Chris ???'s Story

A tear fell onto the petal of a red rose, and slowly trickled down until it hit the soil.
Why did you have to leave me?
It's not fair.
It's pointless now.


A gentle breeze rolled by, swaying the rose.


Silence. He was alone. The scene was still, apart from the sunlight breaking through the the branches of
the trees.

He broke the silence, sobbing and crying. Fell to his knees, dirt collecting on the bottom of his black
hoodie, on his hands, his fingernails. He stayed this way for another few minutes.

He was Chris. 20 years old. He'd lost his sister to a car crash a month previously, his mother six months
ago, suicide. Before she killed herself, Chris had argued with her when he was 18. An argument which lead
to him moving out, and hadn't spoken to her since. People had always told him it wasn't his fault she
killed herself. He knew it was.

His sister had always been there for him, She was his rock. She was the one who, in any situation, would
get him out of it. The only one who cared for him in this world. He was at her grave right now, which
was situated next to his mother's.

Chris had been bullied in school. He had several mental conditions, which would affect his learning.
He never did that well in school. Intelligent, but didn't try in school. Teachers would never take notice
of bullies.

"Hey, faggot, going to special school next year?" bullies would taunt. He'd be kicked, have his money
stolen. Be pushed against walls, he'd often receive bruises and cuts, to which his family always thought
were self- inflicted.
One day his bag was stolen, and a project he'd been working on for english for several months
was lost. That project which would cost him a good grade in english.

One day he snapped, and punched the bully in the face, breaking his nose and giving him a black eye.

For some reason, he'd expected teachers to see his side of things. He was expelled for a week.

His mother would rarely care, and always told him to man up. This time was different. This time, she
wouldn't let him in the house, so he'd have to sleep out on the street.

Once his sister convinced his mother to let him back in, he'd been out for over a week.



But no. Those days were over. His sister, and mother, were both gone.

He had a friend when he was in school. Hayley. She would stick up for him if she ever saw him getting
bullied. Beyond that, nobody would even notice he was there.


Chris finally finished crying. Standing up, dirt fell off his trousers.


His father had divorced from his mother when he was 9 years old. Hadn't seen seen his father since. His
mother told him that he'd died from lung cancer, being a smoker and actively smoking around Chris when
they were still together.


He tried to brush the dirt off his trousers and shirt- it had stuck to him because of being wet and had
formed into mud. It looked like he'd been rolling in mud for 10 minutes.

Chris sighed deeply. It was time.

He shuffled out of the graveyard, whilst crows were cawing behind him.

Once outside the graveyard, he walked over to his car, a '95 Lada Samara, which he'd spraypainted dark blue.

The car door opened, Chris climbed in, slamming the door shut behind him, twice, because of the bad latch on
the car.

Didn't care for cars. Never had. They weren't ever that reliable, always breaking down...

The engine turned on, and it slowly chugged to life. Chris set off, and drove past the graveyard, past the
church.

drove past plenty of people out on the streets, doing shopping, going to see relatives, going to jobs..
The sun was out. could have cared less. Felt like shutting his eyes and driving into a building,
car, or anything, as long as it would be over. He didn't.

Wasn't getting anywhere in life. Lost his job earlier this week, was late too many times.
Wasn't his fault though, he'd be late because his car would have been vandalised or it wouldn't start.
He used to work at the pet store in the middle of town. Had always been effectionate towards pets,
they were one of the few things that he liked in the world.

Why should I care?

He came to a traffic light, and stopped. Took out his phone... didn't use it that often. But Hayley
said she'd phone him when the local aquarium would be done refurbishing and changing the look of it completely.
Been there quite a few times before. It had been closed for the last few months due to the changes.

As fish were one of his favourite animals, he'd been quite interested in going there again.

The traffic lights changed, so he set off, still playing with his phone.

He dropped it, and bent over to pick it up. Just as he got back up, he slammed the breaks on. A little kid
was crossing the road, and didn't look.
Sigh.. Stupid kids. Hate when they do that.

Setting off again, passing by the pier- the centre of the town. It was busy today. He never liked being
in a crowd, preferring to be alone.

