This was not a normal day.
The infant watched from behind the polished glass as the blurred madness continued in the outside. the watchers were moving faster than usual, faces shiny, eyes wide. Many of the lights had gone out, but the ones in his glass enclosure were still burning brightly, above and below him.
Shapes flitted around in the outside. He sucked in another breath of the oxygen-rich water, and observed.
Now i'm watching them. he thought. And no-one is watching me. He giggled and clapped his hands together, and for a moment his enclosure glittered with bubbles.
The outside darkened slowly. The watchers had all vanished. Grey shadows were creeping over everything. Control panels wavered in the haze. Floor tiles wobbled unsteadily, and vanished beneath the inky fog.
Soon, the outside was shrouded in black. Smoke draped itself over the enclosure like a charcoal blanket, and the darkening landscape rippled out of existence.
The water began to get hotter. The infant began to breathe faster.
Anger and fear surged through his veins. He clenched his teeth, narrowed his eyes and panted roughly, releasing small bubbles of oxygen from his little lungs. He thumped on the glass with his tiny fists, and kicked it with his stubby feet. His limbs slammed against the glass with strength that denied his size, making the enclosure rattle in its support.
The baby felt the vibrations, and sensed he was close to escape. He beat on the glass with his palms, harder and faster, desperate now. The water was becoming painfully hot- his skin was stinging and it was getting harder to breathe. The glass shook more and more. The baby gave the glass one mighty kick, and the enclosure broke out of its supports. It slid off the support pillar and fell into the void. Now completely weightless, the baby inside screamed with excitement.
The enclosure slammed down onto the tiles. The baby covered his naked head as the glittering slivers of glass mingled in the air with the sparkling water, and fell together, splashing and shattering like rain. As the last pieces of the enclosure tinkled to the floor, the baby took his first breath of air.
Smoke filled his lungs. he choked and coughed, mouth open wide, his tongue poking out and his little body shaking. He struggled to stay upright on his hands and knees, and spat some broken glass out of his mouth. Water and blood trickled from his lips as he raised his hands in the air, trying to find a handhold, something to climb up to or lean against. But his hands found nothing, and he fell forwards.
One of the button panels behind him exploded. shards of plastic hit the floor around him, and the smoke in the air was lit for a few seconds. The underbelly of the cloud above was pieced by the thousands of tiny sparks. He lifted his head off the floor and gazed up in awe.
This was the real world.
The baby's prison lay in pieces underneath him, and as the smoke became thicker he began to wish he was back inside. But he couldn't go back- and he couldn't stay here. There was a way to hide from the black cloud above him. There had to be.
He stood up and walked forwards clumsily, until the sizzling black mist had swallowed him up.
