Tyed

chapter three

It is dark, at first. There's a lot of light, but they're all spotlights, and they're soft, creating areas about as well lit as the street outside, with other areas in near darkness. When his eyes adjust somewhat, Tyler can make out the shape of the room; there's a central floor cut through by columns, and around the walls of the room are several different sections, some raised, some recessed, and some hidden by curtains. Along one wall is a bar with a few tables and barstools, and some chairs and benches sit around the room in out-of-the-way locations. Neon lights come from various shadows, casting strange colours across the people.

Tyler starts from the normal and works his way up. He'd estimate there to be about four dozen people here, maybe more hiding where he can't see. At the bar, people sit and chat like he'd expect anywhere else. Many people are in black suits or dresses or jeans. Some people are making out in corners.

There's a man being openly hit with a riding crop on one of the raised platforms; Tyler's eyes keep sliding that way, and he has to try and focus on anything else. Several people have collars around their throats, and several people are less dressed than Tyler would hope. At least four people are shirtless, both with and without breasts, and when Tyler catches the eye of a girl who's on the end of a leash, he feels oddly uncomfortable. It's like walking in on someone having sex, even though there's no sex happening here. The girl smiles at him like he met her eyes anywhere else, and that just makes it weird. Tyler looks away.

Tyler's eyes are glazed over, surveying the room, when he finds himself addressed. "Ah, hello, and welcome!" calls a confident, low voice. A man with slicked-back black hair and lightly tanned skin catches Tyler's eye; he's wearing a black collared shirt and black pants, nothing too strange. His ears and fingers are decorated with gold jewelry which catches Tyler's eye as the man flings his arms out wide in an exaggerated greeting. "You can call me Rye, or Lucifer, either suits me. Welcome to Pandora."

Tyler's been an atheist since he left Darkfilly Copse, but he can still hear the echoes of horrible church Sundays in his mind sometimes, and he can't bring himself to call anyone Lucifer. It pegs this place as both bad and a wonderful escape in Tyler's mind. "Nice to meet you, Rye," Tyler says, drawing easily on his learned charisma when the moment calls for it. He offers a hand and Rye happily takes it. "I'm Tyler."

Rye smiles, and even to someone like Tyler he comes across as trustworthy; it's not him that makes Tyler uncomfortable. It's that they're meeting here. Tyler's eyes quickly check Rye's wrist and see that he's wearing a black ribbon. He double-checks his own to be sure it's red, as though it could've changed when he wasn't paying attention.

"It's nice to meet you too, Tyler. Take things at your own pace and let me know if you need anything."

There's something that comforts that strange feeling when Tyler's told to take things at his own pace. He nods and Rye steps back, addressing Lachlen and giving Tyler a moment to just think.

He takes in some of the people here. There's a man surrounded by three blondes wearing various pastel colours, whispering in the ear of one of them and getting a laugh. There's a tall, curly-haired man with glasses who looks like he'd belong at the library, his arm around a short, androgynous punk who catches Lachlen's eye and waves. Someone with a shock of long pink hair chats up two nervous-looking people at the bar, but gets interrupted by the bartender, a man with tattoos on his cheeks that give the illusion of his face being a skull. There's a boy who Tyler could swear was fifteen talking to a redhead in a long purple dress, but if he got ID'd coming in here, surely that kid did too.

When Tyler looks up, he notices for the first time a balcony, a second level he didn't see before. There's a small area, backed by the different coloured lights shining onto the floor below, and on it he can see only one person. It's hard to make out with the lights behind them, but as those lights shift, Tyler gets a clear line of sight. A man leans against the railing, holding in one hand a cigarette or smoke of some kind. His hair is dark and straight, falling against his forehead, and he wears a dark collared shirt with the sleeves pushed all the way to his elbows. Tyler notices that he's not wearing any ribbons at all. He also notices that the man is staring directly at him.