He turned on the radio. A familliar song came on the radio.

Didn't like it, but had heard it from somewhere.. Wasn't in the mood to figure out where from, though.

People outside were happy. A juxtaposition for him. He reached for his bag which was in the passenger seat
next to him, and opened it up, half concentrating on the road. Pulled out his headphones, and started
listening to music, trying to block out everything.

Eventually, after at least another 10 minutes of driving, he turned up to his street not far from the
sports centre. He braced himself for a very bumpy road, had not been repaired at all since he moved in
and was full of potholes.

He pulled up next to his house, and turned the engine off, getting out of his car and walking towards the
door, pushing the front door open, and slammed it shut, and went upstairs to the bedroom.



He would finally end it all.


He threw his phone, still in his hand, onto his bed, along with his backpack. He opened a drawer, and pulled
out a rope, making it into a noose.

He would finally end it.


He pulled up a chair, and tied the noose to the ceiling.



Slipped the noose over his head.




This is it.
Goodbye.



















And then, his phone rang.

Chris sighed, and unfastened the rope which was around his neck. He stepped down from the chair, and
threw the chair aside. He walked over to his phone. It was Hayley. Chris answered the phone, and put it
up to his left ear.

"Chris, meet me at La Guerir aquarium. I need to speak with you, it's important."

Before chris could reply, Hayley had put the phone down. Wondering what could be so important, he sighed
once again, and picked up his backpack, threw his phone in his backpack, and slung it over his shoulders.

Staring at the noose he'd been so close to killing himself with, he muttered under his breath
"I guess life could be worse". Chris went downstairs and noticed he hadn't shut his front door properly,
yet it had been quite a while since he came in. "I guess it's lucky i didn't get robbed" he thought.


He got in his car, and travelled to the La Guerir aquarium- the public aquarium. He checked the time
on his phone, it was currently 6 PM. As chris crossed the bridge in his car which was at the other side
of the pond, where the stream starts, he looked over to the lake. The sun had began to set, and it left
a spectacular array of light on the water surface.

Continuing on the way to the public aquarium, he passed by the school, which was closed at this time.

People had begun to go back to their homes as the sun was setting, but many people were still outside.

As he came up to the public aquarium and parked his car, he noticed a commotion in the distance at the
bar, and it seemed as though somebody was trying to rob the place. He decided to mind his own business,
and got out of his car. He immediately saw Hayley, who ran up to him.


"Chris, i know what you've been thinking. I saw you at the graveyard. I know you well enough by now.."

"Sorry." He mumbled.

"I called you here because as you can probably see, the aquarium is back open again, and i remembered
that you wanted me to tell you when it was. So should we go inside?"

Chris looked behind her. It was indeed open.

"Oh, well in that case, sure, thanks for telling me.."

"And also, i think you'll be interested in this." continued Hayley, and passed him an advertisement
which was for the aquarium- they were hiring staff members.

Chris scimmed the advert, and noticed that the requirements for one of the jobs, as a cleaner of the building,
were right up his alley. He smiled slightly for what must have been the first time in months.

"Thanks, Hayley. I'll be sure to ask about it, hopefully i'll be able to get this job!"

"No problem Chris, any time. I thought of you right when i noticed it. So, should we go in?"

They both walked into the newly designed building, Chris being far happier than he was previously.

The two of them walked around the building for a while, looking at all of the different displays of fish.

Chris and Hayley started casually walking through the La Guerir aquarium. The smaller aquariums were near the entrance to the building- Chris identified a few fish, cowfish, boxfish and elephantnose fish.
The area in the hall outside of the fish tanks was dimly lit, since the aquariums inside were brightly lit to allow the plants inside to grow.

The building was brand new, which was a good change from the older building which was badly in need of repairs. It wasn't busy right now, since it was 6:30 PM. Chris and Hayley kept walking.

They came up to another aquarium further up which had some crabs and some seahorses in it. They were among Chris' favourite type of fish. He always liked to watch the fish swim by as it helped to take his mind off of things.


