[Paint, Corruption, Modern AU]

"Hm... No, no no. This won't do. This won't do at all..."

A frustrated artist sighed as she grabbed the canvas that she had just spent a few hours on, before cracking it over her leg and tossing it into the nearby bin. All while she had a thoroughly exhausted look on her eyes, with a couple of bags under her eyes to truly emphasize how much time she had spent on this.

Her name was Adeleine. And she considered herself a professional artist. Unfortunately, the masses had no patience for her art, so she was currently living out of her studio apartment with barely a few dollars to her name at a time. The only reason she was even able to keep the apartment was thanks to a particular agreement she had made with the landlord, one that meant that she had to paint his 'kingly' visage to ensure that rent stayed low.

But while he seemed satisfied with her pieces, the fact that he was one of the few that bothered to look at her paintings was definitely eating away at her confidence. That, and she never felt like those pieces truly tapped into her abilities. They were mere portraits. The paintings that she wanted to make... Those were so much more than that.

A simple glance at the walls revealed a modest array of paintings, the ones that she was actually pleased with. All of them depict a cute youth with his friends, fighting against the evils that plagued their fantastical world. It was her trademark. The Dreamland series of paintings. Her inspiration, admittedly, was the young man that had been close to her for a long time. His stories about his life at work... She was able to transform them into wonderous images, ones that impressed him greatly.

But that praise was empty. Because he never paid for the creation of these pieces. And nobody truly looked at them. In fact, the ones that had seen them called them childish. The art landscape at this point was populated with more abstract pieces that symbolized the struggles that ailed society. Not adventures that were made for children.

It was something that she couldn't get into. No matter how many times she tried to illustrate the kind of images that the masses wanted, she just felt that it was empty. It was meaningless to try and relate the struggles of the modern day to art. It would be boring. Plain and simple, gray as the skies outside. That was what she'd have to paint, if she were to make current struggles into colors on a canvas.

Adeleine sighed as she put down her paintbrush, before taking a seat in the beanbag chair that she had custom-ordered so it looked like the pink puffball in her paintings. It wasn't fair. She thought that little guy was extra cute, but nobody thought that. They wanted the abstract stuff that didn't mean anything. They wanted to look like they were smarter than anybody else in the room just because they could derive meaning from something that wasn't worth a damn...

"Why can't they just enjoy themselves?" She muttered to herself. All while knowing that she was exactly like them. She had long since stopped enjoying painting. All because of the landscape that rejected her. All because of what she was forced to do to try and get by. She was a starving artist. Literally, figuratively, and creatively. She needed a new source of inspiration. One that could truly bring her works to life. One that would help her try and reach past their thoughts so she could reach their hearts.

That was her personal creed. To paint and make her paintings come to life. And considering the way that both that 'kingly' landlord and her kind-hearted friend beamed whenever she made paintings for them... It was definitely something that she could do. She just needed to find a way to make ordinary people notice the special qualities about her paintings that made them truly flourish with life.

Adeleine continued to gently roll around on the beanbag, before sighing and getting back up. As much as she'd like to continue stewing in her own frustrations and all that, she didn't have the time to do so. She had a lot that she needed to do. The end of the month was coming up, and the 'King' would probably want his newest portrait. So if nothing else, she could bury herself in the process of making that painting come to life, and then she could try and focus on her own dead end from there...

First, she had to make sure that she had all the supplies that she needed. She needed... A new canvas, for one. At least those were cheaper than she would like to admit. The real way her purse started to hurt was whenever she ran out of a particular kind of paint. She could actually remember the last time she had to stock up, shivers running down her spine as she tried not to think about it too much. She went to bed hungry that day...

No. Focus, Adeleine. Don't think about the bad days. Think about the bright future that you could be part of. That's what's been blocking your creativity. It's because you started to dwell on the past and how everything's been going wrong that you started to slip. You need to paint yourself a better picture. Better yet, you need to paint yourself.

Listening to her heart trying to put her on the right path, Adeleine walked into the storage closet. And she already spotted all sorts of pristine canvases, ready to be covered in her emotions through the paints she used. She just needed to grab one of them, and then grab all the paints that she needed. And considering the kind of paintings that she usually made whenever she was on the verge of breaking free from a depressive episode, she definitely needed a lot of paint.

