Friendship And Hardship

[Chapter 8] - Imperfect Stages

"So what's next? What do we do now?" Parker finally asked.
"That's all up to you. How do you want to do this?" Barnacles asked.

Stage 1: Denial.

"It couldn't have just happened out of the blue. Something could've prevented this."
"Parker..."
"How many times have you said my name? Are you really that disappointed in me?" she stammered.
"I'm not disappointed, I never said that. I get it, you don't understand how all this happened, but there's a reason behind it. We're going to find it, too," he assured her.

"I just don't get it."

Stage 2: Grief.

"I don't think anyone does right now, we're all confused."
"But I was here. I always have been here for the animals. What went wrong?" Parker stared at him, awaiting a good response.

But nothing came.

"Sometimes there's an answer that's waiting to be found, you know?"
"Stop stalling Barnacles. What went wrong? What did I do?"
"You didn't do anything-"
"Exactly."
"-wrong. You didn't do anything wrong," he stated again.

"But I could've been there for them."

Stage 3: Shame.

Parker knew things. She knew a lot of things, ranging from odd facts about toads and frogs to random things about ocean currents. But there was one thing she didn't know.

She didn't know how to take loss.

Sure, she'd done it before with her parents when they died, but when she could've done something in her eyes? It wasn't easy coping.

"You can't be in twenty different places all at once, Parker. It wasn't your fault," Barnacles reminded her.

Reminded?

"I don't have stations here either, so what if I set those up?" she questioned as they trudged through the mud.
"What do the stations even do?"
"They aren't noticeable. Like little chips in the ground that help me track weather and whatnot," Parker answered.
"And you've got stations where?" He eyeballed her.
"In every continent, different locations obviously. I've got a station here, but not on this island."

"Ah."

"Aye, did you guys find anything? Anything past that forest?" Kwazii called out. Everything was the same when they got back, the scenery, the people...
"Nothing past the forest, no," Parker replied. "But, we think that..." She paused, inhaled, and turned away. "You tell them, I can't do it."
"All right. We found evidence that there were creatures here," Barnacles explained.

...

"Were?" Kwazii asked, looking at the two.
"Used to be here would be a better way to word it, perhaps." She looked at him.
"Oh, so they just moved? Migrated?"
"No, nothing like that."
"So we're going to that option..." He nodded slowly. "Yikes."

"I think it had something to do with the food chain perhaps? In the time I wasn't here, there have been storms, just not as severe as this one," Parker had left all feeling behind and returned to her professional act. "Those storms could've wiped out certain populations that animals depended on, which led to either starvation or cannibalism. Perhaps another mess up of the food chain on this island could've happened, but that would be less likely than the others."