"Are you going to be a good boy?"
The demon"s voice whispered in Rand"s ear.
Her voice was rough as if her tongue had been thoroughly burned by the sulfur of h.e.l.l, and every syllable was just like the devil"s soul screaming behind him.
"I will."
—When Rand woke up from his dream, he heard himself talking out loud.
His body twitched unconsciously... He quickly pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and the shaking disappeared a few minutes later.
Rand was laying down on his bed gasping for air, the cold sweat dampened his pajamas, which made him feel pretty uncomfortable.
Nightmare.
Rand knew that he had started again, this kind of thing often happens, it would even flare-up during his peaceful life with the Asian couple. The psychiatrist said that he had had some kind of psychological trauma, but Rand felt that everything was fine with him.
It"s no more than a few instances of talking in his sleep while dreaming and physiological twitches after he wakes up, Rand is already starting to get used to it by now
Soon he woke up and found that his headache, like the nightmare, had already faded away.
This kind of feeling is pretty good, it was as if he obtained a new life, to put it another way.
Rand got out of bed and found that the clothes he was wearing yesterday were neatly folded at his bedside. The trace of a faint feminine perfume remained in this room, belonging to Rogers.
This overly feminine thoughtfulness made Rand feel a bit of an indescribable embarra.s.sment. He looked at those clothes, then grabbed them and stuffed them while he pa.s.sed by his washing machine.
In the living room, Rand couldn"t help but stop in his steps, that smell...
Rand felt like he smelled something again, a slight stench of rot.
But the smell is just like an apparition. Once you concentrate your attention on it, it will disappear.
In order to deal with the strange odor that might be an illusion, Rand yanked the curtains apart. It was still early, but the sunlight that poured in torrents into the room nevertheless made him squint his eyes in recoil. Other side effects of the vaccine are still around, he can endure being in somewhat poor health.
The sound of the water suddenly came from the kitchen, Rand ma.s.saged his forehead and slowly came up to the kitchen where he proceeded to see water flowing onto the kitchen counter and the fish spinning around in the bowl.
He couldn"t help but pause in his steps.
Rand immediately discovered that the fish"s wound was healing, the white film fell to the bottom of the bowl, and the water was a bit turbid, giving off a sort of extremely unpleasant smell.
"Oh, I forgot all about you."
Rand raised his eyebrows and said to the little guy in the salad bowl.
He walked back to the corridor and found the fish food recommended by the pet shop owner in the middle of the pile of various items and sprinkled them randomly on the water surface. However, the fish just lazily turned around, not eating any of the food.
Rand stood on the other side of the kitchen counter and observed it for a while, using his fingers to flick the wall of the salad bowl. However, the fish still hadn"t reacted at all. It seemed as if the fish food was merely dust that had fallen on the water surface.
Rand couldn"t help but once again flick the salad bowl, only trying to simply catch the fish"s attention— forgive him, after all, he has never kept any animals in his limited memory.
The fish suddenly stretched out of the water and bit at his finger.
"Hey—"
Rand immediately pulled his finger back.
He was frightened into nearly jumping, but it was completely different from the terrifying scenario in which his finger would have been bitten off by the fish. The fish only superficially bit it.
Lifting up his finger, Rand can see a shallow white mark there.
It was not until this moment that cold sweat slowly dripped down from his forehead.
"This wasn"t funny."
Even though he knew that a fish could not understand human language, Rand couldn"t help but raise his voice at it.
"..."
Of course, he did not receive any response.
The beautiful blue-green neon fish that came out into view circled its body around lazily, its rotund belly hit against the stainless steel surface of the salad bowl. Each of its scales looked like a meticulously carved work of art.
Rand raised his eyebrows and came to the sudden realization that he was talking to a fish.
That"s right, he"ll admit it, this is indeed a bit stupid.
He seemed to hear a voice cheerfully stating those words at him, so he removed his attention from the salad bowl and landed on the aquarium miscellanea at his door.
In theory, at this time he should first make himself some toast, scrambled eggs, a cup of black coffee with a captivating scent— oh, nevermind, no coffee, he forgot that he had just finished being vaccinated.