"Let's see here... Definitely need Popstar Pink... Maybe Warp Star Yellow too... Meta Blue?" Adeleine muttered to herself as she picked out a couple of the paints she needed. There were a lot of different ones, each for a particular mild or strong shade of certain colors. Each of them slowly being stacked onto each other, all while she looked further and further up...

There was one particular paint that she really needed. Crystal Clear. It was a rainbow-like paint that had been synthesized artificially, which allowed it to avoid melding with the other colors on the canvas. She could use it to paint rainbows on top of everything else, while the colors still leaked through from underneath that paint. It was the perfect paint for what she had in mind.

Problem was, it was on one of the highest shelves. And that was mostly her fault. She should've put it on a lower shelf the last time she used it, but she was so discouraged that she put it further away so she wouldn't try and focus on it. All because she felt too much defeat flooding through her. Well, now she was paying for it. The one time she actually needed it, she didn't have a stool ready. She had loaned it to her landlord, who probably used it as a footrest or something!

"C'mon..! C'moooooon!" Adeleine cried out as she got up on her tippy toes and tried to reach the paintcan. All while unintentionally brushing up against the shelves that held all the paints. Shaking them around as much as possible, even if she didn't intend on doing so. Which caused the cans to shift round and round, with most of them not being much of a problem due to the fact that the cans were still sealed.

But there was one that wasn't sealed. And it was the can on the top shelf. A paint that she had personally only used once. Dark Matter Black. It was a black that was far too deep for what she wanted to do with her paintings, so she had stuffed it all the way up there so she didn't have to think about it. And yet here she was. Making it inch closer and closer towards the edge of the shelf. All while it jittered and jiggled and threatened to fall over and onto her head. All while she still tried to reach the can full of Crystal Clear.

"Almost..! I can almost reach it..!" Adeleine said, before a thought hit her mind. Since it was only a few inches higher up than where she could reach, and all the other cans were nowhere near the edge, couldn't she just slam her hands against the shelves to make it fall into her hands? Yeah, that was probably a good idea. All she had to do was just apply some force.

Which is what she did. Adeleine slammed her fists against one of the shelves, sending a powerful shockwave across the furniture. In the process, letting the can of Crystal Clear fall off the shelf and straight into her hands and bringing a sweet sense of relief to her in the process. Finally, she didn't have to struggle any further and she could get right back to the creative process.

Unfortunately, her rough actions had an unintended side effect. And it came in the form of a bit of black paint dribbling its way down onto her head. It sent shivers down her spine as she tried to look up at what was causing that sensation...

She could see the Dark Matter Black pouring down. But instead of doing anything to stop it, she just kept staring. Because it wasn't actually coloring her black like it was supposed to. No, it was seeping into her. Soaking into her form, all while her eyes slowly but surely grew dim.

Adeleine didn't understand what was happening. But she could feel something pouring through her. She could feel it reaching deep into the very core of herself. Into her heart... Into that heart that had been aching and struggling for so long. A heart that was bright and red and brimming with hope.

It was being slathered in the paint that was pouring onto her. The Dark Matter Black was reaching so deep into her that it was able to completely coat her heart in it. And as it turned black, so did her mind. All of her hopes. All of her ideas. They were all replaced with an all consuming wall of black color. So much so that she dropped the can of Crystal Clear. Because she didn't need it. Of course she didn't need it...

Instead of just standing there and looking at the can that had been pouring its corruptive and blackening contents onto her, she slammed her fist against the shelf once more, knocking it down. And while it fell with the top pointed down towards her, she managed to catch it and avoid spilling much more of it, after it managed to splash onto her and send another shiver through her.

She could feel the paint going through her. It was... A pleasant sensation. A cold sensation that seemed to snuff out anything that she would consider pleasant. All while it seemed like it was filling up a chamber. Pouring into it and slowly pushing out anything else. All while her eyes went from dim to black...

That's right... She was being awfully literal. Those sensations were probably just allergic reactions. Her heart couldn't be colored black, because paint couldn't possibly leak into her. And the same for her soul, which she supposedly thought was being filled with that paint. It was all just her tired mind playing a trick on her. A hallucination, brought on by her own lack of trust in her abilities and her attempt to escape into a fantastical world...

