"I see you," a voice submerged over the water hitting the shower floor around me and my eyes shot open. water dripped down my bare figure, washing away suds of shampoo that had run down from my hair. I crossed my arms over my chest in some way to hide myself from the voice that spoke. maybe it was my imagination. I always got paranoid in the shower while my husband wasn't home. the house always felt bigger.
I dragged one arm down the glass shower door, clearing the fog to reveal an empty bathroom with low light. I was just being paranoid.
When I was younger, my mother always played this prank on me. if she was in the bathroom with the door locked, she'd start screaming and splashing around, claiming that the plughole monster was there for her and begging my little brother and I to save her. but she would always leave the bathroom in amused laughter, seeing us crying and begging for her to come out. we always believed it, and even now the bathroom had always been a place of fear.
There's no such thing as a plughole monster.
I took a deep breath, grabbed my bottle of body wash, and squeezed it into my hand. there was something that felt so real about the voice that I couldn't seem to shake. whenever I had issues in here it was never voiced, just silent paranoia. I'd never been fooled to think i was seeing or hearing things.
Crap. I haven't taken my medication.
It's probably my anxiety making things worse. I massaged the soap into my body, getting all the crevices necessary, when I heard the voice again.
"I see you." If I didn't know any better, I would've thought the voice was coming from below me. no, I was being crazy. my gaze moved down to the base of the shower, seeing water dripping down my legs and feet and into the drain. there was something else. i narrowed my eyes. Were they small balls of hair? five little scrunched-up balls of hair that had come off my head as I had combed through it. I should probably remove them from the drain so the water can filter out.
I kneeled down, my index finger and thumb gripping what I thought was one of the hairs. but it was firm and wrinkly. it wasn't until I was closer that I realized it was a finger. they were all fingers, gripping the bottom of the shower drain.
"Aren't you going to let me in?" my heart began to race in my chest after hearing the voice a third time, frozen in place and unable to take my eyes off the drain. I began to notice features behind the holes, behind the hand. eyes. a face. a bright white open-mouth smile staring up at me.
I let out a scream and fell back against the wall of the shower, my hands covering my head as I called out repeatedly for help. I was losing my mind. was someone really down there? it can't be real. it cannot be real. It can't be.
I could feel the breath leaving my lungs each time I screamed, they ached and my heart raced. I heard the bathroom door open, followed by the shower door and my husband's voice echoed through the room as he turned off the water.
"what's going on? hey! hey. calm down. I'm here."
He climbed into the shower with me, pulling me into his arms and I gripped tightly onto his shirt. he was cold but I didn't care. I needed him and he was here. I couldn't be alone. I was losing my mind.
"there's... there's someone..."
I tried to speak between sobs but I couldn't make out a sentence. he stroked my hair in an attempt to comfort me.
"It's okay, sweetheart."
he spoke, his voice sounding different. I looked up at him and was met with the face from the drain.
"I found my own way in, after all."
