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Authors: William Massa
Tags: BluA
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“None of the surveillance cams are working. I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve been trying to reach my team, but no one is answering. I’m just getting static on my end.”
“I’ll look into it,” Rhianna replied in as calm of a voice as she could muster. “Keep trying to get ahold of your team.”
Rhianna took in the various museum visitors milling around the vast gallery. A cross-section of people, tourists interspersed with local art students, all of them hoping to draw inspiration from the great masters of the past. Normally she paid the visitors no mind, too focused with her work behind the scenes. Now that the cameras were down, the milling crowds felt a little ominous. Modern technology made museum thefts a rarity nowadays, but you never knew.
Rhianna tried to reach the museum director only to discover with dismay that her phone wasn’t working properly now, either. She kept getting disconnected. What the hell was going on? What could possibly affect all communications in a museum the size of the MET?
She would have to use the landline in her office. On her way there, she passed through the medieval collection. Most of the art from that period was kept at the Cloisters, but the MET had a few rooms dedicated to it.
Passing underneath a gothic arch, her shoes echoing eerily against the stone floor, Rhianna stepped into the windowless space lined with medieval painting and sculptures. The MET was currently hosting an exhibit called Medieval Apocalypse . Two of the paintings on display never failed to send shivers down her back. The first one was the famous The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Painted in 1562 at the height of the Black Death, it showed a nightmarish doomsday landscape. An army of skeletons gathered up both the living and the dead, drawing no distinction between them, while plague carts filled with skulls rumbled through the broken wasteland.
The people of that time truly believed Judgment Day was upon them—and who could blame them? The plague was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, killing more than half of Europe’s population.
From the corner of her eye, she registered a flicker of movement from the image. For one terrifying split second, she could’ve sworn the skeletons in the work of art had stirred, bony hands gloved in decaying skin reaching hungrily for the living…
She spun toward the painting, but the nightmarish vision of the apocalypse had returned to being just a painting.
Your mind is playing tricks on you. Pull yourself together, girl!
Her eyes shifted toward the other, equally disturbing piece of art positioned nearby: The Great Red Dragon and the Beast of the Sea by William Blake, which depicted burly men with jagged wings. The monsters were all too familiar to Rhianna. Winged demons had indeed walked this Earth, as she’d experienced firsthand a year earlier. They were called gargoyles…and she’d fallen in love with one of them.
Another sound made her whirl; she wasn’t alone in the spooky exhibit. A security guard had stepped out from behind a large row of display cases containing ancient medieval texts. He now faced one of the hellish paintings, his back turned toward her. Judging by the guard’s frame and sandy hair color, it had to be Robert, the youngest guard under Martin’s command. “Robert? Is that you?”
The guard let out a choking sound but his face remained averted.
Rhianna took a step closer.
“Martin says all the cameras are down and the mics aren’t working. Have you had any luck getting through to anyone?”
The guard responded by letting out another guttural rasp.
Rhianna stopped her advance.
A sense of dread washed over her. Something was wrong here. She was strangely reminded of that fateful day when Cael had attacked her in the Cloisters. Artan’s disappearance, Maxwell not showing up for work and the security system failure were all beginning to feel like the
“I’ll look into it,” Rhianna replied in as calm of a voice as she could muster. “Keep trying to get ahold of your team.”
Rhianna took in the various museum visitors milling around the vast gallery. A cross-section of people, tourists interspersed with local art students, all of them hoping to draw inspiration from the great masters of the past. Normally she paid the visitors no mind, too focused with her work behind the scenes. Now that the cameras were down, the milling crowds felt a little ominous. Modern technology made museum thefts a rarity nowadays, but you never knew.
Rhianna tried to reach the museum director only to discover with dismay that her phone wasn’t working properly now, either. She kept getting disconnected. What the hell was going on? What could possibly affect all communications in a museum the size of the MET?
She would have to use the landline in her office. On her way there, she passed through the medieval collection. Most of the art from that period was kept at the Cloisters, but the MET had a few rooms dedicated to it.
Passing underneath a gothic arch, her shoes echoing eerily against the stone floor, Rhianna stepped into the windowless space lined with medieval painting and sculptures. The MET was currently hosting an exhibit called Medieval Apocalypse . Two of the paintings on display never failed to send shivers down her back. The first one was the famous The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Painted in 1562 at the height of the Black Death, it showed a nightmarish doomsday landscape. An army of skeletons gathered up both the living and the dead, drawing no distinction between them, while plague carts filled with skulls rumbled through the broken wasteland.
The people of that time truly believed Judgment Day was upon them—and who could blame them? The plague was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, killing more than half of Europe’s population.
From the corner of her eye, she registered a flicker of movement from the image. For one terrifying split second, she could’ve sworn the skeletons in the work of art had stirred, bony hands gloved in decaying skin reaching hungrily for the living…
She spun toward the painting, but the nightmarish vision of the apocalypse had returned to being just a painting.
Your mind is playing tricks on you. Pull yourself together, girl!
Her eyes shifted toward the other, equally disturbing piece of art positioned nearby: The Great Red Dragon and the Beast of the Sea by William Blake, which depicted burly men with jagged wings. The monsters were all too familiar to Rhianna. Winged demons had indeed walked this Earth, as she’d experienced firsthand a year earlier. They were called gargoyles…and she’d fallen in love with one of them.
Another sound made her whirl; she wasn’t alone in the spooky exhibit. A security guard had stepped out from behind a large row of display cases containing ancient medieval texts. He now faced one of the hellish paintings, his back turned toward her. Judging by the guard’s frame and sandy hair color, it had to be Robert, the youngest guard under Martin’s command. “Robert? Is that you?”
The guard let out a choking sound but his face remained averted.
Rhianna took a step closer.
“Martin says all the cameras are down and the mics aren’t working. Have you had any luck getting through to anyone?”
The guard responded by letting out another guttural rasp.
Rhianna stopped her advance.
A sense of dread washed over her. Something was wrong here. She was strangely reminded of that fateful day when Cael had attacked her in the Cloisters. Artan’s disappearance, Maxwell not showing up for work and the security system failure were all beginning to feel like the
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