear and cold.

Then, I gazed upon other trees. Other hills and other skies. Or were they alive? Plants? Creatures? My mind burned and my surroundings started spinning.

There it came, closing in, crawling, floating... the hare.

As if the whole painting was just that despicable being, just a part of it, a part of that... hare.

I ran away, fled the building, just away from that building and the canvas inside. I did not care whether my host would be disappointed. Given the circumstances, he surely would understand. On the way home, something seemed to latch onto my trail, stalk my every step.

I shut myself away in my atelier, hoped to fend it off with those meek walls, hoped that the lurking presence would leave me alone, but... I knew that it was still coming. That it would never rest.

But I was just an artist, a painter, only trying to bring beauty to the people. No one would ever forget me and my name... my name would survive time.

Holding onto these thoughts I managed to sleep and to escape the paranoia that had gripped my heart.

In the next morning, I got a call from the police. A corpse had been found, a woman, quite wealthy. Her servants had given to protocol that I had been there on the day before, that I had been one of the last people that had seen her alive.

Whether I knew something?

They ordered me to the police station and I told them what they needed to know.

I was not told about the circumstances of the death, but it was in the papers some days later.

A woman had fallen victim to her own delusions and burned a painting. Consumed by rage, her husband had struck her dead only moments later.

"My happiness! She has destroyed my happiness! She has destroyed my fulfilment!" he supposedly roared in tears when they arrested him.

When I put the newspapers aside, I was just barely conscious.

They had not written down my name, nobody knew that it was *my* painting that had turned to ashes in those flames. I was somewhat relieved about that simple fact. I was glad that my name would not be spoken in the context of such negative events...

After all... it should be spoken with admiration... with awe...

++++++++++++++

In the dark they came, those noises... were they voices? Outside, in the depths of the night? Inhuman voices, consulting with each other, whispering? I could hear them, in front of the window, feel their gazes resting on me...

Three days after the woman had done her deed, three days after horror and despair had gushed through my soul, an idea started growing deep inside my thoughts. A suspicion.

The other paintings.... What, if they, too... if they showed those dim, alien, disgusting realms as well? Slowly? If it would come, leave the pictures? Would a part of our world then become a part of it... be devoured by it? Like that hilltop had been, that hilltop that now seemed to never have existed?

Perhaps I should get the other paintings back.

But I would lose all my money. All of it. And my fame would perish – as creating new pictures under the influence of those pills was out of the question.

Though... what would I pay if I didn't take them back? What would the price be for the glory I had experienced? What would the human race pay? No... I couldn't... I just couldn't... let them be out there... The risk was too great. But who would part from their painting? Considering the madness that all seemed to be possessed by?

My thoughts trailed back to the poor man and his wife...

No, no body would return them... ever...

Except... I could gather them all with a clever lie…

An exhibition.

I would organize an exhibition. A whole week, exclusively for owners of my art. Who would object to the prospect of having such eternal splendor gathered in one room? Additionally... I might have been mistaken. My art might be harmless, after all.

Back then, I persuaded myself that I was exaggerating everything, that I was about to get paranoid. That all the happenings of the last weeks had nothing to do with my art. And soon, I strangely forgot all doubts I had had about the paintings.

Just two days passed, and I had them all gathered. No one seemed to have any objections, on the contrary – they even sounded... pleased. And yes, the idea of putting them into one single room, all those pictures... what a clever idea it had been. To dive into their beauty. All paintings had been set up inside one huge, pompous hall. Combined, they brought the heavens down to this world, their magnificence, their perfection... I am lost for words when trying to describe them, but the feeling accompanying those worlds was of pure perfection. Of eternal fortune...

And all other guests that had come today in the evening seemed to feel the same. Were in a similar rush. We celebrated the gallery of heavens, of divine presences on earth.

After a while, the visitors left, one after the other. Some did not want to leave their paintings, had to be forcibly removed from the hall. But in the end, I was left alone. Left alone with a world of splendor. I knew them all, loved them all, desired them all, wanted to be with them forever... never leave them alone again...

I did not notice it immediately, but when I did, I could not unsee it.

The spot.

It was on every painting. Tiny, but despite that, strangely clear. Strangely growing.

It came! It came through the paintings!

