The Underground of Santa Ana: The Secret Sanctuary Beneath the Town
A Hidden World Beneath the Streets
The Underground represents one of the most remarkable achievements of the mermaid community living on land—a sprawling, massive community resembling a subway plan that serves as a school, entertainment center, and community hub for merpeople who have chosen to live among humans. Accessible through a tea shop in a tenement basement, this subterranean network provides a sanctuary where merpeople can connect with their own kind, learn skills for navigating human life, and find community in a world that does not know they exist. The Underground’s existence is a closely guarded secret, its entrances hidden behind seemingly ordinary storefronts, its corridors known only to those who belong to the community.
The Underground is divided into sections that mirror the structure of mermaid kingdoms, with classrooms named after oceans, shopping zones, entertainment venues, and gathering spaces. The careful organization reflects the community’s commitment to providing comprehensive services to its members, while the division into “rings” like Antemidia suggests the influence of underwater political structures on this land-based community. The blank spaces on the map at the center and southwestern section mark areas that are off-limits to most members, their purposes known only to the Underground’s leadership.
The Financial Struggle of a Community in Need
Despite its importance to the mermaid community, the Underground struggles financially, barely making ends meet. High rent and teachers’ wages represent a constant burden, and volunteers help where they can, but the community cannot charge for classes because most community members are poor. The majority of members are plain mermaids and mermen who have lived on land for years, many struggling financially and unable to afford private education or entertainment. Their poverty reflects the broader challenges of merpeople living on land—they lack basic knowledge of human life, from fixing appliances to changing tires, and their forged documents make them appear as graduates of niche majors like marine ecosystems and ethnic studies, qualifications irrelevant to the local job market.
Many work low-skilled, menial jobs illegally, waiting tables and performing other tasks that require no formal qualifications. They cannot leave because they have started families and relationships on land, tying them to the human world even as they struggle to navigate it. The Underground’s partners with job agencies and its employment of people within the community reflect a desperate attempt to provide work, but wages remain low and the financial problems persist, caused in part by poor management.
The Underground’s financial struggles extend to its relationship with the larger mermaid world. Professor Ulysses Vitruvius, the long-time coordinator from Atlantis, has his funds tied to the community, creating both a lifeline and a constraint. The community cannot accept Antemidia’s deal because of these ties, demonstrating how history and politics reach even into this sanctuary. Knossa Oligaris, the elderly founder, and Darren Klar, her co-founder, work tirelessly to keep the community afloat, but the challenge seems overwhelming.
The Ocean-Classrooms: Education Across the Seas
The Indian Ocean Classroom represents one of the Underground’s most distinctive spaces, its faded aquamarine shade providing a calming atmosphere for learning. Educational posters and maps cover the walls, while large idol sculptures near the blackboard bear Sanskrit alphabets, their letters resembling sticks with ivy leaves and flowers. Tropical birds in cages add life to the space, and a peculiar fountain-like machine with pendulums creates music with natural effects, its sounds blending with the overflow of publications that fill every available space. This classroom, like all the ocean-classrooms, provides education in mermaid societies and history, teaching young merpeople about their heritage while preparing them for life on land.
The Pacific Ocean Classroom presents a stark contrast, its incredible clutter reflecting the diversity of the cultures it represents. Indonesian mermaid stone statues with colorful gems on foreheads stand alongside Japanese origami and paper lamps and North American totems, creating a visual feast that celebrates the richness of the Pacific region’s mermaid cultures. The classroom’s organization—or lack thereof—suggests the challenges of representing such diverse cultures in a single space, its cluttered nature perhaps reflecting the overwhelming task of preserving so many traditions.
The Atlantic Ocean Classroom appears more briefly in Amelia’s experience, glimpsed when Jayden and Taisuke leave it. Its presence reinforces the Underground’s commitment to comprehensive education, covering the ocean that dominates the mermaid political landscape. The fact that these classrooms are named after oceans rather than specific kingdoms reflects the Underground’s broader perspective, its focus on community and connection rather than the political divisions that characterize the underwater world.
