The pool Pavel is sitting in is square with a luminous floor that keeps the water lit in the dark room. It seems to be a sparse bedroom with smooth floors and walls and two bunks, one on each wall. Eddy sits in one plain bed alcove, reading a book. The other space is crowded with pillows and blankets with pictures and lights and trinkets taped and hung up along the walls. An animal skull rests in the window beside the more decorative alcove.
Pavel: Oh, Bert. I want to go home. The Aquifer is beautiful, but so sad.
Pavel looks forlornly up at the ceiling. He’s wearing swim trunks but no shirt, so the start of his seabite scar, jagged lines ringing around his neck, is more stark against the darker skin tone of his chest. The jellyfish in the spherical tank he’s holding seems to be Bert.
Pavel: Am I doomed to languish here in total misery? Will I leave here actually feeling dead, when I came here already feeling ALIVE? It’s like an anti-spa.
Bert: BUBBLE
Pavel glowers at his pet.
Pavel: Well, I’m glad YOU like it.
Eddy: Oh, just STOP.
Pavel turns his glare on his roommate, who is clearly not forgiven for the incident with the duckling gown. Eddy barely even looks up from his book to deliver his reproach.
Eddy: Can’t you stop talking for FIVE MINUTES? You probably don’t even know what ‘languish’ means…
Pavel: Sure: It’s the opposite of what I WANT to do, Eddy.
Eddy pulls his book closer to his chest and shifts back in the bed. His own seabite scars are a little more apparent now as well. White skin creeps halfway up his shins, like white socks, aside from the already apparent white arms and face.
Eddy: Look… Every time you open your mouth, something around here gets WORSE. You just need to shut up until you go home, like the rest of us. Why can’t you do that?
Unseen by either of the two boys a figure creeps up behind the wall of the more decorated bed alcove. She has fluffy black hair, a bracelet on one wrist and a ring on her other hand. The animal skull sits unassuming in the window as the figure reaches her hand into it.
Pavel: I can’t stay quiet when someone’s SCARED like that. I had to do SOMETHING.
Voice: My, my… What a caring child this one is… Someone must have raised him very well…
Pavel’s eyes go wide when he hears the voice, perhaps at the sound of someone else being in the room without his realizing- or perhaps at the familiarity of it.
