Evelyn opened the book and flipped through the pages. It was the biography of the painter who had completed that painting. While reading it, another thought flashed in her mind if Mr. Lopez returned anytime now, she wouldn’t be able to learn anything about it. So she had to somehow take the book to her room and study it in detail. She decided to secretly take the book with her.

  Just then, footsteps echoed in her ears. Evelyn slowly walked toward the doorway and peeked outside.

  “Yes… it’s him,” she said to herself.

  Without thinking twice, she slipped the book into her bag. She had to get out before he walked in. But fortunately for Evelyn, just seconds before Lopez reached the office door, someone called out to him.

  ”Hey, Mr.Lopez!”

  “Who’s that?” Lopez said, turning only his head.

  “Hey, it’s me Cardel…”

  “Cardel! What a surprise. Haven’t seen you in years. Where were you?”

  Using this momentary gap, Evelyn slipped out and disappeared without Lopez noticing.

  “That idiot didn’t even see me,” she muttered with a smile before getting into her car.

  Back in her room, Evelyn began reading the book with intense curiosity. It had a thick black hardcover with the name “CELESTE” written in white.

  Her full name was CELESTE MARROW LORA. From childhood, Celeste showed a deep passion for drawing and painting. The support, confidence, and courage given by her father, Marrow, played a huge role in shaping the extraordinary talent that blossomed within the young girl. She had an unusual gift the ability to paint images born from pure imagination. As she grew older, she became known as the girl who painted souls. Some even suspected she had mental issues. The criticism stemmed from her method: she supposedly summoned the souls of the dead, made them appear before her as subjects, and painted them. Many people spoke about this, and she faced continuous backlash.

  But the final subject she attempted to paint one particular soul? ?refused to sit for her. For when she moved her brush for that painting, Celeste saw herself reflected in it.

  Evelyn closed the book, placed it on her table, drank some water from the jug, and lay down on the bed with her eyes shut. She couldn’t fall asleep, but she kept her eyes tightly closed; the muscles in her face tensed… her head moved restlessly side to side. That experience had deeply disturbed her. Her mind felt uneasy, unaware of the terrifying events she was yet to face.

  ”Open your eyes, child.”

  A soft, affectionate voice whispered in her ear. But she kept her eyes squeezed shut.

  ”It’s better for you… if you open them.”

  This time the voice carried a hint of threat cold, chilling.

  ”No, I won’t open them,” she replied to the unseen presence whose voice echoed beside her ear.

  Suddenly, the voice went silent. Thinking it had vanished, Evelyn slowly opened her eyes. Her blurred vision cleared and then a hand gripped her neck, lifting her off the bed. Her legs and arms flailed helplessly in the air. With all her strength, she tried to pry off the invisible hands choking her. When she finally looked up, she saw the ghostly face of Celeste.

  Distorted eyes. Fleshless patches exposing bone. Sharp, dark teeth. A mouth wide open as if ready to swallow her whole.

  “Finish restoring my painting… NOW!”

  The voice roared, terrifying and thunderous, as the ghost hurled her across the room into a corner.

  In an instant, the same face and hands rushed toward her. Evelyn covered her eyes with her hands

  and jerked awake from the bed as if jolted from a nightmare.

  She gasped deeply, breathing hard, trembling. Her facial muscles tightened painfully. She couldn’t tell if it had been a dream or reality. But her neck throbbed with pain.

  There were marks several bruises and scratches along her neck.

  Evelyn realized that what was in the painting was Celeste’s spirit. However, she could not understand the intention of this spirit. Many people had come before to try to restore it, but none had been able to complete it she wondered why that was. Would completing this painting cause some other problem for the spirit? The spirit was urging her to finish the painting as soon as possible, but continuous challenges, disasters, and obstacles were preventing her from doing so. After some time, perhaps because of a strong pain at the back of her head, she lost consciousness and collapsed onto the bed.

  Stolen story; please report.

