Chapter 1: DeadLine
My name is Dane Forensi I'm a 56-year-old artist from Italy, bologna, I was born in the year 1963, I specialize in making things like sculptures that resemble either the humanoid shape or something animalistic, but with a horror twist.
I came from a line of success, unfortunately not in the line of art, but as a small kid I saw my dad work with my mom in his Italian restaurant and a very successful restaurant at that, he always made me strive for greatness, even though he pushed me in the wrong way I still tried to make him happy and not worry about whether I was having trouble in school.
As a kid, I never really knew what I wanted to do, I just enjoyed playing games and watching animated series on the internet, besides my school issues, u could say I had a near perfect life, caring parents, financially stable, not that as a kid I ever really cared about most of those things, as long as I could play when I got home I was happy.
One of my only big issues, was sleeping, as a kid I couldn't sleep much due to nightmares, terrible nightmares, now that I think about it, it might've been due to all the horror games I played and shows I watched, but I had a very recurring dream where I couldn't move at all, and I was stuck in my bed and then slowly, a weird looking humanoid disfigured mess would creep into my room and then once fully inside it would just stand there and look at me, very often I would just wake up crying and screaming, I would regularly go to the psychologist to try and work through those nightmares, and I eventually learned that those nightmares were called sleep paralysis and that if I trained hard enough I could regain control of my body and be rid of those nightmares for good, which eventually happened and my problems were gone.
Growing up I managed to get into arts and started trying my own things, all low-quality pieces though, I never really knew what I wanted to focus on until I found out this amazing artist called Umberto Boccioni. I felt something when I first saw his work called "Horizontal volumes" it depicted a man with his hands together and his arms on his knees , while sitting down , he looked indecisive and like he didn't know what he was feeling , it was filled with dark tones of blue, and colors that I wouldn't classify as happy colors but the man's face was filled with a warm brown which made me focus on it and I realized that the man still looked calm and that made me think about how I have been stressing out about not finding my own thing and that maybe it would be better if I just took it slow .
Two months after, I finally found out what I really wanted to do, I focused on the futurism aspect of art, still studying Umberto Boccioni's pieces, I also started getting more into sculpting and with the money I would get from working in my father's restaurant, I would start doing more pieces , mostly sculptures, and sell them for small amounts of money .
I would use that money for my own things while I paid rent and life necessities with the money I got from the restaurant, one I day I visited an art exposition about Italian artists and I was happy to find out that some of Umberto's most known works were there, one of them was a statue called "Futuristic Man", that for some reason I hadnt seen before, but it reminded me of the scary figure I saw in my dreams, I was practecly an adult by then and those things didn't really bother me anymore, so I took a big intrest into that scupture and thought about doing something that would resemble it.
That day I started doing my first horror based scuplture, took me a week to finish it with my current tools ,it was a stone sculpture, about 1,90m high slender figure with 4 even thinner arms with weabing in between them to form some sort of wings, the face was split into 2 halves and there were eyes protruding from some thin lines coming from the midle, I felt proud when I finished it , it was also the piece that made me rise in the world of art, I later on published a photo of it on an art website and someone messaged me about how they would love to have it and told me to name a price, I jokingly gave them an outrageous price and they emediatly responded with a sweat but to me unrealistic "DONE".
After my first big sale needless to say my life kept going up, with the money I got from the first real quality work I did, I bought better tools and moved from my parent's house at the age of 23, to a nice modern apartment with all the new gadgets, self-cleaning tables, self-cleaning rooms same went for the dishes, which meant I had full time to have fun and work on my projects all I wanted, and with the money I got from that big sale I didn't even need to work to make a living, I visited my parents weekly since I had so much free time and I also invested on the restaurant, I felt happy when I was able to see my parents relax more and enjoy their life because of what I could give them, I mean they gave me everything I wanted as I was growing up, it would only be fair to give them allot of what I had since I had so much to give at the time.
In time I would learn to broaden my horizons as such I started going into different types of art , such like abstract art, for that I focused on Van Gogh loving most of his paintings but specifically on the piece called "Starry Night" due to the dark shades of blue and strong yellows that would make me feel, like even something so smoothly made could hold such beauty and expression, I bought a copy of that for my home so I could look at it and day dream whenever I wanted to.