They turned a corner and came up to the first larger aquarium which had a large array of fish in it, such as large angelfish.

They spent a while looking through the fish in the hallway, and then went to the elevator. They waited for the elevator to come upstairs, then got in it and went down to the lower level.

The dimly lit elevator felt slightly creepy with the industrial-style metallic interior and the dim lights. Chris wondered if Hayley felt the same about it, but didn't bother to say anything about it.

Some cheesy elevator music was being played on the single speaker in the elevator, but at least it broke the quietness that was in the lift, since the only people in the lift were him, Hayley and a lady who looked to be in her late 30's.

Chris checked his watch. The time was 6:50 PM. The elevator music was cut out, and an announcement came on the PA system in the whole building.

"Attention ladies and gentlemen. The La Guerir public aquarium will be closing in ten minutes. Please start to make your way to the exit, thank you for coming today!"

The elevator doors opened, and the three of them walked out of the lift, Chris walked out slightly faster, still being creeped out by the interior of the elevator.

Chris and Hayley started walking around the rest of the lower level at a faster pace than they did before since they would be closing very soon.

About five minutes later, they had seen most of the exhibits, they were down to the last two, and both of them were very big.

The first one contained most of what they had already seen on the rest of the second floor, manta rays and flatfish, among other types of fish.

And then he and Hayley saw the last exhibit, which was supposedly the best one in the entire building, and was claimed to contain the best fish in it for miles.

Chris had some high expectations, himself being an avid fish owner and being very interested in fish.

He was impressed by the sea turtles and even bigger manta rays, and large schools of fish.

The environment inside the tank was impressive, and contained some large rocks and coral, and the water was a beautiful crystal clear blue.

And then he saw the hammerhead shark. Chris stood there, in awe. He'd never seen a shark before, as he didn't go out into the sea, and had never been to a different aquarium which had them in. It was amazing. Chris was lost in his own world, and became unaware of the surrounding area, simply focusing on the shark. The shark looked so majestic, and was probably the most amazing thing he'd ever seen.

He was staring at the shark until it went out of sight, and stood there for a while longer, not listening to anything around him. He stayed that way for another few minutes, until he realised that the shark wasn't there any more, and was probably hidden behind a rock or something else in the aquarium.

He finally regained control over his body again, and turned his head slowly away from the aquarium, to where Hayley was stood. Or, at least had been stood. She wasn't there any more.

"Hayley?" He called out.

And then he realised that the environment around him felt uneasy and he began to feel some tension.

Where was everybody? There were quite a few people around before, and now there were none.

He started walking back to the lift, since there wasn't a way out on the lower ground, apart from the stairs.

Then he heard a bloodcurdling scream. Had someone been hurt? Oh God, robbers? Murderers?

Why would they attack a public aquarium?

Then, people started running down the stairs and in the elevator.

"What the hell is going on?!" He screamed to some of the people. They all ignored him, and pushed past him. The lady who he had seen in the elevator with him and Hayley before, grabbed hold of his arm and dragged him along with her.

"Where are you taking me?!" He shouted to her. She didn't reply, other than muttering "We have to hide!"

The woman pushed open a door that read "staff only". A man with blonde hair in his 50's, who was a staff member, was in the room. He shoved the door shut behind them, and pushed a wooden table against the door.

Chris felt about 30 emotions at once, some of which he didn't even know he had.

He attempted to ask the other two what the hell was happening.

"I wish I knew. It looks like insanity out there. Nobody seemed to care about each other, they're just running from something.. If someone fell over, I didn't see them appear again through the crowd of people running over them. It doesn't look like any normal riot, whatever it is. I've been here the whole time, I just heard the commotion from outside."
Explained the middle-aged staff member.

Chris looked over towards the other lady. She wasn't Hayley.. She was in a fetal position. "They're.. eating each other.. Killing.. so much blood.. THE TEETH.." She was murmering, over and over again. She must have been delusional.

Chris looked around the room. It was a small room which was lit up by a single dim lightbulb. The light it gave was so dim, Chris had some difficulty seeing around the room.