In short, he should make himself some breakfast, but that scene of the fish sullenly staying in the salad bowl is really depressing.
(Forgive him, he is actually beginning to put himself in the fish"s shoes.)
Ultimately, he spent a little longer than he expected to properly put together that simple fish tank. It looks pretty good. The only complications that Rand ran into were how little sea salt it called to sprinkle, but in the end, he decided to follow the guidebook. No matter how good the final result is, it will at least be better than what he had made with table sea salt and drinking water— even if he thought like this when Rand put the fish in its newly-prepared aquarium, he still felt a little nervous.
What if this fish for some G.o.dd.a.m.n reason is unable to adapt to this more properly mixed "seawater"?
He had a funny thought play across his mind, it wasn"t until this time that he realized that he had begun looking forward to this weird little thing...
Rand blanked out for a moment and then bitterly laughed.
Alright, this is really a fresh experience for him. (Remember what we said before? In Rand"s limited memory, he has never taken care of any pets before, and the reality is that he only ever had to take responsibility for taking care of himself and that horde of c.o.c.kroaches in his apartment in rural New Jersey— of course, you don"t need to be responsible for c.o.c.kroaches.)
Rand didn"t know if this was a good chance, but it was just like that song, let him go.
He looked at his own handiwork, the water pump was installed a bit askew, but here"s the wonderful thing, it"s just a simple aquarium, nothing more. The sky-blue liquid inside is compatible with the distinctly even more carefree fish, it made a wonderful sense of satisfaction arise in him.
Oh, no matter how it looked, at least he has a fish now.
This fish looks much more lovely in the aquarium than it did in the salad bowl. Naturally, it also doesn"t display any signs of being unwell. It seems that its life is indeed very tenacious.
Rand remembered what that shop owner had said to him.
"Little monster."
He stuck out his finger and tapped against the resin wall set up between him and unconsciously muttered this sentence.
A moment later, Rand felt that "Munster" (Monster) might be a good name— at least for a weird fish.
Rand, nearly full of tender affection from the bottom of his heart, once again sprinkled a bit of fish food on the water"s surface. He expected Munster to eat in a comfortable environment, but the same thing happened again. Its att.i.tude towards fish food can still be described as, "distaining as beneath contempt", and Rand does not want to experience the feeling of having his finger bitten by a fish (even if it does not cause any harm to him).
He felt a little confused and was not sure whether it was a problem with Munster or a problem with the fish food.
Rand ultimately decided to make himself breakfast first and think of a way to try and find an answer on the Internet... providing he was capable of finding it.
However, when he finished making his toast and brought the plate back to stand beside the aquarium again, he found that Munster had given fish feed a new usage—a viscous, visibly snot-like ma.s.s appeared in the corner of the fish tank that took Rand quite a long time, the multicolored fish food dyed by food coloring is like some kind of special decorative material that adorns the surface of the mucus.
There is a distinct cavity in the middle of the gathered mucus, which looks similar to a coc.o.o.n or something else, but no matter what it is, it looks utterly disgusting.
Rand"s face twisted looking at that thing. Munster was busily transporting the fish food from the surface of the water to the outside of the "coc.o.o.n". Rand was not very sure if fish could sense human emotions too, but when Rand felt nauseated, Munster unexpectedly turned its body around.
It held a lot of tiny granules of fish food in its mouth and the striped markings on its body looked a lot brighter. The fish"s mouth b.u.mped consolingly against the wall of the aquarium, and soon after began to work on decorating it"s "coc.o.o.n", just as diligently as a worker bee.
Rand knit his brows and shifted his gaze back to the plate in his hand, where there was a small lump of scrambled eggs. Rand found that he already lost his appet.i.te.
After just fifteen minutes of resolving himself to keep a pet, Rand had started to regret it.
(TN: Take this surprise chapter cough cough. I was abandoned at school without a ride home and was able to get most of it done at the library. It is a very cute chapter after all the horror yet still a bit gross... But hey? Creepy fish gong has his official name now! Make way for Munster!)