4966.3

The Magellan penguin exhibit stretched before her, the glass still reflecting the eel's light. Tomoyo had run here on instinct since Raika had been here last time, but the exhibit was empty. Just penguins waddling around the rocks and-

Pachi pachi pachi

Ringo stood at the glass, slapping flippers together in applause. His beak opened wide.

"CON-GRAT-U-LA-TIONS!"

Tomoyo froze. The eel's cord yanked at her spine, trying to pull her away from the exhibit, but she grabbed the metal handrail and held on. Not this time. She wasn't going anywhere.

"W-What are we celebrating?" Tomoyo managed.

"Your 4966th anniversary, of course! It only took you 4966 tries, but you finally remember! God, I don't know why I even bothered counting."

4966. The eel gave up pulling at the number. Instead it drifted forward toward the glass where Ringo stood. Its jaw then opened, wide enough to swallow Ringo whole.

That threat again. Shut up or else.

"What's that, worm? You still wanna fight?" He tapped the barrier with one flipper. "I've got glass on my side in every timeline, so I'll always win!"

The eel's jaw snapped shut. It retreated backward through the air, white light flaring. Ringo must've really gotten under its skin, or whatever passed for skin on a pelican eel.

Tomoyo's brain caught up a second later.

"How do you know I remember? No, how am I able to remember?"

"Fish first."

"What?"

"I said fish. The sloppy ones you made that one time." Ringo jabbed his other flipper toward the back of the aquarium, where STAFF ONLY signs hung on doors. "You know where they keep 'em. Chop chop!"

"But-"

"Fiiiiiish."

Her jaw snapped shut. Fine. Whatever. She'd get him his stupid fish and then he'd talk. That was how this worked, right? Penguins were food motivated. She read that in her book years ago.

Tomoyo turned toward the staff area, the eel drifting along behind her. The prep kitchen was down that hallway, past the jellyfish tanks, through the door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. But what if someone was back there? What if their face had been consumed by that darkness, same as her mom's?

Tomoyo's fingers wrapped around the door handle when a shadow fell across her peripheral vision. Someone stood behind her - an aquarium worker with rust-orange hair and a damp apron. Where her face should have been, darkness churned like it was eating her from the inside out, chewing through skin and bone. Wet, garbled sounds came from it.

You're not allowed here. Scram.

That's what she must've been saying. That's what any employee would say to some random high schooler trying to break into the prep kitchen.

Tomoyo bowed ninety degrees, eyes locked on anywhere but the face.

"I-I'm sorry."

She backed away. Her heel caught on something and she stumbled, catching herself against the wall before scrambling back toward the penguin exhibit. Ringo waited at the glass, head tilted to one side. His gaze dropped to her empty hands.

"God, you had ONE job. Get fish. Bring fish back. Even a braindead goldfish could manage that much!"

"I'm sorry…"

"Yeah, I'm starting to think apologizing is the only thing you can do without your girlfriend. You literally can't do anything without her handholding you, can you?"

Tomoyo's throat closed up and something hot pressed behind her eyes.

He was right. She was nothing without Raika. She was only here because Raika had told her to come. She only kept existing because Raika needed someone to read penguin books to her in that hospital room. And now that Raika wasn't standing right next to her, Tomoyo didn't know what she was supposed to do.

"Unbelievable. Five thousand loops and the anglerfish had to deal with your crying ass every single time. I would've lost my mind by now. Actually, scratch that, I'm losing my mind right now just watching you."

Tomoyo was pressing her palm against her eyes now, but the tears came anyway.

"You know what? I actually pity the anglerfish. After everything its done trying to make you happy, you never once said thank you!"

Tomoyo's hands dropped from her face. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about how you're an ungrateful brat who doesn't appreciate things."

"No, I mean- Why would the anglerfish want me to be happy? You meant Raika, right?"