It looked to be more of a storage room than anything. There were a few cardboard boxes stacked around the room, a few metal shelves, some security cameras, and a few crates of fish food. It looked as though some items had been left behind during construction, such as some 2x4 wooden planks, some saws and other bits and bobs.
" We were going to have the construction workers around tomorrow to collect those." said the staff member, who was looking at Chris, noticing him looking at the boxes of construction supplies.


Chris laughed at the situation sarcastically. He was stuck in a small, dimly lit room, with barely anything in it, with two random people who he'd never met before- A staff member of a public aquarium, who probably didn't have many skills, and a lady who must have been insane, and it was her fault he was stuck in here. He had no idea what was going on, whether it be a few robbers, a leak in one of the aquariums causing panic over the building, the world ending or one giant trick on Chris.

A brighter light flashed on in the room as the staff member went over to the security screens and turned them on. Chris went over to look, and stood at the side. He put his hand over his mouth in shock as he glanced at the image. There were bodies littering the halls. Dead ones.


But there were so many..

Chris then looked at one of the top screens. People were at the entrance. Thank God, some people were alive still.

Or at least they looked like people. They weren't moving normally, and were shambling around. They were heading outside of the building. The camera detail wasn't high enough for Chris to see anything better.

Was the insane lady right?

"We need some weapons. NOW." barked the staff member. Did he know what was going on? Chris didn't ask him, but he began to search through the side of the room, looking for something. He banged into a shelf accidently and fell into some of the boxes. He tried to get up, but something fell on his head.

BANG. Chris was unconsious.

Chris awakened a while later.

His vision slowly came back to him in a blur as he realised that he'd been knocked unconsious. He climbed out of several empty cardboard boxes which he'd fallen into, and looked down at them. A can of paint seemed to had hit him on the head. He looked down at his arms and shirt, and realised there was blood all over him. "Oh crap, am i bleeding?!" he muttered, starting to panic and looked around for some bandages. The blood was all over the floor, leading up to the paint can. Then he noticed that it was actually red paint. He wasn't bleeding after all.

Chris looked around for the other two who were in the room before he was unconsious. But they didn't seem to be anywhere. The table which had been placed in front of the door had been moved aside. Did they abandon him? He sighed. They probably thought he was too much to deal with.

Chris looked around the room. He should get prepared in case there were people who would attack him, or for whatever had been happening outside- he had no idea.

He grabbed a 2X4, and held it in his hand. It felt uneasy in his grasp, and he wasn't totally sure how he should hold it defensively, so he just held it at a straight angle, pointing outwards.

"This should warn anybody who wants to mess with me" he thought out loud.

He looked around the room one last time for anything else which may have been useful. He threw somecardboard boxes out of the way, and noticed a small first aid kit which was on the floor, hidden behind some of the boxes. The aquarium was probably required by law to have one, but they'd never had any incidents, so the first aid kit was carried over from the old building. It was dusty and had very few contents in it- a few painkillers in tablet form, some plasters for small cuts and bruises, and a small roll of dressing- it was old and in bits, but it would have to do.

He put the small first aid kit in his backpack, as it was slightly too big to fit in his hoodie pocket.

He resembled a dead body now, his hoodie was covered in blood red paint, dirt marks and a few small tears from how much it had been worn.

Chris shuffled over to the door, and would be glad to get out of the room which had poor ventilation and was now quite hot, along with dark because of the poor lighting.

He cautiously opened the door. It creaked open eerily. The aquarium at this point almost felt like a facility, had it not been for the humming of the aquariums and the various filters bubbling away in the aquariums.

Chris walked out of the room, and into the blackness of the hallway. The lights inside the hallways had gone out, oddly. The lights inside the aquariums were still on, almost as if to show Chris the way back outside.

He walked down the corridor, the way he thought he'd come. He was careful to not fall over, his shoes echoing down the empty corridor. He grasped the 2X4 wooden plank a little harder.

Chris walked against the left hand side wall, to make sure that he was still following the corridor correctly in the darkness. He then noticed something out the corner of his eye.


It was the shark display.