The Cinema and the Locked Door
The Cinema represents one of the Underground’s most mysterious spaces, a venue where movies are shown and where Amelia feels someone behind the locked door. This experience, her sense of a presence on the other side of the door, speaks to the secrets that lurk beneath the Underground’s surface. The cinema’s connection to the locked area of the Underground suggests that entertainment spaces may serve dual purposes, hiding activities that the community leadership would not condone.
The Cinema’s location near the locked door and its role in Amelia’s discovery of the hidden passages reflect the blurring lines between public and private spaces in the Underground. What seems to be a simple entertainment venue may, in fact, provide access to deeper secrets, its locked door guarding mysteries that even Knossa Oligaris may not fully understand.
The Restaurant and Knossa Oligaris
The Restaurant near the Underground serves as a gathering place and meeting location, its almost empty atmosphere during Amelia’s visit reflecting the financial struggles that affect even this simple establishment. The kitchen lady who serves crepes with fruit represents the community members who work to keep the Underground running, their labor often unpaid or underpaid, their dedication driven by love for their community rather than financial reward.
It is in this restaurant that Amelia meets Knossa Oligaris for the first time, unaware that she is meeting the Underground’s founder. Knossa’s presence in this humble setting reflects her commitment to the community, her willingness to engage with members in ordinary spaces rather than claiming special treatment. The conversation that follows reveals the Underground’s struggles and the challenges facing the community, as Knossa shares her concerns about finances and her hopes for the future.
The Lower Underground: The Hidden Section
The Lower Underground represents the most mysterious section of the community, accessible through an abandoned hat shop with an empty room, barred windows showing ugly mannequin heads with faded artificial hair and dusty hats adorned with gaudy feathers and pearls. The door, taped from the inside but opening easily, leads to a hidden world that exists beneath the official Underground, its existence known to few and its activities far from the community’s stated mission of education and support.
The entrance corridor sets the tone for this hidden world, its walls covered in dark green algae wallpaper decorated with purple and silver patterns, its white-gold chandeliers adorned with shell-shaped crystals hanging from the ceiling. The passageway leads to an unusually large room designed on an octagonal plan, bathed in green and purple shades, its massive octagonal pool crowned with a huge rock serving as an artificial waterfall. The pool is divided into numerous sections forming smaller pools where mermaids and tritons can relax with hydro massages, their elegant attire—men in suits, women in cocktail dresses, feather boas, and high heels—a stark contrast to the struggling community above.
The atmosphere of the Lower Underground is sophisticated and slightly sinister. Mysterious figures wearing dark glasses and hats with cigars sit at round tables along the walls, while waiters serve bite-sized delicacies. An upstairs buffet provides additional refreshments, and the walls are adorned with avant-garde aquariums filled with mysterious sunken objects, dark vegetation, and tropical fish shimmering with neon scales. The aquarium forms a continuous ring encircling the floor, its center cut out to allow views of the pool below. Exotic plants and the famous buffet near an iron balustrade add to the sense of luxury and exclusivity.
The Concert Hall and the Glass Door Area
The Concert Hall in the Lower Underground stands as a space shrouded in mystery, described as the kind of place Amelia’s sister would adore. Tall glass columns of water, constantly filtered as streams of air bubbles rise to the surface, fill the space, while a vanguard platform with a solitary piano serves as the centerpiece. The empty hall’s haunting beauty reflects the contradictions of the Lower Underground—a space of artistic expression existing in a world of criminal activity, its piano silent in the midst of illicit dealings.
The seamless glass door area provides access to upscale stores selling high-end merchandise like undersea jewelry and glitter paint for tails. These establishments cater to the wealthy visitors of the Lower Underground, offering products that would be out of reach for the struggling members of the main community. The contrast between the opulence of these stores and the poverty of the merpeople above underscores the divide between the community’s stated mission and the reality of its hidden world.
