No one screamed.
It happened too quickly. The player was gone before any of them could react, pulled into the floor in the mermaid's embrace.
There was a lull, a collective intake of breath.
Then shouts of fright and panic, spreading in a ripple from where the player had sunk like a stone into a pond.
Frances strained forward. His feet dragged through cement that melted like butter left out in the sun, squelching in deeper with every step. Soon, he was in up to his calves.
"The floor is lava," a teen exclaimed.
Francis snorted. He glared around the room, picking out the players' positions and possible exit routes. The closer to the statue they had been before the mermaid took a dive, the deeper they'd sunk. A few unfortunate souls were but bobbing heads.
"No one move!" the girl with the bleached highlights shouted, right into Frances' ear. "Remember your quicksand training!"
The kids stopped their uncoordinated flailing. The adults followed their lead, and soon the room was filled with fleshy statues trying their best to maintain a fixed pose.
"Haven't encountered quicksand in a while. It used to be all the rage in VR," Michael commented offhand.
Frances slanted him an unimpressed look. As he did, he caught movement, then heard the clack of a cane over solid ground. "How'd he get out?" he demanded.
"He wasn't in the danger zone," Michael told him.
The hall where the siren held court was circular in shape. The statue stood at its center, but the actual exhibit stretched out in diameter, leaving only a thin ring of tiled floor around a basin of grey cement. When the siren came to life, so did the pond in which the statue lived.
Frances recalled the man with the cane poking at smaller statues protruding from the floor. He hissed a curse under his breath.
A shout rang out, as if on cue. A woman struggled to shake off the small, webbed hands that pulled at her arms, trying to force her further into the cement. She was already in waist-deep. Fortunately, there were other players nearby and they managed to keep her steady. The woman ended up with gashes down her arms where clawed little fingers dug in, but remained standing.
The tug-o-war ended with a bale of turtle shells poking through the floor, each about the size of a palm. The creatures glared up at the players with flinty eyes. They clacked sharp, curved beaks in irritation and slipped back under the surface, leaving not a ripple behind.
"Kappa," the fidgety teen shout-whispered happily. He tugged at the girl with the bleached hair, pointing. "Did you see them, sis? So cool!"
The girl patted the boy's head, feigning an exasperated sigh. "Focus, Danny. It won't be so cool when it's our turn."
Danny ducked his head in embarrassment. "They weren't the real deal, anyway. That's not how kappa drown people in stories." The boy then muttered something about intestines and rear ends that Frances sorely hoped he'd misheard.
The room quieted again, but it was an unhappy sort of quiet, fraught with tension. The players discovered that they could only walk forward, deeper into the muck. They couldn't turn back. Even those caught right at the edge where the cement turned into tiled marble couldn't take that final step onto solid ground.
Svetlan was not alone in escaping danger. There were two other players on the sidelines, one woman and one a man. The woman paced at the periphery. The man tapped a familiar bat against the floor, looking bored.
"The butler's back," Michael observed.
Frances glared in the direction Michael pointed out. Six identical hallways fed into the exhibit; the butler stood in the mouth of one of them, observing the players. His eyes were shadowed. His lips, with their bland curve, looked carved on.
"That's probably the way out. Remember the spot," the girl with the bleached hair told Danny and the other boy near her.
"Impressive observation! How long have you been playing?" Michael asked.
The girl with the bleached air slanted him a suspicious glare and didn't answer.
"Subtle," Frances said.
Michael shrugged. "Had to try. They are very young and – well, they're not exactly in line with the usual VELES clientele." He said the last part under his breath, so that it wouldn't be overheard by temperamental teens of unknown origins and purpose.
"You think there's something going on?" Frances guessed.
"Most definitely," Michael said.
"Alright. We'll keep an eye on them," Frances agreed, then promptly shelved the topic. They had more pressing problems to deal with.
"Dear guests," the butler began.
Frances' hackles rose. "I hate it when he says that," he muttered. Michael just laughed.
The players turned toward him. Most of them were immobile, so it was just their heads moving – an eerie thing to see.
"On behalf of Cicada Manor, I am honored to witness your enjoyment of the exhibits," the butler said. Straight-faced and everything. Frances glared harder.
"That said, due to the Gallery's size it is not possible to keep all halls lit at all times. Therefore, exhibits will dim after guests have engaged with the artwork for a certain length of time. Please, do not be alarmed."
The overhead lights flickered, to a medley of fearful whimpers.
"I would not recommend lingering in the dark," the butler added over the frightened cries.
"W-what happens if we do?" a player asked.
The butler smiled thinly. "The way out may become... more difficult to find."
"Great," Frances grunted.
"How long d'you think we have?" one of the teens asked.
The fidgety boy – Danny – shrugged his thin shoulders. "Dunno, but let's not test it. Hey, the mister with the cane – yeah, you!" the boy called, waving at where Svetlan had paused his perusal of the artwork hanging from the walls. "Mind helping us out?"
"Manners," bleached-hair girl reminded.
"Not at all," Svetlan said, his amusement clear.
Danny gave them both a crooked smile. "Thanks! Can you drag one of the tables over, and flip it?"
Svetlan's expression slackened in brief surprise, then his eyes creased with another, more honest smile. "Pirates?" the man said.
"Pirates," Danny nodded firmly.
