They fished up something of unreality.

Their name was Alaric, and today was their 18th birthday.

He woke up in his bed, happy that it was his birthday. After all, he would be able to have a spoonful of sugar on his stale toast in the morning.

He stretched his arms. He got out of his meager bed consisting of straw and a pillow filled with poorly plucked feathers.

The pillow was not very substantial and provided no comfort. But Alaric didn’t care. He was used to mediocrity.

He was an insanely boring person. He spent half of his day at school sitting in class, occasionally raising his hand. He had no friends as well. He was widely considered insanely boring.

People even preferred talking to Archibald, who extremely, extremely ethically collected pig spines as his whole life’s purpose. At least he wasn’t boring. He could talk about pig spines, Alaric could only talk about basic farm work, the weather, and fishing. 

He used to have friends though. The parents of other kids in his general age group would sometimes organize hang outs. 

That ended when one of the kids went insane and ran off into the woods to become a deranged hermit after being exposed to how boring Alaric was.

There was nothing wrong with him though, he was just insanely boring. Almost mathematically the most boring person. You would think “Oh, if he’s the most boring, then that’s actually interesting”. A couple other people had the same thought, but after talking to him for approximately five minutes you would be sweating in anticipation for the conversation to end.

There was also no supernatural reason as to why he was this boring. Initially, when he was a little kid, his parents were so puzzled with how their kid was so boring, they went on a semi-expensive trip to a big city to go to a big shot exorcist. They thought that maybe some sort of demon had sucked out his soul leaving him as a human without anything interesting.

But it was fruitless. The exorcist did see the problem, and agreed that the child was boring, but there was nothing literally wrong with him. 

The parents then proceeded to get mad at themselves for wasting money on such an endeavor.

But today was an interesting day, he would graduate from being a boring kid to being a boring adult.

Getting out of bed, he put on a white shirt and brown pants, along with his underwear and socks. He was ready to tackle the day. He was vaguely happy, he liked his birthday.

He went out of his room. He lived in a single story house with his parents. He did have an older sister but she moved out a while ago.

He went to a basin to wash his face.

Looking in the reflection, he felt neutral towards himself. He looked okay, he had medium length black hair, brown eyes, and tan skin from working out on the farm. He looked about normal, nothing stood out.

Going out of the washroom, he saw his parents in the kitchen.

”Good morning.” He said, greeting his parents.

”Happy birthday!! They both said. 

“We made you your favorite breakfast!!” The father said, bringing out a plate.

On the plate was a boiled egg with salt on it, and a piece of stale bread lightly dusted with sugar.

”This looks good.” Alaric said, sitting down to eat.

”Listen kid, your mother and I have been talking, and now that you’re eighteen, you need to get a full time job. School for you ends this year, and to be honest we don’t want to live with you forever. So here’s the deal, we don’t hate you entirely so we’re going to give you some money, and you’re going to figure out the rest of your life.” The father said, bringing out a bag of money.

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”Ok.” Alaric said.

He felt the bag of money, it was heavy, consisting of a lot of coins. It would be enough to start out his life. He wasn’t planning on going to a higher education like his sister, he was planning on buying some land and being a farmer. Maybe, just maybe if he was feeling it, he would have a river nearby where he would fish.

”Alright son, since you seem fine with it, we’re going to send you out into the world now. You can visit anytime, but not really that often would be preferable.” The mother said.

”Ok mom, I will visit sometime.” Alaric said. 

“Well, I’m going to go now. Bye. I will miss you guys!” Alaric said. Leaving.

He could hear the sounds of his parents crying in the house. Little did he know those were tears of joy. They didn’t hate their son, but they couldn’t stand living around such a boring presence. 

Alaric walked at a reasonable pace alongside the road that was outside of his house. His parents were farmers, specifically for planting potatoes and carrots. They were middle class, and were considered nice people with some personality. Alaric didn’t inherit the “some personality” part. He was just kind of nice.

Now having had left the house, Alaric was alone. No friends, no family, only some money for his future. He decided to head out to the forest to sort out his thoughts.

