The Picture

There it was. The portrait I had just bought. It consisted of a black background and a white circle in the middle. To be honest, I didn't remember how I had bought it in the first place, but what I knew is that I didn't want to get rid of it because I wasted $200 on it for some reason. Anyways, I remember staring at it for about 10 minutes before the kettle in the kitchen started doing that whistling noise. Once I stopped the kettle, I came back to the living room to look at the painting again when I noticed something odd.

Two dots have taken form beside the circle, forming a picture of a big dot between two smaller dots. I didn't know how they have gotten there or if they were there at the first place, but I didn't mind. Two simple dots made it less plain and more artistic. That was when I realized it was midnight and I had work tomorrow. So, as the simple minded person I was, I went for the bed and embraced the warm blankets with open arms shortly before passing out.

When I woke up, it was exactly 5:00 AM. When I say exactly, I mean pinpoint 5:00AM. Immediately when I woke up, the clock struck 5:00AM. Surprising, since I usually sleep for 8 hours in total, but meh, even better. Had time to improve my work. I stood up and looked at the painting. It changed again, this time with 2 added dots, one on the bottom and one on the top, making it look like a cross. This time, I stared confusingly. This couldn't have been a coincedence. This certainly wasn't there before, and I didn't paint on it. That was when I noticed that the dots were slowly expanding to connect to the central dot.

I was mesmerized and smiling by this point, comparing the result with a .GIF picture you normally see on the internet. I laughed a bit and walked back to my bedroom. It was 10AM. I started panicking to the fact that I stared at a picture for 5 hours. But after a while I laughed, remembering that it was just a leave less from work. I walked into my kitchen and fixed up some toast and baked beans. Walking back to the living room, I turned on the television and sat down, eating my quick breakfast, when I suddenly noticed the dots had disappeared entirely from the picture, and in its place, was a word. "LOOK". I stared at the word when I heard a noise behind me, which made me look behind myself. Nothing. Laughing to myself, I quickly dismissed the word, thinking it was going to form some cliche "LOOK BEHIND YOU" sentence. But when I looked at it, the word "INSIDE" replaced the previous word.

My mind tried to think any possible ending for the sentence. "The Book"? "The Box"? What could it have been? I looked everywhere and I tried to think anything that has an opening and my mind froze. I looked back at the painting and saw the next word. "CEMETERY"

I ran outside and into my car, which I then started and took off in. While driving, I started feeling multiple pains everywhere, my head, stomach, feet, any body part, and the more I drove, the more the pain intensified, to the point when it was next to unbearable infront of the Oak Cemetery. I walked inside and paced around until I saw something which made me freeze.

A part of the ground was rising and falling frequently, the muffled screams coming from the earth, but no, that wasn't the thing that surprised me.

The thing that surprised me was the tombstone.

It had my name on it.

I was buried alive.