He put his left hand on the glass of the shark display. He couldn't see any fish in there. He looked all over the fish tank, even bent over to look at the top.

And then he noticed a shape at the surface of the aquarium.

It was the shark, it was dead. Blood was soaking into the water, like poison.

It lay lifeless at the top of the water, with a chunk of its flesh missing, as though it had been bitten off.

The creature that he thought majestic only an hour ago, was now laying soaked in its own blood in a painful death, in filthy blood soaked water.

Chris looked away, but swore he saw something move. He looked back again, and the shark was no longer in the same place. What happened to it?

Before Chris could react, he saw something moving towards him in the aquarium, and a loud SMASH. He jumped backwards and fell on his back on the floor. The shark was looking right at him. It was staring at him with dark red eyes, and a blood trail behind it soaking into the water. It looked like it was infected with rabies. But it was dead!

The loud smash was the strong, re-inforced glass cracking in front of him. Normally the glass wouldn't be able to break. The shark must have hit it HARD.

Chris got onto his knees just in time, as the shark hit the glass again and again. He let out a small scream as the glass shattered behind him, and the shark stuck it's head through the glass, ripping it's fins slightly.

Blood-soaked water started trickling out, and then turned into a small flood. Chris got up from his knees whilst still crawling away, and started running down the hallway haphazardly.

The water was running down the corridor after him, and started to catch him up. Chris turned a corner, and started running in a direction, hoping it was the right direction in the darkness.

He didn't have time to think about what the hell was happening. The water was catching up to him, it was almost up to his heels. He began to run out of breath as he heard the glass shatter more down the corridor, and a lot of splashing noises. Was the shark following him?

His feet started to get soaked with water, and his frantic footsteps began to sound like wet splashes instead. A large flood of water began to flood down the hall as the hole which the shark made had probably been made bigger.


Chris made it to the elevator and frantically pressed the button, but nothing happened. He looked behind him just in time to be greeted by a wave of water, which knocked him onto his feet and into the stairwell. He attempted to grab hold of the hand rail to get up the stairs, but his hands were wet, and he slipped several times. And then he heard a large splashing noise just as soon as he grabbed the rail and pulled himself up onto the stairs. Chris ignored the sound and attempted to stand on the hand rail, to avoid the water. He looked down at the water, which was quickly flooding in. The shark had been carried with the water, and was trying to bite at Chris. He let out a slightly smaller scream than before, and started shaking. His 2X4 was still in hand, and he looked over to it. He'd never been in a situation where he needed to defend himself before, not even from an animal. Not one that was dead, either..

He started jabbing the 2X4 randomly into the water in the direction of the shark. It only angered the shark. Chris tried to use the 2X4 like a club, hitting the shark sideways or striking the shark by lifting up the 2x4 and slamming it down on the shark.

The shark jumped out of the water and tried to bite Chris. He reacted just in time and managed to jump to the side to avoid the shark jumping out of the water- Chris landed on the stairs painfully, the shark hit a wall behind him.

Chris exhaled deeply, and stood up. The shark couldn't follow him if it wasn't in water.

He started running up the stairs, the water slowly filling up the stairwell. He ran up the wooden stairs, faster than he'd ever ran in his life. He almost fell down the stairs once at the top, as he stumbled over one or two of the stairs.

He caught his breath at the top, but didn't stay there for long. He had to get out of this insane place- he had no time to think about what the hell was happening.

Chris ran as fast as he could to get out of the building. He completely ignored all of his surroundings- he didn't bother to look at any of the displays, or to look for any weapons or anything that might help him.

While he was running, he checked his watch. The time was... 8:30? Great. Outside would be dark and difficult to move around in if he didn't have any light.

As he was running down the corridor, rushing past the occasional light from the displays, among the pitch blackness, he saw something dark-coloured smeared on one of the fish tanks.. He slowed down for a second to inspect it.

He quickly looked away as he realised what it was. Blood. Blood, smeared across the entire lower section of the glass, slightly blocking the light from escaping. He began to fear for his life. This... blood, could have come from anything. With his previous encounter, he thought that the same thing could have happened across the entire building, but he quickly got rid of that thought, as he realised that none of the glass that he'd seen so far had been broken, and the floor wasn't wet. It was just dark. But that didn't make him feel any safer.