The circular exhibit featured large paintings of maritime battles and storms rolling over turbulent seas. Under each there was a small, decorative table. Frances dragged one to the cement marsh and flipped it over, so that the flat side ended up in the muck. After a moment of consideration, he took out a handkerchief and tied it neatly to one of the table's legs.
The man nudged the table with his foot as he rose. It shouldn't have budged more than an inch, let alone sailed over the wet cement like a paper boat down a river. The plaid handkerchief waved in the air like a tiny flag.
"Oh, pirates," Michael said in realization.
Frances understood, as well. Which little kid hadn't turned a kitchen table into a pirate ship at least once? "Sharp kid," he said. Everyone – the man with the cane included – had been seeking a way out in the artwork. The decorative tables stood out as extraneous, now that Frances knew to pay attention, yet they managed to slip from notice entirely until the teen pointed them out.
Frances nudged the table as it passed him by, so that it went to Danny and his friends. The girl with the bleached hair pulled herself up onto the flat bottom on the table first, then helped the two teens clamber onboard. The table wobbled precariously but didn't tip over. Their journey back to shore was accompanied by loud cheers.
The table docked and the kids climbed off successfully, but attempts to push the makeshift ship back into open water were met with resistance. The cement was finally acting the part and it had the wooden table stuck where it was moored.
Five tables remained, and fifteen more players to be ferried to safety. The math worked out as long as weight wasn't part of the equation. The few players who were submerged up to their shoulders – and one unfortunate soul, her chin – would likely require some help getting out. And while the tables might well be magical, players were still susceptible to pesky things like physics.
"We'll need to strategize extraction efforts– DO NOT DO THAT!"
The player caught in the process of toppling one of the remaining tables over meeped and almost dropped the table onto her foot.
The table rolled into the cement pool – right side down, thankfully. The fierce scramble that ensured as players jostled among each other to get abord was less fortunate. Frances sneered in disgust. The man with the cane, on the other hand, watched the proceedings with blatant amusement.
The victors rode to shore in a vessel missing one of its legs and shaking so badly it almost didn't make the full journey. The table splintered as soon as the last person stepped off.
"We should put a plan together, to ensure everyone's safety," Michael said in the awkward silence that ensued.
"Right. You just wanna make sure you get a spot," a surly player muttered. One of the losers of the sea-battle, sporting a budding black eye.
"There are enough vessels for everyone," Michael said before Frances could open his mouth and stoop down to the guy's level. "We would benefit from a strategy. Especially our friends caught in the deep end."
That got the players bowing their heads, some more genuinely embarrassed than others. Frances didn't begrudge them their determination or the desire to survive. Many instances pitted players against each other purposefully, and playing nice simply wasn't an option.
There was no scarcity of supplies at play in this instance, however. Just human nature.
They came up with a plan of action, mostly under Michael's lead. He was calm and approachable and with his reputation in VR, even the more belligerent players were willing to listen – and flatter, when they got the chance. Frances contributed by glaring potential dissidents into submission.
The players sunk in the deepest were last to be extracted. They required more effort to be pulled up, and the table-crews were organized accordingly. Frances remained for the last pick-up, as did Michael. They volunteered by default, as no one else was willing to stray that far into the siren's territory.
"You might want to speed things up," the man with the cane called from shore.
It was the first time he had involved himself in the rescue process since the launch of that very first, "pirate" vessel. Frances, shoulder-deep in thick sludge, looked at the man in open irritation.
"What do you want?" he huffed.
Svetlan smiled and nodded toward something, just as the kid Frances was trying to fish out screamed bloody murder in his ear.
"It's back! Hurry, hurryhurry–"
"Shut up!" Frances hissed, grappling the kid up one-armed. Michael let out a surprised oomph as he got flattened by the teen. Frances spared an apologetic look for his friend, but the slow rise of a familiar statue took precedence.
The siren broke the surface with slow grace. The statue was made from pale marble carved so smooth that it looked soft to the touch. The dark cement sluiced down the siren's arms and chest. The tail curved underneath, peeking through the floor in rugged coils.
"Let's go, before it comes to life again," Michael urged.
Frances had no objections. He reeled them back; just as he did the lights flickered again, this time plunging the room into complete darkness for a handful of seconds.
The siren was a lot closer when light and color returned. The teen screamed a tearful curse. Frances looked at the siren statue – now mere inches from his face – with a considering frown. The statue gazed back with hollow stone eyes. Frances could have sworn its eyes were human in the dark.
Human, and afraid.
"What was that?" Michael muttered. They were using legs broken off other tables as paddles, but neither of them was doing much with them at present, despite the fearful urging from their cement-adorned passenger.
"You saw it, too?" Frances asked.
"Well, yes. He's still in the painting," Michael told him. "Did you see what pulled him in?"
Frances realized that they were speaking of different things entirely. He followed Michael's gaze to where the butler stood. Or, well, reclined into a painting. His body leaned against the wall but his head was rendered flat in the canvas. It was an eerie image. The sharp smirk painted on the man's face didn't help.
"I think I saw a woman's hand, but I can't be sure," Michael mused.
The painting was of a ship, angled to depict the captain's cabin glowing orange in the dusk. The butler had his head resting against a window. If there was someone inside the cabin, they were not visible in the painting.
The light dimmed. Frances and Michael didn't need the teen screeching a tearful, "Can we please go now?" to start peddling double-time. The hiss of a tail scraping against the underside of their little boat was incentive enough.
The wet-eyed siren chased them in the dark, cooing in grief.