A bedroom of extravagant luxury met his eyes.
The floor was paved with wine-red marble veined like clouds, polished to a mirror shine and reflecting the shattered image of the chandelier above. The walls were covered in peacock-green wallpaper so flamboyant it was almost clamorous, like vines running wild through a tropical rainforest. Fine gold dust seemed melted into the facets of the crystal lamps, filtering the light into a languid yet resplendent hue, like sunlight forever frozen at three in the afternoon.
Every color was rich and saturated, clashing savagely together and making one feel as though they had wandered into the heart of a rainforest at the height of its blooming season, where all things grew madly. Against the walls stood tall bookshelves, their gilded spines of silent philosophical tomes forming an unbroken expanse, weighty enough to seem capable of suppressing the breath of all the room's gaudy splendor.
On the desk at the center of the room sat an old-fashioned brass radio. At that moment, it gave off a faint crackle of static, occasionally mixed with scattered fragments of speech—communications from around the ship, weather reports, orders from the engine room, even whispers from the captain's cabin—
In this bedroom, it seemed that with the turn of a few knobs, every sound on the entire ship would have nowhere to hide.
The room was empty. Only the cup of coffee on the desk still gave off thin wisps of steam, like an unfinished sentence. Its owner had clearly left in a hurry, perhaps only a second before Amon pushed open the door.
Just then—
The lights went out without warning, and darkness instantly swallowed every brilliant color.
At the same time, a razor-sharp presence suddenly struck from behind Amon! It was so fast that there was barely