  The next day, without thinking about anything else, she woke up very early in the morning, packed her bag and belongings, and decided in her heart to return to her own place. She no longer had the desire to face or experience any of this because the previous night had given her an extremely terrifying experience. She locked the door of the house, went out, and got into her car. She glanced back once at the house, and at that moment she saw another figure in the window she saw a woman standing inside the house.

  “Get into the car quickly,” she said to herself.

  She immediately got into the car, started it, shifted the gear, and pressed the accelerator. The car surged forward at high speed within seconds. She was fully aware that the museum caretaker would not help her, which is why she was trying to leave without telling him anything. She drove swiftly onto the highway. However, from time to time, she noticed in the mirror a vehicle… a jeep that was following her car, increasing its speed. The jeep moved to overtake her car on the right, approaching at a high speed. When she looked to the right, she saw a woman inside the jeep and was terrified. Her hands trembled uncontrollably on the steering wheel, and it felt as though her arms and legs had lost strength. The face she now saw in the jeep was Celeste’s. Someone else was driving the vehicle. Slowly, the face of Celeste, which had been looking straight ahead, turned toward her. Without a second’s delay, the jeep veered sharply to the left and crashed strongly into her car.

  Evelyn’s car lost control, swerving wildly to the right and left, eventually crashing hard into a wall. The airbags in the car prevented her from getting seriously injured, though she lost consciousness. Only small cuts appeared on her body.

  Evelyn slowly opened her eyes. She realized she was in a room inside a house. She looked around and noticed that the room was equipped like a hospital, with facilities to treat her injuries. When she tried to get up from the bed, a woman reading a magazine next to her said,

  “No… you shouldn’t move. You need rest right now.”

  After saying this, the woman continued reading.

  ”Where am I? Who are you? How did I get here?” Evelyn asked.

  ”You’ll understand everything in due course,” the woman said without taking her eyes off her magazine.

  After a while, she walked to the side of Evelyn’s bed and sat down, looking into Evelyn’s eyes.

  “You should complete the restoration of that painting quickly; otherwise, the experiences you’ll face will be far worse,” the woman said, smiling in a threatening tone.

  Fear intensified in Evelyn’s eyes, her heartbeat quickened, her fingers trembled, and sweat ran down her neck.

  “Who are you?” Evelyn asked again.

  The woman tapped her shoulder twice and then walked to the door, leaving the room.

  Questions kept rising endlessly in Evelyn’s mind:

  “Who is this woman? What is behind this painting? How did Celeste appear in that jeep that hit my car? Is there someone manipulating all this?”

  Evelyn slowly got up from the bed. Holding onto the bed’s railing to balance herself, she noticed a framed photo on the opposite wall. It showed the museum caretaker, Lopuz, together with the woman who had just left her room. A flood of doubts surged through her mind. Nothing was clear to her yet. Lopuz had once said something, and now this woman appeared like this…

  “Hello Lopuz, where are you?” Mora Trion asked.

  “Yes, I’m at the museum. Is she alive?”

  “Yes, she is. I spoke to her firmly about our requirement,” Mora Trion said.

  “She still doesn’t understand anything about us. Let it remain that way; she has to finish the painting, that is our need. But if she delays or tries to escape, I must tell you what to do next, right?”

  “No, I know. She will complete it, or else…”

  After a two-day rest, Evelyn returned to her work. Mr. Lopuz acted as if he hadn’t seen her; she realized he would not help her at all. She went to her working room, placed her bag on the table, and took out her materials. However, she noticed a letter on the table. She picked it up and struggled to swallow her fear as she read:

  “If you delay completing this painting restoration any further…” The words were unusually threatening.

  “Who wrote this? Is it that woman or him?” she wondered, thinking.

  Suddenly, the threatening voice seemed to echo in her mind. Without delay, she started working. Every moment, she heard some faint noises in the room, and the lights kept flickering, but she tried her best to ignore them and focus on her work.

  “Then you can handle everything, right?” she heard a voice from the painting.

  Evelyn’s fingers trembled, but she clasped both hands together and continued.

