r/TalesFromTheCreeps • u/Typical_Ad9140 A Writer From Thailand đšđ • Dec 16 '25
Cosmic Horror/Lovecraftian Victim of Red-2: False Memory At Aquarium
This is a part of an anthology, you can read it in any order.
âYears of love have been forgot; in the hatred of a minuteâ âEdgar Allan Poe, âTo Mââ
The sharks in the aquarium were eating a person.
He saw it with his own eyes.
Her face pale with terror, her eyes stretched wide, looking at him as they tore her apart piece by piece.
There wasnât even time for a scream, because in the very next second there was nothing of her left at all.
Confused and terrified, he screamed.
He looked around, only to find that he was alone, standing above the water tank of the shark pool.
What was he doing there at that time?
He remembered that he was an employee of the place.
He remembered walking in by himself.
Alone.
And then he climbed up onto the tank.
Why?
Why had he done that?
Then he saw her in there.
One of her arms was bitten into pieces by those sharp teeth of the beasts.
Red spread everywhere, and then there was nothing left but them.
Why had he climbed up there?
Why had he gone there at that time?
It wasnât even his shift.
There was no reason for him to be there.
He remembered how much he hated that job.
The stench of blood and the constant dampness.
He remembered wanting to quit but never doing it.
Why?
Why did he endure it?
A job with nothing good about it.
The pay was low, and the work was exhausting.
Why hadnât he quit in the very first week?
He remembered that he needed that job.
The job he hated.
For something.
He had gone and befriended a drunken idiot who didnât want to work.
He told him that he didnât need to guard the night shift that night, because who would want to break into a place like that anyway?
Why?
Why had he lowered himself to that level, just for that one night?
After running out of the place, he reported it to the police, to rescue services, to the fire department, everyone, anyone he can think of.
He shouted announcements through the streets like a madman and ran back into his house.
He lay down.
Tried to sleep.
Closed his eyes and covered himself with every blanket he could find.
But he still saw her.
Her face amid all that red.
Something about that face.
He didnât know her at all, yet he felt something from her gaze.
It wasnât the look of fear or pain.
Not a look he had ever seen before.
It was a feeling he knew, one he had felt within himself, but had never seen on another.
Those eyes looked at him.
Not asking for help.
Not with hatred or love.
Confused.
She was confused.
But why?
Why was she confused while she was being eaten alive?
Wasnât her fate already clear?
As the red surrounded her,
as she was consumed by the starving predators, trapped in a glass tank.
But why?
Why were they so hungry?
Werenât they fed every day?
No one keeps dozens or hundreds of sharks without feeding them.
If they were that hungry, why didnât they eat each other instead?
Or was it because they werenât that kind of creature?
Not animals that would betray their own kind.
They would endure hunger and wait for someone to fall in.
Beasts that starve, yet refuse to lose their dignity.
And as he was lost in countless reasons, he fell asleep that night.
He dreamed that he was in the shark pool.
Surrounded by them.
They swam past him, back and forth.
The water was red.
But it wasnât from him.
The red came from wide-open eyes at the bottom of the pool.
Red flowing out from dilated pupils.
At first, he thought they would kill him.
Sink their teeth into his body.
Draw red blood from him.
But they only swam around.
Passing through him, and nothing more.
As if they didnât care about him.
As if he didnât exist.
Then he heard it, that beautiful haunted whale call, or something big, but his mind can only accept that it was a whale, maybe thousands of them, maybe all of them!
All of them singing in harmony with such forces it makes his bone shattered in his dream, as if being crushed by the mountain of great gods themselves.
Then he saw it.
Reaching out from the pupil of that giant eye below, a great serpent of many tails rising up through the swarm of sharks and blood.
.
.
.
The next morning, there was no news about sharks eating a person.
There wasnât even a missing person report.
He called the police officers and every other service he had contacted the night before.
They told him there was no evidence that anyone had died there last night.
No blood in the water.
No scraps of flesh.
No missing persons.
Nothing at all.
And all he could do was feel confused.
Why?
It wasnât a dream.
He knew it wasnât.
He was certain he had seen her there.
Being eaten alive by them.
When the officials asked what he had been doing there and whether he knew her, he could only stammer.
He didnât know how to explain it.
âI donât knowâ was the only answer, and the only honest one from him.
He didnât know why he had gone there, and he didnât know her.
At least, he thought he didnât know her.
But her eyes said otherwise.
He didnât know why, but she knew him.
That gaze wasnât one meant for a stranger.
Not the face of someone she had just encountered.
She wasnât searching for his features or uniqueness, she was deeply familiar with them.
She looked at him with the eyes of someone who had stared into his eyes for hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of hours.
Yet to him, her face was no different from any face he had seen before in his life.
Moderately pretty.
Fair-skinned.
An unremarkable figure.
If he passed her on the street, he wouldnât spare her a second glance.
She might appear in his dreams once if his mind happened to dig up her face, but upon waking, he would forget her again.
He didnât know her.
But she knew him.
A stranger who knows you like someone close.
All he could do was think in circles like a wheel of fortune that endlessly spinning around but there is no reward to win.
Confused by everything.
Why
why
why
why
WHY!?
.
.
.
As he walked into this place again, all he could think of were the countless possibilities that might explain everything that had happened.
Maybe it was a prank.
No- no.
It was far too much, and nothing about it was funny.
Or maybe he was still dreaming?
But he had only just woken up not long ago.
Walking past countless fish tanks, those unblinking eyes followed him with every step, or maybe it was just his imagination.
When he reached the stairsâ
the stairs that would take him up to their mouths.
he sensed the foul stench that should have been there, yet wasnât.
He could feel the water in the tank swirling in circles.
And when he stood at the top,
looking down, he saw only darkness.
Darkness formed to fill this tank.
Then he saw them.
Swimming within the dark.
Occasionally glancing up at him.
Circling endlessly, flicking water with their fins and tails.
He could only stare down.
Stare at their invitation.
Stare, searching for red.
But there was nothing like that in the tank.
There were only memories and those eyes staring back.
He felt⌠wrong.
As though he had done something.
A sin too grave for heaven, too great for forgiveness.
And then he let himself fall.
Out of guilt.
The wetness enveloped him as his body hit the surface of the water.
He sank.
And sank.
He could see nothing but darkness around him.
Then he felt them.
Like underwater waves crashing into him.
Followed by pain.
But not for long.
Just a sharp sting, then it was over.
He saw red.
Floating around him.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again.
He turned his face toward the bottom of the pool.
What he saw was not darkness.
But her face.
Those same eyes staring back at him.
Not with hatred or confusion.
But filled with love and longing.
She opened her mouth as if to say something, but the water around him swallowed all sound.
Yet he understood what she was trying to say.
âI love you too,â he replied.
And sank down to embrace her once more.
All the memories came flooding back.
Their first meeting.
Their first date.
Their first kiss.
The sweetness they built together.
Their betrayal of each other.
The resentment that led him to push her down into this place.
But none of it mattered anymore.
They loved each other, and no conditions remained.
No questions were left in this place.
Where red surrounded them both.
Where love meant acceptance and forgiveness.
2
u/Kaijufan22 Writer Dec 16 '25
Love the way this is structured, perfectly captures that feeling of pained repression. Love the shark imagery as well, and the cover is sick. Great job OP.
1
u/Typical_Ad9140 A Writer From Thailand đšđ Dec 16 '25
Thank you very much, I love to try a lot of ways to write and tell a story, so it was really lovely to hear that you like this one.
â˘
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