****
River's eyes adjusted to the stark white light of the space and she noticed snowflakes drifting through the air around them as if they stood in a snow globe. The flakes sparkled in the light and River realized that they weren't white, but silver, and disappeared as they reached the floor.
She extended her hand to catch the flakes in her palm. As they touched her skin, they seemed to melt, creating a pool of liquid that dripped like mercury off of the sides and splashed, then disappeared, on the gleaming white floor.
"What are these?" she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper as she extended her hand to show Jordan the silvery liquid.
The flakes streaked across his face and sparkled in his dark hair. He shook his head, unable to come up with any words. She stroked her thumb across his cheekbone. The silver liquid spread across his skin and faded as if dissipating back into the air. She could see her hand trembling as the fear set in and she turned back to the glass wall.
Flattening her palms against it, she leaned close to the wall and stared beyond it at the room around her. The light seemed to reflect off of the gleaming walls and she noticed what appeared to be empty picture frames crafted of iridescent glass positioned at regular intervals along the walls. Long, narrow silver bars separated the frames. There was no furniture in the room and she didn't see any doors or windows.
"What is this place?" she whispered.
Her voice came out of her powdery and strained as if the words themselves were afraid to enter the strange space. She saw Jordan's mouth open like he was starting to say something, but the sound of shouts from somewhere outside of the room stopped him. River stepped closer to Jordan and felt his hand slip down her arm to hold hers comfortingly.
Suddenly a section of the wall across from them slid open and a gorgeous, but frantic-looking young man burst into the room. He didn't acknowledge them, but turned and touched his hand to the wall. The open section slammed closed and he turned his hand sharply. River heard a loud hiss and click like a tremendous lock sliding into place but didn't see any change in the appearance of the wall.
"Hey," Jordan said, pounding on the wall of the cube with his palm, "Hey, can you get us out of here?"
The young man's eyes snapped to them and a startled look crossed his face. River noticed a glint of light reflect from him and saw two iridescent gems embedded in the skin at the outer corner of one eye. She wanted to touch the gems; to run her fingers across them and press her hands to the hard chest that rose and fell raggedly beneath his shirt.
Still ignoring them, the man wrapped his fingers around one of the silver bars between the picture frames and pulled it out of the wall.
There was another shout from outside of the room and River heard loud thuds like someone ramming the wall near where it had slid open to let the man inside. He rushed toward the glass cube and thrust the silver bar forward. It slid effortlessly through the glass and the end bloomed like a metal flower with several curved petals that overlapped just enough to create a cup that caught the silver flakes as they fell.
He waited a few seconds until the cup filled halfway with the metallic liquid, and then withdrew the bar, leaving the glass intact and solid as it left. Jordan pounded on the glass again, moving his hands to different places as if looking for an area that would open. The young man turned and crossed to one of the empty picture frames on the wall. Reaching into the cup at the end of the bar, he scooped some of the liquid into his hand and spread it across the wall within the iridescent glass confines.
River gasped as the silver liquid became like paint, creating a moving image as he swept it across the white wall. It looked like a section of a city with tall, cylindrical buildings positioned close together along narrow roads congested with tiny, fast-moving vehicles. The young man scrutinized it closely, moving his head back and forth quickly as he examined every detail of the image.
When he seemed to have learned what he wanted, he swept his hand back over the wall in the opposite direction, reducing the image back to the silver liquid, which he poured from his palm back into the metal cup. Jordan continued to pound on the glass and call out to him, but he seemed completely focused as he crossed back to the glass cube and pushed the bar back through the glass, tilting it so that the liquid streamed out onto the floor.
Jordan grabbed onto the bar and the young man's eyes snapped to him. He tilted his head, his eyes flitting from Jordan to River as if this was the first time he had noticed they were there. They lowered to River's hands and she placed one on the bar next to Jordan's, holding it tightly. He met her eyes and she saw the gems in his face glow red, fade to a light purple, and then return to red.
Without saying a word or taking his eyes from her, the man pulled the bar back with one hard movement, yanking them toward the glass before River had a chance to let go. She prepared herself for the impact with the wall, but never felt it. Instead, she felt the floor disappear from beneath her feet and in the next moment was struggling to get them back under her beside the young man on the other side of the glass wall.
Just as she got her balance, the young man dropped the silver bar and looked between her and Jordan.
"Run."