deepcl

You go. I'll wait here.

Wait for me, then. I'll be back soon.

No one has lived here for a long time. The furniture is battered and broken, paintings are scattered everywhere, and there is a thick layer of dust on everything.

She feels an intense familiarity. Not in an eerie sense like that painting, but one full of intimacy and yearning.

It's like...

Home?

Deepcolor picks up a painting and brushes away the dust, revealing the tattered truth.

When painting becomes life, life becomes poison.

There is no choice but to follow it downstream.

Trees, stream, hut... why are all the paintings the same?

Deepcolor takes a painting off the wall and blows away the past's shackles.

There is a paradise for painters in a faraway land...

Follow the stream, and you'll reach it.

*Cough* Isn't this an oval frame used for portraits? Why is it still the same?

Could the sketchbook be...

Deepcolor opens the sketchbook on the table. The pages flutter, revealing an aged warning.

The hand that cannot draw beauty, the heart that has never seen beauty. Heaven is out of reach, but self-destruction is near.

Follow the stream...

Every page is just the scenery outside.

Did the owner of this house go mad?

Well, she drew so many, so I might as well leave her this one.

The painting makes a dull sound as it hit the ground.

It will be forgotten here, to be buried in the dust.

Until...

Her last painting becomes eternity.

You're back. Did you find anything?

No.

What about the painting?

I left it inside. Didn't want to remember it anymore.

Can you paint now?

Here?

Yeah.

Won't I just end up drawing the same scenery again?

Only one way to find out.

I guess you're right. I'll try.

There.

Isn't it the same painting?

No. Look, the lighting and angle here, and the application of colors, all different.

Something's missing...

It's not a matter of technique... strange...

What is it?

...You said your friends told you the painting came from here.

Yes. Is there a problem?

Can your friends go inside the house?

No, they can't.

Then, how did they know where the painting came from?

'Follow the stream. It lies at the very end.'

That's what they said.

Oh?

What lies at the end of the stream?

What the owner of the house wanted.

Hm...

Put this painting away for me, assistant.

Alright.

Then, we can follow the stream.

What lies at the end of the stream?

Do you still have water, assistant?

Only the seawater before us.

I'm hungry... tired... nobody would come here to paint...

Paint? Of course not.

They come to survive.

Look.

The assistant points towards a pile of scattered painting tools.

The paint is all dried up, and broken easel pieces litter the floor.

Poor thing...

There is no place for her anywhere else.

Survival permits no impurity.

One must abandon everything else in order to survive.

Deepcolor sees a familiar picture frame amidst the reefs.

Broken, dying.

That's the painting from the package...

Yes.

She wanted to give it to me...

Yes.

And I left it behind in the house?

Yes. You don't need it anymore.

Perhaps I should... leave a souvenir?

We could send back the reproduction you made.

Let's do that.

What about us?

We keep going.

This is the end. Where are you going?

Deepcolor steps into the ocean.

The ocean took her, didn't it?

One who has touched seawater can never go back.

Did she have a choice?

No.

Then neither do I. Am I wrong?

Let's go, assistant. What was started must be finished.

It is not water that fills the oceans.

It is ink, paint, colors.

It seeps into every one of Deepcolor's nerve strands, wiping away all her emotions.

She becomes pure, perfect.

Many voices sing along with her, extolling the harmony of survival.

She ascends and tries to sing in harmony.

But she does not sing. She raises her brush.

The singing comes to an abrupt stop.

This is not how survival is expressed, Deepcolor.

I live. I must paint.

Painting does not protect. Painting does not nourish. It is illogical for survival.