The Blood Canvas

Chapter #2 - Dark Souls of Canvas Art

The night was not truly dark. The light of neon lights, giant signs, and street lamps always clashed with the darkness of night, creating a dirty orange atmosphere on the horizon. However, for Hamzadi, the light was just an illusion.

True darkness always existed, hiding in the cracks of skyscrapers, in drains that did not drain, and most often, in the hearts of increasingly empty people. They were willing to choose darkness as a solution and make a deal between the worlds of light and darkness.

Hamadi did not go straight home. He knew the basic rule of a hunter, never bring the tail back to the nest. Then he turned towards Pudu, an area that still retained the aura of old Kuala Lumpur that was gloomy and damp with shady lamp post flickering.

He chose the narrow rat alleys, a place where the smell of rotten garbage and rat urine became the official fragrance as his way home.

Every ten steps, Hamzadi's right hand would reach into his trouser pocket. He clutched a handful of coarse salt mixed with ground black pepper, with a casual movement as if he were brushing dust off his pants, Hamzadi sprinkled the mixture on the ground behind each of his passes to erase his track from being followed by the souls, jinns and ghosts.

Zasss.

A faint sound was heard as the salt grains touched the dirty puddle. To the naked eye, nothing happened. But in the unseen realm, the salt acted like an acid that burned away Hamzadi's human aura.

If Pandika's minions were trying to track him through the scent of spirit or energy traces, they would meet a painful dead end, and it could even damage the creature's sense of smell. Pandika is the Head Sorcerer of all the minions, ghosts, souls and jinns that keep on tracing Hamzadi and try to collect his bone and bring it to hell.

"You won't be able to find me tonight, Pandika," Hamzadi whispered. His breath was steamy.

After almost an hour of circling the LRT then changing to a taxi and finally walking two kilometers, Hamadi arrived at his destination.

His house was not a luxury condominium or a comfortable terrace house. It was a unit on the top floor of an old 70s-era shophouse building located on the edge of Kampung Baru.

The building looked dilapidated, its paint peeling with green mold and its stone steps were steep and dark. His neighbors were mostly foreigners and expatriates busy with their own affairs, making it the perfect hiding place.

Hamzadi climbed the stairs, the canvas weight on his shoulders feeling heavier. The devil in the painting was getting restless. He knew he was getting closer to his eternal prison.

As soon as he arrived in front of his door, a thick teak door that didn't match the cracked cement wall around it, Hamzadi's feet stopped. He didn't immediately insert the key even though he was standing right in front of the door. Instead, he placed his palm flat on the surface of the door.

Then his eyes were closed tightly but calmly, as Hamzadi read a passcode that wasn't in the form of numbers, but in the form of soul vibrations.

"Assalamualaikum ya rijalul ghaib," Hamzadi whispered, greeting the unseen guardian he had assigned to guard the door. Nobody can enter his house not even a soul or ghost.

Suddenly a cold breeze greeted the back of his neck, followed by a 'click' sound from inside, as if the door latch was being opened by an invisible hand.

Hamzadi then took out a physical key, opened three different brands of padlocks, and slowly pushed the door open, and quickly the smell of incense and dried melur flowers pierced his nose and dominated Hamzadi's sense of smell.

The house was pitch black. Hamzadi didn't turn on the ceiling light. He had memorized every inch of the furniture layout in the narrow living room.

There was only a worn sofa, a small dining table full of glass bottles containing various types of liquids, and a pile of dusty old books. He quickly locked the door again. Fastening each latch and sprinkling a little more salt on the threshold.

"Shut up," Hamzadi ordered when the canvas in his duffel bag shook violently, hitting his waist. The canvas kept growling and shaking.

He walked straight to the back of the house. There, there was an iron door painted completely black. There was no knob, only a small keyhole at the bottom. This was the heart of Hamzadi's house.

This was the reason why he lived as a fugitive. He took out a special key made of silver, which he always hung around his neck with a leather strap. The key was inserted.

The doorknob. Kreeekk.

The iron door opened with a deafening sound of hinges. Hamzadi stepped inside, and immediately, the temperature in the room dropped sharply. If the temperature outside was 28 degrees Celsius, inside this room, it felt like a morgue set at 16 degrees.

This was the "Red Room of Death".

