The colossus writhed their toes in agony and screamed as a horde of ravenous beasts tore off layer after layer of skin and feasted on the dead flesh. Well, maybe only Murder was screaming, but there was definitely a horde. A school at least.

  “Are you okay in there Mrs McCloud?” asked Sally. “Deborah’s almost back with cake. Would you like tea or coffee to have with it?”

  Mrs McCloud laughed as she wiggled her toes and tried to spread them to make it easier for her little helpers to get into all the hard to reach places. “They’re tickling me!”

  “Okay Mrs McCloud. Sing out if you want anything,” called Sally from the reception area.

  “There is one thing – I hate soap operas. Could you put something else on the tele? Maybe the news? I want to see if they say anything about last night’s earthquake. We never used to get them around here. It’s all very unusual.”

  “I’m afraid the remote broke when someone dropped it into one of the fish tanks and the owner hasn’t bought a new one. I can turn it off if you like?”

  “Must be one of those smart TVs,” said Mrs McCloud. “There are probably three cameras and a microphone in there to spy on you, but no room for buttons.”

  “And they’re not calling them earthquakes anymore – they’re officially referred to as love rumbles now.”

  “Love rumbles,” huffed Mrs McCloud. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life. The foundations of my old house don’t love it, I know that much. It’s probably all that fracking they’ve been doing around here. Did you know there is an oil pump hidden on the other side of town? They would never tell you about it anymore because there is a cover-up. But I’ve been here long enough, I saw all the pipes arrive by truck in the dead of night when they were building it. You pay attention next time you drive through the industrial end of town and you’ll see that some of the buildings aren't quite what they seem.”

  Murder tore off and ate chunk after chunk of sloughing flesh. “We’re almost through the armor – press the attack!”

  Eating the giant’s skin gave him strength in a way that eating the embryos hadn’t. He felt a new power coursing through his veins. He felt energised. He swam slightly faster than before. He leapt into the air, almost getting a third of his body out of the water. A mighty show of strength for any lesser creature, to be sure, but Murder achieved the feat with ease. He was the king of these seas, he could feel it. Once he was seven or eight times bigger, he would show the other giant beasts who was boss.

  Right before Murder could break through the final layer of armor, the monstrous intruder withdrew in defeat and a familiar little fish swam over to Murder.

  “Yum. Mrs McCloud never disappoints,” said Spots, wiggling happily in front of Murder.

  “What was that? Some kind of cloud demon?” asked Murder. “It was hundreds of feet tall. Its skin was thick and dead like the bark of an ancient tree.”

  “Yes, there’s always enough to go around. Variety too – not just calluses and corns,” said Spots. His excitement was almost contagious, but that might have just been the fungus. “I got a skin tag last time she was in. It was beautiful, I tell ya! Tender like you wouldn't believe.”

  How strange, thought Murder. Our pool of human sacrifice must be attacked regularly for all of the glorious beasts within to be so undaunted.

  It took a few moments for Murder’s stomach to really begin processing what he had eaten. The energy had come quickly, but this was something else. Visions started swirling around his mind. He was in two places at once. He was here, now, in the sacrificial pool, having just defended it from a giant wrinkled cloud demon, and he was also somewhere else, someone else. Murder was in a kitchen making brownies. He had hands with fingers that were old and wrinkled. An old man walked into the kitchen, where he found himself standing on bipedal legs, and Murder’s second heart raced, his breathing involuntarily quickened. Murder had felt that before. It was the same feeling he felt when his dominion was under attack; it was adrenaline. Wherever he was, it was time for fight or flight.

  The old man scowled at Murder, then he looked down and smiled. He wasn’t smiling at the person Murder was inhabiting like a silent passenger, he was smiling at a tray of brownies Murder held in his hands. The old man took one and knocked the tray out of Murder’s arthritic hands. Murder fell to his knees crying, looking at his hands and hoping there wouldn’t be another blow. His hands were well-manicured, nails freshly painted a rebellious red. There was a memory of shouting, but no words, just anger – anger over money and being made to feel worthless – but the nails still made him happy. Murder felt hatred, he felt pain, helplessness and hope.

  “Woah!” said Murder, his attention suddenly snapping back to here and now in the tank. “Does that always happen?”

  “No, no, no,” answered Spots, waggling his head. “Skin tags are a rare delicacy.”

  “Forget the skin tags,” said Murder angrily. “I mean the feeling of being in two places at once. Seeing through that giant’s eyes like I was in her skin.”

  Spots gave Murder a look of incomprehension, then he blew a bubble.

