The Artist's Secret Part 3

There is a blur line between dreams and reality.

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We met Clara, a freelance sketch artist who stumbled on her neighbour, Mr. Bellamy dragging a suspiciously familiar package as she looked out the window. She then receives a disturbing note.

Part 1 of Clara's journey started here.

Part 2 of Clara's journey continued here.

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The air around Clara thickened as she stared at the package. Her fingers shook, with dirt under her nails and scratches on her hands that she collected on the walks she had taken, unaware. She unwound the raffia. Inside it - a thumb drive.

With her fingers still quivering, she plugged it into the USB port of her laptop. The device rattled violently against the port, almost slipping from her trembling hand. The flickering footage was grainy at best, but the figure was unmistakable. Her breath hitched, her stomach tightening, as she saw herself in his garage, unmoving.

Then another frame of herself with a chainsaw, arms in motion. She didn’t need to see the rest. Didn’t want to. The splintering sound she heard after that said it all. The silence that followed was worse- her sleepwalking was acting up again.

In the final frame, a mannequin of herself, standing perfectly still, its face eerily blank. A perverse reflection of herself.

“That’s not possible,” she uttered in disbelief. Her pulse quickened with the weight of her actions. “Are you sure it was me?” She recalled herself veering between familiar places and those she never knew, legs constantly stumbling as she tried to find her feet.

She was pottering around in the garden the next day when a flummoxed Mr. Bellamy confronted her.

“You’ve been wandering around the neighbourhood at night,” he said, his voice shaking with both pity and fear. “I’ve footage of you entering my property. Do you even understand what you’ve done? I needed to use that for my art!” His accusation carried a sneer.