He stepped back, looking at the "Gallery" wall with mixed feelings. Pride, fear, and disgust. This was his life's work. Others painted for beauty, to express feelings. Hamzadi painted to cleanse the world of this filth and horror. However, behind the hundreds of paintings, Hamzadi's eyes focused on an empty space in the middle of the main wall. There, there was a large nail with nothing hanging. Waiting for the ghouls.

That was the place for the Master Painting. The painting that was supposed to complete this collection, but had been lost ten years ago. The painting that was now in Pandika's hands.

Hamzadi's mind drifted back to the brief meeting in Bukit Bintang earlier. Pandika looked young, too young for his age, which should have been the same as Hamzadi. That was a sign that he was using black magic to feed on the spirits of others in order to stay young.

"Why are you showing your face now, Pandika?" Hamzadi asked himself.

The movement in the painting slowed down. The creature's eyes, which had been blazing red, were now stiff. Its gaping mouth, screaming, was now frozen into a dead stroke of oil paint. The demon had been 'dried'. It is now part of the art, frozen in eternal torture until the canvas is destroyed.

Hamzadi put down the brush. Sweat was dripping down his forehead. Another one was successfully imprisoned.

He took the ready-cut wooden frame, inserted the canvas into it, and hammered small gold nails into each corner. The nails were also dead.

Hamzadi carried the finished framed painting to a corner of the wall that was still empty. He hung it next to a portrait of an old woman combing her hair which was actually another disguise for the Penanggaly ghost he had captured last year.

"Sit quietly there," Hamzadi whispered.

Hamzadi didn't turn around. He knew who or what was speaking. It was the voice from the painting on the left wall. A painting of a gloomy mangrove forest landscape. If you look closely, in the gaps between the mangrove roots in the painting, there were dozens of small faces grinning and yelling.

It was the Toyol herd he had captured three years ago in a village in Perak. They were noisy, mischievous, but not too dangerous if confined properly.

"Shut up!" Hamzadi scolded firmly. "Or I'll burn your canvas tonight too."

The scratching sound stopped immediately.

Hamzadi returned his focus to the painting in front of him. He dipped a wide brush into the pungent-smelling varnish, a mixture of resin, camphor, and yasin (sacred spell) water. He applied the varnish to the surface of the painting in an even motion, from top to bottom.

Every time the wet brush touched the eyes of the creature in the painting, the canvas trembled. The varnish liquid acted like a layer of glass separating dimensions. It was a real prison wall.

Let me go! I promise I won't bother you again! the voice of the perennial demon pierced Hamzadi's mind, pleading, screaming in pain as if the varnish was acid burning his skin.

"It's too late," Hamzadi replied coldly.

He continued to brush until the entire surface of the canvas was shiny. The vapor from the varnish rose into the air, forming a thin smoke that was then sucked away by the room's ventilation.

Slowly, Hamzadi took out the canvas wrapped in black cloth. He placed it on the easel in the middle of the room. He snapped the cloth shut. The painting of the young girl he had painted in Bukit Bintang earlier was displayed.

However, under the red light of the room, the painting looked different. The girl's face seemed faded, while the black shadow behind her where the creature Hamzadi had captured earlier seemed much clearer, more prominent, and more alive.

The red eyes of the creature in the painting stared intently at Hamzadi, as if they could leap out at any moment.

"Don't look at me like that," Hamzadi said, reaching for a bottle of special varnish.

"You chose to disturb humans. This is the price you have to pay."

Suddenly, a soft voice, like the sound of nails scratching on a blackboard, echoed throughout the room. It didn't come from Hamzadi's mouth, nor from the speakers. It came from the wall.

... new friend... new friend…

The room had no windows. The walls were covered in thick, heart-red velvet, which served to absorb sound and also as an energy insulator. The only source of light came from a few small, dim red bulbs hanging from the ceiling, giving the atmosphere a darkroom-like feel.

The red light was chosen not for aesthetics but because the frequency of red light was the weakest, thus it did not give the entities trapped there the energy to manifest themselves. And around the walls, hung a nightmare.

Hundreds of paintings filled every inch of the Red Room of Death wall. Some were as small as postcards, some as large as an adult. Each was framed with a single piece of wood, a wood feared by spirits. Hamzadi placed his duffel bag on the workbench in the middle of the room.

The table was filled with painting equipment: brushes of various sizes, sharp palette knives, and jars of oil paint mixed with forbidden ingredients such as grave soil, bone powder, and his own blood.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm his heart, which was still beating fast from his encounter with Pandika. He needed to focus. The process of transferring a new "prisoner" was the most critical phase.

