Sea Stars & Wishes

Chapter 2

Lyrika

The merman doesn't spare Lyrika a glance. Her eyebrows scrunch in confusion. Who spoke if Song is the only one here?

"Sorry about that. Had to use the restroom," a male voice calls from behind Lyrika. Of course it wasn't Song who spoke to her. Why would he? She turns to see a door propped open, previously blended into the wall. The door shuts revealing Junhee.

Oh, this is about to be awkward. Lyrika thinks back to just a couple hours ago when Junhee gave them the aquarium tour and she had spoken up about Song's captivity. Now it's just the three of them alone in this room.

"I didn't want anyone who needed to use the room to think someone isn't here," Junhee smiles then notices Lyrika, "oh, you're not one of the girls doing their project on Song."

"Uh, no," Lyrika awkwardly stammers, "I'm doing mine on sea stars."

"That's right! You asked a handful of questions, sorry I couldn't answer all of them," Junhee apologizes. I guess he's either forgotten about the encounter earlier at Song's tank, or he's just deciding to forgo it and move on.

"That's alright. I found Layla not too long ago," Lyrika laughs trying to dispel the awkwardness hanging in the air.

"So what brings you down here?" Junhee asks as he takes a seat at one of the tables near Song's pool. Song still staring at the wall, completely ignoring them.

"I'm just exploring around," Lyrika tells him as she continues her walk around the room, looking into all the different little pools and tanks, "I completed my to-do list for the day... Where did all my other classmates go? I figured they all might be in here since Song is."

"Some talked about lunch fairly quickly when Song didn't want to talk to them. Others left to go do inspections or something in regards to his tank," Junhee shrugs, "but a lot of them talked about changing their project topics to their back up. Guess Song wasn't everything they hoped him to be." That doesn't surprise Lyrika; at one point she was curious about Song and researched a little. Everything she found showed him looking and sounding miserable here. Who would blame him? To be 'rescued' and deemed unfit to return to the freedom of the ocean and instead dumped into a 100,000 gallon tank.

Lyrika looks back towards Song, who still doesn't seem to pay them any mind. Then the sea star pool in the corner of her eye catches her attention once more. She turns and walks back over to the pool.

"Hey, Junhee, what's happening to sea stars in this pool?" Lyrika asks as she looks over the edge into the water. At least a couple dozen lay scattered in the pool, all at different parts of the decaying process. Junhee sets his phone down, and looks over to her.

"They're decaying," Junhee answers.

"They're dying?" Lyrika gasps.

"It's called Sea Star Wasting Syndrome. It's been happening for over ten years now. We don't know the cause or how to save them. We do know that it is contagious, so a group of surfers bring in stars when they spot the disease to prevent the spread of it," Junhee explains.

"There has to be something," Lyrika laughs in disbelief, ten years and no cure?

"The disease was rampant and almost caused several sea stars to go extinct, but over the years, with the help of managing to quarantine and remove sick sea stars the disease is not as commonly found," Junhee tells her.

"But there are several sea stars here," Lyrika counters his claim.

"That may be true, but back then I heard there were hundreds brought in every day. Now we get one every few days," Junhee calmly responds, "that's better. It's hard to predict when a sea star gets the disease. But once the signs start showing the sea stars are days away from death. It's unfortunate, but there is nothing we can do."