He knew how boring he was. The second he was in the forest, tears streamed down his face. Despite doing nothing wrong, purely off of principle he was hated by humanity. And this wasn’t from any kind of evil deed or difference from anyone else. It was just that he was insufferably boring to be around.

He was destined to a life of solitude, living alone on a farm and occasionally going to a village market to sell his stuff. Maybe he would buy a dog. Animals had a higher tolerance for his boredom than other beings.

He walked deep into the woods. He was heading to his normal fishing spot. It was a small pond in the middle of the woods. He would always be able to catch a small fish there. The fish there were normally too small to eat, so he just released them.

Fishing by himself like this was the only way he could handle his isolation from society.

He equipped his rod, a humble wooden rod. He got on his knees in the mud searching for a worm. These were his work pants so he didn’t mind if they got dirty. Eventually, an adequate worm was found.

The worm was squishy and slimy, perfectly wormlike. 

He admired the fish pond. It was of a modest size, it was relatively small. Being a pond in the middle of the forest, the fish population was limited, only containing the smallest of fish.

During his life he had built a small shack next to the pond. It was made of wood, and was crudely put together with a mixture of concrete and mud to hold together the wood. It could collapse at anytime, but it worked. There was a simple chair in it.

Alaric sat down, getting ready. He had gotten over his sadness. Why should he feel sad for himself? He had money and would be able to start his new life soon. 

He cast the rod into the middle of the pond, and jiggled the rod up and down, trying to be enticing to the fish. It took a second, but something then bit. He quickly reeled in to see what he had caught.

It was a small bluegill. A humble fish.

He took the hook out, and held the fish in his hands.

He was so bored he made a fake conversation with the fish.

“Hi fish, how are you?” Alaric asked.

”Hi Alaric! It’s me!!! Fish!!!” Alaric used a fake voice and moved the fishes lip up and down.

“You didn’t answer my question, how are you doing?” Alaric asked the fish.

”I’m doing fine!! Just got some fresh air!!!! Good to spend some time out of the lake!!!” The fish responded.

”Ask me how I’m doing. You should have asked me back.” Alaric was now a little angry at the fish.

”How are you Alaric?” The fish said feebly.

”I don’t know. I have a new life now. I wish I could be a fish and live free like you!” Alaric responded.

The fish stopped wiggling, the life fleeing out of it. 

Alaric stayed unmoving, throwing the fish back.

Returning to the mud, Alaric found another worm. Yet another slimy, gross worm. This worm was very slimy, coating Alarics hand in slime. It may even be considered a nightcrawler, a fat worm, way too big for any fish in the pond. 

But Alaric would use it. He knew the fish in this pond better than he knew anyone else, so he knew it wouldn’t be good bait. But something told him to do it.

He slipped the barbed hook through the worm. A little bit of blood came out of the worm.

He cast it into the middle again, he hoped nothing would bite it so he could stay sitting for a while idly. 

But yet, something did. It felt strange on the end, a slight tugging.

Alaric was confused, there should be nothing like this in the lake. There should be nothing like this in the lake.

Alaric reeled it in, and held it in his hand.

They fished up something of unreality.

”This isn’t supposed to be here.”

”This isn’t supposed to be here.” Alaric repeated orally. He started to leak water from his mouth. His mind felt like it was going to shatter as if it was made of glass and someone hit it with an anvil. Whatever he had fished up didn’t just not belong to the pond.

”This isn’t supposed to be here.” This time, the one that said it wasn’t Alaric. It was if the entire reality was reverberating with the message.

The thing started to move towards Alaric.

SCREEEEEEEEEECH

Alaric screeched, almost inhumanly. Whatever it was, he had a sense of impending doom as it inched forward. It was utterly incomprehensible.

SHOOOOOOM

The thing shot into his body.

The edges of Alaric’s mouth started to curl up in ecstasy. His eyes opened wide, and the shape of his pupils changed to that of a fish. His posture became elevated, stretching himself out.

Alaric was no longer going to be boring.