Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder the closer they came until they sped past the window and slowly faded from earshot. A cacophony of voices outside, too many for individual words to be discernible, roared in a sea of chaos and confusion. Lying in bed alone, a fox closed his eyes and tried to shut out the noise. The room around him cluttered with boxes, a labyrinth in its own right, too small of a space to contain the vast amount of detritus accumulated there. Yet it served as a sanctuary nonetheless. Those four walls isolating him from the sounds of the rioting outside, where it felt like the whole world had gone mad.

It had started with the news. Reports of a deep booming sound detected on underwater radar, one whose cause remained a mystery despite every possible scientific inquiry being made.

Then came the videos on people's phones... recordings of fishlike creatures rising from the sea, flocking to coastal towns in droves. Contact with anyone there was soon cut off. With any remaining videos censored online in an attempt to prevent widespread panic. Instead, the censorship had only further inflamed the situation. People taking to the streets to demand answers, some looting buildings, claiming that what clips had been glimpsed were the doing of a towering cephalopoid being they had glimpsed only in their darkest nightmares.

Those with the wealth to escape, did. Charting flights to places far from the ocean. The rest remained stuck where they were, either taking to the streets or holing up in their homes and doing their best to hunker down.

Tossing and turning, sleep refusing to silence the racket outside, the fox could feel the pressure in his mind building. It was like when clouds swelled up with rain just before a thunderstorm, the air pressure causing headaches in those who were sensitive to subtle changes in the atmosphere. Only the stress of the situation made it many, many times worse. Tonight was the worst it had been in a long while. Thoughts pounding relentlessly inside his skull as if they were trying to violently force their way out out. Twisting his body with pain.

He held out for as long as he could.

Like a dam on the verge of overflowing... something inside the fox 'clicked' in that moment. As though a doorway in his mind had just unlocked. In that restless state between wakefulness and fitful sleep, he sat up in bed. Shrugging off the covers and moving his feet down onto the floor, dressed only in a pair of boxers as he stood up. His eyes were half-lidded and unfocused. The fox seeming only vaguely aware of his surroundings and what he was doing. Walking slowly and methodically, in a trancelike state, he navigated the maze of objects in his room. Coming to a tall rectangular shape covered up by a thick cloth. Tail idly swishing behind him as he tugged on the edge, causing the fabric to cascade down like a waterfall.

As the cloth landed in a bundle at his feet, he stood staring at a painting. The canvass both taller and wider than his body. Blinking away his sleep, even in his state of trance he registered a mixture of conflicting emotions. Confusion and familiarity in equal measure. Unable to recall when he'd received the painting, yet nagged at by a certainty that he'd seen it somewhere before. Still behaving on a sort of autopilot, guided by some impulse he couldn't identify, he tentatively reached out his hand. Drawn towards the artist's depiction of a balcony at twilight overlooking a city by the ocean.

It looked remote. A city empty despite its size, lonesome and quiet.

Tracing his fingers over the shapes and textures, he felt a longing deep within his breast.

As if in response to his yearning, the surface of the painting rippled like water...

A voice within his mind. It whispering "Come to me." It sounded familiar, too.

Closing his eyes, trusting to the voice, trusting to the trance... the fox tipped his body forward, plunging headfirst into the world of the painting. Leaving the roaring and screaming of the world he had come from behind. Bereft of his presence, the small densely-packed room seemed darker.

Hours later when the sun began to rise though on a new dawn, rays flitting through the smoke and ruin and rubble of the outside world, tenderly peeking around the edges of the curtains covering the windows... they illuminated the painting standing there still. The image depicted there had changed. A red velvet couch was present where one had not been before. And on it, there lay resting the likeness of the fox cradled in the arms of a caprine figure garbed in yellow. The unknown figure tenderly held the fox, kissing him on the nose, seemingly speaking words that held the restless vulpine spellbound.

A snapshot of a twilit balustrade, frozen in time. Of a place the fox had indeed visited before. One that compelled him to return whenever the weight of the world grew too heavy.

*****

A seemingly ordinary portrait hides a hypnotic secret, coming alive only during nights of great distress.

Artwork done by the lovely Pinguinolog as a gift for FoxyCross !