Nell didn’t even know what had possessed her to read the entirety of the post that had led her here. Seeing it had been like a game of spot the boomer, and the old person in question was practically flying a flag above their head that screamed, ‘I’m old and am currently writing this with a single pointer finger! All I have to live for is my daily harassment of the barista by asking her to make my drink exactly 143 degrees!’ Her reply to such an outcry of wrinkles and entitlement had already been drafted in the form of a properly trolling response, when the price tag of $10,000 had caught her eye. It was only enough to pay about a ninth of her hospital bills, but it was still a good enough chunk of money to throw their way.
This had all lead her to a singular path in life for the moment, a determination to catch whatever the hell it was this delusional man had thought he’d seen. Some sort of fish in the fog? His explanation had given Nell plenty of fanciful descriptors, but little information that actually helped. Were fish allowed to be ghosts now? Had they always been allowed to be ghosts? Was Blanche secretly seeing an aquarium of fish all hours of the day? Whether her friend was housing fishy secrets or not, Nell had found herself in Kingsley Park where the man had claimed to see his grand, white whale.
At first there was nothing but the inky blackness of the night pervading the park. It wouldn’t have done to be out monster hunting the daylight hours, especially if she was going to have to use magic. And seeing as she had virtually no concept of what she was going up against, that was most likely going to become a quick reality. But as she looked into the night, a thick fog began to creep, crawling over the grass and benches as if it had a mind of its own, claiming the park with its fingerlike tendrils. Fog was good, right? That was where the man had said he’d seen the fish swimming.
Sure enough— it wasn’t long before fins the size of bedside table seemed to form from nothing, an honest to god fish dropping out of the fog. “What the fuck?” She hadn’t expected it to be a literal fish made of mist and vapor, mostly convinced that her client simply didn’t know the proper words to describe what he was seeing. But there it was. Ghosty Finding Nemo in the middle of a park. Now what the hell was she supposed to do? After a moment of consideration, she went for a staple in her arsenal of spells, the words mumbled quickly. In another moment chains had seemingly been summoned from thin air, trying to wrap themselves around the fish in question. But it seemed there was nothing to ensnare. The bindings fell in on themselves, sinking to the ground with absolutely nothing caught between them, and certainly no fish. “What the fuck?” she repeated a little louder this time. How the hell was she supposed to catch something she couldn’t touch?
