Chapter 2: An Unquenchable Thirst

Chapter 2: An Unquenchable Thirst

He flushed it.

The instinct was immediate and visceral. Leo’s hand slammed down on the handle, and with a clean, mechanical roar, the evidence was gone. The water swirled, the black, tangled mass vanished into the pipes, and he was left kneeling on the cold bathroom tile, heart jackhammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

But you can’t unsee something like that. The image was burned onto the back of his eyelids: a vile, impossible knot of human hair, coughed up from his own body.

It was a hallucination, he told himself, the words a desperate mantra against the rising tide of panic. The whole night. I slipped on the wet deck, hit my head, and my brain cooked up some fever dream. The hair... the hair was just part of it.

He clung to that explanation as he stumbled back to his bed, the lingering chill from the pool refusing to leave his bones. Sleep offered no escape. It was a turbulent, shallow sea of nightmares. He was back in the decaying pool, the black water thick as tar, her sorrowful, empty eyes boring into him as silken hair wrapped around his throat, pulling him down into an endless, silent abyss.

He woke up gasping, his throat raw and unbelievably dry. It wasn't the usual morning thirst. This was a deep, cellular craving, an arid wasteland behind his tongue. His entire body felt desiccated, like every drop of moisture had been wicked away, leaving him a husk.

He staggered to the kitchen, the morning sun streaming through the window feeling alien and intrusive. He fumbled for a glass, his hands shaking, and filled it to the brim from the tap. He drank greedily, the cool liquid a promise of relief.

The relief never came.

Instead, a horrifying sensation bloomed in his chest. It wasn't the feeling of water quenching thirst; it was the feeling of water filling him. A pressure built behind his sternum, a sloshing, waterlogged weight in his lungs. For a terrifying moment, he couldn't breathe. It was the exact same feeling as being held under in the nightmare pool, the panic of drowning from the inside out. He choked, sputtering, doubling over the sink as he gasped for air. The sensation slowly subsided, leaving him weak and trembling, but the thirst remained—a raging, mocking fire that the water had only seemed to enrage.

He spent the morning in a state of paranoid dread. He called Drew to say he was sick, that he couldn't come in for his shift.

“No kidding,” Drew’s voice crackled over the phone. “You looked like you’d seen a ghost last night. Told you, man, you probably have a concussion. Go see a doctor.”

“It’s not just that,” Leo began, his voice raspy. “Something… something weird happened at the pool.”

He tried to explain. He stumbled over the words, describing the world shifting, the black water, the woman. He sounded insane, even to his own ears. He left out the part about the hair. That was a step too far, a confession of madness he wasn’t ready to make.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Leo,” Drew finally said, his tone laced with a forced patience Leo knew all too well. “You were out of it. You probably had a crazy vivid dream or something while you were passed out. Seriously, dude. Get some rest. And maybe lay off those energy drinks.”

The dismissal was a physical blow. Drew wasn't being malicious; he was being logical. And in the bright light of day, logic dictated that Leo was either sick or losing his mind. The conversation left him feeling more isolated than ever, a castaway on an island of terror no one else could see.

The thirst was his constant companion, a physical torment that gnawed at him. Every cell in his body screamed for water, but the memory of that drowning sensation kept him away from the tap. His world began to shrink, defined by the boundaries of his growing fear.

And then, she started to follow him.

It began subtly. A flicker of movement in his peripheral vision. He was scrolling through his phone, the screen dark for a moment between apps, and he saw her. Not a clear image, just the impression of a pale face and long, dark hair superimposed over his own reflection. He dropped the phone with a clatter, his heart leaping into his throat. When he picked it up, there was only his own wide, terrified eyes staring back.

Later, while brushing his teeth, he glanced at the bathroom mirror. For a single, heart-stopping second, she was there, standing directly behind him. Her tattered white dress was soaked, her skin had that horrifying bluish tint, and her black, empty eyes stared at him, filled with a crushing, bottomless grief. He spun around, a cry catching in his dry throat.

There was nothing there. Just the shower curtain and the damp towel he’d left on the floor.

But the air was suddenly heavy, humid, and thick with the scent of pond water and wet decay. The chill in his bones intensified, and he fled the bathroom, not daring to look at the mirror again.

She was in every reflective surface now. The darkened screen of the television. The toaster. The black gleam of the kitchen countertop. A passing window. Sometimes it was just a smudge of movement, a strand of hair where it shouldn't be. Other times, it was her full face, watching him, her silent sorrow a constant, terrifying accusation.

He was a prisoner in his own home. He began to avoid mirrors, to keep the lights on even during the day to minimize reflections. But there was one thing he couldn’t avoid: his own debilitating, agonizing thirst.

By evening, it was unbearable. His lips were cracked, his head throbbed, and a low-grade fever had taken hold. He felt like he was walking through a desert, the promise of an oasis in every faucet, an oasis he knew was poisoned.

He finally broke.

He couldn't take it anymore. Logic, sanity, fear—it all fell away before the primal, biological need. Stumbling into the kitchen, he turned on the tap, not to drink, but just to feel the water on his skin. He cupped his hands, letting the cool stream run over them, splashing it on his hot face.

It was a small comfort, a fleeting moment of relief. He leaned over the basin, his eyes closed, the sound of the running water a soothing hiss.

Then the sound changed.

It deepened into a low, gurgling sound, like a blocked drain trying to clear itself. The clean scent of tap water was replaced by that same foul, stagnant odor from the pool.

Leo’s eyes snapped open.

The water pouring from the faucet was no longer clear. It was a murky, black sludge, swirling down the drain. His blood ran cold. Frozen in place, he watched in horror as something dark and slender began to emerge from the drain’s metal grate, pushed upward by the foul water.

A single, long strand of wet, black hair.

It snaked out, impossibly long, twisting in the black flow like a living thing, reaching for him.

Leo screamed, scrambling backward, tripping over a chair and crashing to the linoleum floor. The gurgling stopped. The water ran clear again. The strand of hair was gone, washed away as if it had never been there.

He lay on the floor, panting, a cold sweat breaking out across his skin. His thirst was a forgotten memory, replaced by a certainty that was more terrifying than any delusion.

This wasn't a concussion. This wasn't a dream.

It was real. The woman was real. And she wasn't just haunting him. She was inside him, poisoning him, turning the very element of life into a weapon against him. He was trapped, and whatever she wanted, she was growing stronger with every passing hour.