The Heist at Cordia Aquarium

It's dark. Cramped and humid and hot. Thea tightens her arms around her knees; each breath comes rough. Haggard. Harsh against her throat, dry and raw as it is.

It's my fault. I could have said something; I could have stayed out of this and let them find someone better. Then Ivan could become a wrestler; Waylon could help whoever it was that needs him. But no, I'm selfish. I took everything from them.

Her thoughts bounce around inside her head, repeating — never-ending. Those that she escapes just add to the weight of the air around her. Floating at the edge of her perception, like specters waiting for another turn to haunt her.

She presses her head into her knees and she wretches. A dry, tearless sound — just as it's been for a while now. How long am I going to sit here, useless?

Too long. I could do something. I could help them, but I'm just sitting here. Forsaking everything.

An odd noise escapes from deep inside her: an animal-like cry that's guttural and primal. Pain rips through her throat, but she doesn't stop it. She slides sideways and her head thuds against another concrete wall. The water heater in front of her vibrates from the aftershock, a kind of metallic skitter.

I shouldn't have been born; I'd rather be dead.

Her thoughts whirl again, turning inside out and falling over themselves. Images of the universe, suns exploding: her own existence sits against that canvas. Just as meaningless as a dead star.

Her mind recoils: it zips back to her body from the edge of a cosmic abyss, but it's too late. Dread crushes what little resistance she has left. She cries out. "Why would He put me here. I—I don't want to. I don't want to. I hate it—"

"Meow."

A cat with emerald eyes pushes through Thea's armpit and stares up at her. Thea sits there like that for a moment — face-to-face and silent. With a purr, the cat brushes a prickly cheek against hers.

It's gross. Rough, too warm — smelly; like breathing the exhaust of a tiny engine that runs on fish and sewer water. Thea sucks a bead of snot back into her nose. She gags. Her carefully constructed cave of limbs falls apart in a gagging, retching mass. "Guh — ugh. What di— ghu — what did you eat?"

The cat slithers along her leg and flops over, stretching furry paws out in both directions. "Meow."

Thea gulps down untainted air. "Is there a cat dentist you can go to?"

Miss Cat wrings her neck up to stare at Thea, emerald eyes wide and bright,. A comfort rolls down Thea's spine. She runs a hand down the cat's brown-grey fluff, letting the fur swallow her fingers. What am I doing? I should be freaking out: scared, overwhelmed, crying.

"Aren't you the one that got up to my balcony?" Thea says.

Miss Cat casts her head to the side and her ears twitch. "Meow?"

Thea sniffs up another bead of snot. "Was that a yes? What am I talking about, you can't understand me." She swipes a hand over the cats head, stretching back furry eyelids and flattening ears. "What do you think I should have done?"

Purrs of utter delight fill the air with each swipe of her hand. They flood the cubbyhole like an old, familiar tune and steal away the oppressive weight of self-destructive thought. Thea searches over the ground's gritty surface for her cane. "I guess I should get going, huh? Maybe I can still make it out some other way. Do you want to come with me?"

The cat springs up to her feet. She spins in a couple tight circles and waits, staring into Thea's eyes. 

Thea's hand bumps against something; it shifts to the sound of wood grating against concrete. "You're going to have to be quiet if you do." She says, wrapping her hand around the cane.

"Meow."

Thea plants the cane upright next to her and climbs up its shaft. "Good, good. Now where the heck do I even go?" She leans out of the cubby and casts glances down both directions.

The alienesque mirror room is still open to the left, spewing a cloud of condensation that creeps along the ground toward her before fading to nothing. The right is a plain dark corridor: the way they all came from to start with.

She takes a few steps toward the alien room. "Wasn't there a corridor—"

Right before the door, the concrete wall gives way to another passage. Thea peaks down it and exchanges a glance with the cat. "Think there's an exit this way?"

---

It's no less of a maze than the one before. Corridors that intersect, fork, or terminate at the home of some odd machine. Thea surges on and the cat meows at her heels the whole way. Through all the backtracking; through all the second guessing.

No signs adorn the walls saying where an exit might be. Or where anything is, for that matter.

So she guesses, leaving choice after choice to the whims of fate. To whoever sits behind the simulation's screen and fancies themself God. A twinge of anxiety twists knots in her mind. She runs her free hand along the wall, steadying herself. No. I'm not thinking about that.

