Chloe walked home alone from school that day still thinking of her new found friend Isaac. He was in her first period class, which just happened to be her elective, acting.  While she had taken the class to help her withering self esteem and to cure her social anxiety, he had only taken up residence in the class due to lack of space elsewhere. She also had him in her biology and history classes, and by end of day they were nearly inseparable.  Wind rustled and papers fluttered in the dank alley she was passing through as a refreshing sea breeze blew through. The sharp salt taste on the wind cut into her tongue and nose, it wasn’t altogether unpleasant, just another taste acquired in good old bean town.  What bothered her a little more was how the wind was lifting her dress a little and she held it down till the breeze passed.
She continued walking onward, yet though home was her destination she decided on a small detour from her home on The North End.  The aquarium she had frequented as a child once again held a nostalgic gleam for her and she entered it. It was a large building and in the twilight gleam of the sun setting on the waterfront it’s silvered outside sparkled like a diamond. Inside the faint sea salt scent that enveloped most of the city was present in full force and the concrete and steel structures within beckoned her further. She made her way up the giant spiral ramp coiling around the main tank past displays of brightly colored fish, turtles, and sharks till she was midway up the ramp.
She looked around to realize that the place was discomfortingly empty. She also looked around to realize that she had no real idea of where she was, last she had been a hundred percent aware was when she was holding her dress down. It was almost as though the wind that been blowing her skirt previously had given up and instead ended up moving her. She once again surveyed the scene, now sure of her surroundings, and then began to glance back into the display next to her. Before what was happening could register all the lights in the aquarium had started shutting off one by one. Her grip on the rail tightened as the rolling blackness left only the ramp still lit. Soon the lights began shutting down from both the top and bottom of the spiral till only the one above Chloe’s head was lit.
“Chloe Rake?” said a man stepping out of the shadows of the darkened ramp portion beneath her. He was wearing a long heavy trench coat with a high slit back. Beneath the extra long sleeves of said coat were dark black fitted gloves and between his index and middle fingers a cigarette was held. He wore a felt hat with what looked like shorthand notes tucked safely in its band along with gritty five o’clock shadow.  His pressed tan slacks seemed old fashioned in this casual urban environment but still he looked deadly serious, not aged and laughable.
“You gonna answer hun?”
“Huh?” Chloe snapped back to reality from taking the stranger in “what?”
“Are ya or are ya not Chloe Rake?” he responded exasperated.
“Why should I tell you?” she yelled angrily
“Oi” he sighed “you’re getting defensive so I’ll take that as a yes”
“Fine I am!” she screamed at him, clearly frightened “what the hell you want!?”
“To talk” he said calmly “I just wanna talk.”
“Oh!?” She tried calmed herself “What about?” she shouted back to him in as brave a voice as she could call into her corner.
“About you. You’re a variable, and I want to know you won’t make me break a very long winning streak.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with me….”
“You will”
“Still……”
“Things are moving fast now!” he said with a fire he before seemed to be without “things are gonna start happening.  I want you to look after yourself, but other than that, leave everything else alone! Other’s problems aren’t your own, don’t be a martyr! Goodbye.”
He walked off past her into the dark of the upper end of the spiral. The tail of his coat flapped with the movement of his stride as he gracefully flicked his smoking cigarette out and off the side of the ramp. Soon he was beyond her sight in the veil of shadows and absence of light.
She was processing the recent encounter and wiping her nervous sweaty palms against the rails when the lights came back all at once. She didn’t notice that the blackness had receded till an anxious and frustrated looking employee tapped her on the shoulder and told her it was closing time. She left the aquarium dazed and, past dark alleys and under the waning shadow of skyscrapers from downtown, she mindlessly returned home. As soon as she locked the door to her apartment she threw her keys on the table and ran to her room despite her mothers cries to talk of the previous school day. She tossed her bag and purse atop her bed and sat cross-legged at her desk attempting to do her schoolwork and forget the disturbing events of the recently passed now. She looked down on the desk to find a small clearing among the mess in the center of which was a business card. She turned it over and read the single line of text “Black, Private detective”. She shuddered.