Follows ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae.

The nap had been necessary, even at the cost of jolting awake in an unfamiliar setting and searching his half-stirred memories for an answer to where he was. He found it easily enough — to his relief — though still nothing of who he was before waking up on the concrete and meeting Malory. Deciding that was nothing to lay in bed and lament over, Eles slipped out from under the covers of the surprisingly comfortable bed and stepped onto plush carpets.

It occurred to him to redress in his clothes from the night before, but he didn't care to wear more than the torn leggings for the moment. It worked to mollify some sense of 'you probably shouldn't cavort around a stranger's house naked'. Though he wasn't sure why that was such a bad thing.

The doors creaked when opened, he found, more an artifact of their age than a lack of maintenance. The knobs still felt polished, the keyholes probably worked, and they must have been retooled or planed enough times that the doors sat flush against their frames when closed again. The house didn't echo when he left his room, but it seemed quiet as the dead nonetheless. Certainly about as rousing as the graveyard from the night before.

He padded down the hallway, thankful that his ankle wasn't bothering him nearly as much. He kept his eyes forward, no matter how much his mind begged him to watch all the movement in his peripheral vision. Eles knew it to be reflections upon reflections of the self that he wasn't really sure was him. Instead, he looked to the floor, where a runner displayed a rich checked red with filigree tracing the borders. Looked like it hadn't a strand out of place from a well-meaning, if reckless, dog claw. Strange place, he decided, not that he had anything to which he could compare it.

Finding his way back to the kitchen, Eles hadn't run into anyone. He took it like an invitation — began rifling drawers to find all manner of cutlery, plates, glasses, dishes, cookware. He kept on the search, checking anything that opened until he found a drawer with a curious assortment of miscellaneous s**t. In it, he found a roll of painter's tape and an idea for how to pass the time — and maybe get to know Malory a little better.

Slipping the roll of tape on his wrist like an oversized cuff bracelet, Eles absconded with a discarded black Sharpie and tucked it behind his ear. It was time to go on a hunt.

Malory lived in a decidedly large, rich house that sported some history of him. That much was apparent in the self-indulgent oil paintings that he'd spotted here and there. The mirrors still struck him dumb, but Eles supposed the reason for them would become more clear once he'd caught Malory with his guard down. Until then, he used navigating the house as an exercise in 'how to ignore your own reflection', even if some part of him begged him not to discount movement in his periphery.

As he walked throughout the house, from space to plush space, Eles sussed out each of those paintings of Malory and looked for the placard beneath them. Tearing off a strip of blue tape with his teeth, he stuck the strip over top of the year and made a tally mark atop it. The portraits that did not feature the three obtusely named dogs received a I. The ones that had them crowded around Malory in some pose or another received a II. Once he thought he'd found them all, Eles made one more trip through the house, checking each and every room he could find for missed paintings. Anyone encountered along the way was summarily ignored as he continued his mission.

He doubled back to each of the paintings with a I and studied them intently. Watched the jawline, the curvature of Malory's growing nose, how close and wide his eyes looked to the frame of his face. Studied the length of his hair. The slight pout in his lips. Then he made the circuit again, this time in a different order. Sometimes he mouthed a number to the painting. Sometimes he corrected himself. Sometimes he furrowed his brow deeper and deeper until he had to backtrack and return to the painting later.

Once he was certain he had it figured out, Eles began writing next to the tallies on each of the blue tape strips. He had an order for it — 1 for the youngest he could find, 2 for the next, 3 for the next, and so on until every painting without a dog in it had gotten a number. Then he revisited them, as if checking his work, and crossing those numbers off for new ones if need be.

Then it was on to the dog paintings. Perhaps these were easier for how the dogs grew more quickly than Malory did. These ones received the same treatment, where he could walk back and forth through the halls and up and down the stairs and all around the ancient bends in the house until he thought he got an order out of it. Then he visited them in the order he thought was chronological, then made another round of it, then finally added more numbers next to the II tallies.

Eventually, he thought he numbered every single portrait of Malory's life, from their earliest to latest. He spared himself a few minutes to grab a glass of water, drink it down, wince away a touch of brain freeze. Then it was back to the rounds.

He visited the first portrait. Looked up at it. Ripped the blue painter's tape off and stuck the strip to his own shoulder. He took note of the year the painting was rendered.

Then he visited each painting in the order he ascribed to them, with each strip of tape ripped off and placed under the last. If he mixed up a year, then that piece of tape was placed further down his arm, or — at worst — a number of them were ripped off and rearranged if ever he muddled up several of the paintings. Eventually, he'd gotten through all the paintings of Malory alone, and his left arm was fairly covered in blue tape. Then he went through all the paintings with the dogs, once again collecting all his strips of tape on his right arm and shoulder.

At the end of it all, when he'd been covered in strips and stared down the last and most recent portrait of Malory, he wondered what it was like to grow up like that — posed for hours in front of a stranger with a brush, getting interpreted into a piece of art, treated like a still life. What was it like to grow up in the same house? Around the same people? Was it an inescapable sort of thing, or did Malory find it comfortable?

Maybe it never occurred to him to leave in the physical sense. It had everything a person needed: food, water, a place to sleep, some creature comforts. His dogs.

Eles couldn't glean the answer from simply staring at so many portraits, he knew. Some things needed to be asked. But could he trust Malory to give him a straight answer? Or would he be folded into yet another half-truth, spoken like ambrosia?

Would it matter if he was told the truth or a lie? Was there even a distinction? If his whole being was both lie and truth, then could he dare ask as much from anyone else?

Maybe he'd spared himself the truth. Maybe Malory comforted himself with lies. Maybe he was too far in his own head to make sense of anything. Maybe he was overthinking.

Maybe he needed to get out for a while.