In the back of a local exotic pet store there is a small, dusty, forgotten fishbowl. The water is perpetually murky but something definitely bobs and undulates within the fetid water.
Closer inspection of the water reveals that there is an odd, vaguely fish-like creature in the bowl. It has bulbous eyes that seem to orbit independently. A toothless sucker mouth is the only other feature on its “face”. It possesses fins sprouting in all angles as well as a cluster of tendrils and two small, almost lame-looking forelimbs ending and fragile digits.
The thing in the bowl seems quite aware of those looking in on it though it does little to interact with them. It will simply watch them, follow them, sometimes with an eerie intensity.
Asking the aged shopkeeper anything about will bring only the vaguest of answers. The thing was brought into the shop by his grandfather and has been there through three generations of his family. It rarely leaves the shop and always seems to be returned – usually in a hurry and often left on the doorstep.
The old man will also caution against feeding it. Though it seems to sustain itself well enough through consuming the filth in its bowl, the thing grows rapidly if it eats anything else. It was the size of a pea when his grandfather brought it to the shop and has grown, through various happenstance, to the size of a grapefruit over the years.
The creature has a name too. It is named “Bubbles”.
Possibilities
1 Bubbles is little more than a deformity. Possibly a fish or amphibian that has managed to survive. Any suggestion of it having something more than dull awareness of its surroundings is merely the projection of struck onlookers.
2 Bubbles is the embryonic phase of some greater creature. The shopkeepers grandfather found it while seeking exotic creatures bringing it home as a mere curiosity.
The creature has been sustaining itself through some unknown means, its growth kept in check by the lack of flesh in its diet.
3 The creature is a prisoner. The shopkeeper’s grandfather had found it and subdued it, weakening it from some greater beast and withering it in the process. Placing it in the bowl in his own shop and entrusting it to his family, he had hoped to keep it imprisoned.
Fate and time have blurred the origins of the creature and the reasons for its addition to the shop and it has slowly gained in power as it has been sold and let out into the world. Fortune and its buyers’ low tolerance for its oddity have been the only things to have kept it in check for all these years.
© Eli Arndt
Closer inspection of the water reveals that there is an odd, vaguely fish-like creature in the bowl. It has bulbous eyes that seem to orbit independently. A toothless sucker mouth is the only other feature on its “face”. It possesses fins sprouting in all angles as well as a cluster of tendrils and two small, almost lame-looking forelimbs ending and fragile digits.
The thing in the bowl seems quite aware of those looking in on it though it does little to interact with them. It will simply watch them, follow them, sometimes with an eerie intensity.
Asking the aged shopkeeper anything about will bring only the vaguest of answers. The thing was brought into the shop by his grandfather and has been there through three generations of his family. It rarely leaves the shop and always seems to be returned – usually in a hurry and often left on the doorstep.
The old man will also caution against feeding it. Though it seems to sustain itself well enough through consuming the filth in its bowl, the thing grows rapidly if it eats anything else. It was the size of a pea when his grandfather brought it to the shop and has grown, through various happenstance, to the size of a grapefruit over the years.
The creature has a name too. It is named “Bubbles”.
Possibilities
1 Bubbles is little more than a deformity. Possibly a fish or amphibian that has managed to survive. Any suggestion of it having something more than dull awareness of its surroundings is merely the projection of struck onlookers.
2 Bubbles is the embryonic phase of some greater creature. The shopkeepers grandfather found it while seeking exotic creatures bringing it home as a mere curiosity.
The creature has been sustaining itself through some unknown means, its growth kept in check by the lack of flesh in its diet.
3 The creature is a prisoner. The shopkeeper’s grandfather had found it and subdued it, weakening it from some greater beast and withering it in the process. Placing it in the bowl in his own shop and entrusting it to his family, he had hoped to keep it imprisoned.
Fate and time have blurred the origins of the creature and the reasons for its addition to the shop and it has slowly gained in power as it has been sold and let out into the world. Fortune and its buyers’ low tolerance for its oddity have been the only things to have kept it in check for all these years.
© Eli Arndt
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