"Raika this, Raika that. You won't shut up about your girlfriend, yet somehow you still haven't realized she's dea-"

The eel moved faster than Tomoyo could notice. One second it was floating behind her, the next its body wrapped around her head like a blindfold. Not tight enough to hurt, just enough to muffle sound. 

But she'd heard it. Dead. That's what Ringo was about to say. Raika was dead.

But Raika couldn't be dead. Tomoyo had seen her last time standing right here by the penguin exhibit. She'd collapsed coughing blood, but that didn't mean dead.

Dead meant Tomoyo had no reason to exist.

Raika was here somewhere in this aquarium. She had to be. Tomoyo just needed to find her. 

Please let go, Tomoyo thought desperately at the eel wrapping around her head. I need to find Raika.

The eel's coils quickly loosened, but it wasn't because of her request. 

"Oho~ Looks like the girlfriend killer showed up!"

...killer?

Tomoyo spun around. A girl stood at the other end of the penguin exhibit, silver hair catching the fluorescent lights. White clothes soaked red down her right arm where she tore fabric to make a makeshift arm sling. Her skin was too pale, and her light blue eyes locked onto Tomoyo with the kind of intensity a shark gives its prey.

The girl raised her left hand, materializing a white spear in mid-air. Tomoyo didn't have time to register it before the eel uncoiled from her head and lunged forward, catching the shaft in its jaw. 

"OHO~ NOW THIS IS EXCITING!" Ringo raised both his flippers up. "ROUND 4966, FIGHT!"

The girl's spear hung in the eel's jaw. She stared at it for half a second before lunging forward herself. Blood loss had slowed her, but she lunged anyway, her good hand slashing at Tomoyo.

Tomoyo dodged, but her shoulder had cracked onto the metal railing hard enough to make her vision white out for a second. She pushed through it, scrambling backward until the railing was between them.

"Did you- Did you really kill Raika?"

The girl froze mid-lunge.

"You're referring to that host. It was already deceased, and appears to have been so for some time, based on its condition."

"No." Tomoyo's hands tightened on the railing. "No, that's not- Everyone keeps saying that, but she's alive! She has to be…

The girl's head tilted. "I don't understand. Why do you continue deluding yourself from reality? What purpose does it serve?"

"The jellyfish is right!" Ringo's voice rang out from behind the glass. "Look how far your delulu's gotten you with that wish of yours!"

Her wish.

Raika had said that, hadn't she? You made a wish. May 13th. I won't leave.

What was so wrong about wanting someone to stay? Was she really that selfish for desiring just one thing, one person who made her feel like she mattered? 

Was that really so wrong?

The girl moved before Tomoyo's thought finished forming. Her good hand struck out, nails catching Tomoyo's throat and slashing it. The attack was clumsy, weakened by blood loss, but it was enough force skin open.

Heat ran across Tomoyo's neck. She stumbled backward, hands flying to her throat, feeling wetness spill between her fingers. Red. So much red. It pooled in her palms, overflowed, dripped down her wrists in rivers that wouldn't stop. The eel thrashed above her, its bioluminescence flaring. The cord yanked at her spine, but the movement felt distant. Everything felt distant now.

Maybe I deserve this.

She'd been a mistake from the start, hadn't she? That's what her father had screamed that day inside the hospital director's office. She's a mistake. Get rid of her. Tomoyo had hidden in the storage closet afterward, wishing she could just disappear.

Her hands slipped away from her throat, too tired to hold them up anymore.

Footsteps then echoed from somewhere far away - webbed feet slapping against rocks. Ringo's face appeared in her narrowing vision from behind the glass.

"You know what? This is getting sad to watch, so I'll let you in on a little secret to ending this nightmare: Stop pretending the old Raika's coming back. Accept that she's dead, and let the anglerfish leave. Then you can go back to your sad little existence and actually start living it!"

Tomoyo's lips moved, but no sound came out. Just blood bubbling at the corners of her mouth as darkness swallowed everything.