I had run out of the building and into the night. My thoughts cleared up, cleared up in a way they never had since a long time, caused a clarity that I held onto until this moment. Outside, I could feel their presence... of other creatures that are watching me. That monitor my every move, that dissect me with their gazes.

What the hell have I done? Why did I let it come this far, all those creations of doom gathered in one room?

They would bring death, the last purge, the end of all.

I had to get them away, vanquish all of them.

I had to steal them. I had to take them away and burn them. People would cope with their loss, one day. This accursed lust for glory! For admiration. What did it get me? Money, a lot of money. Useless, transient. When my bones have turned to dust, that will not be important in any way. I will have nothing left of it, not even an eternal peaceful rest, for that too might be taken away by the things coming.

A thought appeared in my mind back then... what would I see in those paintings? If I entered that horrid room? Was it even safe in there anymore? Crept it, slid it across the ground already, that... hare? Here and now, outside the world of colors and ideas?

The pills! I put my hand into the pocket of my jacket. I always could rely on my supplies. I put only a tiny bit into my mouth. A little piece that turned the world around me bright.

They looked wonderful, every one of my paintings. Genius, simply genius. Despite that, I had to take them, destroy them. Their beauty was not real, just a mask...

"Freeze!"

That had to have come from the night guard. Yes, it was the night guard. Clearly. Such a wonderful uniform, alike the clothing of a king, shimmering in the light of the ceiling lamps.

"Oh, pardon me! I did not know that you were still here. They all are unbelievably pretty. I really would like to know what inspired you!"

What inspired me...

I wanted to answer, reply, distract him...

The colors grew pale and moved away. Everything seemed contorted and unreal, when I spotted it.

The hare.

It sat behind the night guard, pertly, with its gaze scanning the area.

Just a hare.

Seconds later, it already left, returned to the paintings, together with the night guard, who sang a song of joy... screamed... screeched, writhing in pain...

They both were gone, soon. The paintings were still shining brightly, gracefully and in peace...

The small bit of the pill I had taken started to lose its effects. I still was seeing landscapes, but...

Wasn't there... the night guard... distorted, his limbs twisted, his mouth open, screaming, forever... His eyes wildly twitching, searching... As if he was trying to understand, as if he was trying to find a way out, out of hell...

Alienness crept into the pictures...

I got sick and fled into this room that gave me a way out into the garden through a back door. I think it is the curator’s office. I considered fleeing, but I could not. I sat down in front of the computer. I had to get my tale out somehow!

I am still there, typing these lines. I would have never imagined being cornered like this. All that is left is to finish my tale. So, that you know everything. I want to warn everyone reading this, open their eyes. If there ever surfaces an artist again that creates things that are far too perfect for this world, for our species – things that lure us and invade the homes of men like parasites – be warned...

Perhaps those paintings aren't of this world after all.

Nobody shall ever know my name. It is poison. It is disease. I want to be forgotten, forgotten, and lost in time.

I wished that I was never born, that I had never existed...

A bottle of rum, a handkerchief. A lighter.

Good idea.

They will burn, burn. All forty-nine of them!

These lines, these lines that are my life. Perhaps they survive, perhaps they will be read, if I send them, if I post them...

They will survive. Of course. There is no other way.

Who might read them? A policeman, a student, a doctor? Who are you? I hope you never see those paintings…

I understand. I grasp it now.

*This* is my life's work. These lines. This warning, this story.

Beware of...

My thoughts start to grow silent.

I think something just moved outside, in front of the window. The night is pitch black, I cannot see enough. What if something appears, beyond the glass? An otherworldly grimace, lurking eyes, drooling maws? Aren’t there maws whispering... words, quietly...

*Eslud esmad...*

No, madness!

Am I hearing strange sounds from the hallway? Are they finally closing in on me?

Oh god, what have I done?

What have I lead to our world?

I have to be quick.

They will burn, it will burn.

I pray that these lines will be read. I hope that you are reading them right now and that my life was not lost in vain. Wish me luck...

They will burn. *It* will burn.

The hare... Just a hare...

*What... did I see?*

## Entities & Objects

* The Hare
* Voices outside the Window

## Possible Connections to the Ebrugh

* The shapes outside the window whisper the same words that the Shopkeeper uses ("Eslud Esmad").

## Trivia

* There are apparently 2 paintings that were not burned.