Chapter 223

The silver-white metal walls reflected a cold blue light as Elara climbed up the nearly 50-feet-tall reinforced glass water tank. Wearing rubber gloves, she gently stirred the water's surface with her hand. She called softly toward the water under her, "Aurel." She was at the Synesthesia Lab, an unfamiliar place she had never set foot in before. The entire lab was encased in a special white insulator, blocking any electrical currents. Occasionally, a faint blue arc flickered across the water's surface—a residual trace from the last experiment. No.4, the Blue Bottle jellyfish, was the quietest and most unassuming of all Elara's experiments. He was also the experiment that had accompanied her the longest. Because of its fully transparent body, resembling the delicate, ethereal moon jellyfish aurelia aurita, she had always preferred to call it "Aurel". It was both the easiest and the hardest to care for. Jellyfish were fragile and temperamental. Too much heat or cold could easil