The Mystery of the Missing Fish

The Mystery of the Missing Fish

In memory of George the fish (2012-2013)

I have always been an animal person. I had a cat up to the age of 10 and then got a dog when I was 12. (I'm currently 16) I also have had various hamsters, dwarf hamsters, guinea pigs, snails from the garden and even ants. Yet my fish in my room came to a mysterious and, to be frank, abrupt ending.

It all started one day as I was sitting doing my homework at my desk. I looked over to see George (my fish) swimming happily as always. The tank had recently been cleaned so he was probably pretty chuffed. I then noticed a snail on the wall of the tank. Slightly confused as to how there was a snail there I assumed it had arrived with the new plants we I had bought for the tank. Thinking nothing of it I continued with my life as normal.

A few days later I was once again sitting at my desk when I noticed George was not in the tank (or so I thought). I checked round each side and squeezed my head between the wall and fish tank (I wasn't looking the most attractive at this moment in time) but I could not find him. I was in a rush to get somewhere so I concluded that he was in the plants where I could not see him. I did however notice there were a significantly larger number of snails in the tank that I had previously seen. Interesting...

The next day I wanted to be sure that I knew where George was. It wasn't that I was especially emotionally attached to the fish (sorry to all the fish enthusiasts out there) but I just didn't think it were possible for a fish to disappear. I resorted to taking the lid off to get a 'bird's eye' perspective over the situation. I could not find George in the tank anywhere. However the whole of the inside of the tank was infested with snails. There were probably around about 150 snails in a small tank. 

At this moment in time I could safely conclude that George was no longer my comrade in arms. Fuelled with revenge I knew there was only 1 culprit... rather 150 culprits. I knew that there was no other animal/reptile/insect in the tank so it could have only been the snails. Plotting up all the clues together I came up with two possible scenarios. 

Scenario 1: The snails were a group of worshippers who worshipped the mighty snail in the sky. As payment to please the Giant Snail they had to make a worship. George, being the only non-snail in the tank, was chosen as the payment. At 12:00am on Friday the 13th (let's pretend for the sake of atmosphere that it happened on this date) the snails tied up George with the leaves of the tank plants and sacrificed in an almighty ceremony. May he rest in peace.

Scenario 2: One of the snails caught a deadly virus which had been mutated from a piece of fish food. This virus spread from snail to snail until every last one had been infected. The virus turned the colony from calm peaceful creatures who walked hand in hand with other species such as George the fish, to vicious flesh eating zombie snails who eat anything in their path. Pandemonium struck the tank one evening when George was asleep and all the snails attacked at once. The poor fish didn't even have time to float into the middle of the tank where none of the snails would be able to reach him. May he rest in peace.

*DISCLAIMER* The contents of this story may have been slightly exaggerated and there is not in fact a giant snail in the sky, and no, tank snails can't turn into zombies by eating fish food *DISCLAIMER*