TW: >!Self harm, Blood!<
My dear friend Tara loved aquariums. She had 3 tanks when I first met her, which became 5 a year later. She was happy to spend her free time feeding, cleaning, and water testing. All of her friends, including myself, saw that the hobby brought her joy. She was elated when talking about her tetras, gleeful to mention her Corydoras, excited to share the latest news of her pea puffers.
That all changed, when she adopted the Blood Cichlids. They were a bright orange-red, she’d bought them from an aqua-swap website. These weren’t normal cichlids. They were the brightest red I’ve ever seen in nature, and Tara agreed.
Cichlids are aggressive, so her most recent additions lived in their own tank. The first few weeks were normal, Tara seemed especially happy, as was the usual when she assembled a new fish tank.
Soon I began to notice something was wrong. Tara was still happy, but exhausted. She had been staying up most of the night to watch the Cichlids, and began to miss Thursday trivia night.
“Louis, have you ever loved something so much you’d sacrifice yourself?” she said to me. Of course I said yes. My little sister passed away when I was 9, I loved her that much and more. People always talk about their harrowing childhoods, but I never did. Sarah and I were raised by a single mother, who passed away after a drug overdose. That’s all I would ever share, even with Tara. I thought my friend had perhaps lost a grandparent or another family member.
“My Cichlids… they’re so beautiful… I worry every time I’m away that something horrible will happen to them”.
I tried my best to sympathize with her, but she’d never shown this level of concern for any of her other fish. She handled it surprisingly well when her eldest cory passed, it surprised me that her perfectly healthy Cichlids could cause her such anxiety.
Tara and I both worked at the same crappy Italian restaurant, and that week she didn’t show up. Despite my pleas, our grubby boss fired her after the 5th day. She was still alive, and sent me texts once in a while. They were all pictures of the Blood cichlids. Even when I asked her about Nana the pea puffer, she would only speak of the cichlids.
After a few weeks of not having a job, Tara seemed to be unconcerned. She hadn’t even applied for anything else. We had a video chat, and I could tell she was losing weight. Tara was already quite thin, unlike my chubby self, she didn’t need to, and couldn’t afford to lose those pounds.
I came to her apartment that week to discover her cabinets filled with fish food. There was nothing left for Tara other than a few cereal boxes, and no milk. Just as upsetting was the state of her other fish tanks. While the Cichlid’s tank was pristine, the 5 other aquariums she owned had become overrun with algae. Even without much experience in the fishkeeping world, I could tell several of her other pets had severe fin rot.
In the past this would have sent Tara into a frenzy, starting up her hospital tank like a getaway car.
One of her tetras was clearly dead, floating on the surface. From the looks of the fungus growing on its body, it had been a few days since it passed.
I sat Tara down and told her that as a friend, I was convinced she needed to seek therapy. I offered to buy her groceries for the week. To say I was concerned for her is an understatement. Tara seemed shocked that I would imply anything was wrong. She accepted the groceries, and allowed me to bury her dead Tetra.
I have a tendency to sympathize with mental health issues like depression, having faced those same challenges myself. Tara’s condition terrified me. The neglect and obsession was so far beyond anything I’d seen before. Despite my many text messages, the only response I received from my friend was “Thanks for coming over. Few more random fish died, Cichlids are good though! I named the big one Rosie!”.
3 weeks passed until the next time I saw her apartment. Absolutely no human food remained, and barely any fish food. At least 20 dead fish were floating in her tanks, except of course the Cichlid tank. The dead fish had been gone for long enough that huge colonies of fungus, algae, and even worms had swarmed to their carcasses.
Tara sat before the Cichlids, waiting on a water test. She looked emaciated, and hollow. She flashed me a wide, unsettling smile. “Look at my Cichlids! How healthy and bright they are! Have you ever seen a Blood cichlid that looks just like blood?”
It was true, I hadn’t. Her 3 Cichlids were the exact color of a fresh wound. They seemed healthy and well fed, a far cry from her other neglected tanks. Rosie, the largest, had eyes that seemed to follow me around the room. Not curiously or accusingly, hungry.
It was at this point I contacted Tara’s mother. It didn’t take much detective work to find her, but it took 2 days to see a response. Her mother explained that they had a low-contact relationship. It wasn’t uncommon for Tara’s family to go months without a peep from her.
When i brought up the Cichlids, her mother did mention Tara’s lifelong love for aquariums. She recalled how Tara wailed and wept every time she lost a fish.
I knew something was terribly wrong, Tara hadn’t shed a single tear for the 27 fish she’d lost on my last visit.
