Play of Shadows

2.2: Undertow

There was glass everywhere.

That was Ann's second impression of the room. The first was a lurch of gut-twisting, scalp-numbing terror and the very real expectation of plummeting down a great height and breaking her skull against one of the glass cages down below.

A second passed. Ann remained suspended above a glass maze, like a bird perched on a branch stretched over a cliff. She realized that she must be in another painting. Or, given her vantage point, perhaps a mural etched into the ceiling. The discovery wasn't exactly reassuring.

Her fear dulled. Curiosity took its place and if Ann had been entirely herself, she would have noticed the peculiar vividness of each emotion, the thoroughness with which they colored the world around her. But she was a painting scrawled across a wall, so she did not. Her eyes tracked the players moving below her with starved focus, counting heads. Ten, twelve, thirteen - twenty. Twenty-one with K, but K wasn't a player.

K might not be K at all, Ann remembered. The thought slipped out of reach before she could follow it through, spin it into something that mattered.

The room was lit by soft, shimmering light. There were no lamps or candles or windows in the cavernous hall. Only glass, and murky water behind it. Water that shimmered with flashes of moonlit scales.

It didn't take the players long to realize where the danger lurked. The glass walls that fenced them in from were not walls at all but aquarium tanks in varying shapes and sizes, strewn about in no apparent pattern. The paths that formed between them snaked around the room. Some led to dead ends, others merged with each other and looped back to the original entry point. A glass maze.

And as for what hid behind the glass - well, the first player to catch sight of bulbous eyes and sharp teeth certainly had a guess.

"Monster! There's a monster inside!" the girl screamed. Her voice bounced in a fractured echo, sounding both close and far away.

Water rushed in Ann's ears. It sounded very much like laughter.

The other players converged on the tank, keeping their distance as they peered into the murky water. There were weeds and dirt and stones floating about. The shadow of something living was nearly impossible to make out except when the creature moved, or blinked its large, luminous eyes at the players.

"Cicada Manor Aquarium is home to the largest indoor collection of submarine life in the country. The specimens on display are rarely seen by human eyes. It is your great fortune to be here today."

K sounded as enthused as the players looked. He had the tour-guide drone down-pat, Ann thought.

The players watched K as raptly as the things in the water watched them. The glass was not to be touched, K told them. There was a plaque mounted on each tank, describing the creature within. They were free to explore but had to proceed to the next exhibit within the hour, or the tour would end prematurely.

"Where's the exit?" A scrawny, curly-haired teen asked.

Ann frowned, mind turning sluggishly. The boy looked a little young to be in the instance. So did his friends, clustered close around him like a clutch of baby chicks.

"At the other end of the hall," K told them.

"And how do we get there?" another tween piped up.

"This part of the tour is self-led. You are welcome to explore."

K waved elegantly at the room at large. The players followed the motion, taking in the dimly lit labyrinth. Panes of glass as far as they could see and more that they could not.