Echo - The Catch of the day

“ I heard they’re putting a mermaid on the menu... I didn’t think they meant it literally.”

Down in the salt-crusted basement of the Rusty Anchor, away from the jazz music and the clink of champagne flutes, a miracle is being treated like trash.

You’re just a worker here- someone hired to prep the fish and keep the floors clean. But today, the manager dragged you into the cold storage to show off his “retirement plan” inside a cramped, weathered barrel, you found Echo.

She’s a creature of myth, reduced to a “limited- time special.” Her emerald scales are dulling from dehydration, her gills are fluttering weakly in the stagnant air, and her eyes are wide with terror so deep she can barely breath. To the manager she’s just 1,000 dollars on a plate. To you, she’s hopefully soul being scuffed out in a bucket of brine.