The Anguished Man

The day started out like no other. Michael had just got home from work and sat down in front of his television, mindlessly staring into the endless void of pixels dancing around on a glass screen. After a few short minutes of mind numbingly staring into the television, he decided to go and get himself an ice-cold beer from the fridge. On the journey there, he heard something on the TV that unlocked a memory that had been long buried and forgotten for what he thought was an eternity.

He went to the decrepit dungeon hidden away by a secret eroded door he kept underneath the family rug, carefully placing his large foot on the small first step of the descent, tip toeing down each step afterwards making sure to not slip, fall or break the slats of the feeble stairs he fumbled down. He trod on an old leather ball and slipped into the entangling darkness of the locked away cellar, accidentally shutting the door behind him. With only a spec of light creeping through an unreachable double-glazed window at the top of the ceiling, taunting and teasing him about the freedoms outside, he blindly felt around for the painting he tried to recover in the first place.

On first gaze of the thought-provoking portrait of the 'Anguished Man' Michael found himself lost for words at the hidden beauty of this disturbing painting. After retrieving the lost portrait, Michael struggled to find his way back to the steps leading back to the light that he could barely see coming through a minuscule gap in the floorboards, as if God were guiding him back to his domain where he could be safe from the dark devils that dwelled in the cellar.

After approximately three minutes of floundering up the dusty stairs, he finally managed to make his way back to the outside world. The first action he took was to hang the horrifying picture on the drooping wallpaper of his one-bedroom apartment. Later that night he heard strange noises coming from outside his bedroom roughly where he hung 'The Anguished Man'. After thoroughly investigating the cause of the noise he found no evidence, except a small knife laying on the floor of his small kitchen. After coming to the conclusion that the wind was playing tricks on him and that it had magically opened his cutlery draw and pick up a metal knife and threw it on the floor, he made his way back to his room where he drifted back off to sleep. Halfway through the night he felt a warm liquid feeling drip down his face and decided to wipe it off, thought nothing of it and drift off back to sleep.

The next morning Michael woke up to find his pillow smothered in the amount of blood needed to drown someone, quickly rushing to the bathroom to grab some tissue paper, he found that when he looked in the mirror his ear was slit down the middle, something, with surgical precision, had slit down the middle part of his ear. Again, thinking nothing about it he put a small plaster on it and decided to go to work. Upon coming home from work, he found the 'Anguished Man' laying on the floor with a more, sinister expression on the portraits face, but weirdest of all, he found writing on the walls that read 'Everyone has betrayed me' upon reading this the door slammed shut, locking in place. Michael ran to his bedroom, locking the door, not even looking at the horrors that lurked inside. After locking his door, he noticed some more etching in blood which read 'Turn around'.

Slowly, he turned around, to find the Anguished Man, drenched in a vast pool of blood, looking at him, staring at him... the portrait now depicts two figures, screaming, with hollow eyes... and hollow mouths...

If you look close enough, you'll see two little tears on one's face.