The Mural

 He walked out of campus holding his head. The throbbing headache didn't seem to go away. And all that growing noise didn't help,either. Where did it come from? He looked around. Dark,grim features on people's faces,distorted pictures,as if out of one of Goya'a murals. The Black Paintings. They had just finished studying them in his art class. Funny,wasn't it? Or rather scary. The faces around him became all the more disfigured every step he made and the noise was growing louder every breath he took. Where did it come from?

 And they were all nearing in on him. There was hardly any air left to inhale as it was. He ran the lat few meters to his aparment,rushed up the steps and locked the door securely behind him. He was wrenched in sweat,his heart racing. And that headache didn't seem to go away. He made his way to close the windows in a desperate attempt to keep the noise away and tripped over the coffeetable. He knocked over some papers that were on it and some pills. He picked up the box they were inside and read the label."Lithium". That was strange. What were they doing in his apartment? Maybe they belonged to his roommate. Only he couldn't,for the life of him,recall having a roomate at all.

 The voices were inside the apartment now. They seemed to be coming from the mural on the wall. A mural he was sure wasn't there when he left that morning. A mural that was now closing in on him,the grim faces all around him,drowning him,deafening him. He closed his eyes,covered his ears with his hands. When he opened them,the mural was still there.

                                                                                                                  Written by Ms Paragon