CATFISH

Part 1: Intro

Rain darted down onto the roof of the Bartram family's home of two, great drops that filled the house with a familiar 'pitter-patter'. The rain echoed around the forest surrounding the dingy home, the only beauty in the scene being the beads of liquid pelting the dirt.

Blake Bartram woke up in his dark room, a single beam of silver light escaping from the waving curtains. His eyes stung slightly before adjusting and finally settling. Blake groaned as he pulled himself off his mattress.

The floor felt cold under the young man's soles. His weight shifted awkwardly as he moved through the house, stopping to look into his father's room. It was similarly just as dark and oozed the awful stench of tobacco. His father was more passed-out than he was asleep. An empty whisky bottle nestled on the floor next to two cigarettes that missed an ashtray by a considerable margin.

Blake continued on past the drunkard's room and down the shade drenched hall towards the bathroom. Yellowing wallpaper barely stuck to the walls and the floor tiles were in desperate need of a replacement. Despite this everything worked fine, the pipes provided clean water, the light only flickered slightly every so often, the mirror still reflected back the ugly, deformed face that greeted Blake every morning.

He stared at himself a while, at all his melting features that would've looked more at home on a boogeyman. His resemblance to a catfish was uncanny, bloated lips and eye lids that made up his asymmetric face. When he was younger he had scared himself with his own looks, that was a formative memory that wouldn't shake away from his mind anytime soon. He remembered being that small, goblin looking child and clutching onto his father's coat, sobbing as his dad laid a solitary hand on Blake's head and whispered "Shhh... I know. I know..."

That wasn't to say he was scared now. Blake grew to like his features, it sure made Halloween easier when you already look like a monster. He grinned at the catfish looking back. He quite liked that moniker too. Catfish might aswell had been his name.

He splashed his face with water before setting the shower's heat and jumping in.

*

The Bartram home was located adjacent to lake silver tide and surrounded by pine that stretched across the entire town.  The house was well out of town however, to avoid contact with its inhabitants. Catfish's father, Daniel Bartram, was a hermit long before his son's birth. Besides, nothing good would have come from introducing his son to the world outside of the lake. All that was needed was a stable household and enough elbow grease to form the man Blake would become. Daniel had half of that locked down.

Once Catfish dried and clothed himself he looked out of the nearest window to assess the state of everything. Wet. Completely, utterly, wet. 'We'll see a bigger haul today than we've seen in weeks,' Catfish thought to himself. 'After all, its best to fish on days it rains. Plus, I'm feeling lucky.'