A young boy in Georgia, USA, who loved his pet goldfish so much that he wanted to cuddle it as he fell asleep, accidentally killed it.

Tori Hamlin shared on Facebook last Feb. 24 that she saw her son 4-year-old son, Everett, hugging his pet named Nemo while he was asleep. However, it could be seen that the boy put the fish out of the tank to hug it.

Hamlin said that she and her husband, Corey, were watching a movie in the living room when they heard a noise from the boy’s bedroom. Upon checking on the boy, the mom found a chair up to his dresser, and the fish tank’s lid was off and on the ground.

“Now he’s upset [because] he killed it and said he just wanted to pet it,” Hamlin said. Her post then became viral, having 26,000 likes and reactions and 18,000 shares, as of this writing.

Upon finding the goldfish in the boy’s hand, Hamlin woke up her son to ask why he took it out of the tank, as per a report by The Sun released on Thursday.

She added that she and her husband had to be the bearer of bad news that their son’s goldfish had died. “We explained it to him and he got upset and said, ‘I didn’t want to kill my fish,'” Hamlin said.

Hamlin said that her son was already fine the following morning. And when she explained again what happened to his pet, Everett told her,”That’s all right. We’ll have to get another fish and I won’t touch it. I’m only allowed to touch fish when I go fishing.'”

In the end, Everett was once again a happy little boy as he was given another fish to take care of. Katrina Hallare /ra