Chapter 1: The Girl in the Stall

Chapter 1: The Girl in the Stall

The dare hung in the air, thick and sticky as the late-afternoon humidity in the school hallway. It came from Jessica Riley, whose pink lip gloss and condescending smirk were the twin pillars of fourth-grade tyranny.

“Go on, Elara,” she sneered, her voice echoing off the rows of empty lockers. “I dare you. Go get your stupid drawing from the girls’ bathroom at the end of the hall.”

Elara’s stomach clenched. Not just any bathroom. That bathroom. The one with the perpetually flickering fluorescent light and the door that was always propped open with a slimy orange cone, as if daring someone to enter. Kids told stories about it. Whispers of a girl who’d vanished from there ages ago, of strange noises, of a cold that clung to you long after you’d left. Ghost stories. Silly, childish ghost stories.

But Elara’s art project was in there. Her “My Family Tree,” with carefully drawn portraits of her mom and dad, was tucked inside her red folder. During the chaos of the end-of-day bell, Mark Peterson had snatched it and tossed it through the open doorway, his braying laugh following him down the hall. Jessica and her friends had witnessed the whole thing, their eyes gleaming with cruel opportunity.

“It’s just a bathroom,” Elara said, her voice smaller than she wanted it to be.

“Then go,” Jessica challenged, crossing her arms. “Unless you’re too scared.”

Desire and obstacle warred within her nine-year-old heart. The desire to snatch her folder, to wipe the smug look off Jessica’s face, was a hot, bright flame. But the obstacle was a cold, creeping dread that had nothing to do with schoolyard legends. It was a deeper, more primal fear of dark, forgotten places.

Taking a shaky breath, Elara squared her narrow shoulders. “Fine.”

She marched down the deserted hallway, the squeak of her sneakers unnervingly loud in the silence. The air grew cooler as she approached, carrying a scent of damp mildew and the cloying, chemical sweetness of cheap pink soap. The light from within the bathroom pulsed irregularly, casting a sickly yellow-white glow that made the shadows writhe.

She paused at the threshold, peering into the gloom. It was a cavern of cracked, grimy white tiles. Three stalls stood along the far wall, their rusted green doors scarred with decades of graffiti. The faucet at the single sink dripped with a slow, maddening rhythm, each drop echoing like a tiny hammer blow. Her red folder lay just inside, a splash of cheerful color in the grime.

A quick dash. In and out. That’s all it would take.

She took the plunge, her feet sticking slightly to the grimy linoleum. The air was heavy and still, pressing in on her. She snatched the folder, clutching it to her chest like a shield. A wave of relief washed over her. She’d done it. She turned to leave, a triumphant retort for Jessica already forming on her lips.

Scrape.

Elara froze, her heart hammering against her ribs. The sound had come from the back of the bathroom. From the last stall. The one whose door was shut tight.

It was probably another kid, hiding, waiting to jump out and scare her. Mark, maybe, having doubled back for another laugh. Annoyance warred with her fear.

“Very funny,” she called out, her voice trembling slightly. “Come out.”

Only the drip-drip-drip of the faucet answered her. The humming of the fluorescent light seemed to grow louder, filling her ears. She took a hesitant step back toward the door, her eyes locked on the last stall. The metal was dark with rust, especially around the hinges.

Then, slowly, with a drawn-out groan of protesting metal, the stall door began to creak open.

Elara’s breath hitched. She couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. She was rooted to the spot, a helpless audience to a private, terrifying show. The gap widened, revealing not a sneaker or a pair of jeans, but a bare, greyish foot. The toenails were black with filth.

Her mind reeled. A homeless person? Someone sick? The mundane explanations felt flimsy, like paper shields against a coming storm.

The door swung open further. A figure emerged from the shadows of the stall, unfolding into the flickering light. It was a girl, about her own age, her own height. She wore a thin, white nightgown, the kind Elara’s grandmother wore, but it was tattered and stained with what looked like mud and rot. Her hair, dark like Elara’s, was a tangled, matted mess that clung to her skull in greasy ropes.

But it was the face that shattered Elara’s world.

It was her own face.

It was her own face, but dead. The skin was corpse-grey, stretched taut over sharp cheekbones and a delicate jaw. The lips, her lips, were split and peeling, pulled back from gums the color of old bruises. A parody of a smile.

And the eyes. Elara’s own eyes were a deep, clear blue. These eyes were perfect, black, light-absorbing voids. They were holes burned into the world, and they were fixed on her with an intensity that felt like a physical weight.

Time stopped. The dripping sink, the buzzing light, the frantic beat of her own pulse—it all faded into a roaring silence. There was only this… this impossible reflection, this echo of herself made of nightmare and decay. The thing that wore her face took a single, shuffling step forward. The nightgown dragged on the filthy floor, making a soft, wet sound.

The spell broke. A scream, raw and desperate, tore itself from Elara’s throat. She dropped the red folder. The portraits of her smiling parents scattered across the floor. She didn’t look back. She scrambled, feet slipping, hands scrabbling at the doorframe. She burst out into the hallway, gasping, sobbing, her lungs on fire.

The hallway was empty. Jessica and her friends were gone. The silence that greeted her was somehow worse than their taunts. She was utterly alone with what she had seen.

She ran. She didn't stop running until she was out the main doors of the school, gulping in the warm, sunlit air. It felt thin, unreal. The world of sunshine and green grass seemed like a fragile dream laid over the solid, horrifying reality of the thing in the bathroom.

Panting, she bent over the outdoor water fountain, splashing her face with cool water. She straightened up, catching her breath, and saw her own reflection in the small puddle that had collected in the basin.

For a terrifying second, it wasn't her own healthy, flushed face she saw. It was the other one. The grey skin, the peeled lips, the bottomless black pits for eyes.

Elara flinched back with a cry, stumbling away from the fountain. When she dared to look again, her own wide, terrified blue eyes stared back. But the image was tainted now, haunted by the afterimage of the girl in the stall. The girl who wore her face. And in that moment, a new, cold fear took root in her heart: a fear of her own reflection.