A minimum wage pet shop employee has an unfortunate accident while performing routine aquarium maintenance. At least she won't have to worry about bills anymore.

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Proper Care & Maintenance For Your Nereides 5000 Aquarium
by Triangle (~2000 words)


An early wintry sunset casts a low red glow onto the promotional banners of kittens in santa hats stuck to the glass at the front of the store. The soundtrack of rush hour traffic backed up at the intersection. A young store associate in a bright yellow polo shirt finishes a cigarette outside while checking her bank account on her phone. 6:30pm, just thirty minutes before closing.

–

The Nereides was the biggest fish tank we'd ever gotten in and by far the biggest pain in the ass to maintain. Nobody wanted to deal with this shit. Kerry called in sick on cleaning days just to avoid dealing with it, which of course meant someone else had to. Usually I was on floors - mopping, sweeping, whatever, let the fish people deal with that. But today our newly-promoted associate manager Kevin saw me on my phone and recruited me to help him with the tank.

No one seemed to know where it came from. Six feet wide, three feet tall, three feet deep. Built-in pumps for aeration and circulation, LED blacklights installed along the edges to illuminate the genetically engineered fish and tacky dayglo decor. A neon orange skull rested along one side, which gave the entire thing the eerie impression of some kind of watery coffin.

A watery coffin with neon lights.

Supposedly the gigantic fish tank came with a sixty page manual - there were lots of moving pieces, sensors, various mechanisms that required precise maintenance. And of course someone lost it the first week it was delivered. Instead, a creased 8.5x11 printout in a page protector taped to the side listed out the steps for cleaning.

"Kevin, I don't even know what I'm doing. This isn't my department," I said. "Can't we just wait for Kerry to get back tomorrow and have her do it?"

He wrestled behind the tank and undid the casters. Grunted as he pushed the thing away from the wall enough where he could get to the control panel in the back.

Kevin smirked, sweat starting to bead on his forehead. "No can do, Alex. We're supposed to get audited sometime this week and if the maintenance isn't done on schedule it's gonna look bad." For him, he didn't have to say.

He caught his breath, looked back over at me. "Come on, it won't be that bad. Grab the ladder and get the lid off, I'll go get the chemicals."

But I was busy reading the long list of steps required for maintenance. Typical boring shit except for the bolded sentence at the top warning employees not to begin cleaning until the power had been disconnected. Someone had circled it messily with a red sharpie. I looked at the sheet, then at my manager, who was still struggling to budge the tank. "Are you gonna turn it off?"

"Uh, no, why?"

"It says very clearly here on the instructions that the unit has to be turned off before conducting maintenance." I lifted the page up and tapped at the bold red warning.

Kevin paused blankly, then laughed. "Oh, those? Yeah we haven't been doing that since we got this thing. When the pumps shut off they kept breaking, no clue why. It's stupid expensive to fix so let's just be careful and this will be over in no time."

Fuck you, Kevin. I wanted to say. But I'd only been here a few months and it had been hard enough finding a job in the first place.

He seemed to read the thoughts on my face.

"Look, Alex - I really appreciate your help. Come on, help me out this one time and I'll buy you lunch. Or," he seemed to consider with a wry grin, "maybe dinner after work?"

I sighed loud enough for the customer browsing rabbit food next to me to hear.

"Lunch would be fine. Thanks. Just get the stuff and let's get this over with."

Kevin blushed and nodded as he left to get the pH stuff in the back rooms. Meanwhile I set up the ladder at the edge and climbed up to open the lid.

God, this thing was heavy. How did Kerry do this by herself each week? It helped that I'd been going to the gym again, but still, just lifting one edge of the lid took considerable strength.

I finally got a good enough grip on the lid without managing to pinch my fingers and levered it up. It had a folding brace on the edge that could snap into place to keep the thing open, though how such a dinky mechanism could hold a hundred pound glass lid was beyond me

"Kevin? Come on, I got it open. Let's–"

The ladder shifted and I lost my balance. My body figured it out before my brain. I was falling.

A loud splash and a much louder crack startled everyone in the store as I tripped over into the tank, knocking the brace out of position and slamming the lid back into place on top, trapping me inside.

A blast of treated water shot into my nose, stung my eyes as I thrashed around in a panic. Glowing fish darted for cover at the edges of the tank, flitting across my skin as they sped out of the way.

Already I was choking -- too soon, too soon, I had foolishly let all the air escape from my lungs with a scream of shock. A few centimeters of air at the top of the tank but not enough space to hold my mouth in position to breathe

Just as I reached the height of my panic, something changed. As my head fell beneath the water again, I noticed the glow of the neon lights. Something different about them from inside the tank, something... almost calming.

My heart was pounding, but at the same time I felt strangely relaxed. The lights pulsed gently, an effect I'd never noticed before, and while my body continued thrashing around in the tank I felt oddly at ease. Lit by the colorful glow of the lamp, the world outside began to fade from my mind.

