THE SOUL PAINTED

"Loretta quit running around the house! These floor boards aren't in good condition", Ellen scolded. The story opens in a family house in a suburban area. Ellen and Frank are couples and have been married for several years with three kids. They earn from their daily carpentry trades. Things are going fine in the family and their occupation until after they find out that their carpentry business begins to dwindle. They begin feeding from hand to mouth and are devastated by the situation. During all of this they still sought for ways to live fine. Soon Ellen is paid a visit by the butler of her rich cousin's family mansion. The butler informs Ellen that her cousin had died abruptly and that it was investigated that she and her husband had both committed suicide. He proceeds to as well inform Ellen that she was to take over her cousin's entire property as she had been made the successor. For a bit Ellen felt happy that finally things were taking a good turn for she and her family, but then it crossed her mind that she barely even knew her cousin and that she never even heard from her in years and was surprised to be made her successor. She felt there was a loop hole somewhere in all of this. Her husband, Frank on the other hand wasn't paying attention to her. He felt that they needed to grab the opportunity as it came. The family soon moves into the mansion after much deliberations. They were given the task of cataloging and caring for the artworks and antique pieces in the house. Ellen was the head of the mansion as she was the successor. She quickly assigned tasks, Dennis their oldest son was to care for the yard and gardens. Vivian and Loretta, their first and last daughters respectively were made to handle house cleaning; while their parents were in charge of caring for the art pieces. Meanwhile, Vivian had a subtle resentment towards Loretta, she felt Loretta was getting too much attention from everyone and this brought discord between them. That night when it was time for everyone to go to sleep, Vivian noticed something in her room. There was a particular painting in her room which hung directly above her bed frame. The painting was that of a man who had a pair of scissors and a comb in his hands. She tried taking it off the wall but that seemed impossible. When she turned off her lamp to sleep, the eyes of the man in the painting turn white like it was that of an actual human. She didn't notice this, while she sleeps, hands starts coming out of the painting. The man in the painting starts cutting off Vivian's hair. In the morning Vivian wakes up to see part of her hair cut off. She quickly blames Loretta and heads to her room to confront her, but Loretta seems confused about everything. She tells everyone that she didn't cut Vivian's hair but Vivian doesn't want to buy it and this deepens her resentment for her little sister Loretta. Vivian is still trying to deal with the previous occurrence still believing it was just Loretta playing pranks on her. The next day, while Ellen is cleaning one of the art pieces which was an antique mirror, she looks through the reflection and notices that the woman in the painting behind her was staring at her while she wipes the mirror and as she turns to look at it, the woman turns her face away and beams an eerie smile. At first she tried getting rid of the painting but she remembers that she's not permitted to destroy any of the art pieces. So she rather ignores it. Later that night while everyone is getting ready to sleep, Vivian locks her room to prevent Loretta from getting in to play any pranks. Before laying in bed, she covers the painting with a cloth and then lays to sleep. Again the man in the painting begins cutting her hair. She hears the clanging of scissors and quickly wakes up to find her hair cut again. She checks her door and sees it's still locked. As she turns, she notices something pushing the cloth away from the painting. Scared, she runs into the closet, while in the closet; the man from the painting appears and grabs her by the hair and begins molesting her. She screams loudly for help and soon her family rushed to her room and breaks down her door to find her sweating and crying on the floor. She gets up and looks at the painting only to find the man still in it as normal. They are able to take down the painting afterwards and put it in the attic.