He began to run down the hallway again, as it was eerily quiet and he was now terrified. He slowly got noisier as he was running down the vast hallways of the building, with not only his loud footsteps echoing down the hallway, but also his breath as he was running- which was getting louder and louder, from both running out of breath, and slightly whimpering from how scared he was.

As he turned a few corners and ran past a few benches and abandoned belongings on the floor, he began to slowly see more and more blood covering random areas along the way. He felt stupid for running towards the areas with more blood, but it was the only way out.

He was slowing down and running out of breath before he came to the reception area of the building, that he came in through. He assumed that the area he'd seen on the security cameras earlier was showing the reception, as he hadn't seen any bodies yet.


He approached the door a little too quickly, and only just managed to stop himself from throwing himself through the door. He had to check if it would actually open first.

Chris pulled the door, and it slowly opened, as it was a heavy door since it was new. He peered through the crack between the door and the wall.

He gasped, and tried to shut the door, but couldn't because his whole body froze in position.

An image was burned into his mind and he wished that he'd never opened the door. For at the other side of the door was a horrific scene. Blood was all over the floor leading up to the door. The new floor looked like a slaughterhouse as blood caked almost the entire surface of the floor at the top left corner of the room. The new receptionist desk looked like someone had sawed a giant chunk of it off as there was a giant hole in it, with blood splattered all over the area around the hole. A pile of dead bodies littered the automatic front doors which were made of glass and had bloody hand prints on them. One of the two automatic doors was jammed open by a dead body.

And then his eyes turned to the centre of the room. A person was stood there. The woman who had been with him in the room until he was knocked out. She wasn't facing Chris, but he could tell that she was different already. A splotch of blood was on her white cardigan, and her blue jeans were torn and ripped at the bottom. She was missing one of her high heels, and she was dragging her shoeless foot behind her as though her foot was broken.

"A.. are you.. okay?" A tiny voice squeaked out from Chris as he regained the ability to talk again.

No response. Chris thought he'd try again in a louder voice, but then she turned around to look at him. Maybe he could help her out, maybe she had been in some sort of acci-

Chris stopped thinking and he felt his heart stop and his blood stopped pumping for a second, his skin turning a pale white. He felt sick as he looked at her, and his hands started shaking and sweating.

That wasn't the same lady he had seen in the lift, this must have been someone else trying to trick him.. That can't even be a human. Can it?

The lady standing in the centre of the reception looked like she'd been in a fatal car crash her wounds looked that bad. Blood was dripping down from a large cut on her forehead, and dripping out in at least 5 different trickles, one over her left eye.

Her eyes were a discoloured grey and her hair had been dyed red in spots with blood. She had several other cuts on her face, all bleeding heavily. Her right ear had been torn off. Her skin had a slight greyish tint, as though she was dead. Her clothes were torn in several places, and her white cardigan was barely recognisable on the front as it had been soaked with blood. Her eyes had trickles of blood coming out of them as though she was crying tears of blood. She let out an unhuman-sounding growl, and started shuffling towards Chris.

Shit. Chris needed to get out of here, because THAT was not human.

He tried to push open the door, but couldn't- his body wouldn't let him. He was so shocked that he wasn't able to move.


The "thing" shuffled towards the door, slowly getting closer. Chris was sweating heavily by now, and a dozen thoughts were rushing through his head. "Why can't i open the door? come on!" "I have to go back! that thing looks dangerous!" "What if i.. no, that wouldn't work"

The thing was now about 10 meters away from the door. Chris panicked and his heart was beating heavily. He could hear his heart pounding away, muffling the sound of everything around him.

Just as the horrible creature approached the door, Chris suddenly jerked open the door, hitting the thing in the face. It made a sickening *CRUNCH* as it was knocked to the floor. Chris spent no time in seeing if it would get back up, and he ran straight for the exit, and out of the door which
was jammed.

He had to find his car. Where did he park it?