  “The memories!” said Murder. “Just now, it felt like I was inhabiting the body of that gargantuan horror as they operated a giant blast furnace. They were attacked by another monstrous demon, they were scared, but defiant. They, they… they made brownies?” Murder went silent for a moment and rubbed his chin with a pectoral fin.

  “What brownies? I have to admit you’ve lost me there, Murder,” replied Spots.

  Murder swam to the edge of the tank and looked out pensively. Then he swam back to Spots as if to say something before turning around, swimming to the edge of the tank again and settling into a concerned and alert stare. Some minutes later, a worried-looking Murder floated over to Spots and stopped in front of him. “Spots, how big would you say we are?”

  “Well, I’m about half size, and you’re only a hatchling. So not very big really,” replied Spots.

  “And we weren’t attacked by giants, were we?” asked Murder, his voice halting.

  “Attacked? I wouldn’t say she attacked us,” replied Spots. “More sat there, really, drinking tea and eating carrot cake. However some of the younger crowd can be kickers, but they’re usually bad eating anyway. You have to watch out for kickers, but you can usually see ’em coming.”

  “Oh dear,” said Murder. “I think there must have been a terrible mistake.” The little fish hung his head as best as he could manage without a neck and looked deflated for the first time since he had spawned. “Mrs McCloud, she wasn’t a three-hundred-foot monster, was she? I’m not, I mean we’re not massive ravenous beasts that eat humans whole, are we?”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “No, she’s lovely,” answered Spots. “She might only be little, but her size ten clodhoppers are nothing to sneeze at. Always nice and clean too. No chemicals or ointments we have to worry about.”

  Spots noticed the change in Murder’s demeanor.

  “Oh cheer up,” said Spots. “We’re ravenous alright. Just takes us longer if we want to eat up more than a little bit of skin is all. Look, maybe you oughta talk to Dr Flibbles. He has been here the longest and might be able to help you. He lives in the large castle by the filter on the other side of the world. It will be quite the journey.”

  Murder acquiesced and the two fish made the longest journey possible in their small world. They traversed the small aquarium from corner to corner, arriving at the large castle after a whole ten seconds of leisurely swimming. Upon arrival, the little fish both swam there for a moment, taking in the structure. Some castles were made to be impregnable fortresses with stone walls twenty feet thick, drawbridges, crenelated parapets and dark dungeons where the condemned and forgotten slowly die of misery, cold and neglect. Other castles are four inches tall, bright orange and have ‘Made in China’ stamped onto their plastic bases. This particular castle was of the latter variety and sat pressed up against the glass in a part of the tank known as ‘The City’. The City consisted of the castle, a massive sunken bridge that was perhaps a foot long and six inches wide, a pirate ship and a second smaller castle that stood only three inches high, which Spots referred to as the small castle.

  “Dr Flibbles,” called Spots. “I have someone here to see you. We have come far from across the aquarium. He has come to seek your wisdom.”

  There was no response. Spots swam to the top of the castle and began thrashing his tail against the small red tower that protruded from the plastic structure, causing the whole thing to wobble violently.

  An angry but wizened looking little fish eventually pushed a door open and swam out. He looked more or less identical to every other mature garra rufa fish, but his whiskers were a little longer and his movements a little slower.

  “Who disturbs Gorak the Destroyer during my watching hour?” demanded the old fish, with far less gravitas than Murder imagined.

  “Murder, this is Dr Flibbles,” said Spots, in spite of the claim made by the other fish. “Dr Flibbles, I would like you to meet my friend Murder. He’s feeling a bit lost.”

  Murder inched forwards and introduced himself loudly and clearly. “It is I, Murder. I am hunger, I am death and I am the bane of this world. I have come to bathe in the blood of man and feed on their suffering… Only, I think I got the wrong address.”

  The grumpy old fish burst out laughing. “Ha! Let me guess. You were expecting a flaying pool for human sacrifice, maybe a church to excess and people being eaten alive, feet first?”

  “Well, yes actually,” replied Murder.

  “Well the good news for you is that you’ve come to the right place – you see it’s all just a matter of scale,” said the wise old fish. “Now you can either wallow in sadness or you can make the most of it. Take me, for example, I was on my way back to the genital flaying pools in the seventh layer of hell, and now I live in my own castle.” Dr Flibbles gestured towards his bright orange castle and waited, apparently fishing for a compliment.

  Spots nudged Murder in his side with a pectoral fin.

  “It’s very nice,” said Murder.

  “Then one day, just a few centuries after I finished my studies, I got a promotion from a humble flayer’s assistant to full-fledged flayer, which required a reincarnation to get started, and that’s how I accidentally ended up here. The interdimensional gatekeepers should really put a better label on this place or we’ll get all sorts showing up. What kind of demon are you?” asked Dr Flibbles.

