Azazel:Deadwater:9/19/25
Spent the morning getting to know the entity called Marge. A marine biologist with the neurotic intensity of Captain Ahab, she’s been in Deadwater her whole life. Her father was a crab boat fisherman, thus her family was at the mercy of the Dungeness, dashed against the rocks of impecunity, or showered with riches, depending on the apparent whim of the crabs to thrive or self-destruct. She may have become a little obsessed with discovering the reason for the random, sudden, and precipitous crab die-offs that made a whirling crank on a jack-in-the-box out of her childhood happiness.
Which is unfortunate, because she’ll never know the cause, it being cosmological as opposed to biological.
C’est la vie, as they say.
We sat in one of the cafes overlooking the ocean. She wore a black hoodie, her silver-streaked, long dark hair loose and flowing. She is forty-seven, she made sure to let me know just how long the crabs have been tormenting her. Since day one.
“Crabs went bust the year I was born. Dad threatened to throw me to the sea as an offering the day I was born. Got as far as that cliff,” she paused and pointed to Anya’s escape, jutting out from the coast and into the roiling ocean like bow sprit. “Mother had let the hospital staff know and the entire police department was out blocking the cliff. Locked him up for a couple days to give him time to think. He graciously decided I could live.” Her coffee mug shook in her hand as she brought it to her mouth. “I was spared for one purpose, to unlock the mystery of the crabs. Why, when their environment is stable, do they die on mass? There’s no pattern to it, nothing in the ocean currents, the water conditions, the food chain, nothing. I’ve run tests and done studies for nearly two decades and we’re no closer to discovering the reason than we were when I started.” She set her coffee down with a thunk and looked me in the eye, “I’m haunted. I’ll go to my grave with the stink of crab guts in my hair.” She shoved a mass of scrambled eggs in her mouth.
“Hm. Not to change the topic, but I’m gonna change the topic, what’s your take on the people we pulled out of the ocean yesterday?”
“My take?” She said with a full mouth, “My take is that it’s not my field of study. Someone else will have to do blood, DNA, all that. I’m not in the business of discovering a new species, unless it’s one killing my-“ She stopped and put down her fork. “I have to get to the hospital.”
I had to pay for breakfast.
Miriam:Deadwater:9/19/25
The hospital was shrouded in fog this morning. Literally and figuratively. My new job is as a Patient Comfort Assistant. I’m supposed to make the rounds of all the rooms four times a day and ask everyone if they need anything. I have a little cart with water, snacks, pillows, blankets, books, even games. I’m allowed to play games or read books to patients in between my rounds if they want. Seems pretty chill. I’ve already got three different chess games going on in the long-term care ward, and I’m reading War and Peace to a lady in the ICU. Another lady threw a water cup at me when I told her that her chart said she couldn’t have chocolate. I’d be pissed too, though.
But of course, the reason I was there was the sea people. I’m supposed to be getting intel for Az. There is sooo much gossip, patient privacy be damned I guess. I figured I’d have to break into their room or something, but everyone is just spilling tea all over everywhere.
Some details: they have smooth gray to greenish blue skin, legs, lungs AND gills, they’re bald, have claws, fins.. oh and they do seem to speak to each other, and need to stay wetish. One of the nurses said a humidifier in the room is working just fine for them. I learned that the doctor taking care of them is a lady named Dr. Milton. She’s then most experienced, although in what I’m not sure. When I asked what was going to happen to them everyone just shrugged.
“Unless we can talk to them, we won’t know if they want to stay here or go back to the water. Or why they even came here in the first place. If they need help, I hope we can help them.” That was my supervisor, Clara, she’s the head nurse. But then there was Bob, one of the other nurses who said he thought they shouldn’t even have been brought to the hospital in the first place, but should have been trucked to one of the wildlife rescue places. “They’re animals. We don’t help animals here.”
“Humans do actually belong to the kingdom Animalia. The only reason you think you’re superior is because of centuries of religious cultural brainwashing. Humans aren’t better than other animals, we’re worse because we destroy everything we touch and barely even care.”
“You’re fun.” Bob was waiting for Clara to get off the phone and leaning up against the cabinets in the nurse’s station. He rolled his eyes.
“No I’m not.”
Clara was off the phone by now so I didn’t have to suffer through Bob any more. But I did resolve to call him Robert.
And tell Az about the animal comment. What if other people start to see them that way, too?
August:
We don’t know where we are but we found each other in this vast, darkness. Evelyn’s fingers grip me tightly. The ground is soft, the air is wet and smells bitter. We see nothing but occasionally bump into walls that are wet and pillowy.
This is an end or a new beginning.
We know not, yet.
