[center][h1]Emil[/h1][/center]

Emil looked through Steiner at the students waiting in line, thinking.[color=39b54a][i] How ironic this is. Or is it destiny? That his name, the one he's carried from birth, implies sinking, sinking, sinking... Fell into the world in a splash of red cries and immediately started sinking and does so to this day, professor Steiner. We all do, of course. Death being the bottom. But now we'll sink with him literally, too; towards that blurry place beneath the waves. [/i][/color] The receptionist counted, slid some coins across the counter onto his damp palm one by one and dropped them into the drawer with a ring of dirty copper hitting copper. [color=39b54a][i]Money, too. They used shells as money before. Wonder what we could buy down there with a handful of shells. Oh, yes, hello mister octopus; is the sea weed homegrown? What about this bizarre disformed fish that does not belong to our world? What did you say? Oh, miss octopus tended to it. I see. Give me half a kilo! And don't mind the price! It's not every day that we are expecting the end of humanity, is it? Thank you![/i][/color]

Steiner let go off his arm as he went on talking to Dupree. Emil could feel the ghost grip fade from his skin. [color=39b54a][i]Stone grip, professor. Perfect. We'll need to counter strangle the monstrous tentacles of the deep sea.[/i] [/color]He saw the three of them on a ship and the rootless limbs of the Kraken -- [color=39b54a][i]or something worse[/i][/color] -- flying all over them, dripping with ooze and salt water, cracking masts and the deck to splinters. Screaming seamen chopping and slashing at the slimy surface of the beast with their knives, sinking them deep into the poisonous blood that fuels the creature. The elderly man who had paid the receptionist held his key and suitcase. He remained still, so persistently still that he managed to peak the interest of the bored receptionist, and that was an achievement in itself. The stranger's pale face had a drop of familiarity in it, but Emil could not pinpoint its source. He kept standing, his presence not allowing the receptionist to return to his yesterdays' newspapers. 


[color=0072bc]”Professor Dupree,”[/color] he said, turning his back to the strange old man; [color=0072bc]”with all due respect, I think we can bypass the old fashioned access, if you understand what I mean.”[/color] His hands gripped an imaginary crowbar and jerked it as if to open some air door. [color=39b54a][i]It wouldn't be the first time I meddled with Atkins's office anyway. No need to be shy now. And we've already got an escape route covered.[/i] [/color]He remembered the steps he and Steiner had heard, those they chalked up to the police. [color=39b54a][i]Perhaps the same we heard in Faye's cell? Persistent bastards.[/i][/color]  [color=0072bc]”This excursion ends soon, I hope,”[/color] he added, meaning the school trip to the madhouse. [color=0072bc]”Most of them will retire to the dorms, it should give us more freedom to... roam.”[/color]