Here we start the chapter of my life im not the proudest of, it started with my rise to fame and the fact I was meeting more people that made me try new things , one of those things was weed, they told me it was a must try for artists and that most of them would get so mutch better when under their affect, me being the naïve person I was, I went ahead and tried it, later I would find myself hocked, although I did like the new things I would do when under the influence, I felt like I could do better, and so stupidly thinking that if this drug did this then with something harder I would do even better work, and with that happening in my life I got, severely addicted to heroin, needless to say, the quality of my sculptures started degrading over time and my fame went down with it, this all happened in the course of one and a half years, I also fell into a great depression after I noticed what I had been doing to myself, I could physically notice all the changes that had occurred in my body, my eyes had the biggest bags and wrinkles around them, it looked like I hadn't slept in weeks, my face was noticeably thinner and wrinklier, but even then, I coudlnt stop taking the drugs I so desperately clung to.
Even with my occurring issue, I still had loads of money and kept going out to art exhibits, one that more deeply awoke a feeling in me was an action painting exhibit where the most known artist was Jackson Pollock and there were several painting made by him there, but the one I related to the most at the time was "Eyes in the Heat" as I looked at it, all I could think about at the time with my massive self-hate was if I didn't stop my vices, this is what I would look like in a year or two, as I kept looking at the painting I saw the different colors, the tones of red that would symbolize the many wounds I had done to myself, the small but noticeable patches and brushes of black that slowly took over the otherwise clean colors, it made me feel disgust for myself, after what felt like hours of looking at that painting and self-reflecting about my own life, I was approached by a curly red haired beauty, as she asked me if I was okay, the only thing I could focus on was her beautiful face, her light blue almost Grey eyes, her beautiful freckles spread upon her face like chocolate shavings on a sweat white fluffy layer of cream, and her beautifully shaped lips moving non-stop, they were mesmerizing to look at, I snapped out of it when she waved her hand in front of my eyes, she then repeated the question again, and I answered with a yes even though it was completely obvious that I wasn't, I could tell she wasn't buying my obviously fake answer, even though she smiled and asked me if I wanted to go grab a cup of coffee, to which I said yes, how would anyone decline such an invitation from something most people would classify as perfection, as we went out she asked me my name, as I gave it to her she paused for a second and then gave me a smile and asked me if she could call me "Feri", I was confused by the request but I obliged her and said sure, as we were having our coffee I remembered that I hadn't asked her name yet, and so I awkwardly did so, she answered "Alessia", and told me to call her "Ally", I complemented her name and implied it was a cute one at that, she just smiled like she had so far since we started talking.
We spend the whole afternoon talking about our tastes, and I found out that she loved art just as much as me, and even created art herself, painted to be more specific, so after that she handed me her number and I gave her mine, from then on we spoke every day.
I found out one day that her favorite artist was Jackson Pollock, that being the reason she was at the exhibit, and her favorite painting was one called "the Deep" I obviosuly went to check it, and when I did I fell in love with it just as I had fallen in love with her, the painting showed me things that made me understand the why of me loving her, it depicted what I saw as a black wound being slowly healed by the white cloud like shapes, and it made me think about the wound being me and my problems and she the white clouds cleaning the blackness away with her angelical like being, she was the reason I managed to get off drugs and start making art again.
As days turned into weeks, weeks into month, months into years, our romantic relationship only got better, we had lots of things in common, art, games, but more specifically, we pushed each other to reach our better self's we even started making art together, we sold one co-art we did for five thousand Euros, we didn't really focus much on selling our art but that one in specific , I loved, I made a wretched man, no color to him , just pure grey ugly stone, he was sitting down curled up and hiding behind a painting he held in front of him, and she painted it , it was filled beautiful colors and to me it was the definition of happiness in painting, it was an obvious reflection of our personalities, even though I was over the harsh depression which had hit me like a truck the past years, I still kept the ways of being, even if I did feel happy I had a hard time showing it, so she did it for me, she was always the biggest ray of sunshine everywhere, she just seamed to have unlimited happiness and also energy, she never stopped moving, I truly felt happy whenever I was with her, she showed me that I didn't need other stupid bad things in my life to enjoy it or have better results, everything I did now , I did for us.