  “Studies? In hell?” asked Murder.

  “We might spend all day torturing the damned, but not all demons are savages you know,” replied Dr Flibbles.

  “I’m no demon,” replied Murder. “I am the manifestations of hate and—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” interrupted Dr Flibbles. “I've heard all that. I mean what’s your raison d'etre? Your fundamental imperative?”

  “To multiply. To consume the human race. To become their suffering and to be worshiped as a God,” answered Murder.

  Dr Flibbles rubbed the spot under his mouth with a pectoral fin. He didn’t have a chin, per se, but old habits die hard.

  “Well you’re in the right place for the first part, but the other bits are going to be tricky given our…” the wise old fish paused, and using both fins gesticulated in a manner that drew attention to all two inches of his physical form, “our situation. But it’s not impossible. You can cause a lot of suffering online these days. For instance, if you want to spread suffering, you could always get a job answering phones for a telecommunications company or an electricity provider. They always drive people mad. I’ve seen Sally on hold for hours just to be transferred to the wrong department and hung up on.”

  Dr Flibbles swam forward slightly and began to speak in hushed tones. “Or, if you really want to scramble people’s brains, you could start a social-media company. That’s all I see Jesse and Deborah do, and I can tell they hate themselves just a little more after every flick of their…” Dr Flibbles pretended to hold something still in one fin and swipe at it with the other. “What’s that thing called on the end of a hand that looks like it’d be no good at swimming?”

  “Arms?” offered Spots.

  “No, no, smaller and at the end. Thumbs! That’s what I was thinking of. Social media makes people walk for miles on their thumbs, which drives them totally mad, like locusts. I watched a documentary once that mentioned some bored scientist who sat down one day and decided to rub a grasshopper’s leg for six hours just to see what would happen, and it sent the thing totally insane. I think the same thing happens to humans if they use their thumbs too much. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they get hooked on being online too. Couldn’t put their phones down if they tried.”

  Spots reeled back in disgust at this suggestion; he almost lost his last two means of cannibalized embryos and foot corns.

  “Ignore him,” said Dr Flibbles. “He has an instinctive fear of being hooked.”

  “It’s not that,” said Spots. “I was just reminded of the kind of people who like the idea of owning a social-media platform. Lizard people, kickers and stompers the lot of them!”

  “Now, Mr Murder, consuming the whole human race is going to make a lot of demons very upset,” said Dr Flibbles.

  “Not Mrs McCloud,” said Spots, slightly forlorn.

  “And apparently some fish. Presumably the humans too,” said Dr Flibbles.

  “That’s kind of the point,” replied Murder.

  “Look, Murder, do you really need to consume all humans? Or just the maximum amount?” The wise old fish blew a bubble and raised an eyebrow at Murder suggestively.

  “All of something is the maximum amount. How can there be more than all?” asked Murder, perplexed by the question.

  “This is why they call me the wise old fish,” said Dr Flibbles. “Tell you what, you come back when you are the biggest fish in our little pond and I’ll tell you how all is as good as nothing. Now, if you don’t mind, I was watching my stories.”

  Before Murder had a chance to respond, the wizened little fish swam back into his castle and stared through the glass at the screen playing a daytime TV soap opera that looked like it was filmed with vaseline on the lens.

  “Quick! Another one!” cried Spots, as the whole school rushed to feast on the skin of another willing sacrifice.

  The customer was a middle-aged woman who gently rocked her feet backwards and forwards, making it hard to get a good precision bite. Murder let go from his position on the ankle and eyed off a nice patch of dead skin on the woman’s heel. He tucked in and started working off the flesh, little by little.

  “What do you think you’re doing little fish?” asked an enormous specimen of a garra rufa fish, almost four inches long.

  “All that you see is mine. I am the hunger that stalks and the fire that destroys,” said Murder through a mouth full of dead skin.

  The big fish just laughed. “You’re in my spot. The heel belongs to Thrasher. All of it. And I don’t share, so bugger off before I—Oi! He bit me! That little bastard bit me!”

  Murder took a very small piece off the much larger fish’s tail and then tried to look as inconspicuous as possible amongst a group of small fish nibbling at the giant ankle.

  Before they had their fill, the woman took her feet out of the tank, dried them on a towel, then made her way towards the front of the store. Murder followed the woman around the tank and watched her curiously. Then he saw something that shattered his whole world view. The woman took a seat next to someone and put her feet into another pool.

  There were two tanks! Those bastard fish in the other tank were stealing what was his by divine right. This injustice – this insult – won’t be allowed to stand. It would have to go.