Between Footsteps| p.jm

ONE| --... ----.

The first thing that flooded your senses was cold. The penetrating chill however eventually awakened other senses, and soon brought you aware to the darkness you were surrounded in.

...What?

Cold darkness. Should you open your eyes? Something was off... something was wrong. You couldn't breathe... however... although air wasn't flooding through your system, you weren't gasping for breath or feeling any need to do so. Your lungs seemed content. The cold however seeped under your skin and seemed to chill you to the bone.

Ultimately it was the cold that made your eyes snap open.

Your vision was murky and everything seemed distorted, causing panic and attempts to blink whatever was blurring your vision away. It didn't leave.

Water.

You were underwater. But what were the distorted lights in front of you? At first it seemed like you couldn't move, but after a moment your limbs began to attempt to flail through the liquid that weighed them down, just so you could get closer to the lights and muffled noise that began to echo in your ears. It sounded far away. 

You were halted abruptly when you ran into something. It was even colder than the liquid that surrounded you.

It was some sort of invisible barrier. You placed your palm against it, and suddenly your vision became clearer.

W-what?!

You were in a... tank. A glass tank, as if kept like an aquatic animal. The lights you had seen blurred into figures you could now make out. There was an audience of maybe a couple hundred people watching you intently; their eyes glinting on the other side of the glass like fireflies. Closer to you you made out the figure of a man sporting red clothes and a top hat. His back was turned to you and he seemed to be speaking into a microphone. The sound coming from the amplification device vibrated the glass your hand rested against.

Attempting a confused... anything, your mouth parted. Bubbles immediately seeped from between your lips and suddenly... you needed to breathe. 

You attempted a scream of help, hoping anyone on the other side of the glass would hear you and come to your aid. The bubbles that escaped with your lost scream floated up to the top of the circular tank and moved bits of your hair that were floating about in the water.

The hand you held against the glass formed a fist as you attempted to slam it against the glass. You lungs burned, but the onlookers in the crowd didn't flinch. The man dressed in red however turned your way, and another scream you didn't even have attempted to escape your mouth when you saw that he... was faceless. 

Suddenly, you heard a crack. It was faint, but under your fist the glass began to form small fractures that penetrated the surface; webbing out further the more pressure was applied to them. Another hit, and maybe it would break even further. You slammed your fist against it again, then pushed your palm as hard as you could against the center of the growing cracks.

The glass shattered, and the water rushed away as suddenly you were falling, then laying on the stage and gasping for breath. Your ears rang and all sounds still seemed far away as you shivered. Slowly, sound began to make it's way to your ears.

"Number 79 everyone!" An enthusiastic male voice spoke out and echoed loudly throughout the whole room, cheers flooding your ears as you tried to blink water out of your eyes and hold onto your arms that began to form goosebumps from cold.

You were terrified. You were shivering. And when your vision cleared to show that you were indeed on a stage in front of eager onlookers, you panicked.