  “Oh… so you can face the challenges, huh, dear?” she heard the voice from the painting again, smiling.

  Anger rose within her. She clenched her teeth, closed her eyes, and tightened her fists, trying to control her rage. She knew well that if she spoke or acted without care, something might happen. She calmed herself, picked up her brush, and started restoring again. Hours passed, leaving only the last few recoloring touches.

  Evelyn’s hands froze over the freshly restored brushstrokes as the “tap, tap” echoed again soft, deliberate, almost like fingernails against the wooden frame of the painting. Her heart raced. Slowly, she leaned closer to the canvas, trying to discern the source. The eyes of the portrait seemed… different now. Alive. Watching her.

  “Tap tap”

  A sudden chill ran down her spine as a whisper echoed in her mind

  ”Thank you… for setting me free.”

  Evelyn staggered back. The voice Celeste’s was faint, but undeniably present. And yet, the room was silent.

  From behind, a calm, measured voice broke the tension.

  ”You’ve done well,” said Mora Trion, stepping from the shadows, her eyes never leaving the painting.

  “But now you must understand what you’ve really unleashed.”

  Evelyn spun around. Mora’s presence was both reassuring and terrifying a living enforcer of rules she barely understood. “Who are you? What is happening?” she demanded.

  Mora’s gaze softened for a fraction of a second, then sharpened. “I am the mediator between her world and yours. Celeste’s spirit cannot act freely in the mortal plane. She communicates through me. And through the legacy preserved by Lopes.”

  Evelyn’s mind flashed back to the photograph she had seen the curator, Lopes, and Mora together. “Lopes… he’s involved?”

  “Yes,” Mora said, her tone firm. “He cannot interfere with Celeste directly. He can only provide guidance, resources, and protection. Together, we ensure that those who handle her work respect it… or suffer the consequences.”

  The air around the painting shimmered. The eyes of the portrait the face of Celeste’s final subject shifted. It was no longer the woman from the jeep, no longer anyone Evelyn recognized… it was her. Evelyn’s own features were captured perfectly, down to the smallest detail the wet glisten of tears in the eyes. Her stomach churned as she realized the horrifying truth: by restoring the portrait, she had not only freed Celeste’s spirit… she had also become part of Celeste’s eternal work.

  “The portrait never depicted her,” Mora explained, reading Evelyn’s thoughts. “It was the vessel. Celeste’s soul was trapped inside its unfinished beauty. And you, my dear, have completed the cycle.”

  Evelyn stumbled back, gripping the edge of the table. “So… it’s over?” she whispered.

  Mora shook her head. “No. You are part of her now. The painting remembers all who touch it, all who attempt to finish what she began. You freed her, but in doing so… you have been bound to her legacy. This is why I warned you.”

  From the corner of the room, a faint, almost imperceptible shimmer coalesced into Celeste herself pale, ethereal, her eyes full of gratitude and a haunting hunger. She floated toward the restored canvas, merging with it, her final expression one of peace… and eternal vigilance.

  Evelyn felt a strange weight lift, yet a strange connection remained, like invisible threads linking her to the spirit she had freed. Mora Trion watched quietly, almost like a conductor observing an orchestra, then turned to leave.

  “Remember,” she said, “you are now the living link. Respect it, or it will demand from you again.”

  Evelyn stood alone, trembling, staring at the painting. The eyes her eyes followed her every movement, glistening with a life that was not entirely her own.

  The next morning, the museum curator Lopes arrived, finding the portrait perfectly restored. He paused, studying it carefully, then glanced at the plaque, which had mysteriously changed overnight.

  “Celeste Varn, The Eternal Artist.”

  The museum was silent, yet Evelyn’s presence lingered within the painting itself. The chain was complete: Celeste’s spirit freed, Mora Trion as the mediator, Lopes as the custodian, and Evelyn bound to the eternal work of art.

  The painting blinked. Evelyn’s heart raced. She was both alive and captured forever part of Celeste’s final masterpiece.