Affairs of the Heart

A Story by SilenceIsBliss

A story about the functionality of the heart and the emotions/feelings they endure. A little graphic, but nothing extreme.

Suddenly, out of nowhere at all, the girl clutched her chest, falling to the ground. The pounding in her chest was unbearable...painful...horrific. A gasp passed through her lips as her heart spoke to her, loud and proud of its mind it had created over those long, painful, joyous years that it had kept quiet in her ribcage. All of a sudden her mind went blank and she fell to the floor, a blinding white light exploding behind her eyelids. She found herself inside a black room suddenly, sitting in a chair, different paintings strung up on walls that seemed to go on for miles. The obsidian walls seemed to almost pulse in time with her heartbeat...

Slowly, she got up, walking over to the first wall. Upon it was a picture of a child holding hand with its parent figures, smiling and laughing. The epitome of happiness. Suddenly, the picture moved, showing the child running around a field surrounded by bunches of flowers and all the kid's friends. It was pure happiness, everything so bright and happy. She felt warm, and her pulse sped up in excitement. She felt...alive, invigorated. Everything she had felt as a young, happy child. Reluctantly, she pulled her eyes away, moving on.

She moved on to the next painting on the wall, curious as to what it held...

Gaze set on the dark colors, she tilted her head, holding a hand up to her chest as if her heart pained her, the pulse slowing. Within the painting was a boy and a girl. The girl's wrists were coated in crimson, and bruises lay over the boys face and arms. Beaten and broken, representing all the darkest feelings one could feel in an instant. Worthlessness, depression, self-loathing. All of it was present yet somehow hidden to her. It made her chest and heart swell up with a dark emotion, and she turned her gaze away and hurried on to the next image, her heartbeat slowly returning to normal.

This next painting was coated in dark paints, blacks and reds. Knives and guns, angered faces and crying people. For emphasis, her heart once again sped up rapidly, pumping blood into her veins quickly, her cheeks flushing a deep red. She felt hot...angered...furious. All things represented in the painting. She wanted to tear the painting off the wall, stomp it into the ground, rip it to pieces and burn every last scrap. The feeling was so strong, that she fell back and gasped, breaking eye contact with the horrific image. Once again, she held her chest, clutching the place her heart was, feeling the pulse slow to normal. One...two...three...four... she counted to herself, timing the beats until they were normal, before she stood up again. Making a point not to look at the painting again, she moved on.

She moved to many other paintings, gazing upon them with her abruptly changing heartbeat. She stopped before a pink hued one, a feeling of great happiness filling her, making her shiver and tingle in joy. On the painting was a couple, hands laced together, gazing towards another with an undeniable connection. The painting was about love. Cupids and hearts made up a sort of border, the couple being dead center, looking as if nothing could tear them apart. Suddenly, it changed, blackness tearing between the couple, sucking every last happy color out until it was only black and white, the couple fallen to their knees, one sobbing, the other looking blank and closed off from the world. How quickly love was severed and broken... She felt as if she had been stabbed. She felt like her heart had been ripped from her chest, the pain so great it brought tears to her eyes. She gasped for breath, biting her lip before giving a soft wail of pain. It hurt so bad... her heartbeat slowed...her throat closed...she gasped for breath, before tearing her eyes from the painting. Deep gasps passed her lips before she shakily stood, running away from the terrible, black image.

Finally, she reached the end of the hallway, where a giant door stood. On it was a heart, a real heart, stabbed through with a dagger. She told herself not to move...not to progress...but she no longer had control of her feet. She stepped forward and grabbed the slippery red handle, pulling the door open, peering inside. She took a few steps, her gaze falling upon the last painting before her... The one she had been dreading.

"No!" she called, unable to take her eyes away from it no matter how hard she tried. She couldn't stop staring. Before her, the picture was gruesome. There was two sides to it. On the left, there were people who looked as if they were sleeping, peaceful. But they weren't in beds, oh no, of course not. Coffins and caskets lined that side of the painting, people lying within them, hands folded, flowers surrounding them... but on the other side... She shuddered, gasping for breath as the painting's emotions took her over. She fell to her knees, eyes moving over every small detail. There was blood everywhere. People with open eyes, staring at the life they once knew. Organs lay scattered around, bullets and knives protruding from bodies as they lay in a heap, fires and disasters lined up right behind. Death. The painting of death. In the middle was a tall figure split into two personas. On the right side, the figure was draped in black robes, the half of the face that of a skeleton, a scythe in hand that dripped in its victim's blood, a figure known to people as The Grim Reaper. On the other side, the figure was draped in white, an angelic wing protruding from its back. A lyre in hand, the half of the angel smiled, watching over the peaceful dead. But her eyes continued to shift between them...her vision blurring as she felt her heartbeat drastically drop. Half of her body bled, the other half falling limp. Her eyes slowly fell closed and she gave another soft gasp before she lay on the floor limp and broken, the painting's emotions being too real, too strong for her to handle. Her heart had long since stopped, but the images kept changing, cycling through the affairs of the heart.