The Triton

Chapter 14: Viven

I cleaned the bathroom floor, gingerly picking each shard of glass individually from the floor. My scaled fingers felt no pain, but my reflection, my eyes, his eyes––they haunted me in every piece. Every single time I saw them I froze, and only when I forced my gaze away did I find the capacity to simply move again.

I unceremoniously dumped the shards into the small trash can before picking up the nightgown once more and removing as many of the tangles as I could with a brush.

The door still leaned awkwardly in the door frame, the hinges completely torn off the wall. I stepped gingerly around it, leaning it closed, breathing again. Quiet was needed. Quiet was perfect.

I took in the room once more, the pounding in my head reduced to a dull ache at the base of my skull. Everything was white, perfectly white, interwoven with gold and light blue designs.

Walls adorned with pristine white marble gleamed softly under the golden glow of the lightly pulsing stones, casting a warm radiance across the white expanse. The towering ceiling, adorned with intricate gold filigree, arched endlessly overhead. Paintings covered every inch of it, paintings of violent stories I didn't know, though one figure I quickly recognized––a black-scaled beast, trident held extended.

Steps were still difficult. The combination of newfound strength and an aching body meant shambling from place to place, using the support of the marble to guide me.

The bed, its posts draped and tall, stood as the centerpiece of the room, its covers tossed from my earlier attempt at defense. Ornate gilded mirrors adorned the walls. Lavish furnishings, couches and chairs and even a bean bag, upholstered in sumptuous white velvet and accented with shimmering gold trim, provided ample seating around four separate tables. In one room. Nothing was out of place, not a single speck of dust sat anywhere in the room.

Luxurious drapes of ivory silk hung limply, framing the towering windows, windows that stretched across most of an entire wall, opening the room to the depths beyond. The sea turtles still swam outside, and I found myself walking over to them.

It was not the sea turtles that so completely stole my breath.

My home in LA was a part of something beyond the comprehension of a human mind. Streets with millions of homes, beaches and beaches of people, hills and street lights and mailboxes and grocery stores and cars and gas stations and so, so many human beings. It spilled over itself in never-ending megalopolis, a structured version of something wild.

In good days, you could see for what felt like forever, point out the tall buildings, the sports stadiums, the Santa Monica Pier, the Hollywood sign, or whatever other places you knew or loved. On and on it went, cars backed up going from one place to another.

This place was something else entirely.

Below the two sea turtles, stood a city, fluoroshing beneath the waves. Where LA sprawled out and away, this place towered towards the surface, dozens of spires the size of soccer fields spiraled in brilliant golds and whites and blues, taller than the tallest buildings I'd ever seen.

Built of the same blue-tinted white stone, they somehow seemed to glow and sparkle in what I knew should've been dark waters, had it not been for whatever magical vision Specter had given me. A brilliant myriad of lights twinkled through light-blue colored windows, hundreds and thousands of them all pouring from the inside of these buildings.

I found myself yearning to see more, my view limited––but not very. This vantage was unparalleled, sitting high above the rest of the city, and when I pressed my face against the glass, I could see pieces of this spire below.

It towered over the rest, a spectacular mix of stone and glass and gold that spiraled in perfect design, a thrust of splendor that looked upon the city from above. It peered almost hopefully skywards, inspiring and incredible.