Sea Star - Orm Marius

Amnesty Bay, Maine - 2018

"Hey, I heard you were back in town."

"Hey Squirt!" Arthur leapt off the bar stool and  engulfed Claudia  in a hug. When they had been kids, there was a sweet moment of her being taller than him. Then, when his growth spurt had hit, it had hit, and now he was a giant, and how he loved to tease her about it, and endlessly. "How you been?"

"Good, and yourself."

"Can't complain. How's your family?"

"Good. And how's Tom?"

Tom raised his glass. "Fine, thanks Claudia."

"Can I buy you a drink?" Arthur asked her.

"Yes please." She slid onto the stool next to the Currys. 

As soon as her beer was in hand, they toasted. 

"Hey Buddy-" Suddenly, a group of guys had approached Arthur.  "Are you that Fish Boy from  TV?"

"Oh, great." Tom winked, playing along. 

Arthur stood up to face the newcomers.  "It's Fish Man, actually. What do you want?"

"I'll tell you what we want-" The guy reached into his vest - and pulled out a phone. "Can we get a picture? You're like our local hero, man."

Arthur grumbled, while Tom and Claudia laughed. 

In the end they racked up a high tab and drank way too much. Arthur had said he would give her a ride back to the boat that she called home, where she ran her underwater photography. 

She left the washroom and the bar to find Tom already in the beat up old truck and Arthur standing by the docks. There was a flash of green and red, but it might have just been her tipsy brain playing tricks on her. "Hey, was that a mermaid?"

"Something like that." He turned away from the rippling water and back to the truck.  "Come on Squirt, let's get you home."

It was a short drive down to  her end of the docks and it was good she was home because the beers were really settling in now. "Thanks for the ride."

"Anytime."

"And hey, don't be such a stranger around here."

He nodded and waved.  "Night, Claudie."

"Night, Arthur. Night, Tom," she called, but Tom was snoozing away in the passenger seat. She waved until the truck disappeared down the drive before stepping aboard her boat, Melody, after her mother. 

She was just checking on things above decks before heading down for the night, when the squawking of seagulls and the rushing of water struck her still hazy brain. A flock of gulls was flying rapidly overhead, and as for the water-

She turned away from the docks to look out a the ocean. 

A terrifying sight met her eyes. 

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A tidal wave had struck. And not just in Amnesty Bay, but all over the world. Ships and decades worth of trash had been shoved out of the water and back onto the surface, leaving catastrophic damage and intense fear. 

"Claudie!" There was Arthur running down the docks towards where she and the other boat owners were trying to clean things up. "You okay? What's the damage?"

"It's pretty ugly," she admitted. "See for yourself."

"You're not hurt are you?" 

"Amazingly not, we were lucky.  Can't say the same about the boat, though."