When I got out of this fucking tank I was going to tear Kevin a new asshole. Wait, why did I just say that? Kevin was kinda cute. Dinner may not be so bad after all. Actually, it sounded great. So hungry all of a sudden. No, fuck Kevin! what's for dinner? am I hungry? I'm hungry too. am I dinner?

The tank's LED blacklights rhythmically pulsed and it became harder to think, or really it became harder to stop thinking. She felt like I could feel each individual synapse fire and float away as thought after thought came and went as my interior monologue started to splinter into a dialogue, a conversation, a commotion. She couldn't hear barely hear anyone over all this noise and I was talking with myselves. myself. We was talking about Kevin. I like Kevin. we was, we were, Kevin, who was Kevin? But she's so hungry all of a sudden. who's hungry who's dinner? water warm.

Her thoughts lost focus, diffused further, and she found as her body gradually relaxed that her thoughts continued to simplify. Came easy, left easier. No anxiety, no late payments, no sad, just warm. all one. the water is warm. safe. not alone anymore. others here. familiar me but not me. I remember me. you're here too? of course we are, she says with a smile. she was she was she was and then she wasn't.

the water is warm. the water is salty. the name is fish. who are you? my name is... what? my name is Kerry? where have you been? it's nice to meet you. My name is Alex. My name is my name is you. My name I can't remember our name. our name is it doesn't matter. our name is fish fish fish fish. her name is food not food fish fish. me too. water warm home safe home fish hungry hungry

–

Outside the tank, a couple of the last customers of the night had gathered, drawn by the commotion.

What they saw didn't make sense. The girl from the store had fallen in, but she didn't look right. she wasn't struggling at all, in fact she was barely moving. but as the bubbles appeared, she seemed to actually be breathing underwater

That was when the changes started to become more obvious. It started with her fingers, one hand pressed to the glass. her hand relaxed, palms open , and suddenly her hand seemed to be surrounded by several shimmering neon fish

But they hadn't come from the edges of the tank. They were coming out of her. The customers watched as her palm began to change color, started to glow under the black lights. and then split open, and what looked like shreds of flesh at first they quickly recognized as multicolored glowing fish.

They watched as the process continued up to the sleeve of her polo, as the friendly clerk - Alex? what had her name been? continued to dissolve into a school of fish

By now the change had arrived at her midsection, her empty shoes settled at the bottom of the tank, socks kept in place. a stream of orange and pink fish filtered out of them. Her pants seemed to ripple and bulge as hundreds of tiny fish shot out of them, gradually slackening as what remained of her legs dissolved away.

Still the girl stared up, transfixed by the lights, beginning now to spin a little as her pants slipped away and her shirt untucked to reveal nothing remaining below her torso. arms gone, her features increasingly obscured by hundreds of brightly colored fish.

The change accelerated. Her shirt folded inward with nothing underneath to support it, and then only her head remained, spun around by the whorls of brightly colored fish that now crowded the gigantic tank.

"I was thinking, you want to maybe try that new Thai place that just opened u--" Kevin rounded the corner and dropped the maintenance supplies in shock

"Oh, fuck! FUCK! Alex?? ALEX!"

The man rushed to the side of the tank, pushed the guests out of the way. 'What are you people doing?? Why are you just standing there?"

But then he too was dumbstruck as he noticed the empty pile of clothing suspended, half floating in the tank. Where was she? Where did all these fish come from, they weren't supposed to get new inventory until Thursday?

"Alex? Where the fuck did you – what's happening?"

And then he noticed in the swirling cloud of glowing fish, a flash of recognition. Alex's face, but strangely marked, painted bright neon by the tank lights. His eyes kept moving, not registering what they were seeing. Her face, attached to her head, attached to... nothing.

Then she seemed to spin to face him, brushed gently by the spinning cloud of fish, her glowing face marked by hundreds of little fissures.

She looked at him and smiled, and the cracks fractured into dozens of little moving slivers of light, glowing from within. She smiled and then she was gone.

Kevin's shadow loomed over the tank. He stood there with the other guests, speechless, for what seemed like an eternity. The effect of the black light on the swirls of tiny fish was hypnotic.

Finally the store’s phone rang, and he woke from his trance with a start. The fish scattered for cover, some resting inside the pirate-themed plastic skeleton in the corner.

What was he doing? That could be the auditors. Shit, how was he going to clean this tank out by himself? Why couldnt they ever just staff this place the right way so he wouldn’t have to do all this shit himself? Wasn't Alex scheduled for this shift? She was going to get a talking to tomorrow.

Kevin cursed under his breath and excused himself to the customers as he sauntered over to the register.

"Sorry, I need to get that! We're closing soon, but were you looking to get any fish?"