I sat trembling on my toilet, shaken to the very core with fear. Desperately, I gripped my toothbrush in hand. As if it would do me any good. That... thing... was coming out of my bath tub.
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A few moments before, my body was fully immersed in the warm water, cast agleam with silky soap residue just skimming the surface. My eyes had started to wander for a moment as I began to relax. With little resistance, my head went back. Too long had it been since I'd had a moment to be still. Life and love... those muses of ever-constant sorrow, had tampered with my existence for far too long. For just once, I let it all go. My eyes grew heavy. The worn flesh of my being sunk low into the basin, nearly eclipsing my face.
As the water started to grow cold, I stirred slightly. My eyes opened to the piercing lights of the overhead light. I could feel the bar of soap brushing against my knee; a sticky buoy sent adrift towards the opposite end of the tub. I sat forwards slightly to rotate the hot water knob and raise the temperature of the water to a more comfortable level.
Reaching up, I noticed the bar of soap sitting on the edge of the tub. But... it was just floating past my knee, was it not?
I could feel something tugging... no... sucking on my left foot. With little regard for how wet my soaked frame was, I launched myself out of the tub. Slipping the moment I placed my first foot on the floor, I ripped the shower curtain away from the tub as I fell to the floor. My ankle was sprained, but I didn't notice nor did I care. A large tentacle covered in suckers lurched over the side of the tub. This freakish thing had scales that seemed to morph in swirled colors like a foggy rainbow.
Paralyzed in fear, I froze up awaiting my demise. First one tentacle, then two, then four, then a dozen or more of all different sizes. A mass with no definition filled my tub and pushed all of the water into the floor. Wait... that was definitely an eye I just saw. Yes, an eye! It could see me, though it seemed as if it could see through me. Oh, and that mouth -- an onyx abyss toothless and gaping. Its lips, if you could call them that, rippled and sloshed about. Various tentacles would flap and scrape the bottomless hole, as if it were picking debris from inside. A low-nestled rumble slowly leaked from this thing's orifice.
And still, I could not move.
Two of the tentacles reached for my shoulders. Quickly, they coiled underneath my arms and around my ribcage. It could feel the toilet leaving my bottom side. My pathetic choice of a weapon, the toothbrush, dropped to the lagoon I called a bathroom floor. Another two tentacles went for my legs with the speed of a crashing jet. The sucking of the tentacles as they dug into my skin hurt at first. Though, the pain soon passed and I could not feel them any longer. Above the tub, this shapeless horror raised me like a newborn child. I wanted to scream, but I didn't have the chance.
No sooner had the beast accosted me that it swallowed me whole.
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There I was in my bathroom. My body was poorly imitating a raisin, floating lifeless in the frigid water filling my tub. I'd fallen asleep like an exhausted preschooler after a long day of chocolate milk and recess. Rising forth with little expediency, I hopped over the edge of the tub and grabbed my towel. And there I stood -- calm, quiet, still. As I dried my legs, I glanced down at the swirling drain. A vortex of cloudy liquid pushed down and away, never to be seen again. There I stayed, watching that hole as if something would actually emerge from the darkness. Dressing myself in warm attire for bed, I collapsed under the safe sheets and closed my eyes once more. Before I drifted off, I couldn't help but wonder...
When are we asleep and when are we awake? Could we tell the difference, even if we wanted to?
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