Concrete disappears underneath her sliding hand. She tumbles to the side — into a stairwell. Pain shoots through her hip as her body wobbles through space. "Oof!"

Miss Cat zips forward as if to abandon her, but she only gets as far as the first step before whipping her head back around to check on Thea. "Reow!"

She pins her cane underneath herself, reclaiming her balance. Lightning shoots out from her hip and zips up her spine. "Gah! Shoot." She claps a hand on her lower back and digs her fingers into muscles. "Goodness; that hurts."

"Meow?"

Thea clatters over to the base of the stairs, still massaging at her lower back. "Ugh, it's nothing. I got in an accident and my hip is still gives me problems."

Miss Cat pounces up three steps at a time. All the way to the next landing, where she stops and stares back down the flight. Eyes unblinking. "Raow."

Letting a out sigh, Thea grabs onto the handrail and fixes her cane on the first step. "Why am I explaining myself to a cat?"

---

Up another flight of stairs and through a door at a top, Thea wades into a carpeted hallway. It's wide, long, and mostly dark — yet, somehow it's not eerie. It's comfortable in fact. Warm-toned, loose-knit carpet sits in stark contrast to the maintenance tunnel's cool tones of concrete and plaster. Moonlight spills out of an open doorway, casting that warmth in an aura of mystery. Mystery and whatever dust plays in the beams of light.

Her first step on the carpet washes away her hip's aches in a wave of relief. She exhales slowly. "Oh thank goodness, all the concrete was killing me."

The two of them continue on to stop at the moonlight's precipice. Thea peaks around the doorway. It's just a break room: worn refrigerator, dishes arranged neatly next to a sink, and a table at the center with scattered chairs. Not this way, then. She steps into the light. "Well, guess we keep go—"

Her nose twitches.

Two distinct scents catch her at once. One far off. Down the hallway ahead of her, oozing from around a bend: the smell of towering sunflowers, baked in the rays of the brightest day. Another comes from beyond a closed door. A door that's only a dozen steps away in the same direction.

This one's a familiar Hibiscus. Not a field like it was earlier, but, combined with the overpowering sunflower it's enough to strike a nail behind her eye. Her insides race into a pit at her core. She's empty, gone. Outside herself and unable to move — unable to tear her mind away from one sentence.

Is it over?

Miss Cat meows up at her. She slaloms between Thea's legs, dragging the cassock's heavy fabric along her back.

Thea's heart hammers. It pumps adrenaline through her veins and clears her mind, but it does nothing to break the terror. Sweat dampens her vestments. She wrestles a finger between her collar and her neck and she tugs; heat rushes out of the gap. She whips her head around, taking in the distance to the stairwell she came out of. Can I make it?

The hallway warps in her perception. All of it — warm-toned carpet, tiled ceiling: it squishes and stretches and twists, like a glob of sugar in a candymaker's hands.

She digs nails into the handle of her cane. What do I do?

Miss Cat lowers her stature, shaking her hind end. She springs upward and sinks sharp claws into Thea's thigh.

Pain is instant; hot and cold at once. Thea yelps. "Ah! What are you doing?" Sweat freezes against her skin; she slaps her hand over her mouth. No! I can't make noise.

The cat flails upward: paw-borne claws pierce her cassock through and the furry monster ascends past her hip — past her waist. All the way to Thea's shoulder, where Miss Cat slithers up and sheaths her daggers once steady. 

Distortions plaguing Thea's perception unwind themselves with the pain. The hallway snaps back to its original form, but judders, threatening to shift again. To plunge her back into that chaotic lake of fire and water waiting at the edge of her mind.

Thea focuses on the pain still burning up her side. Come on, stay present. She seats her teeth and turns back around to face the overpowering scents. Okay, sunflower or hibiscus? Pride or sloth? I — I could go in and talk to that intern. Convince her that I'm an okay person, right? Tell her that I just needed money — that I didn't want to hurt anyone.

Miss Cat runs a bristled cheek against Thea's, purring. "Grmrm, raow."

Thea's voice squeaks out as a whisper. "O-okay, okay. I'm going— I'm going to be fine." She trudges forward; her legs and cane judder in invisible, billowing wind that only exists in her mind. 

Hibiscus surrounds her. It pours from the cracks around the door's threshold and swallows her up in a world of uncertainty. She hovers a hand over the doorknob, fingers trembling at each beat of her heart. A hint of chrome peaks around that far away bend and cold dread makes the choice for her.

She twists the handle and creeps inside.