One of our days out, we found an art museum, and we decided to visit it, it took us thirty minutes to look at everything there besides that last artwork, it was a bronze statue, 3 meters tall, of a man sculpting the stone around his legs, he was sculpting himself, it was called "Self Made Man", I saw myself in that statue, but with a slight difference, in my case I had stopped mid-way through and there was some other woman helping me finish the making of what would be myself.
We kept going with our life's, I couldn't ask for a better life, on my 36th birthday well I got the best gift I could've gotten, Ally told me she was pregnant, I literally cried the day she told me that, I immediately called my parents to tell them about the great news that I had just received, they were as happy as I was, there was a time where I stopped speaking to them due to my addiction, but I had started talking to them recently and had visited them with Ally and they were thrilled with my current life, and now even more so, my mom immediately said she was coming over to talk to Ally about it and help her with tips and tricks she had from when I was a kid, my dad came along and did the same as well as warned me about the stressed I would have to go through in the next months to come due to the pregnancy, I headed his advices, as I had just started understanding the reason as to her being so stressed out lately, it was one of the best days of my life so far.
As the weeks were passing by, we started getting more serious about the whole pregnancy thing and started attending those weird classes that teach parents how to deal with kids, since neither of us had ever had to deal with kids much we weren't very experienced, we also went to some art galleries focused on pregnancy and there was this one small sculpture very close to a meter tall, that had the belly obviously bigger and was caressing some sort of unrecognizable object in her hands, to which I thought about it being something she pictured as her baby, what I saw in that sculpture made me think about Ally even with her belly noticeably bigger, u could still see all the curves that made her a woman and made her look like a goddess in my eyes, and by looking at it I could just imagine her in that pose holding our little baby.
After a few months while she was close to labor, things were a bit complicated due to her being stressed and having complicated to fulfil desires, but I tried my best, trying to insure the most comfortability for her and our baby, until the day arrived, we were calmly watching a tv show, and she just jumped up in pain, and as I looked down, I saw a puddle of water on the ground, and only some seconds after that did my brain process what was happening, her water broke, I immediately got up and went to grab the car keys, carefully put her in the car while I went to grab any essentials, and drove off to the hospital, I tried not speeding all the way over there, but with her screaming next to me due to the pain she was feeling, I only felt like I should get to the hospital the fastest I could, and when we got there they immediately took her into a stretcher to the delivery room, I waited for approximately six hours until they called me in, when I got in I looked at her and saw her as a beautiful mess, she was holding a piece of cloth next to her, I went in closer so I could see what I had been waiting for this whole time, she told me it was a girl, we had thought about names for both genders, and the name we chose was Carine, I held her in my hands for the first time, I felt that feeling that I had only felt once before my whole life called love at first sight, a little tear of joy fell from my eye as I looked at her small patch of light orange hair and light blue eyes, just like her mother I said, beautiful as can be, after they took her in just to check out if everything was fine, we went home.
As we got home, we already had a whole room prepared for her, her own baby crib, and we had painted the walls with nice backgrounds so she could have sweet dreams, obviously it was mostly her mom, even if I did try to paint, colorful things weren't my best area.
Fast forward six years, little Carine was looking identical to her mother, except half her size, she was just about to go to school for the first time, and finally me and Ally would have some time alone as a couple again so we could go visit some other art exhibits, and spend more time together just like before.
This time she wanted something better like the Vatican museum, and so we paid and got our tickets of the internet, when we got there it was gothic architecture at its finest, we got to enjoy that day allot, but everything was cut short when we were going home.