Vitor Gandara’s Area and the Pipe Organ
Vitor Gandara’s Area, located beyond the concert hall through a door tucked into the corner of the stage, represents the heart of the Lower Underground’s illegal activities. This secret underground area bustles with activity, but nothing legal happens here. A gun shop, a store selling strong alcohol, and another dealing in seaweed line the hidden corridors, their existence a direct contradiction to the Underground’s values of peace and community.
This area is officially closed, and Darren and Knossa would never condone the activity that takes place here. Vitor Gandara, the son of the former owner Otavio Gandara, facilitates the Lower Underground by running a space where mermaids and tritons can meet the right people and seal lucrative deals. He takes a percentage of transactions and receives gifts and favors in return, his operation supporting various political options in exchange for peace, business, and legal protection. The Lower Underground’s support of Atlantis, which has made promises to the operation, reveals the political implications of this hidden world.
The circular room above the pool houses a grand pipe organ where Vitor plays Toccata and Fugue. This predominantly black room with massive two- or three-meter-tall paintings covering portions of the walls creates an atmosphere of dark elegance. A spiraled staircase leads to a mezzanine where the organ is situated, its soundproof walls preventing the music from traveling to the pool below. The glass mosaic floor, with amethyst and emerald flowers glowing softly, adds to the room’s magical quality. Here, Amelia first encounters Vitor, discovering the hidden world that operates beneath the official Underground and the complex web of deals and alliances that sustain it.
The 52Hz Whales Bar and the Oriental Tea House
The 52Hz Whales Bar provides a space for Underground members to socialize away from the educational and community spaces. This dimly lit establishment with hanging jellyfish-shaped lanterns in soft blue and purple creates a cozy atmosphere where conversations can flow over colorful drinks matching countries’ colors. The bar’s signature “jelly island cake,” described as a tropical masterpiece with vibrant blue jelly resembling Caribbean waters, sponge layers mirroring lush vegetation, and fruit topping with gray chocolate resembling precious stones, represents the culinary artistry of the Underground.
It is here that Amelia meets Darren Klar, who reveals the Underground’s financial struggles. The bar serves as a space for building connections and sharing information, its warm atmosphere encouraging openness and trust. When Amelia later brings Lumina here, the bar becomes a space for sisterly bonding, its distinctive drinks and atmosphere providing a refuge from the pressures of their lives.
The Oriental Tea House, while not strictly part of the Underground, serves as a complementary space where members can gather. Its basement location, rough-hewn stone walls, ethnic carpets, wooden platforms, and warm-colored cushions scattered about create an intimate, magical atmosphere. Salt lamps cast a soft glow while instrumental ethnic music plays in the background, and the serving of oriental teas and baklava transports visitors to another world. This tea house serves as a romantic setting for Amelia and Taisuke’s date, providing a space where private conversations can take place away from the bustle of the Underground.
The Community’s Dual Nature
The Underground of Santa Ana exists in a state of tension between its stated mission of community support and the hidden activities that take place in its lower levels. The main Underground, with its classrooms and community spaces, represents the dream of a sanctuary for merpeople living on land—a place where they can learn, connect, and find belonging. The Lower Underground, with its illegal dealings and political connections, represents the reality that even sanctuaries are not immune to the pressures of power and profit.
This duality reflects the broader challenges facing the mermaid community on land. The Underground is both a refuge and a compromise, a space where merpeople can maintain their culture while navigating human society, and a reminder that they will never fully belong in either world. The blank spaces on the map, the locked doors, and the hidden passages all speak to the secrets that exist beneath the surface of community life, secrets that even the founders may not fully understand.
The Underground’s future remains uncertain. Financial struggles continue, the Lower Underground’s activities threaten the community’s reputation, and the political pressures of the underwater world reach even into this sanctuary. Yet the Underground persists, its existence a testament to the resilience of merpeople who have chosen to live on land, seeking connection and community in a world that does not know they exist. In the hidden spaces beneath Santa Ana, a secret world thrives, its members bound by shared experience and determination to survive.
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