Laylia has a minion!

Runt the Bagged Goldfish

Come one, come all!

Join us this weekend and experience the most unforgettable night of your life. Get ready to see the world in a different perspective.

But do not be deceived: This is the real deal.

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I put the flyer down and looked at the carnival before me. I didn’t know what to expect. It looked just like any other carnival that went to our place: aisles of game booths with an abundance of collectibles, huge balloons that filled the sky, and even acrobats and gymnasts who walked the streets. Having decided to stay in the countryside for a while, maybe I figured it would be more… provincial?

"Come on, Laylia!"

My brother went ahead of me, already gawking at the first exhibition: a hairy tarantula the size of a human child. There were several other animal aquariums that filled the place, each one disturbingly different and foreign.

"Look, sis! It's alive!"

Wide eyed, my brother pointed towards the old oak tree in front of us. I was about to ask him what he was talking about when something in the tree moved. Slowly, like a snake shedding its skin, the tree seemed to slip off its own thin layer of wood. Soon after, I knew what it was.

"It's a moth camouflaged as a tree! And it's huuuge!"

I shook my head. My brother had always been fascinated with the strangest things. Creeped out, I decided to just stick with the game booths.

There were no stark differences among the booths I passed. As far as I knew, all of them were the same. All of them displayed the same stuffed toys, the same collectible keychains, and the same toys... but a closer look inside each one showed a different grand prize. When I noticed it, I saw them everywhere: tiny puppies, tiny turtles, and tiny cats. There were tiny animals everywhere.

I tried one of the games for fun. The booth was an easy game of shooting down balloons stuck on a board. I was never too lucky with these -- always missing the target by just a few centimeters. But this time, luck seemed to have been on my side when I surprisingly popped all six balloons. As their grand prize, the girl manning the booth handed me a plastic bag. In it was a teeny tiny goldfish. Thankful that it was not one of the more bizarre animals, I went out to find my brother. I hadn’t noticed that the sun was almost setting. It was time to go home.

On the way back, my brother stared at the plastic bag I clutched in my hand.

"How'd you get that?" He asked. "Why is it so small?"

"Aren't they supposed to be small?"

"Might be a baby one, I bet you!"

Though I was confused with my brother's questions, I decided to let it go. It was just a goldfish. When we arrived back home, I transferred the little one in a mayonnaise jar and stared at it. Exhausted from the heat and all the walking in the carnival, I fell asleep.

---

I screamed.

My brother came charging inside. I swear his smile could have been visible even from a mile away. It was beyond me how he could have been so happy about having a dolphin-sized goldfish suddenly appear in my room.

Unable to speak, I just stared at them both. The monster kept flailing. In a few seconds, my brother filled up the bath tub in my bathroom and started pulling the large fish towards it.

“Didn’t I tell you, sis? It’s supposed to be huge!”

“How… how did you know?”

“Didn’t you see the exhibition? One exhibit featured a tiny goldfish that can become huge -- like this one! -- in a matter of hours! You’re so lucky, sis! We got ourselves a new pet!”

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Credits
Profile template by Lea | Overlay by Gear | Story by Free | Background source

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