As we were on our ride home, she passed out, I stopped the car and tried waking her up, to no avail I turned directly to the nearest hospital, in which I saw my wife yet again get dragged into a stretcher, but this time, I wasn't with hopes for something good, as I sat down, waiting to get any information about what had happened to my wife, a doctor came to the reception and called me in, as I followed him, I was looking inside every room on the way there in hopes it would be the one she was in, when we got to it, I saw her sitting up on a bed with a tired smile on her face, I went close to her and kissed her and told her how worried I was, and then I turned to the doctor and asked him what had happened, to which he replied that he was going to give us some space and that she had something to tell me, as they left the room, I nervously looked at her and asked what had happened, she looked at me with a broken smile, befit only of someone who didn't want to show what she really felt, we stood there for a minute both looking at each other, I could tell there was a tear forming in the corner of her eye, she told me the doctors had scanned her, and she had brain cancer, terminal, as she told me that, my heart dropped, soon tears started forming in the corners of my eyes too, I didn't know what to say, I looked her in the eye, to this day, I still don't know how she could maintain that smile while crying , I held her close and promised I would try everything I could, put every single penny I had into her treatment, just to see her live out the rest of her life with me, and after that another thought popped into my mind, how would we tell Carine, would we lie to her and tell her mom was just sick and would eventually get better, or would we risk telling her the truth, I had no idea what to do, both for me and for our daughter, but suddenly Ally called me out of my stressed state, and told me she didn't want treatment, and that she would rather live out the rest of her small remaining life to the fullest with me and Carine, I insisted on the treatment, but there was no way she would waste the rest of her life away in a hospital, I knew her too well, so I sadly agreed with her, and promised I would try my best to fulfill every single desire, wish and trip she ever wanted to do.
As we went home, we thought about what to tell our daughter, and found out that it would be best to make her last memories with her mother good happy ones, and not ones filled with a constant thought of losing someone, so that's what we did, we just planed several big trips and took her off school until we were done with them.
The first few weeks, were the best, Ally rarely showed any signs of being sick besides the occasional light head and small faints, even though I knew what was to come I tried focusing on not showing how sad I really was so that both of them didn't worry about me, the next weeks that came, weren't so good, I could notice her getting weaker and thinner, but all I could do was watch, watch as things got worst and eventually reached a point were our vacation had to stop.
Two months had passed since we started and now was the time we really dealt with the situation, we went back home, and she had to be hospitalized, Carine was constantly sad and confused about why mommy was like that, I couldn't bring myself to tell her, her mother was going to die, so I just kept telling her that she was very sick and the doctors were doing their best to make her get better.
The last few days, were the worst of my life, watching the woman I loved slowly lose grip of life, Carine was back in school, so it was most days just me and Ally in her hospital room spending that time the best we could, every night without her next to me in bed only made me come closer to the realization of what was about to happen, I was going to lose my wife, the only person I ever really loved besides my daughter was about to die, and I couldn't do anything about it.
Her last day, I was lucky enough to be next to her, and glad that Carine wasn't there to watch what was about to happen, she told me she knew it was coming, so she told me to hold her hand and to not let her go, I held her hand for two hours, in the last moments of her life, she looked at me with her beautiful eyes and told me she loved me and she was sad we couldn't grow old together, and that she wouldn't be able to see her daughter all grown up, I couldn't take my eyes off of hers as I told her I loved her back and told that our daughter did too, I could see her eyes water as she started looking at the ceiling, she didn't want me to see her cry, I put my other hand on her cheek and softly gave her a kiss on the forehead, as that happened I felt her grip on my hand soften and the heart-rate machine turned into a long monotone beep, and just like that, so sudden, it happened, I lowered my head onto her lap and cried until the doctors arrived at the room, I felt like I could never let go of her and but, I had to, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do.
Her burial was filled mostly with her friends, since I didn't have many, both our parents were there, everyone was crying and passing by us on the way out to tell us how sorry they were about this, I must admit it was good knowing that so many people cared about her, after the burial was over with, I went over to her grave and left her favorite flowers there for her, while crying I told her I would try to be the best parent I could and try my best to not let our daughter make the same mistakes I did, and I would try to make her proud of me, and I also told her that both my girls were the best thing that had ever happen to me.
As I am typing this, my life is mostly focused on making my daughter's life the best I can, and lately she has gotten quite curious about what I do, I think I'm going to teach her how to sculpt, I'm sure she will have a successful life just like we both did .
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