"Hey mom, thought I would come by. You said you wanted to show me something right?" Darya asked as she walked through the office door. She tossed her book bag on the chair in the corner, she used to sit in it all day when her mother would bring her to work when she was five. She loved watching her mother work, but lately, it"s been more paperwork and business trips then Denise actually helping and working with sea creatures and the water they live in.

"Yes sweetie, I wanted to check on that rash of yours. It"s obvious that the cream isn"t working and I thought I could make something from seawater that will work. On the table." She demanded while she ran around her office gathering things she hasn"t used in a while.

"You mean the table that you see sea animals on? Even perform some surgeries on them?" Darya asked as she eyed the table she remembered seeing an almost dead sea turtle being st.i.tched up it before.

"It"s cleaned after every use, now sit up there." She told her as she grabbed a beaker to mix the solution in.

"So why do you think seawater will fix it when nothing else has?" Darya asked intrigued.

"Because every time you let it breathe in the water it nearly heals. Then when it dries out after it gets even worse. It"s weird but for some reason it responses to the water. Now scoot back and lay your legs flat so I can see if this works." Denise asked and Darya complied.

"Mom, do you think I"m weird for not having a lot of friends?" She asked in a sadder tone.

Her tone pulled at Denise"s heartstrings. She knew her daughter very well and for the most part, there was never any secrets between them but the fact that her daughter was feeling isolated at her age made Denise want to grab her in a hug and never let her go.

"I don"t think you"re weird at all. I know you and Marty have been friends for a very long time, since daycare, but it"s not a bad thing that it"s just the two of you. Have people been making fun of you at school?" She asked in a worried tone.

"Not really, but it"s been more of like off-hand comments. Little snickers and stares. Nothing concrete. Marty feels it too but it"s easier for him. He has more friends on the swim team since I"m the only girl on there and that"s fine, I don"t have to be the only friend he has, but it"s a bit...I don"t know." She shrugged and laid back on the paper-covered medical bed.

"Now I want to look at this rash up close, okay? You may feel some pinching since I"ll be using a scalpel to see how it reacts to stimulation." Denise spoke as she walked around the table.

"Wait, what?" Darya asked as she quickly sat up to look at her mother.

"It"s not going to be bad, at most, it would be a little p.r.i.c.k." She rea.s.sured her as Darya laid back down. Her daughter may be a great swimmer and brave as h.e.l.l, but she was a weenie when it came to any sort of pain. Even as a child she would overdramatize anything that would happen to her.

"Fine, just hope this works." She grumbled as she tried to get comfortable.

Denise ran her rubber-gloved hand over the rash and watched Darya flinch slightly at the tickle her hand created. The rash was odd, the skin that was irritated was a bit greyer than her natural tone, not so much that it looked like dead flesh of anything. She took the scalpel and grazed it with the metal making Darya flinch again.

Denise studied it as she watched the rash almost react with the metal of the scalpel. It was such a small reaction that if she wasn"t nearly touching it with her eyes she wouldn"t have seen it happen.

"Darya, how long ago did it start peeling like this?" She asked as she tried to pull back some of the whiter dried-out skin.

"Maybe a few weeks, a bit after my birthday." She said after wincing when her mother peeled a bit of the skin away from her existing flesh.

"Ow! Mom!" She called out to her. Denise apologized but kept at it. What she saw under the dry skin nearly made her faint, but she wouldn"t scare her daughter like that. She stared at her leg for a very long time, long enough for Darya to start asking her what was going on.

She walked over to the counter and grabbed the solution she created earlier that day. It was more or less a salt.w.a.ter infused cream. She hoped it was enough of the salt.w.a.ter to do something about the rash.

Her hands shook when she walked back over to her daughter and the area of skin that was freaking her out. She looked down at the patch of skin that was now slightly shimmering under the overhanging lights of her office. She couldn"t believe she was staring at a small patch of scales on her daughter"s skin.

She closed her eyes and shook her head to keep the thoughts from sticking and squeezed a bit of cream into her hand and applied it to the rash affected areas. Soon the tiny patch of scales disappeared along with most of the rash.

"It looks like it"s working. I may or may not be a superhero," she announced as Darya sat up to look at her leg.

"Wow, it hasn"t looked this good in a long time. Maybe you should have been a doctor." She joked as she rubbed the spot where the rash had been red and angry before.

Denise watched her do this and the only thing she could think of is the strange image from before. Maybe it was all the late nights and the work exhaustion that was making her see things. That had to be it. Her daughter didn"t have scales like a fish, she was human. She gave birth to her, she of all people should know that. But she couldn"t get the image of the scales out of her head.