He walked to his workbench, opened a drawer, and took out a worn black leather sketchbook. He flipped through page after page, past sketches of demon anatomy, formulas for mixing paints, until he came to a page with its corners folded.

There, there was a pencil sketch of Andika's face. But the face had been scrawled in thick red ink around the eyes.

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the Red Room of Death changed.

The red light on the ceiling flickered once.

Tick.

Hamzadi flinched. He looked around. The paintings on the wall began to make sounds. Not the scratching sound like before, but the sound of snorting. Heavy, simultaneous snorting.

Hhhh.... hhhh.... hhhh....

The hundreds of creatures trapped in the paintings seemed to be smelling something. They could feel the presence of a very strong energy out there. Their old master. Or perhaps, their liberator.

Hamzadi noticed something strange about the painting in the far right corner. It was the most aggressive Pocong painting he had ever captured. The shroud in the painting looked wet.

Hamzadi approached the painting cautiously. His eyes widened.

At the bottom of the painting's frame, there was a deep red liquid dripping out.

Tick. Tick. Tick (Sound of Blood dripping).

The painting was bleeding.

This had never happened before. The walls of this room were designed to keep anything from the inside out, and anything from the outside in.

If this painting was physically bleeding, it would mean that the dividing wall between the real world and the painting was thinning.

Someone was tearing down the walls of this "prison" from the outside.

"Pandika..." Hamzadi gritted his teeth.

He realized Pandika hadn't just come to scare him in the middle of the city. The 'X' hand gesture earlier wasn't just a death threat.

It was a spell.

Pandika had planted a 'seed' of damage in Hamzadi's aura when they had met and now that seed was seeping into this house, weakening the magical bond that held these paintings.

Hamzadi ran to the table, reaching for a bag of coarse salt and a dagger. He needed to renew the 'fence' of this room right now. If one painting leaked, it would set off a chain reaction and cause all demons to be free.

All the demons in this room would be released at once. And if that happened, this block of shophouses would become a living hell in one night.

He cut his palm slightly with a dagger. Dark red blood flowed out. Hamzadi did not groan in pain.

Pain was his old friend. He dripped his blood into a bowl of chalk, stirring it quickly with his index finger, his mouth pursed as he recited a verse mixed with an ancient Javanese mantra, the legacy of his late ancestors.

"Bismillah... Jalal's Wall, Jamal's Wall... Uprising and Awake."

As he walked around the room, sprinkling the mixture of blood and chalk onto each frame of the painting, Hamzadi's eyes caught movement in the forest landscape painting.

The Toyol inside were jumping up and down with joy. They were pointing towards the iron door of the Red Room of Death.

Hamzadi quickly turned towards the door.

The iron doorknob was unlocked from the inside. But he saw the door handle shake slightly. Very slowly.

There was something outside the Red Room of Death. Something had managed to enter his house, past the fenced front door, past the rijalul ghaib, and was now standing right behind the iron door of this room.

Hamzadi was silent and stiff. His heart seemed to stop. He knew he was alone.

Who was outside?

Has Pandika arrived yet? No, Pandika was too arrogant to do the dirty work himself. He would send his 'dogs' and ‘cats’ first.

Hamzadi held his dagger tightly. The paintbrush in his left hand was thrown to the floor. He was no longer a painter now. He was a prison guard facing a rebellion.

Slowly, Hamzadi approached the iron door. He placed his ear on the cool surface of the door.

Silence.

Then, a long dragging sound was heard. Like the sound of rough cloth being dragged across the cement floor of the living room.

Sreeeettttt.....

And then, a smell crept in through the crack under the door. Not the smell of incense, not the smell of garbage.

The smell of a long-decomposed carcass.

Hamzadi knew that smell. It wasn't the smell of a human. It was the smell of the 'Hantu Raya'. One of the most loyal and powerful orders in the Malay magic hierarchy.

Pandika really wasn't messing around. He sent his war general straight to Hamzadi's doorstep on the first night.

Hamzadi looked back at the paintings on the wall. They were all now looking at the door, waiting expectantly. Waiting for the walls of this prison to collapse.

"Do you want to come in?" Hamzadi whispered, his eyes turning fierce. His fear disappeared, replaced by survival adrenaline.

"Please. But you will be my next wall decoration."

Hamzadi prepared to open the door. This night would be long. And he might run out of canvas before sunrise

To be continued…