On the 7^th of July on a starry night sky,
Do the fates of Princess Orihime and Hikoboshi lie.
On clear nights, only then can the lovers meet,
On the Milky Way, to connect their hearts with love so sweet.

You may know of Romeo and Juliet as the greatest ‘star crossed lovers’ in the West, but in the Orient, Orihime and Hikoboshi also had a tale of woe, to meet their eternal love as they do, fleetingly so.
However in our world, there be no star crossed lovers of the Sky.
Oh no, we only have star-aligned connections of the Sea.

The Sea is said to have once been a part of the sky, perhaps they were also lovers forced to part with air between them eternally keeping them apart. No matter how the Sky dresses for the day or night, the Sea will reflect it right back and the two kiss at the horizon, at times through the passionate heat of the sun in the Earth realm.

The Sea of Stars is a mirror not only of the sky, but of souls.
Human souls.

It reflects all the bonds humans make when they cross each other’s paths and we Star-Seers observe the celestial bodies of all of humanity in the Sea. We see their bonds reflected as sparkly trails that wax and wane between people’s souls known as celestial bodies in the water. Of course it’s eternally ‘night’ but the human concept of time doesn’t exist in this realm.
The waters are forever calm, at times a little undulating, but never stormy.

The Sea serves to reflect and show, not destroy.
She leaves that to the sky and her many moods that she likes to take out on humanity at times.

We Star-Seers have been around not too long after the Sea and Sky were split apart and exist only to observe. The thousands of years have been interesting in their evolution. At first the Sea was mostly untouched and tiny pockets of clumped soul bonds could be seen scattered here and there, like the way artificial lights gather in concentrated mass in Earth’s cities when looking from above.

As humanity evolved through the various ages of what they call ‘civilisation’, the concentrated groups increased and more souls started connecting to more souls. However, whenever various groups came into contact with other groups, a massive blackout of light would suddenly occur in the Sea like the black hole of the universe had swallowed them up.

Humanity seems to eternally be fond of conflict and mortals are but fleeting and fragile.
So easily do they perish.

Once humanity invented a flying metal cocoon to transport them across the sky and over the seas, did the Sea of Stars begin to light up tremendously. Souls began to create bonds that grew longer than we had ever seen, and the streams of starry light created a much complex and wider spider’s web of luminosity. We Star-Seers were fascinated at the speed this increased over the 20^th century, as towards the new millennium, humanity had entered a new phase of their evolution.

They had entered the ‘digital age’ with a new creation called ‘The Internet’.

Suddenly souls stopped moving from one part of the Sea and back again, stretching out their new bonds around the oceans, but rather, even more starry sparkly threads appeared while the celestial bodies stayed right where they were planted.
It was unprecedented!

For the first time, humanity had discovered that souls can bond without physical interaction and we Star-Seers were delighted for them as well as excited to see the new evolving networking patterns of sparkly light reflect the new emergence of soul connections.

One celestial body could suddenly be tied to tens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of other souls in an instant, even if the bonds were weak at first.
However, with such discovery and rapid growth, their own creations surpassed thousands of years of slowly cultivated human civilisation and biological evolution at an unnatural rate and have started poisoning their souls.

While many can maintain their bonds created through physical interaction across the oceans or create and build their own virtual communities, many can’t create bonds strong enough to last many years.
While many can be supported successfully by the mass, many are also tortured by the mass.
While so many can connect to other souls, so many cannot create bonds strong enough to reach the hearts of each soul and therefore a new earthly global pandemic has emerged among humanity.
Something we Sea-Seers could partially predict but not to this extent.

We started seeing an emergence of ‘lost souls’ wandering the oceans, wading and touching the starry bonds that brush along them.
Attempting to sync them to their hearts, but alas to no avail.

The threads fall back into the Sea and the lost soul continues wandering the waters, tormented by other souls connected with strong bonds. Jealous of the dazzling light around them but unable to connect to that it. Feeling the warmth of it for a short while but having none of their own to sustain their own hearts.

‘Loneliness’ they call it.

A tormenting new existence that has been born in the hearts of lost souls as a mini black hole, feeding off the essence of the celestial body. It comes as a form of mental illness at its most extreme but at times, simply a misplacement of the soul having being born in the wrong part of the sea where other souls did not accept them can also give birth to it.
However, as the heart-based back hole feeds of the lack of soul connections, the celestial body begins to fade and enter the process of death.

Soul death.

Something humanity had not evolved over thousands of years to endure or survive such torment.

The Sea of Stars now has a record number of souls.
8 billion, again unprecedented in the number or speed of growth within a mere 50 years.
The Internet has granted humanity with many opportunities to bond, but has also created many bonds to wither and fade out from lack of physical interaction.

It has also created many ‘phantom bonds’, where connection is felt but it isn’t genuine.
This appears as a pale beam of swirling dust motes between two celestial bodies, a pale imitation of a true soul bond. It can be felt by the souls, but we Star-Seers know it is nothing but an apparition of connection. This additional new side effect comes a result of humanity being able to don virtual masks and play a role to their mass audience.

Such fascinating new discoveries, both delightful and horrifying.

As the number of lost souls continues to increase, humanity has started to turn to inanimate objects as an attempt to bond, another fascinating discovery. We Star-Seers will continue to observe it all as we always have since the dawn of time.

The human soul will always crave connection while it resides in the Sea of Stars.
A severe lack of them will result in two ways:

Either the heart-based black hole consumes the soul entirely and they perish or their final breath from their physical body gives away to the same final end.