"You really let it all run away too much, Adeleine." She muttered to herself, her voice devoid of any hope. Any care. Right now, she was nothing more than a machine that needed to crank out the art that she needed to sustain herself upon. As long as she was able to paint, she could continue living. That was all that she needed.

That's what she thought as she walked out of the storage closet, neglecting to grab any of the other paints or even a canvas. All she needed was the can full of Dark Matter Black. That was the sole color that she needed. Black was all the rage nowadays, anyway. It was how you realized the nihilism that filled this world...

Indeed, just a simple look at the Dreamland series, and she couldn't help but glare a little. Not a lot, as it seemed like emotion itself had found a way to drain from her body. What hopeless escapes from reality she had made. They were all nothing. They were escapism made reality, and she needed to make appropriate adjustments. But just a simple paintbrush would take too long.

No, Adeleine needed something bigger. As her irises started to look a little orange, she reached for one of the biggest paint brushes that she had. It was originally a gag gift from that boy that should stop visiting, but it would do. It was able to soak up a lot of the Dark Matter Black, after all. So she just had to stick her brush in, and then...

She felt her heart tremble a little as she pulled the brush out from the can. The tip was smothered in the black. In fact, it was like it had slurped up every little droplet of paint. Turning the brush itself into nothing more than an extension of the black colors. Perhaps she could use it for more than just painting reality onto the Dreamland series...

Adeleine turned towards the paintings that she had meticulously created for the sake of that boy. Those wastes of time that made her think that she was happy. They needed to be erased. And she could do so with ease. Just a simple swipe, and the adventures that she had dreamed of and tried to escape into would be gone.

And so she started to erase it all. One by one. The Nightmare. The Dream Land. The Amazing Mirror. The Animal Friends. The Super Star. The Return. Everything was brushed over by the black paintbrush. All of it was smothered by the Dark Matter Black, as it seemed like there were now eyes painted over every single one of these paintings. Not that she intended on making anything coherent out of erasing these paintings, but it seemed fitting to leave them like that.

With every painting that got painted over, Adeleine felt her body trembling more and more. Not because she felt pain from doing so. No, what she felt was contempt. The lone emotion that was allowed to bubble up inside her. The emotion that taught her exactly what she should do with this world that had rejected her. This world that was in love with this shade of black...

Just looking at the Dreamland Series... No, the Dark Matter Series, amplified her contempt. They truly hated paintings like that. Paintings of worlds that were meant as escapism. Then that's just what she had to inflict upon them all. If they didn't want to escape, then they would be forcibly swallowed by the darkness of reality...

Adeleine grabbed the can of Dark Matter Black, which still had the faintest few droplets of paint left inside of it, and let them drool onto her face. Onto her eyes. Onto her lips. So she could reflect the color that she would coat this world in.

Her lips. Her eyeshadow. Her makeup. Everything was tainted by the paint. Shiny black lips that seemed to swallow all color that came near. Eyeshadow that truly made her look like she was one with the black that she painted. And makeup that made her look like some sort of wicked angel that had descended upon reality. Even if that was just one interpretation of what she was going to do. An interpretation that she would smother in paint using her paintbrush...

Adeleine let the can fall to the floor. All while she slowly but surely started to wander outward. Letting her paintbrush push against the ground, not even bothering to lift it. She didn't need to lift that thing to do what she needed to. It would do everything, just by letting its paint leak onto the ground.

Indeed, the black stripes left behind as she walked straight ahead seemed to bubble and spread out. All while it seemed like several small eyes started to emerge from within. Eyes that mimicked her own eyes. Eyes that were born from the despair and the hopelessness that filled her heart. Her own Dark Matter.

They weren't real. At least, Adeleine didn't acknowledge them to be real. And indeed, people would realize they weren't real either once they were attacked. As they were smothered by the Dark Matter Black that would be splatted onto their faces. As they faced reality and let its crushing presence overwhelm them.

It was what this world deserved. They had broken her spirit. They had allowed this darkness to seep its way into her. It was only fair that she painted it black like those dreams they had crushed. It was the only treatment that they deserved. The only thing that they could ever deserve.

So Adeleine wandered out into the city. With her eyes as black as the paint trailing after her. The only color within being the orange that also stuck out of the eyes that were born from that paint. With a single goal to cover the whole world in this paint in mind, she knew that they would try to stop her.

But she would paint reality as black as her soul. All so they could be broken just like her...