I rushed to my friend’s house. I have a lot of trouble making connections with people, but when I do, I’m dedicated to supporting them. Over the years I’d known her, Tara had become like a little sister to me. She even looked like Sarah, or at least how I would imagine her full grown.
The house was locked, and Tara wasn’t answering her phone. I fetched her spare key from under a garden gnome, and unlocked her door.
Blood was everywhere. The kitchen, the living room, her bedroom. I found Tara hunched over her most prized tank, her wrists sliced wide open. As the blood dripped into the aquarium, the Cichlids were eating it like fish flakes.
The ambulance arrived just in time to save her. As I left for the hospital to await my friend’s fate, I saw that her 5 other tanks no longer contained living fish. There was no food of any kind left in her kitchen. Gazing on her stick thin body, it was apparent she hadn’t eaten since the last time I bought her groceries.
During the 7 weeks Tara spent being poked, prodded, and eventually institutionalized, I cared for her fish. All of her tanks had been neglected and decimated, aside from the Cichlids, who were as healthy as ever. I gave her other fish the proper burial she hadn’t.
I carefully dropped the fish flakes into her last remaining aquarium, but to my surprise the Cichlids seemed wholly uninterested. They only consumed the flakes after 3 days. The look in their eyes, so very hungry.
Over this time, I began to see the wonder Tara had seen. 3 Cichlids of blood red, so bright and magnificent. They seemed to gaze directly at me, wondering when Tara would return.
At week 6, I realized the fish flakes would not satisfy them.
I tried in vain to steady my hand as I carefully sliced the tip of my finger into the tank.
Swirling vortexes surrounded the piece of flesh that had once been my ring finger. The Cichlids wasted no time. They consumed the blood, flesh and bone within minutes. I didn’t even feel the pain, how wonderful it was to give life to such beautiful creatures.
Only days later Tara was released from the hospital, with many assurances the previous incident was accidental. She’d simply slipped while cutting a dead plant stem from the aquarium, after all, maintenance is essential to a healthy ecosystem.
I knew it was a lie, but since I’m just her friend, I had no legal recourse.
Tara was thankful, she hugged me and cried as if I’d saved her life.
I didn’t.
On the drive back to her apartment, the friend I’d known and loved seemed to be returning.
She asked about her Corydoras, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her every one of them had died. Tara smiled so brightly, hoping I’d have news of Nana, if she’d given birth to baby pea puffers. Once again, I lied. I lied and stated her beloved fish was still pregnant, swimming strongly and ready to burst any day. Nana had died weeks ago from severe ammonia poisoning. By the time I noticed something was wrong, every fish store employee and online forum had told me it was already too late. Only 2 weeks after the incident, I buried her in a local park.
As we drove closer to the apartment, Tara’s demeanor seemed to change. She demanded news of her Cichlids, and my assurances weren’t enough. My calm and composed friend began shrieking. The ear-piercing sounds progressed into punches, directly to my face. I pulled over a few blocks from our destination, and heaved a sigh of both relief and disbelief as my friend ran from the car at a breakneck pace.
Only a week later, Tara’s body was discovered. She’d slit her throat, to the point of severing her spinal cord and most of her head. Barely any blood was discovered at the scene, since she’d been hunched over her beloved Blood Cichlids. Their color was even brighter as their keeper’s corpse was hauled away. Temporarily satiated by gallons of Tara’s blood. Her face was unrecognizable, covered in bites, fungus and detritus worms. Nothing remained of her smile, her cheeks, or her eyes. Swarms of white fuzz surrounded the mass of decay that had once been my friend’s head. The body the coroner retrieved could have been anyone, if not for Tara’s signature maroon sweater.
Tara was dead, and yet all I could see was my little sister, swaddled in a brown blanket that had once been blue. At the time I was covered in bruises and fecal matter, barely old enough to understand she was gone. One of the paramedics attending to my sister vomited, not because of Sarah, but because of my mother. Dressed in nothing but a white t-shirt, stained crimson, my mother had been dead for 3 weeks.
This time, the young EMT barfed all over Tara’s corpse. I screamed. Not for Tara, but for her precious fish.
I was barely composed enough to hear the part of Tara’s will that bequeathed her Cichlids to me. At 28 years old, it’s not common practice to ‘get your affairs in order’. I have this hunch, a terrible inkling, that her end may have been purposeful. After all, she’d run out of fish food.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll be transferring the trio to my home.
What amazing, brilliantly colored creatures.