“Pretty place for a date, sure. But if you hear the water speaking your name, it’s already too late.”
Description - Exterior
Perched along the lakefront like a marble seashell, the Shedd’s classical dome rises above manicured gardens and dolphin banners flapping in the wind. But when the clouds roll in, the building seems to sink into itself, heavy and oceanic. Statues of sea gods guard the steps—weathered, pitted, and far older than they should be.Description - Interior
Inside, vaulted ceilings arch over echoing halls, and dim blue light glows from massive glass tanks teeming with movement. The main galleries feel like cathedrals to evolution—until you reach the lower exhibits. The air smells wrong. Some tanks aren't labeled. And down in the basement research wing, the pressure feels more like you’re under water than above it.History
Opened in 1930 as the largest indoor aquarium in the world, the Shedd quickly became a crown jewel of Chicago science and tourism. But several of the original deep-sea specimens were... miscatalogued. Staff who transferred from the Field Museum whispered of strange crates that arrived sealed, already wet. Some of those shipments were never added to the public roster.Owned By
Run by the Shedd Foundation and backed by North Side philanthropists, but many suspect deeper ties to the University of Chicago’s arcane biology division and a quiet faction of the Navy’s Pacific research program.Employees
- Dr. Emory Latch – Director of research, overly cheerful, always damp cuffs
- Lydia Krowe – Curator of Ancient Species; keeps a locked drawer marked “non-faunal”
- “Lug” – Groundskeeper who lives on-site and speaks only in nautical slang
- Danny Vox – Teen docent, Veil-sensitive, draws the same fish every week in different positions
- Silvia Marris – Nurse for the mammals; once vanished for three days in the filtration tunnels
- Captain Frears (ret.) – Security lead, still wears his Navy blues, always has a flashlight—never uses it
Regulars
- Kwan (Grand Dukes) – Believes something in the ocean wing speaks to his ancestors
- Cece Fields – Uses the Shedd for veiled fundraisers and spiritual diplomacy
- “Three-Nose” Benny – Bookie who hides drop points in empty tanks
- Sister Odessa – Veil-walker who blesses the tide pools monthly without permission
- Charlie Mullen – Claims to have seen a “second reflection” in the Caribbean exhibit
Notes
- A coral formation in the deep ocean hall matches a glyph found in Veil ruins under Bronzeville
- The beluga tank echoes spoken words not uttered by any visitor—always in reverse
- A “tide fluctuation” in the reef exhibit caused lights to flicker citywide in ’52
- Staff whisper about “Tank 14,” which is never on the map and can only be accessed by crawling through a hatch marked MAINTENANCE B-3
- The lower pump room has sea salt rust patterns that match a drowned man’s tattoos from a 1943 Navy accident—no one can explain why
- One exhibit sign—carved in glass—reads a different name to each visitor. No one's ever written it down twice the same way
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